Sunday, October 28, 2007

Manchester United 4-1 Middlesbrough

We are getting spoiled rotten at the moment, seeing some great football and its getting a bit blase expecting us to score four goals every game, but i have got to admit i did expect us to score four and i would have been disappointed if we hadn't got that last one. I suppose that one way or another next week will be a bit of a realty check.
What an opening goal, it looked too far out, but as soon as he hit you knew it had a chance. He is starting to look a real player, we have already seen that he has got a great shot, but the most impressive thing about his game for me is that as much as he has loads of tricks he looks to be a real team player. Ronaldo's form continues to be enigmatic, it still isn't really happening for him. But unlike last season, when if he wasn't really on his game we were bound to struggle, this season it doesn't seem to matter. With Tevez and Rooney really proving us doubters wrong in a massive way, and Tevez in particular seems to be on fire.
It was nice to see Hargreaves back in the team, he will be needed next week for sure, where more defending will be needed than we have had to do in recent games. Although i thought it probably affected our fast free flowing football of recent weeks, good as he is Hargreaves can't pass like a Scholes or a Carrick.
The big surprise yesterday was conceding a goal so soon after taking the lead, when it has to be said after scoring so early, i was wondering how many we might score. It was a pretty soft goal, and again another header, we can't afford slack defending like that next week. I have to say United didn't really respond very well to that setback, taking quite a while to get back in the groove. In fact it took a terrible mistake to give Rooney the chance to put us back in front which he did not waste giving the goalie no chance, although to be fair to Schwarzer he did get his hands to it.
So United went in at half time 2-1 up, but not having played to the standards we have seen over the last few weeks. It had to happen some time, hopefully we will be back on top form next week. United played better in the second half, although Van Der Sar did have to make one excellent save from a Cattermole strike. The third goal was another brilliant goal and another brilliant piece of inter play between Tevez and Rooney. I would be hard pressed to choose the goal of the game, Nani's was a brilliant strike but Tevez's was a brilliant bit of combination with two sublime passes before Tevez finally put the ball in the back of the net.
Ronaldo seemed to have one of those days in front of goal, he had a couple of really good chances put couldn't seem to put it away. Anderson impressed again, i know him and Nani were bought for the future and weren't meant to play that many games this season. But i think Carrick in particular has got a lot on his plate keeping Anderson out of the team.
The fourth was a bit lucky, it looked like they had managed to block it, only for the ball to just about find its way into the net. I was glad to see pique get an outing for the final 15 minutes, it would have been nice to see Simpson get a bit of a go as well, but i suppose you don't want to change the back four around too much. So four goals again, and with so many injuries, i don't think we would have coped half as well last season with the injuries we have at present. This is easily the best squad i have ever seen at United, when everyone is fit Ferguson is going to have a big job keeping every body happy.

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