Thursday, September 27, 2012

Manchester United 2-1 Newcastle United

Not a great game of football, but an excellent experience for our reserve back four, who acquitted themselves reasonably well. The midfield and attack was actually pretty strong, i can only presume, to give the back four a bit more protection. I was disappointed that Nick Powell didn't start, when he did come on near the end, he gave us a little cameo of what might have been, showing good energy, good use of the ball and was a constant threat to the oppostion's defence.
I wasn't suprised to see Rooney play, he obviously needs games and i'm fairly sure he will play regularly for the next couple of months. He actually did pretty well, he looked miles sharper than he did against Everton that's for sure, he lost possession too easily a couple of times, but played a couple of Scholesesque cross field balls. I thought Cleverley was probably our stand out player, he should have scored in the first half, thankfully he put it right in the second half after finishing off a fine move when supplied by Welbeck.
I have read a few reds arguing Anderson's performance should bring him into contention for run in the first team. I can't go along with that at all, he started well against hardly the toughest opponents, then as usual totally disappeared from the game, before another burst in the last five minutes that led to the fine run and for once he actually finished it off with a fine shot and goal. At beginning off the second half i said watch how many times he touches the ball compared to Cleverley or Rooney even, needless to say it didn't average well, before he had another surge before the obligatory complete running out of steam that would have seen him substituted in the premier league.
I will hold my hands up on Fletcher though, he did far better than i had expected, i couldn't see him playing regular first team football again. If he can get a run of games together and get his touch back, that would be a huge boost to the squad. He seemed to play a little deeper than usual, but even that could turn out to be handy, giving us more options.
Given the injury crisis it was always going to be a young and inexperienced back line, but boy did Fergie put trust in the young lads. I thought Wooton and Keane did pretty well, i've never really seen Wooton as first team material, so he really did far better than i expected. Keane did well, though i thought the game showed he really needs to go out on loan and get some real first team experience. With our defensive injury crisis, he probably won't get it. Vermijl started off reasonably well before nerves seemed to take hold of him, he probably should have been subbed a bit earlier as they were getting a lot of joy down that flank of the pitch.
So not a bad night, though it would have been a better night, at the kind of prices our closest rivals were charging for the competition. I doubt the club will be in any kind of hurry to bring pices down, Glazernomics at work.

Fergie was happy with Rooney's return to the fray, although it seems Cleverley got a verbal volley at half time for his first half miss. He got one from me at the match, i had the bastard for first goal. I still haven't picked a first goal scoreryet this season, though i did have Van persie for a hatrick at Southampton, so i'm not down too much.

The news about Vidic was both unbelievable and yet you had a feeling there was some nasty news coming as to why he was really left out of the Anfield clash. We really have to start worrying if we will ever see the pre-cruciate era Vidic ever again, the news that he's had an operation on the same knee is very unwelcome
You would have to think that Ferdinand will be getting a new contract offer fairly shortly with this news, the annoying aspect to this news is this was when you would be hoping Jones and Smalling would be playing and gaining experience. Our injury situation is almost beyond a joke now.

No comments: