16th August vs Birmigham City. 1-0.

If Saturday's opening to the 2009-10 season was anything to go by, we are in for a predictable season: Chelsea getting lucky, Arsenal suprising everyone and Tevez starting on the bench. Going into our game therefore, a rather undemanding home fixture against the leagues new boys, you would happily assume a comfortable thrashing was in-store. However, as our side's shuffling over the summer finally sinks in and starts to take affect, the demands of free-flowing football that are set on our (usually) prolific, entertaining team, must be reduced and re-thought; as yesterday, in our first competetive game since the departure of the golden boy (cos he's well tanned, innit), we clearly missed Ronaldo's creativity as much as we force ourselves to rule this out as merely a tired start to the season (which hopefully it will prove to be). We beat Birmingham 1-0 with a well worked Rooney goal (a tap-in after he knocked in his rebounded header), yet with the posession we had and general low-quality of opposition we faced, it should have always been more. The movement and passing is still there, regardless of whether Ronaldo is in the thick of the attack or not, but the end product was seriously lacking. Even in the attacking third - Ronaldo's playground - we struggled at times to find the space and pass to the men in the box. At times we were even sloppy in United's most consistantly brilliant part of the field, the defence, as we gave this Championship quality side space to break behind the back two, where they were even able to force good saves out of Foster. I would dread to think what would have happened had that been Van Persie, Bendtner or Eduardo on Saturday's form (who we face next at Old Trafford in 12 days time) rather than the ineffectual Jerome and MacFadden.

Key Players:

Valencia: A few naive passes and lazy touches didn't make this a memorable debut for Antonio. He also seemed to trail off a bit as the game went on, with his decision making and eventual losing of the ball getting worse. However, he showed sings of promise with good posession (displaying Fergie's intent of playing a more traditional, wing-based game now without Ron), as well as immense pace and control as he stormed down the wings.

Evra: World class. Has matured into the worlds greatest attacking full-back who can also defend!! If only the winger ahead of him was half as good...

Nani: Largely wasteful and light-weight on the ball...whats changed? Able to connect reasonably well with Evra at times, but we expect more from him in terms of playmaking and creativity, and therefore he really should be delivering. His one good, productive bit of play was his cross to set-up Rooneys goal, linking up well with Berbatov, but that was still 1 decent cross out of about 5/6, and the faithful were understandably getting rather pissed by his weak balls/corners by the end. Too often has he come out and finished the game on a 5 and 6 (out of 10), and he's only ever up there when he scores one of his beauty's. Unfortunately, that didn't happen today and he was subbed for Giggs at half-time.

**Rooney**: Best player on the pitch. Relished in his new role down the middle - scoring as a result - and he gave the wingers the freedom and ability to perform their roles. Great leap for the goal, yet, as is often the case for the talented Mr.Rooney, it was his awareness that was most impressive; especially his dipping 20-yard chip and the clever set-up for Owen's chance at the end, chesting the ball into his path.

Owen: only had 15 minutes to show Old Trafford what their new no.7 was all about. But still, he had one great chance which he missed but should have been buried. One-on-one with Hart, yet his decision to play it straight down the middle rather than going over the keeper led to a decent save. He obviously wasn't receiving chances like this at his previous embrassment of a club, so he needs to realise that with the support and opportunities he will now receive with Rooney et al around him, he will have the opportunities and therefore need to convert them. It was a bad miss and he should be our joint top scorer of the season.

...but, let's remember that yesterday wasn't as much about us being a little poor as it was ALL about Liverpool being piss-poor. Keep on whinging Rafa - especially seeing as we had a penalty completely overlooked yet we havn't even mentioned it - and see if that does you any good. As far as I remember, I think you should learn to shut the fuck up and deal with the FACT that you were shit and your team will probably struggle to compete as easily this time around. Loser.