3rd October vs Sunderland. 2-2.

from Republikofmancunia.org

As we approached half time, I heard an old-time Old Trafford regular - well, he had grey hair, so I assumed from that he'd been coming for years...? - say that this is 'probably the worst performance [he'd] ever seen' and that he 'can't remember us ever playing this bad'. Immediately, as I heard this whispered yet powerful complaint of the game's opening half, I thought to myself: ‘I can definitely remember the last time we were this bad’; and I remembered that night in Rome. At least then, the excuses pretty much succeed in disguising our dismal performance: we were up against a masterful team, and you could even argue that the pressure of winning 4 trophies in a season had gotten to us...but what happened yesterday? Why the hell were we having this elderly Irishman's 'worst ever performance' and by far playing our worst football since the 27th May?

In that first half I can't remember us creating a meaningful attack, stringing together a decent sequence of passes and we genuinely had zero shots on goal. Rooney, our key performer of the season and the great shining hope to prove that life without Ronaldo is sweet, was in fact at the centre of all those first half failings. But he wasn't the only one to blame; who could ever forget that permanent left-footed waste of space running aimlessly on the wing in almost every game? Nani, yet again, had a shocker; abysmal passing and losing the ball for fun. I'm obviously not going to go through each player and say why/how they contributed to our display, but it's important to note a couple of things: Rooney is our best player and primary contributor of goals, and Nani is our winger who has the massive responsibility of creating attacks and goal-scoring opportunities for the front men...so even if it is solely these two who are out of sorts - although Scholes, O'Shea, Wellbeck et al were hardly having the game of their lives - then it is completely detrimental to our whole game. The most disappointing thing in the opening 45/50 minutes was obviously the display, however also the obvious attitude that was lacking in the players. They weren't up for this and even after going behind as early as we had, there was such little urgency and efficiency; as though the fact that being a goal down was not enough to drive them into pressing the Sunderland defence. When it comes to falling a goal (or two) behind at Old Trafford and going into the tunnel with such a deficit, the Tottenham game last season will surely always be used now as a model and guide of how to do the 'come back'...yet as much as I tried to understand that it was possible, nothing about this game was letting me believe that we could do it in that same way.

We started the second half brightly and with alot more confidence than we ended the first (not saying much, of course). I felt the goal coming as it was definitely worthy of our sharper display; yet I did NOT see something like that coming! As the game went on, especially in the opening 5 minutes of the second half, Berbatov was becoming quietly effective, as usual; subtly working to create space and attacking options. The space he found for the goal, created by O'Shea, showed maturity and understanding, yet the skill for the finish was something completely special. A bicycle kick from a slightly acute angle, surrounded by Sunderland heads, was a perfect if perhaps slightly over-elaborate response to the abysmal 45 minutes of football we had played. From that moment we did look slightly more impressive and our attacking football was more coherent, but in all this post-match analysis I'm clumsily failing to mention one obvious factor that contributed heavily to our downfall: Sunderland were a bit good! They still looked a threat, and why not? 1-1 with a good 40 minutes left to play; they hadn't lost any of their momentum from the first and Bent/Jones were impressive, so undoubtedly more was still to come. And it did, 7 minutes later. A conventional cross swung into the box that was placed in a comfortable area for Foster to deal with, yet somehow Jones leapt above Foster's flapping hands and the ball tumbled in. Sitting behind that goal, myself and everyone around me immediately assumed it was a free-kick; so our eyes were hooked on the referee and linesman. Yet as their celebrations grew stronger, we knew it wasn't the case. Obviously due to the lack of slow-motion replays offered at live football, we were left fuming and assuming the ref had f**ked us up royally. Yet looking back, the complaints from the supposedly fouled victim were completely absent. Foster just sat on the ground, thinking 'what have I done?', as the ball slowly made its way out of his goal and onto the centre spot. He had a shocker, but I'll deal with that later.

As always, the drama wasn't over and we did manage to squeeze an equaliser out of the game in the dying minutes (...familiar occurrence?). Did we really deserve the draw? Probably, by the way we kept pushing when we needed to, and I was delighted at the irony of it being done in injury time; as Sunderland's f**king annoying tactic all game was to blatantly time-waste and kick the ball away to delay set-pieces, throw-ins etc; for which Richardson's return to OT was marked by a red card for stupidly contributing to this. So when we were awarded 4 minutes extra time, it was completely just - I don't think anyone can have any complaints this time - and we utilised it to the fullest to gain the draw. A little harsh perhaps, as their footballing display probably deserved all 3, yet I guess that's the difference between experience and immaturity; Champions and pretenders...

Key Player:

Evra. After Rooney's shocker today, Pat is undoubtedly our only consistent performer this season; so please dubious stupid goals committee, let the one player who has done everything right for us this season have the one thing he lacks: a goal. It probably will end up going to Anton Ferdinand, who I'm assuming will be nicely 'murked' by his older brother.

Player Ratings:

Foster 5; Evra 7, Evans 7, Vidic 7, O'Shea 6; Nani 5, Scholes 6 (Anderson 46, 6), Fletcher 6 (Carrick 71, 6), Wellbeck 5 (Valencia 71, 7); Berbatov 7, Rooney 5.