Many believe we are a one-man team and we were playing one of the in form teams then considering both of those, a difficult match was made a whole lot harder without Rooney. We play better with Rooney, of course we do but United are perfectly capable of winning a game without the striker.
Today, United didn’t miss Rooney and it was a much better performance than the one against Man City last weekend.
It was another big chance for Dimitar Berbatov, how many times have we said that this season? Playing against his former team, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had scored, he did have a few opportunities but none of them were stuck past the keeper.
Berbatov had one of his better matches today, he was chasing after the ball, had some fantastic touches, helped set up the first penalty after a great run. There were only a few moments where you could have faulted him. Overall he did well. It was a fairly quiet day at the back for Edwin Van Der Sar and the defenders. Rafael da Silva and Patrice Evra were involved in United’s attacks but Nemanja Vidic and Jonny Evans didn’t really have much to do. Jermaine Defoe and Roman Pavlyenchenko didn’t do much.
The first half hour was very timid with the first 20 minutes not even seeing a shot on of off target by either team. The game livened up after not long before half time with United showing more urgency to grab a goal or two.
All four goals came in the second half with United opening up the scoring through a Ryan Giggs penalty after Evra was fouled by Benoit Assou-Ekotto. Only minutes earlier Evra had been physically sick but was able to play on and win the penalty for United.
Over recent games, Rafael’s inexperience has shown, he was sent off against Bayern Munich and was at partly at fault for Spurs’ equaliser today. Other than that, Rafael had a fairly decent game.
United poorly defended a corner and Ledley King was able to head the ball into the back of the net, after clambering all over substitute Michael Carrick. Rafael had off the line, the ball came his way he stuck his leg in the air trying to clear it and ended up falling over. After that equaliser United had to go for the win, anything less wouldn’t do so Sir Alex Ferguson brought on Federico Macheda for Rafael. With only 10 minutes remaining Macheda put Luis Nani in on goal and his fabulous chip over Heurelho Gomes gave United a 2-1 lead. It was a cracking goal by Nani, his form has improved since the turn of the year and hopefully he can keep it up.
United’s third goal was another penalty taken by Giggs. This time it was Nani who was brought down in the area by Wilson Palacios.
United thoroughly deserved to win the game, it was a poor first half but a much better second. Both penalties were penalties and United showed that they can win games against descant sides without Wayne Rooney.
The win has taken us back up to the top of the table, two points ahead of Chelsea who play Stoke down at Stamford Bridge tomorrow.
