United On Fire

Liverpool 0 Manchester United 1 (Tevez 45)

Fast and furious, this big clash between Liverpool and United had few clear cut chances.  United won the game from a well worked corner that took full advantage of Liverpool’s zonal marking system.  Despite having lots of possesion in the second half, Liverpool didn’t test Edwin Van der Sar and completed another victory as the supposed “Fortress Anfield”.

In the first half, most of the trouble for United’s defence was of their own making, or rather of Van der Sar’s making.  Twice he came for balls and collided with his own player.  One particular error had Evra scrambling away a back header from Ferdinand as Var der Sar ran into the back of Vidic.

United’s goal came from a corner.  As Liverpool defence formed in zonal marking, not one of them picked up either Rooney, on the edge of the box or Tevez in front of the goalkeeper.  As Giggs made to cross the ball into the box, Ferdinand moved forward taking away for nearest player to Rooney, Torrez.  Giggs played a flat ball directly to Rooney who took a first time shot at goal.  Carrigher, seeing the danger had come out to meet Rooney, but the ball went through his outstretched legs and towards the corner.   The ball would probably have been cleared off the line by the man on the far post, but Tevez stepped across and clipped the ball into the net.

Once United had taken the lead, the central midfielders, Hargreaves and Anderson formed a protective shield in front on the defence and Liverpool didn’t get a look in.  It might have been negative minded, but United fans up and down the country won’t mind a bit.  It was like watching a boy being held at arms length by a stronger and bigger boy.  No matter how the small boy tried to land a punch, he couldn’t get near.

Anderson, in particular, was impressive today.  Supposedly a creative, attacking midfield, he was strong in the challenge and tackle and more than held his own against the opposition midfield, particular with some robust tackles from Stevie Gerrard.  All the players had good games with the exception of Ronaldo.  Not his usual self, he avoided the big game again and ended up as centre forward, perhaps because he wasn’t tracking Riise back properly.  The ever willing Rooney swapped to the right and shored this hole up.

In the day’s other big game, Arsenal beat Chelsea so United are still 2nd, one point behind, but not there is a small but significant gap between second and third.  With Liverpool having to go to Old Trafford, Stanford Bridge and the Emirates and being 10 points off the lead, is their challenge for the title in real trouble?  All I know is that United are very strongly placed coming into the tricky Christmas period.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, December 16th, 2007 at 10:55 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.