Sunday, May 4, 2014

Manchester United 0-1 Sunderland

Even with Moyes out, the season continues its one step forward, two steps back pathway. If you'd told me at the beginning of the season we would end up playing Sunderland four times in the season, and would lose two of them, i would have struggled to believe you. I was as confident as you can get ahead of the match, I suppose that made the result and the performance that much more annoying, I never saw this one coming.
I wanted Giggs, in fact, even after yesterday's debacle, I still do want to see Giggs handed the managers job. But if Moyes had have sent out that starting eleven, we'd all have been shaking our heads and given him some shit. My only hope when I saw the team was that Giggs would be able to do a Fergie and get them to play above themselves. And to be fair, I thought they played alright, up until the goal, not as good as we would like to see, but not as ponderously as we have seen for most of the season under Moyes.
But once that goal went in, heads dropped, I wouldn't say the tempo dropped, but we struggled to make any headway against a packed Sunderland defence. It was a terribly soft goal to give away, the cross was got away far too easily and Larsson found himself alone and seemed to have all the time in the world to hit the back of the net. We have conceded so many soft goals this season, it beggars belief.
After the substitutions had been made, and the only argument i would have had with them was that I would have taken Young off before Nani, I felt confident that we would at least get a point. Nani didn't do that much, but he did more than Young, who was completely ineffective. But with Januzaj, Welbeck and Van Persie up front, I thought we would at least start to create chances. But it just never really happened did it. There were some poor performances from United, and plenty of problem areas once more. But I'd have to single out central midfield, Carrick has had a season to forget, and yesterday was possibly his worst performance of the season, his passing was abject. Alongside him Fletcher was just as bad, his first touch was non existent, in fact it almost cost us a couple of goals. I suppose the most damming fact from the performance, was that when we were chasing the game and we should have beating a path down to their goal, it was the visitors who looked more likely to score, hitting the woodwork a couple of times and missing a sitter.
Will it be any better on Tuesday for the last home game of the season, it would take a brave man to confidently predict that it will.

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