Finally, an away win! (vs West Brom)

By: Shaun | January 1st, 2011
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A new year and a chance to leave behind the less than impressive away form so far this season. We managed to come away with a 2-1 win against West Brom in the first match of the new year. Only our second away win this season. Couple of impressions:

1.Gary Neville no longer inspires any kind of confidence. In fact, I groaned when I saw the team sheet and true enough, he was exposed time and time again – both in terms of his lack of pace and his poor positioning. I appreciate everything he’s done for the team over the years, but he should know by now that his playing career (at United anyway) is done. We were extremely lucky to not be down to 10 men after Neville clipped Dorrans inside the box. If Chris Foy had gotten it right, we would have had to play undermanned for slightly over an hour and West Brom were clearly bossing the game. Would the result have been different? Probably.

2.The honest truth is that aside from the first 5 minutes and another 10-15 minute spell in the 2nd half, West Brom looked the better side by a country mile. We were extremely poor in possession and couldn’t string together a succession of passes. To put things into perspective, we’ve essentially been outplayed by West Brom the last 3 halves we’ve played them (the 2nd half of our last meeting with them and the whole match today). Credit to West Brom and Roberto di Matteo because they played well (minus the horrendous marking for our second goal), but we were also incredibly poor by our usually high standards.

3.The poor play by our midfield reminded me of England’s performance at the World Cup where the play was crying out for someone who could control the tempo and pass the ball around with conviction and accuracy. Scholes would have been the answer both in the summer and today. But as we all know, he isn’t even close to being young anymore and how many more times can he be convinced to sign those one-year extensions?

4.We looked incredibly sluggish today. Obertan in particular looked hesitant and made poor decisions on more than one occasion. But it really isn’t fair to single him out for criticism as the team as a whole were not up to par. Maybe it’s the congestion in the schedule? Too much partying over the Christmas/New Year period? Even Vidic/Rio who have been so commanding at the back were caught out of position a few times today and were generally unable to deal with long balls from West Brom.

5.West Brom really deserved more from the game. Assuming the ref had gotten his decisions correct, they would have had a penalty and a man advantage. And then, when correctly awarded a penalty in the 2nd half, Odemwingie missed that wide. To compound their misery, they completely missed their assignments on the corner from which Chicharito headed in our winner.

6.Chicharito may best be suited to that supersub role as opposed to a place in the starting 11. He comes on and brings instant energy and running at defenses that would have already had a good 45-60 minutes of mileage in their legs.

7.Rooney finally gets his goal. What a great way to start the new year! However, his limping off the field with an ankle injury only to run back on when he realized that we were out of substitutions was not a good sign in general. Hopefully, it’s nothing serious. And if it was, why did no one stop him from running out again? We were already shifting out formation to play the last 5 minutes with no one forward. Heart of a lion indeed. At least, it wasn’t his right ankle.

8.Fabio needs to get more game time (over Neville preferably). His defending and tackles reminded me of his brother’s defending when he first started getting a run of games. Poorly timed, full blooded, and usually the wrong decision. As with his brother, we can (hopefully) expect that part of his game to develop through game time and experience.

9.Fletcher does not work as a right midfielder. He may be positioned out there, but he provides no width whatsoever. Nani needs to come back pronto. Maybe South Korea lose early (unlikely) and we get Park back sooner than expected? More realistically, we recall Cleverley and give him a chance out on the wings.

Overall, not the kind of performance I was hoping to start the year. But 3 points nonetheless. As Rio himself said, we were lucky to win the game. “I don’t care how we win. Ideally we’d like to play well, but in these situations when you’re not playing at your best, the most important thing is to get the three points and go back to Manchester happy.”

Some Related Man United Posts:Not again?!?! (v West Brom)The return of Rooney (vs Wigan)Perfect ending to a tumultuous week (vs Stoke)The Berba Show pt 2 (feat Blackburn)Giving thanks
Category: Chicharito, English Premier League, Manchester United, Match Reports, Wayne Rooney Tags: Chicharito, Darren Fletcher, English Premier League, Gary Neville, Manchester United, Match Reports, Premiership, Wayne Rooney
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