RoM Reaction To Blackburn Victory

By the time the final whistle blew today I was wondering when United were going to get started. That’s the measure of Champions isn’t it, being able to win when still in first gear? Well that’s all fine and well but with Chelsea and Arsenal building up their goal differences each week, we could do with battering the teams we totally outplay. And that’s what happened today. We totally outplayed Blackburn because like their fans, the players just didn’t show up today. We’re just down the road, where were all their fans? I swear we had more in the away end at the bloody Luzhniki in Moscow the other day!

Still, we carved out several good chances today and Gabriel Obertan will be holding his head in his hands when he watches Match of the Day tonight, christ! I was too busy celebrating his goal before realising he hadn’t even got it on target. Dreadful miss but an encouraging start in his home début. He used his pace to beat his opponent down the left wing, something I wish Nani had done more of. I still stand by my defence of Nani but I wish he would make my life easier! I don’t mean that he was dreadful, because he wasn’t, he was fine. But he can be so much better. The ball would come to him in space and our attacking players would be racing forward and Nani would have a little jog. Come on, you’re one of the fastest players in the whole squad, you’ve got brilliant feet, bloody run at that left back!

Michael Carrick had a surprising game today. His passing wasn’t good enough, again, but he was sticking the boot in a lot more usual and winning challenges I wouldn’t have fancied him for. We’ve got to be looking at him to replace the creativity of Scholesy in the centre of the park and since signing him, he’s shown he’s more than capable to fulfil that role. But this season he’s been so below par. He missed a cracking opportunity to play Rooney in during the first half but he bottled it and went for the wide ball instead.

Will the Stretford End please stop telling Anderson to shooooooooot. The one chance he did take today was woeful and even brought about chuckles from the crowd. You have to wonder about him shitting on Fabregas when you see goals like the one Cesc scored today. Will Anderson ever score a goal like that for us? I would settle for him hitting the target to be honest! All in all he had a good game though and his ball to Wayne Rooney for the goal was absolutely perfect.

Rooney had a quiet game and didn’t do too much to impress. His problem is he thinks of things other players don’t even dream about which means he tries stupid balls which don’t always work. But I suppose that’s something that sets him apart from so many other players because when it does work, it’s sublime. He took his goal really well though so I hope that is just warming him up for Chelsea next weekend. When is Colleen going to pop by the way? Would you let him off the baby rocking celebration if it came after putting the ball past Petr Cech?

Dimitar Berbatov, you are a genius. With every magical goal you score I look around to try and find the fans who were grumbling and complaining about you. How many other players in this league would have scored that goal? It was a half-chance at best and he turned it in to an unstoppable effort. Keep it coming please Berb.

Evans and Wes put in a good performance in the centre to give the manager a headache for our next match. Whilst Blackburn didn’t attack our box in a traditional sense, they opted for set pieces from every freekick they won, whether it was outside our box or theirs. How bizarre to see a goalkeeper pumping the ball in to the box from a freekick their team won for offside! Still, none of those balls posed any problem for Van der Sar because our defence dealt with it. Still the only team not to concede from a set piece. Really, it’s unbelievable isn’t it?

I’m saving the best until last though. Antonio Valencia was my man of the match. The two goals he’s got under his belt have really added to his confidence and whilst having the weaker full-back to support his runs, he really posed a threat to the Blackburn defence. He’s still not the finished product and I think we’ve got a lot of improvement still to come, but he is running at defenders and taking on two at a time and it’s great to see.

So, not a great performance but it was good enough to get the three points. Do we have it in us to raise our game a few levels to get a result against Chelsea? Well, we have to and I’m relying on the return of Ryan Giggs and Darren Fletcher to help us with that.