Good result for the reds at the weekend. I watched the match from the comfort of my sofa and I must be honest found it quite dull for the first half. We didn’t really get going in the first 45 minutes. It didn’t help that Vidic left half way through with what appeared to be a concussion. I didn’t really see a lot in the challenge with Marcus Bent that led to the concussion for Vidic. Granted, there was a coming together of heads, namely Vidic’s cheekbone into the back of Bent’s skull, however I would have thought he would have been knocked out if he had concussion. I’m not a doctor so I suppose I’m not best placed to pass judgement, but in my opinion it looked as if Vidic was using the knock as an excuse to get off the playing field. I wonder if he didn’t feel up for the game or something.
John O’shea then switched to the centre of defence to take over from Vidic. He did well there for about 3 minutes before receiving a dead leg from a clumsy challenge by a Wigan player (I didn’t see who). He left the pitch and made way for Simpson who though young is experienced at playing in the Championship thanks to his loan spell at Sunderland last season. Simpson went to right back and Pique went to partner Ferdinand in the centre.
The first half didn’t really see any great chances by either side, though Evra did make a bit of a blunder toward the end of the first half, letting a cross ghost over his head to Bent, only for Evra to kick the ball out of play before Bent got the ball fully under control. At half time, Wigan were probably happy with their performance, having shut United out for 45 minutes, as well as having created a few half chances. They must have thought that come the second half, if United had still not scored that they woud have a chance of nicking a goal considering we had a makeshift defence including two 2nd string players.
The 2nd half started with all of the United players out on the pitch well in advance of the Wigan players. Sir Alex must have kept his half time team talk short and sweet, probably something along the lines of “right then lads, pass the ball better, pass it quicker and for god’s sake use the width of the pitch!”. When the Wigan players eventually turned up the 2nd half got under way.
It started with United playing much quicker and trying to open up the Wigan defence, something that had been difficult during the first half. Wigan started playing with more adventure and left more gaps in the mid field, which Rooney took advantage of, passing through quickly to Anderson who picked out the run of Tevez, who beat the defender to the ball, used all his strength to hold him off, round the keeper and blast the ball into the back of the net. The celebrations that followed showed just how pleased the united players were to see Tevez score. He deserved it, he worked his socks off during the game, chasing every ball and defending from the front. It was good to see how much togetherness there is in the team.
The 2nd goal came from a Giggs corner, the keeper flapped at it and the ball came to Ronaldo to head home from about a yard out. He seemed pleased with his goal, pointing to his black eye and stiches as if to say “I can still score even though I’ve got a black eye and a load of stiches in my head”. As ever Ferdinand was there to congratulate him, its almost like they have a slightly gay father/son relationship when you see Ferdinand screaming at Ronaldo and praising him like that, weird….
The 3rd goal was created by Pique’s pass to Rooney down the left channel, Rooney got to the ball with plenty of time to look up, see Ronaldo running into the box and then just place his pass perfectly for Ronaldo to score his 2nd of the day. As the commentator said, it was a perfect, professional goal. Completely unselfish by Rooney, putting the team first and passing the ball to create the goal, rather than trying to create the goal for himself.
The 4th goal was a cross into the box from Simpson which Rooney got on the end of with his head. It was a good goal, well worked from Simpson, he showed good composure to cross the ball, and he looks like we might have a good player on our hands. He’s only young, but if he can get some more first team experience he’ll develop into a good attacking full back.
I’m not really sure who my man of the match would be. I thoght Tevez worked hard and played well as did Rooney and Ronaldo. However, it would be too easy to pick one of the 2nd “holy trinity” as they have been called in a few papers. They all played well, don’t get me wrong, but you’d expect that, and more from those three. My man of the match was Anderson, he was quiet in the first half, granted he only played a few minutes. But in the 2nd half, he grew in stature. He played some excellent passes and looked comfortable on the ball. I can see that he will grow into a good replacement for Paul Scholes who is getting on a bit.
Roll on the return of Owen Hargreaves, Carrick, Saha, Neville, Brown, Van de Sar and anyone else who happens to be injured, on this performance, it looks like we’ve got what it takes to retain the Premiership as long as we can get some of our injured players fit again soon. No doubt, there are tougher games to be played, but we’ve got some real quality players to come back so I’m confident we’ll overhaul Arsenal’s impressive early season lead and come next May, we’ll be looking down on the rest of the league.