Until today, I had never in my life seen a good game of football involving the 1992 Autoglass Trophy winners. A real see saw game saw for the third consecutive time, a farcical goal go in at the Scoreboard End. Peter Crouch forced a great save from David De Gea on 3 minutes before Jonny Evans attempted clearance deflected off Crouch’s shin and into the back of the net. When Van Persie equalised on 43 minutes, the relief around the ground could be touched. It didn’t last long. Two minutes later, Marko Arnautovic beat David De Gea on his near post from a free kick to De Gea’s right. Wayne Rooney was again immense today, he was busy and determined. Some United players didn’t have such a great game though. Jonny Evans and Phil Jones occasionally resembled Laurel and Hardy at the back, then we have Nani…(on doctors advice and some Mogadon , I’m leaving it there).
Today was one final blast of decent weather for this year before the light draws in and the departing masses leaving Old Trafford, begin to resemble a Lowry painting for six months. After last Sundays thrashing at City and the midweek joy of beating Liverpool, there was a lot of confidence going into Old Trafford today. Despite that defeat last week and the armageddon-esque rhetoric of forthcoming doom from some reds, United went into todays fixture trailing the league leaders by five points having now played Liverpool and City away as well as Chelsea at home. The widely agreed difficult start was out of the way and United were only five points off the pace and we all know, at this stage of the season, that’s nothing. There was only one problem with that assertion, West Brom hadn’t read the script.
Liverpool, having won the League after beating United at Anfield just under four weeks ago, have done what all teams do who win the title early and gone sloppy. Having lost at home to Southampton on Saturday just passed, tonight they lost at Old Trafford with a team that included the return of Bram Stoker’s favourite Uruguayan and also skipper, Steven ‘sussudio’ Gerrard. Prior to tonight’s match, a sizable amount of coaches carrying Liverpool fans entered Old Trafford from Trafford Park Road. Almost every single one of them had Liverpool fans banging furiously on the windows shouting all kinds of incomprehensible but clearly very excitable rhetoric. Once off the coach and mingling towards the turnstiles for the upper tier of the Scoreboard End, they weren’t quite as forthcoming. About forty five minutes before kick off however, I could clearly hear the Munich song being sung loudly on the corner of Trafford Park Road and Warwick Road by what was to my eyes, a firm of about 30/40 young Liverpool fans whom were obviously ‘up for it’. How they managed to get so close to the ground and evade the attention of both the local police and some of United’s more ‘lively’ fans is a mystery to me. Inside the ground, just before Luis Suarez hit the bar on 74 minutes, a Liverpool fan threw a live distress flare into the K Stand. I know plenty of reds who were unhappy about being placed under the scousers for tonights match. After the rarely reported but notorious incident at the FA Cup game at Anfield in 2006 where a plastic cup loaded with excrement was thrown onto United fans by Liverpool fans in the upper tier of the Anfield Road, I don’t blame them. I know that United fans are not perfect, only a one eyed fool would think so but bearing in mind that United have had ticket allocations slashed at Anfield for comparatively spurious reasons, after what happened tonight, I think it’s time United did the same to Liverpool for the League game that’s due to be played in March. I’m aware that strictly speaking, distress flares shouldn’t be lit in football grounds. Personally, they don’t really bother me but it is bang out of order when they get thrown indiscriminately at opposition fans in the tier below, no matter who’s playing who.
Liverpool fans about to launch a distress flare down into the K Stand (Photo courtesy of Rob Mager)
Liverpool fans about to launch a distress flare down into the K Stand (Photo courtesy of Rob Mager)
Such is the feeling of anti climax when United get a corner nowadays that when Kolo, Kolo-Kolo, Kolo-Kolo, Kolo-Kolo Toure conceded a soft corner into the Stretford Paddock on 46 minutes, I was expecting it to hit the first available Liverpool player before being cleared harmlessly. That was also the feeling around me in the K stand. When the angry, confused and most definitely revitalised Wayne Rooney found Continue reading A Very Welcome Dose Of Morphine – Manchester 25th of September 2013
On Saturday the 8th of November 1986 in front of a crowd of 13,545 at the Manor Ground, Alex Ferguson took control of his first United match, an abject 2-0 defeat to Oxford United. There have been many 2-0 defeats United have suffered since that day. There were enough bad defeats in his first four years. It was a period so turbulent in United’s history that it is to the credit of the much maligned chairman Martin Edwards, that United kept faith with Ferguson when a lot of people on the Old Trafford terraces were calling for his dismissal. For all the 2-0 defeats and other such crazy results in Sir Alex Ferguson time as United’s manager, he’d never been involved in a 5-5 draw, it was fitting really that Sir Alex’s time as United manager concluded with a game that encapsulated so brilliantly the great and not so great of his time as United manager. Before yesterday, the last time United had drawn a match 5-5 was in November 1895 when as Newton Heath, they recorded that score against Lincoln City at Bank Street in Clayton during A.H.Albut’s reign.
Celebrating reds on the scaffolding on Deansgate (Photo courtesy of Sarah Moss)
Whilst there was no real feeling of trepidation, there was a real feeling of there being the end of an era at Old Trafford yesterday. It was no great surprise that Sir Alex Ferguson had decided to retire as United manager but the way the news broke on Tuesday, through the medium of Twitter was a typically cack handed way that United handle media matters. By sheer coincidence, the revelation of Wayne Rooney’s second transfer request in three years came out the following day. With the announcement of Ferguson’s retirement and in recognition of the era ending implications of Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement, United put a defiant montage up on the front of the Scoreboard End (shown below) which was dripping in unintended irony. Wayne Rooney was at the fore of the image, the likelihood of him being part of that continuation is hanging in the balance. We all know that David Moyes will become United manager from July 1st, that’s the same David Moyes who succesfully sued Wayne Rooney for libel in 2008. The image was hastily taken down overnight from the East Stand so when United’s Champions parade commenced, the image had in great Stalinist fashion, vanished Continue reading What More Could We Ask For – Manchester 13th of May 2013
