At half time, I said to myself, it's one of those days where we will be on the winning side. It had that feeling I suppose where we will get something out of this game. It feels like the Blackpool game. I'm not worried, I'm not concerned. I'm positively hopeful and that's it.
We were two goals down to West Ham United at Upton park last Saturday courtesy to two silly penalties conceded by our left back and central defender. It was laughable. We probably didn't deserve to be losing that much inside the first 30 minutes but they caught us off-guard on the counter-attack on both occasions so we only had ourselves to blame for some ghastly defending. Then, on either side of half-time, we were lucky not to have Vidic sent off on two occasions; one for a last man bringing down the attacker for which he only got yellow carded for that and after the interval, a mis-timed challenge that definitely warranted a second yellow. That was the luck we needed. At that point, I was ready to take a draw still knowing, that a victory was very much on the cards.
West Ham tired as the game wore on and we got on our substitutes in Berbatov and Hernandez at the right times in the second half to add more energy and composure in front of goal to give ourselves a chance of stealing a vital victory right from our rival's noses. Rooney curled a beautiful free-kick just inside the right post to give us the initiative to press forward even more. He soon doubled his and United's tally by controlling Valencia's pass with a sublime first touch before placing his shot across the keeper and into the net. The pressure paid off ten minutes from time when Fabio did very well to first lob his marker on the bye-line, cut into the box before evading a tackle from Upson who when after he managed to pick himself up off the ground in time to block Fabio's lofted cross, in my opinion, destined for the the penalty spot with one of our players waiting to pounce at the end of it, literally handed the ball to us giving Wayne Rooney the chance to put West Ham to the sword. And he did so with ease, taking the pressure of us a little bit by abusing the camera. Hernandez calmed us down by adding a quick fourth. 4 goals in as little as 18 minutes made life a lot easier for us that evening as both Chelsea and Arsenal drew leaving United to enjoy some much needed breathing space at the top. I was relieved, happy, overcome with this feeling that I knew we could do it and do it, we did! Ahh... well done guys.
I'd seen it happen at Blackpool before and on other numerous occasions. the 5-3 come from behind victory against Spurs a while ago, 3-2 against Villa in 02, if I remember correctly. Anyway, the point is, we believed that we can always come out of adversity after making it very very difficult for ourselves. On most occasions, it happens to be within the same game! Good for us.
Bad for us is the fact that Rooney got a two match suspension for his little outburst which now rules him out for the Fulham game at home in the Premier League and the F.A. Cup semi-final clash against a resurgent Manchester City. Should he decide to appeal against that successfully, he'd only miss the league game. Should he fail, he'd get banned for an extra game which would see him sit out the the Newcastle game ( away ) in the league in addition to the first two he's already scheduled to miss out on. The only thing going for him having the ban reversed to a game is that he apologized almost immediately. I say its a good gamble to take. Ferguson and Rooney could enjoy watching these games from the stand while one chews gum and the other, flashes his evenly spaced out teeth which are brown in colour. Maybe he's better of at home cussing his luck, Taping himself doing that, and putting it onto YouTube, tagging the FA in it. That'll show 'em.
I feel that we're being victimized here a little and that's sad. But you know what, I say bring it on. We've not been at our best and the FA probably think that that's not enough to win the league and FA cup. So we'll have to pull a few rabbits from the hat, not to have a week or two of shortcomings.
I feel that we're being victimized here a little and that's sad. But you know what, I say bring it on. We've not been at our best and the FA probably think that that's not enough to win the league and FA cup. So we'll have to pull a few rabbits from the hat, not to have a week or two of shortcomings.
Its been a good start to the final third of the season. We've just about kept our heads above the water, while others have a lot of ground to make although they might still have a game or two in hand but we've got the points; that's most important. We're coming into good form at the right time. not peaked, and far from that I'd say. I don't think we can peak this season because of the injuries we've sustained this season and we're almost to the end of it but maybe, we can do just about enough to taste a bit of success in at least one out of three competitions, realistically speaking. Like I said before, I'm positively hopeful. It'll be a great end to our campaign if we can achieve something when everyone wrote us off for not having a the squad of yesteryears, strength in depth and bans to top it all off.
Come on United.
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