United On Fire

Manchester United 1 (Ronaldo 41) Lyon 0

That boy Ronaldo, he scored again. For the 30th time this season, to be precise.  It was enough to make the last 10 minutes a little tense instead of unbearably unwatchable.

Shortly before half time, Wes Brown put in an excellent cross, from which Anderson’s cross was blocked but Ronaldo pounced on the loose ball, make space and finished far too hard for Coupet to get to.

This wasn’t the best game there ever was, but this was as much Lyon’s fault as much as United’s.  For all the hype of Benzema, Lyon didn’t threaten enough.  This was despite Alex Ferguson’s very odd midfield selection of Anderson, Carrick and Fletcher.  With Ronaldo and Nani on the wings; this just didn’t work.  Anderson, despite not having his best game was the most effective, inventive of the three.  Fletcher and Carrick was anonymous for most parts of the game.  Ronaldo and Nani, whilst providing pace were too wasteful when in possession.  Rooney did sterling work up front but was isolated until Tevez came on.  The saving grace was the defence, solid and dependable, all of them.

Lyon ended the game with four strikers but it was telling that United had far more chances to score once Tevez came on.  Both Rooney and Ronaldo missed good chances to finish the game, whilst at the other end Leita hit the post with a shot that beat Van Der Sar.

United move onto the quarter finals and a possible meeting with Arsenal who knocked out AC Milan, beating the holders 2-0 in the San Siro.

Image Ronaldo, originally uploaded by chuffy

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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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