Wonders never cease, a convincing away win. When you saw the team, you couldn't help thinking to yourself, we can't fail to take the three away points home to day. And yet this season, that's the last thing you can ever think.
Once again he picked what looked like an exciting front four, Mata and Januzaj out wide with Van perise and Rooney in the middle. Did it really work, not really, we huffed and puffed for most of the first half, but a couple of really good efforts apart, we could not break the home defence down. The goal when it did come was unexpectedly easy, soft even, from their point of view. It was a lovely floated ball from Van Persie, but Jones was given far too easy a clear header at goal. Fortunately, he didn't miss, as playing at centre half, for the first time in ages, he hadn't been having the best of times.
Yet again our sole tactic appeared to be to get our full backs right up the pitch, almost as extra winger. Of course i want to see our full back getting forward, but I don't want to see that as the sole means of attack against a team near the bottom of the table, low on confidence.
Rafael was unlucky with the header that forced Foster into a superb save, that was our best moment of the first half from open play. The only other really notable thing to happen was Foster's handball outside the box, showing the kind of sloppiness to his play that saw him never make the grade at United. It should have been penalised, but for me. a yellow, not a red, as it was accidental. Then again, I think you can safely say most refs would probably have given a red card if they had seen it, Moyes would have been on his high horse after the game, if the second half upturn hadn't happened.
You couldn't accuse Van Persie of not trying yesterday, but once again, he and Rooney, or anybody else for that matter, just never clicked. In fact he was throwing himself around so much Moyes took him off around the hour mark, though Van Persie shook his head as he went off, Moyes was entirely justified. Welbeck came on and United started to look far more fluent, passing and moving, fuck we started to look like a team again. The second goal, came through a lovely interchange and the third from Welbeck was one of the rare occasions this season where United have played their way through the centre of an opposition to score a goal.
Now the quality of the opposition has to be taken into account, they were very poor, but still the difference in our display, once the Van Persie, Rooney central partnership was broken up was so obvious, even most journalists were forced into mentioning it. In fact Mark Odgen decided that maybe the time had come for United to part ways with the Dutchman this summer. That looks to be on the cards anyway, but the question for me now is, does Moyes have the cojones to leave Van Perse, or Roney out over the next massive games.
I still think Van Persie is the better player and that we should have let Rooney go last summer, but we are, where we are, Rooney seems to be more popular amongst the rest of the players than the sulking ex Arsenal man. For me, if Moyes is really to stamp his authority on the squad and club, nobody should be guaranteed a game. Look at Welbeck, here is a player that never gets mentioned, but he is a top player, and he gives us a pace and presence up front that is worry for any defence in Europe.
Anyway, it was a good win against a team that on that form, are very real relegation fodder, so it's not the time to get carried away, the next three games will tell us where we are. Despite yesterday, I can't pretend that I'm any more confident of getting much too much joy from that run of games.
Once again he picked what looked like an exciting front four, Mata and Januzaj out wide with Van perise and Rooney in the middle. Did it really work, not really, we huffed and puffed for most of the first half, but a couple of really good efforts apart, we could not break the home defence down. The goal when it did come was unexpectedly easy, soft even, from their point of view. It was a lovely floated ball from Van Persie, but Jones was given far too easy a clear header at goal. Fortunately, he didn't miss, as playing at centre half, for the first time in ages, he hadn't been having the best of times.
Yet again our sole tactic appeared to be to get our full backs right up the pitch, almost as extra winger. Of course i want to see our full back getting forward, but I don't want to see that as the sole means of attack against a team near the bottom of the table, low on confidence.
Rafael was unlucky with the header that forced Foster into a superb save, that was our best moment of the first half from open play. The only other really notable thing to happen was Foster's handball outside the box, showing the kind of sloppiness to his play that saw him never make the grade at United. It should have been penalised, but for me. a yellow, not a red, as it was accidental. Then again, I think you can safely say most refs would probably have given a red card if they had seen it, Moyes would have been on his high horse after the game, if the second half upturn hadn't happened.
You couldn't accuse Van Persie of not trying yesterday, but once again, he and Rooney, or anybody else for that matter, just never clicked. In fact he was throwing himself around so much Moyes took him off around the hour mark, though Van Persie shook his head as he went off, Moyes was entirely justified. Welbeck came on and United started to look far more fluent, passing and moving, fuck we started to look like a team again. The second goal, came through a lovely interchange and the third from Welbeck was one of the rare occasions this season where United have played their way through the centre of an opposition to score a goal.
Now the quality of the opposition has to be taken into account, they were very poor, but still the difference in our display, once the Van Persie, Rooney central partnership was broken up was so obvious, even most journalists were forced into mentioning it. In fact Mark Odgen decided that maybe the time had come for United to part ways with the Dutchman this summer. That looks to be on the cards anyway, but the question for me now is, does Moyes have the cojones to leave Van Perse, or Roney out over the next massive games.
I still think Van Persie is the better player and that we should have let Rooney go last summer, but we are, where we are, Rooney seems to be more popular amongst the rest of the players than the sulking ex Arsenal man. For me, if Moyes is really to stamp his authority on the squad and club, nobody should be guaranteed a game. Look at Welbeck, here is a player that never gets mentioned, but he is a top player, and he gives us a pace and presence up front that is worry for any defence in Europe.
Anyway, it was a good win against a team that on that form, are very real relegation fodder, so it's not the time to get carried away, the next three games will tell us where we are. Despite yesterday, I can't pretend that I'm any more confident of getting much too much joy from that run of games.
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