With news coming in from the bridge that Everton had come from behind to grab an unlikely point against Chelsea, Fergie must have been delighted at the chance of tying them on points today. And then he went about it in the worst possible fashion - by going with a striker all alone up front. Time and again that's proven to be disastrous and we've played some of our worst football in that formation. And yet we were treated to a lineup that featured Rooney all alone with JS Park in the starting line up. JS Park won't get a start in any of the top 10 sides in the league and today's showing just cemented that belief. Half the battle was lost before the ball was kicked. Contrast that with Villa - who played like they should have - 2 wingers and 2 strikers up front, ready to take the game to us. Given the record of not having lost to them at Old Trafford since 1983, law of averages would come into play sooner or later.
We started out well and the goal came against the run of play. Villa are always a threat going forward and given how often we've had to chop and change at the back, them scoring was inevitable. Once again it took an adversity for Fergie to play to our strengths. He brought on Owen at the half, but wait, that's Giggs going off. Unbelievable. JS park better be selling a lot of shirts. Park off in the 63rd for Berba - too little too late. Lots of possession, no real threat to the goal, Friedel touched the ball a couple of times in the entire game. Rooney was unlucky to have hit the post and Berbatov missed a sitter. It was apparent it's going to be one of those games. 60-40 possession, 16-8 shots, 9-4 corners and nothing to show for it. A blip I hope. Not that we didn't lose or draw games while Ronaldo was around, but you can't help but think it was games like this that he produced that run, that free kick, that final pass that did the trick. In the end, we deserved a draw from the game, but that's how it goes. An excellent opportunity to tie the table toppers gone amiss. Doing it the easy way was never United's thing.
Boss echoed the predictable "one of those games" post match.
"Second half I think we deserved something.There wasn't much in it first half, they probably just shaded it and
deserved the goal. Second half we pummelled them, had a lot of good
chances and didn't get any. It's just one of those days it wasn't going
in."
"You get to the point on adding
time on, it should be taken out of the referee's hands," he said.
"There were two stoppages of two minutes three seconds and we played
three minutes (stoppage time)."
"It's not an easy league. I
say that time and time again. If we get to January within touching
distance of the leaders then we're in with a great chance."
12 points still up for grabs in busy December. Wolves on Tuesday and then Fulham away on Saturday. Let's hope we get a run going. It's a tough league this, and we will keep in interesting till the end.
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