Monday, March 19, 2012

Wolves 0-5 Manchester United

Forget the scoreline yesterday was a more a case of how bad the home team have become than how good United were. The first half an hour United were really poor, the passing was off and yet again the play was far too slow and pedestrian. Fortunately Antonio Valencia was back and that was the reason United were able to take advantage of the sending off that left Wolves down to ten men, bereft of confidence and facing the reigning champions.
United barely created a thing in the opening exchanges despite having the majority of possession. Rooney carried on his recent schizo form where he manages to be brilliant one minute and average the next, he should have pur Hernandez through twice in the opening stages only to totally mishit the pass. How he won the man of the match award was a mystery to me, if we had a man of the match, it was surely our man from Ecuador.
The opening goal came out of nowehere, and was proof, i'm afraid of why Wolves must now be favourite to go down. The marking to allow Carrick a free header at the back post was bad enough but the room Jonny Evans was given to slot in the opening goal was criminal. Whem Zubar then proceeded to get a second yellow and an early bath you knew it was going to be our day.  
The second goal was the best move of the day as for once United injected some pace into their play to remind us of days of yore as Rooney produced his best moment in the match was a brilliant first time pass that Valencia ran onto and eventually finished off in a manner that makes you wonder why he doesn't score more. Not that i'm complaining when he creates as many goalscoring opportunities as he does. Not long after Valencia received a magnificent cross field pass from Evans that Scholes would have been proud of to cross accurately for Welbeck who hit the third, a welcome return to the goalscoring for our recent left winger. It's not really his best position, but he's a better bet there than Park, that's for sure. Of course the third meant he was free to roam where he wanted, which is basically what he does anyway when we have the ball.
I hoped United would come out for the second half gunning for more goals, Gary Neville tweeted that this would indeed be the half time talk that Fergie would deliver. Despite the fact that we scored two more it didn't really happen. If you'd have taken Valencia off there would have been no urgency at all. The fourth saw Wolves defend as badly as they had for the first with Hernandez given the freedom of the penalty area to head home a set piece. Valencia then proceeded to skin his man again to set up the fifth for Hernandez and you began to think that we might overturn City's superior goal difference in one go. But United once again took their foot off the pedal and to to be fair to Wolves they rallied to try and keep the scoreline from becoming even more embarrassing than it already was.
So United have done their job, now we await City's clash with the rent boys, now that is a "massive match", which i wouldn't like to predict. A draw would be almost as good as a Chelsea victory is what i will say.

Ahead of the coming title battle ex red Paul Parker predicted that European elimination would affect United least and he fancies us to regain the title.
Ian Herbert wrote what we all know this team is a work in progress, the cliched "team in transition", but European elimination will hurt Fergie he argues. Another not so shocking revelation is that United will allow Berbatov to leave, the most interesting part of that interview was the revelation that Fergie wants to inject more pace into the team as he rebuilds. I'm presuming he means more pace in our play as much as individual speed, the football at the moment is way too pedestrian, Europe has shown that United and English football generally is falling behind. Gary Neville argued at the weekend that we shouldn't worry too much about English clubs failure in Europe this year, but if it happened again next season, it couldn't then be dismissed as a blip.
To be honest the football this season has been pretty poor, look at yesterday, United were nothing really and yet they won 5-0. Apart from the first month and the spell that included the 5-0 defeat of Fulham at Craven cottage there hasn't been much to get excited about. There isn't much of a buzz when you go to the game, nothing that gets you out of your seat, not much fantasy. I was more excited about going to see the Youth cup semi against Chelsea on Friday.
Talking of which i thought they were unlucky to get beat on Friday, but unfortunately they did bring it on themselves. They didn't start playing until about an half hour into the game and then after the equalised and looked to most likely team they gave the ball away badly and their lad up front scored a brilliant goal. Still if Van Velzen had tucked that sitter away late in the game the game would be all square for the second leg. It's not all over, Chelsea led 3-2 from the first leg last year and got turned over, but of course we were at home in that second leg.
As i had hoped and expected Mat Daehli was the stand out player fro United, his close control, darting runs and obvious football brain augur well for his future at United. Others to impress were James Wilson, though i was suprised to see him start up front on his own, if he can beef up a little bit he could be some player. Once again the keeper Sutherland impressed, he made some great saves during the Charlton game and again he made a blinder of a save in the second half. Blackett looks promising, though i'm not sure whether left back or centre half will be his position. The new lad Pearson had a pretty fair game for someone who hadn't played for ages.

Duncan Castles belives that whether City win the title or not, Mancini is safe in his job as the owners regard him as one of the top five managers in world football. Whilst Sam Wallace wonders if City's owners are monitoring Jose Mourinho's position in Spain. I don't think he'll leave Real, but if he does Tottenham seems to be the rumour when or if Redknapp departs. The main piece of that is interesting, i like the way the Germans are reacting to the news. They seem to be in the right on this issue, pity about the Eurozone though.
Talking of which Jonathan Freedland penned a piece about Germany, Europe's relcutant Goliath, i know what he means, but i'm not sure the Greeks will quite see it like that.

Selling England by the yen, George Eaton thinks Cameron is brave in looking at road pricing, but insists that what he is proposing isn't road privatisation. Jonathan Portes believes it could be a good idea but believes it's all about the pricing, but argues that Cameron's analogy with water privatisation is a bad one. It won't be a vote winner, i think we can be sure of that.
Robert Peston aks whether China will own our roads, just what would be the point of that, the last two paragraph's are intriguing though, i like the sound of that. Far too sensible for a tory led government to enact that, i mean who'll get rich out of that. Will Hutton warned in yesterday's Observer that if Britain is to recover, we must embrace new models of capitalism. Not much chance of that with the flat earthers we've got in charge at the moment, free market fundamentalists.

Frasier Nelson writes about our part time chancellor and the man behind him Rupert Harrison, you have to wonder how happy his party are with this, he's an even more political chancellor than Brown was.
Matthew D'ancona wonders whether that little red box contains the coalition's finest hour, as he says this will be a very political budget or as fiscally neutral.

I've never been much of a fan of Marina Hyde's column in the Guardina but this article, London, the most grotesque city in the world is absolutely on the money. Ken or Boris what a choice, global scumbags, who London is all too happy to live there and contribute zilch.

Having read Harold Evans memoir of his time at the Sunday Times last weeks revelation that Thatcher held a secret meeting with old Rupe before he bought the Times and Sunday Times isn't exactly s suprise. Yet one more Thatcherite legacy history won't regard kindly.

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