Derby County 0-1 Manchester United

It was starting to get worrying, i don't think too many of us thought we be wondering if it was going to be one of those days with 75 minutes of the game gone. Thankfully Rooney's fantastic work rate and Ronaldo's willingness to keep getting in the box came to the rescue as our number 7 bundled home his 31st goal of the season to settle our nerves. And with Arsenal stuttering again, how vital will this three points prove to be.
The way United started in the first 10 minutes it would have been hard to believe at the time that the game would turn out to be such a tense affair. United came out of the traps determined to blow Derby away as early as possible. United completely dominated possession and seemed able to carve their way through the home sides defence at will. But again, just as in recent weeks, when the chances did present themselves United were unable to put them away. Giggs had a couple of decent chances as he made a welcome return to the side and added such much needed guile to the attack. Rooney was all over the front line and ronaldo was in slightly better form than of late, and he was very unlucky to see his shot hit the post. Another Ronaldo shot brought out a fine save form ex red Roy Carroll, and it just seemed a matter of time before United opened the scoring.
But for some reason, United seemed to start to feel sorry for themselves after creating so many chances and not taking any. Added to this Derby started to get a toehold in the game and as their crowd got behind them, they started to believe maybe it might be their day. So after 30 minutes the fluency United had started the game with began to disappear and it became obvious that the big scoreline that some of us had been hoping for to nudge our goal difference out of Arsenal's reach probably wasn't going to happen. In fact as half time approached the unthinkable started to appear a possibility as debutant Ben Foster was forced into action for the first time in the match. His first save from Miller was a far better save than it had seemed at the time when we saw it on the slow motion replay. But the second save from a Robert Earnshaw effort was a magnificent save, the strong hand was vital in not just keeping it out but in stopping any chance of a Derby striker following up. Although Derby had created two good chances at the end of the half, United had done enough in the earlier part of the half to have deserved to have gone into the half time break in front. But if you don't take your chances you can't complain.
The second half saw United controlling the game for long periods again, but without the cutting edge that we had seen during the first half an hour. United's defence which was minus the injured Ferdinand played reasonably enough and Derby didn't manage to create a chance as good as the two just before half time. Trouble was United weren't really creating as much either and Fergie started to ring the changes bringing Saha and Carrick on for Scholes and Park. Not that this changed much to be honest and United's better chances during this period came from set pieces.
Then came the goal as Rooney showed his desire as he used his strength down the left hand side to put an inviting cross into the box for the incoming Ronaldo to finally get the goal that we had become so desperate for. United seemed to settle for the one goal cushion for the remaining 15 minutes, although right near the end Ronaldo had a great chance to make it 2 but Carroll was up to the task as he denied him with a fine save. So a vital 3 points were now in the bag to keep the pressure on Arsenal, and as we saw later it doesn't look like they are going to be up to dealing with it. I saw the second half of their 1-1 draw with Middlesbrough and Arsenal were really poor, they hardly created a chance. And though they may have been unlucky to have a goal disallowed in the first half, they got really lucky with the equaliser as Boateng was clearly fouled before the corner that the referee gave that led to Flamini's equaliser.

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