With hindsight, November wasn’t a bad month, but if you look at the raw figures for the league, it doesn’t make good reading. One win, one draw and one loss. Plus, another injury to Wayne Rooney. However, when you delve in see that the draw was against Arsenal so we lost no ground on the leaders, and another international break (a very bad one for England). We continued our 100% record in the Champions League as well, winning the group in the process.
Starting on the 3rd with the top of the table clash versus Arsenal, we ended in drawing a game we should have won. Playing well, and containing a very good Arsenal side. Before the game, the Arsenal team had been hyped up as the new Invicibles, but United showed the rest of the Premiership that they weren’t all that. At the end of a mostly dull first half, United scored through a Gallas own goal. Arsenal stepped up briefly in the second half and Fabregas equalised before Ronaldo but the Reds in front in the 83rd minute after good work from Evra and Saha. That should have been that, but Arsenal scored in injury time. It had felt like we’d lost, and Arsenal celebrated like they’d won the league.
Fergie celebrated 21 years in charge in November (that makes me feel old because I was at the Oxford game for his first match and I can’t believe it was 21 years ago). The game closest to the anniversary was a simple demolition of Dynamo Kiev on the 7th. Another 4 goals (the Arsenal game ending the run of successive 4 goals) and signs that all was well with the depth in the squad as many first teamers were rested. Not Rooney though, who found it a little bit boring, as did the fans. Gerrard Pique didn’t as he scored on his Champions League debut.
On the 9th came news that Rooney was going to be a lot more bored for a month as he had some sort of accident in training/fooling around with kids and had done his ankle in. We were relying on Saha staying fit for a whole month. Would it be possible?
Well, he was still fit on the 11th when United beat Blackburn 2-0. However, it was a tw0-minute double blast from Christiano Ronaldo that won the game for United. Ronaldo proved that when Rooney was missing, he could still be called upon to win games for us. His first was a header direct from a corner and the 2nd a typical United fast counter attack which Ronaldo got on the end of.
Rooney’s injury meant he missed the England game against Croatia which ended in disaster for England and their manager Steve McClaren. Croatia won 3-2 despite a cameo from ex-United star David Beckham and McClaren was duly sacked.
The league returned on the 24th but United’s form was taking an unexpected longer vacation. They lost 1-0 to Bolton. The very physical Bolton had gone back to basics after sacking Sammy Lee and appointing Gary Megson, and United just didn’t get going all game. Oft touted United target Analka scored the only goal of the game, with Fergie in a fury with the ref and got himself sent off. United ended the month 3 points behind Arsenal who also had a game in hand.
The month ended on a brighter note as United came from behind and beat Sporting 2-1 in the 5th Champions League game. Tevez had cancelled out an early Sporting goal before Ronaldo scored a screamer of a freekick in injury time to win the game and the Champions League group for United.
A positive end to a mixed month.
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