United On Fire

Manchester United 2 (Ronaldo 54 pen, Hargreaves 72) Arsenal 1 (Adebayor 48)

Owen Hargreaves scored the decisive freekick which gave United the victory over Arsenal, simultaneously ended Arsenal’s season and giving United one hand on the trophy.

This was a game United did not deserve to win, playing very poorly in the first half. Wes Brown’s ability to find an Arsenal player with his passing was matched only by Adebayor’s ability to squander chances in front of goal. The Arsenal striker was the weak link in the team as they should have been 4 goals up. That said, at the other end, Wayne Rooney was denied twice by the foot of Jens Lehman.

How the first half ended goalless I do not know, but it wasn’t long into the second half before the ball was in the net. A well crafted freekick had the United defence on the back football, but even then Ferdinand could have cleared the cross that came in from the left. Later, Ferdinand claimed that he heard the call “keepers” but he should never have left it call or not. Adebayor, deciding that he was too useless to put the ball into the net legally, flicked the ball into the net with his hand. Curiously, none of the United players protested, probably just a bit shocked that they’d let such an easy goal away.

A minute later and it could have been two. Rio Ferdinand shanked a clearance straight towards goal and only a fantastic save from Van Der Saar saved Rio from embarrassment twice in two minutes.

However, Arsenal’s ability to self implode saved the day for United. A ball in by Carrick was going past Gallas’s shoulder, but he foolishly tried to chest it down, mistiming it completely and handling the ball in the area.

The next minute was pure drama, and was probably the key moment of the season. If Ronaldo missed, it would give Arsenal fresh hope and possibly hand the momentum of the title to Chelsea. If he scored, the game would be level and United would have the momentum. Ronaldo stepped up to take the penalty. He started his run up, paused, and then first an Arsenal player ran into the box, followed Park. Ronaldo placed the ball into the net, but the referee called for it to be retaken.

Oddly enough I was really calm at this point, but the important point was that so was Ronaldo. Doing exacty the same as before, he paused in his run up and then put the ball in exactly the same place. Unsaveable. 1-1.

Fergie then gambled and won. He went 4-4-2 and brought on Anderson and Tevez, two bull like fighters who ran and harried the Arsenal defence. Eventually it was another poor clearance from Arsenal that fell to Evra on the edge of the area. He was brought down and United had a freekick.

I think everyone expected Ronaldo to take it, but Hargreaves stepped up and curled it beautifully up and over the wall and down into the bottom corner of the net. 2-1.

There were a few more chances for both teams, but United held on to win and come within two wins of the title.

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You’ve got to be happy with that. Roma, with the advantage of the away game first, and avoiding another English club until the final. (Although the thought of losing to Liverpool in the final still makes me quake). Also, can chuckle at Arsenal v Liverpool meaning that they play each other three times in a row. In fact, Arsenals next seven matches include United, Chelsea and Liverpool thrice.

Chelsea going to Fenerbache will not be easy although they should win, but then they will come up against the Arse or pool in the semi. We will either get Schalke 04 (interesting name) or Barcelona. I hope that if the Spanish giants get through, they’ll still be a bit crap.

Let us not count our chickens however. Whilst we stuffed Roma last season, the results against them in the group stages were more indicative of this seasons result. We should get through, though once again I worry about the potential for crowd trouble in Rome.

Full draw

Champions League quarter-final draw:
1 Arsenal v Liverpool
2 AS Roma v Man Utd
3 Schalke 04 v FC Barcelona
4 Fenerbahce v Chelsea

Champions League semi-final draw:
1 Arsenal/Liverpool v Fenerbahce/Chelsea
2 Schalke/Barcelona v AS Roma/Man Utd

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This one will live long in the memory even if it was watched from a hotel bedroom. I managed to get to the hotel just in time, but spent ages checking in, getting into the room and trying to find the on switch for the TV. Got it turned on and it was still 0-0, United had a corner and bang 1-0 up, the perfect start.

The perfect start led to a brilliant game where United totally dominated Arsenal in a way that only usually happens in your dreams. If United had put away all their chances … 10-0 ? Probably not, but that was such the dominance we had. Oddly, Arsenal were completely inept in defence. Rooney is not the best target man in the world, but United would play a simple long ball up to him and it would case absolute havoc in the Arsenal defence.

United rested Ronaldo, Tevez, Giggs, Scholes and Hargreaves but Arsenal did rest some of their players too, notably Adebayor, their main player. They offered nothing up front, lacked any passion in midfield and were abject in defence. I can’t see that carrying on onto their next league game.

Darren Fletcher had a superb game and should be given more opportunities based on his performance, and if it proved anything, we rely totally on Wayne Rooney at the moment, not Ronaldo. 4 days on from the game and without taking any notes during the game, I don’t want to comment anymore on United. They responded to the defeat against City really well and should push Arsenal all the way until the end of the season.

I will add one thing about Arsenal, however. The horror tackle from Eboue that saw him get a red was just one of a number of incidents in the second half from the Arsenal side that was downright nasty and shows once again that Wenger cannot control his players, or perhaps even encourages it. Gallas and others on Nani was particularly disgusting. Nani showed great skill, that was a little bit in the way of a showboat, but it was a very clever way of using skill to evade his marker. His reward from an Arsenal team that is supposed to be about the “beautiful game” was a lunging tackle and minutes later a blatant kick off the ball, that should have resulted in a red card, or a suspension for Gallas using video evidence. Once again, the Premier League took no action.

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Due to a calendar malfunction, I’ll be away for this game.  I forgot to add the FA Cup tie dates into my diary.  I’m concentrating on the league and europe this season, ok?  Anyway, hopefully I’ll be able to find a TV screen in a pub or something up in Edinburgh to watch the game.  However, the omens are not good, on my previous visit to Edinburgh on a stag do, I watched Arsenal clinch the 98 title.  Amongst others, Tony Adams scored a cracker against Everton and I knew it was all over for that season.  Might have been earlier that 98, come to think of it, but I don’t tend to remember the seasons when Arsenal won the league.  I don’t remember too much of that stag do either, but that’s another matter.

Speaking of boozing, on a completely unrelated note, honestly, it’s sad to see Bryan Robson got relieved of his duties at Sheffield United.  Captain Fantastic was once down as a future United manager, but surely his career as a manager must be over now.

FA Cup 5th round and United are at home to Arsenal.  After the last two poor performances, United get back to form otherwise the Gunners will knock us out.  Having thought about the derby defeat, aside from missing Rooney the main problem was that United had nothing at all in midfield.  Ronaldo, Nani and Giggs cannot play in the same team at the same time.  Scholes and Anderson didn’t work as a central midfield pairing.  Scholes and Carrick we know works.  Hargreaves and Anderson works.  I think Scholes and Hargreaves would work as well and that would be my first choice for the remainder of this season and long time for Anderson to replace Scholes.

Tevez needs to play alongside someone.  Dunne and Richards totally bossed him, which I don’t think would be the case if Rooney had played.  So we lost out in midfield and up front.  Oh, and our defence had a shocker too.  We were lucky it was only 2-1 in retrospect.

Let’s hope for better against Arsenal and we’ll scrape through to the 6th round and dent Arsenal’s confidence in the process.

Any other United fans have a heart attack when they read about Ronaldo being out for 9 months and possibly having a career ending injury?  I breathed a lot easier when the news sites altered the headlines to “Milan’s Ronaldo ….”

And finally, what are the copycats at Liverpool up to?  Only starting an AFC Liverpool.   Now, forgive me if I’m wrong but didn’t the Anfield mob initially welcome their American owners with open arms?  It doesn’t look good when you then say “oh, but it turns out they are shite so we’ll bugger off”.  At least FC United were opposed to Glazer from the start.  I used to own a piece of Manchester United, but the Glazers took it against my will.

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