United 1 Chelsea 1 (United win 3-0 on penalties)
What happened to sharing the Old Charity Shield? And it still looks like the same big plate so I’m going to call it the old name. Anyway, a good warmup game, and although a draw was a fair result in the end, United looked the brighter side going forward.
Of course, Chelsea had a whole host of players out injured, what Morinhio might call back luck but I refer to as karma. They didn’t have much going forward, but had lots of possession in midfield. On the other hand, United were without Scholes, Hargreaves, Anderson, Tevez(!) and Saha with Evra playing left midfield and Silvestre filling in the left back slot. I might previously wanted to see the back of Silvestre, but he doesn’t want join Liverpool so gets my backing as deputy for Evra from now on.
And Evra did really well in midfield, making the United goal. After thirty or so minutes of nothing very much, apart from Ronaldo being fouled after a mere 10 seconds of the match starting by Cashley Cole, the game exploded with a brilliantly crafted move from United. Vidic received the ball on the half way line and played a beautiful cross field pass to Evra on the left. Evra took the ball down perfectly, before getting to the byline and pulling the ball back to Giggs. The Chelsea defence were pulled all over the place and Giggs met the ball and fired it into the top corner of the goal.
Chelsea responded well and Malouda out muscled Ferdinand on the break before firing the ball into the corner past the advancing Van Der Saar.
The main thing to note in the second half was the introduction of Nani, however he should get better advise on the type of boots to wear as he fell over a couple of times shortly after coming on and had to have them changed.
The game ended 1-1 and as there was no extra time, it was straight to penalties. Edwin did really well and saved all three penalties (although they weren’t the best penalties I’ve ever seen). United put away all three of theirs, all English internationals (Rio, Carrick and Rooney) proving that they can do it when the pressure is not really on.
So, at the end of the day, a fairly good performance, a good result, but not the most important game. A good day (made better by Fergie saying Tevez will play in the friendly game on Wednesday – on Sky I believe).
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Loved this game. I always fear penalty shoot-outs because they seem to be our achilles heel. We haven’t done very well with those in recent memory…and yet Edwin proved me wrong. I could not be more proud to see him save those 3 attempts and the icing came when the previously booked Rooney slotted in the game winner. Revenge really was sweet that day…plus we all got to see the “walking wounded” section of Chelsea and we know that they are already dealing with a major injury crisis. This can only help to boost Sir Alex and the players…I know I was boosted.
We haven’t done too well in penalty shootouts have we? I wonder what the record is? I remember a long shootout against Arsenal that we won, but can’t think of another one.