I was not confident going into this fixture at all. There is absolutely no way United will finish the league season having lost only two games and our recent record against West Ham has been dismal. Added to this, we have only won once in our last eleven visits to London and the Hammers were in a pretty rich vein of form.
But they did it again. Our team selection of old heads and former West Ham players was utterly inspired and whilst United were more dogged than dazzling we still had a proper go at attacking the game. Giggsâ..s goal was just reward for some lovely play from Scholes and Carrick is starting to quietly boss games in an unshowy and highly effective manner. We may look back on this as one of the major results of the season.
Comments
 |
Posted by Jorge on 02/10/2009
Looks as if your claim of Giggs as Player of the Year may not have been as far fetched as many believed. Absolute genius of a goal.
|
Posted by Jay on 02/10/2009
I was definitely impressed with the defending in this fixture - the back 4 were solid, and even when West Ham pushed forward and looked threatening one of the midfielders (thank you Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs, surprisingly) always came back and bailed out the defense. West Ham did a fantastic, if frustrating job shutting down Ronaldo, and you could tell he was getting ants in his pants by the last 15 minutes. Regardless, it seemed like an eventuality that the Red Devils would eventually score, and leave it to someone like Giggs to put us over the top.
|
Posted by Tom on 02/11/2009
Important win, no doubt. And God Bless Giggsy. Slick slick slick.
That said, it worries me that Ronaldo was sequestered so far out on the wing. Partly the job of some excellent Hammer defending, but partly tactical, no doubt. Is it just me, or is Chris not far better suited to whipping them into the bottom corner from central positions than whipping in crosses from touchline oblivion?
And who painted targets on Berbatov's ankles? With the hacking he took, the boy must be more blue than he is glum.
| |
Post your comment |
|
|
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.
RSS feed