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Clint Eastwood is grumbling across our cinema screens at the moment drawling “get off my lawn” in the slightly overrated Gran Torino. Here at Old Trafford this slightly overrated Manchester United team served up a helping of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
The good came in the fairly ugly shape of Wayne Rooney (my favourite player, but George Clooney he ain't), who’s second goal in his second game back is fantastic news all around. Ronaldo’s impudent free-kick to win the match was the equal of any I have seen, Robinson did not even have the chance to move.
But it is the bad news of reality that hangs around after this result. We should not be up in arms about finally conceding a goal, whilst Ferdinand was a little lax in defending at the time, one should take their hat off to the assured manner of Santa Cruz’s finish, he is a helluva player when he wants to be. The defence was not shielded as it should have been in the build up play and I think we can expect Fletcher to start against Inter midweek to guard against this sort of thing happening again.
It was the difference in the defence after Vidic was brought on in the second half that really stood out. This was a well-organised and aggressive Blackburn team, and in that sense, almost perfect preparation for the Serie A leaders. We were forced to defend right into the last minute of injury time and it was Vidic’s two vital clearing headers in the dying seconds that really highlighted how much we are going to miss this guy in the next game.
United played a slightly scrappy game today, for all of Ronaldo’s wonderfulness he does give the ball away an awful lot, I thought to myself in the first half. He, of course, shut me up very effectively by scoring that free kick but an inordinate number of our passes went astray in this game and our delivery into the box left a lot to be desired too. We will need to be considerably better on Tuesday to get a result against Mourinho’s men, or we too could face the kind of noble, yet needless and contrived end Eastwood’s character meets in this season’s European Cup.
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Posted by Adrian on 02/22/2009
Overrated? The last time I checked, United aren't involved in a beauty pageant where winning is in the hands of judges (and thanks for your irrelevant slur on Rooney). They are involved in competitions where you earn points by scoring goals. Ratings don't really come into it. It's all measurable and very cut and dried. So please, no more "overrated."
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Posted by JackNemo on 02/22/2009
Yep, great goal by Ronaldo. And thanks for the spoiler alerts.
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Posted by soccer311 on 02/23/2009
Not sure how a team that plays defense first and always finds a way to punish their opponents at the other end when it counts is overrated. Its not like the run of clean sheets didn't include the cream of the crop. There was a chelsea, everton, bolton, wigan, and 10 other teams all in that amazing run. They managed to shut down 14 of the 20 teams....this game was IN FACT ugly, but its not indicative of the absolute thrashings they have handed out when in the mood. They win the games they are supposed to win, unlike Liverpool who again drew at home to a team they should have easily registered 3 points with. Keep in mind 7 of the 14 games were on the road as well. A win or draw on the road can be considered a success, but clean sheets are a premium...to register 7 clean sheets on the road in a row is brilliant and NOT OVERRATED!
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Posted by Joe Aung on 02/23/2009
Go ! Man U. You are the only team consistently coming to grasp the English Premier League trophy. Be organised ! team-spirited ! cooperative !
I hope Man U will occupy all trophies in 2009.
Nice shot ! C.Ronaldo
Is it Man U training to make free-kick to all players who wear number '7' Bingo !
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Posted by Mark Payne on 02/23/2009
Guys, relax.
I am not belittling United's tremendous achievements of late by saying they are "overrated". I am simply belittling the raters. No team, no matter how well they are playing, is 'the best of all time' in the second week of February. To listen to the popular media at the moment you would think one could be.
At the end of the season, we can judge how good the team is.
JackNemo - point taken about the plot spoiler, it won't happen again. Similarly, I won't be watching Gran Torino again, extremely average. Thank me later.
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Posted by MOHD RASHID MD JANI@OMAR on 02/23/2009
MANCHESTER UNITED,S TEAM ALWAYS MAKES ME HAPPY WHEN THEY WIN I WILL IN BE ALWAYS IN GOOD MOOD BUT TAKE NOTE WHEN YOU ALL LOST YOU TURN ME TO BAD MOOD
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Posted by Lady T on 02/23/2009
Dont worry guys MANCHESTER UNITED is collecting all trophies no reason to be scared cause we are doing well already
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Posted by Jeff on 02/23/2009
I'm still stunned with Fergie's XI against Blackburn the other day. He could put Vidic instead of Evans, because Vidic will be missing out the clash between Inter first leg. I understand with resting Van der Sar, and played Kuszack, BUT he left Vidic on the bench!... then we conceded a goal..After that Evans limped off...Bigger problem is the defensive problem against the Special One's Inter Milan
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Posted by ian on 02/24/2009
Totally agree with you, Mark. There's all this talk about us being "untouchable", or the best team in the world, while we've been playing distinctly below our free-flowing best.
Hence, we're overrated at the moment.
And so are some of our players. You know who REALLY loses the ball a lot? Dimitar Berbatov.
At least Ronaldo looks like he's trying. Compared to when we had Rooney, Tevez and Ronaldo buzzing around the final third last season, our tempo has certainly been reduced by the sauntering Bulgarian and his slow, lazy touches upfront - even though we paid 30mil for him to be the "focal point" of the attack.
Chelsea paid 14mil (was it) for Anelka, and Liverpool 24mil for Torres - both are ruthless in front of goal. Can't say that about Berba, can we?
Many would argue that he's a diff type of player. Bt to be a United player, you need more than the odd flashy touch and attempted flick. At this time, United need a scrappy fighter like Tevez over some brooding magician.
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Posted by Joseph on 02/25/2009
1. A good keeper would have saved that free kick by Ronaldo - as good as he was to put it where he did from that position - there's no way at that level you can be beaten there.
Robinson needs to learn to cut out the theatrical nature of his play and learn just to be fundamentally sound. You can use 2 hands and you can just jump and knock a ball over the top as opposed to diving and losing height.
If it wasn't the go-ahead goal and it wasn't Ronaldo - noone would be making as much fuss about this effort. As a matter of fact - if conversely Kuzcack let this in on the other end to allow Blackburn a 2-1 lead - how people would have denigrated him.
2. I understand why Ferguson started Evans next to Ferdinand - to give them some rhythm together going into the Inter match. Clearly he didn't expect him to injure himself - something which I hope doesn't become a trend with this young man.
A good win - a win of champions. You can't win pretty all the time - especially against dogged teams.
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About
Mark Payne writes about football for a variety of media outlets. He reported on the 2010 World Cup for Australia’s ABC network and worked at one of the FIFA fan sites. He has been ESPN’s Manchester United correspondent for four years. His writing attracts a worldwide following and in 2011 this blog was nominated for an award. To contact Mark for football discussion e-mail him on markpayne.editor@hotmail.com at any time. He wears lucky socks on match days.
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