What A Difference 15 Mins & A Bad Decision Makes…

By: Wayne Farry | April 25th, 2009

Today, we hosted Spurs at Old Trafford. Liverpool won earlier today at Hull and Chelsea beat West Ham today too. So, the pressure was back on.

The first twenty five minutes of the match was alright, two teams going back and forth between each others boxes with no clear cut chances at either end. But then, in the space of three minutes Spurs scored two goals. First off, Lennon played the ball back to Vedran Corluka and from the right he crossed it in, it went over Nemanja’s head and landed at Darren bent, it hit him and he composed himself to knock it past VDS, 0-1. Two minutes later we saw a literal carbon copy of Porto’s final goal at OT a few weeks back. A chipped cross from the right drifted over the heads of the defender and with the right-back (I’m looking at you, Rafael!) out of position, Modric took a touch and put it past VDS, 0-2.

We reacted with very little in the remainder of the first half. But Dear Lord, Sir Alex must have had two or three hairdryers on the go at half-time. United came out a team with more vigour, more pace but sadly, little more invention. but then, on the fifty fifth minute a pass was played through to Carrick, he was one-on-one with Gomes, tried to take it passed him but was ‘brought down’, except he wasn’t. Craig Burley went on about this for ages on Setanta but he was mostly right; Gomes got the ball, no doubt. But I’m not one to argue with referees so when Mr. Webb awarded the penalty I didn’t say a word (not that he would have heard me from my living room). Ronaldo scored and the comeback was on.

Then just a few minutes later, with United looking like themselves again, a ball was played through to Roo who outran the defender and as he typically does, knocked it in at the near post, with more than a little help from Heurelho Gomes. Then within a few minutes Roo once again received the ball on the left wing, he took a touch, looked and swung a high cross into Ron who scored with a diving header. He then preceded to celebrate by taking his jersey off and throwing it into the crowd, which he was booked for.

Minutes later, the roles were reversed as Ronaldo chipped a nice ball to the back post where Roo was, he took a touch and slotted it towards goal. It came off Gomes, crept towards goal, slipped under Woodgate, and eventually went over the line but not before calls of “scrummage” from me and a mate who had hoped a riot of some kind would break out.

Then, to put the final, lazy and lanky nail in the coffin, Rooney once again became provider with a nice cross to Berba, who after having his header saved, showed that although he can’t score from twelve yards he can certainly score from three.

So it finished 5-2 to United and we’re back on top. An awful first-half display but the second half was easily the best we’ve played all season.