Quick Reactions To Victory Over Fulham...

1. Well done Luis Nani, our player of the season. That’s an incredible 18 assists and 9 goals from 28 games. He’s an irritating little so and so and I find myself shouting at him to get up on a weekly basis, but this guy is so talented and if we’re lifting the title in May, it’s largely down to his efforts. He took on a couple of players to set up Berbatov for the first before making a mug of Mark Schwarzer for the second, dribbling past him before selflessly setting up Antonio Valencia to make it 2-0 with half an hour played.
2. Dimitar Berbatov put in another fantastic home performance for us, scoring his 17th goal in the last 13 home games for United. He was involved in the build up for our first goal before dispatching the finish himself and particularly in the first half, put in a great shift. He also should have an assist to his name, after knocking the ball one side of the defender before running around the other, then putting it on a plate for Anderson, who put his effort miles wide.
3. I had been looking forward to seeing Ando returning to the starting line-up, believing the injection of energy in the centre of the park would be a benefit. It was his first game back so I’m not going to be too critical but his passing was a disappointment as was his performance in front of goal. Obviously the goals he scored against City’s Reserves went to his head but by now he should have come to the realisation he can’t shoot, so should pass to the player in a better position who can. Paul Scholes’ passing was great though and was summed up when he just appeared to smack the ball as hard as he could up in the air and it travelled 40 yards to the toe of Antonio Valencia. Gibson was fine. Didn’t have his shooting boots on but played some good balls forward and made some tackles. Nothing great, nothing awful, so pretty much fitted in to the standards our midfield have set this season.
4. Whilst I’ve already talked about Nani, it has to be noted how great it is to have two proper wingers on the pitch. Valencia has come back at just the right time and can make all the difference to not just whether we win a trophy or not, but how many trophies we win. He’s so strong, fast and confident on the ball. He loves to take on the full-backs and was in the right place at the right time to put us 2-0 up.
5. The second half was a dull affair and although the points never looked at risk, we didn’t look much like adding to the goals tally either. We’re at that time in the season when the points are the most important thing though, particularly with huge games against Chelsea and City ahead. If we can make eight changes to the side that played at Stamford Bridge and beat the 11th best team in the country easily, that says an awful lot about our quality.
6. Anyone else going to miss Kuszczak? Bizarrely, he chose the day before the game to do an interview claiming that he would be leaving at the end of the season, with these comments published on the day of the game. He has a very high opinion of himself if he believes he needs to be making these sort of remarks at this point in the season. He then went on to be selected to start the game and completed just 37% of his attempted passes. Best of luck at your next club PIG.