Manchester United 1 Birmingham City 0
Manchester United 1 (Tevez 25) Birmingham City 0
1st January 2008, Old Trafford, Att: 75,459
Carlos Tevez’s 25th minute goal was enough for United to get all three points at Old Trafford. A wonderful interchange with Christiano Ronaldo put him threw on goal and he dummied the keeper, sending him the wrong way to score. However, United were not at their fluid best and the scoreline remained a worrying 1-0 until full-time. Manager Alex Ferguson was critical of the atmosphere generated by the 75000 crowd, but he should be worried that the United players seem to have a continued hang-over from Christmas rather than wondering why a group of fans should be quieter than normal on New Years Day.
It was a quite unusual lineup with Park and Nani supplying the wing play with Ronaldo pushed up front with Tevez. Saha was again on the bench and Rooney was still ill. Michael Carrick returned to the midfield, partnering Anderson in the centre. Kuszczak (a name with far too many consonants close together for me to ever remember how to spell correctly) continued in goal for the injured Van Der Sar and O’Shea was at right-back in an otherwise full strength defence.
When United scored a Birmingham player, Cameron Jerome, was down injured but in truth he wouldn’t have been involved in trying to stop the goal and United scored seconds after he went down, not minutes later. I don’t think anyone would have complained about it. After the collision with Jerome, Rio Ferdinand played the ball forwards. Tevez played the ball over his head to Ronaldo, who wonderfully back heeled it back to Tevez who was then clean through on goal. Setting his body as if to play the ball to the keeper’s left, he then slotted it past his right as he dived the other way.
The goal had been coming, and the second goal seemed to be coming for much of the rest of the game. Ronaldo forced the keeper into a great safe from his head. Tevez hit the woodwork twice and United dominated for a long spell in the game. However, the second goal didn’t come and United nearly paid the price with Birmingham, through Forsell having a couple of good chances late in the game.
However, the clean sheet was kept and United started 2008 with a win to keep in close contact with Arsenal at the top.
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January 3rd, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Nice touch with the Utube video. Did Fergie not celebrate his birthday then to appreciate why the fans were a bit quiet? It could have been worry that was causing it.
January 4th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Daily Motion video: the youtube videos tend to get removed. I expect christmas, birthdays and the new year was canceled in the ferguson household.