Babel’s Bobble

By: Simon James | September 14th, 2008

As a Manchester United fan there is nothing much worse than losing to Liverpool. Even St£vie G and Carragher’s sulky countenances were lifted to unfamiliar grins for half an hour after the game (before, of course, their houses were burgled again for the fourth time that day). Rafa gave a wide-eyed and incredulous interviews stating that Liverpool were now serious title contenders, all the while trying to convince himself of the fact at the same time. All contributed to a very sad day for the Red half of Manchester. The only thing to console us was Berbatov and Tevez looking pretty sharp and Ferdinand being a beacon in the midst of a mediocre and mistake ridden performance.

In truth, Liverpool were well worth their win. Make sure you head on over to the Liverpool Offside to offer your congratulations, CSD is doing a fine job over there by the looks of it. They battled hard and were strong in the tackle, they closed down space quickly and harried United in possession. And United didn’t like it on little bit. It was the first time I have seen United physically rattled in a long time. A leader was very much lacking on the day and the 4-3-3 formation did not work when Liverpool worked out that the front three could be harried into losing ball and the back four and midfield were hell-bent on self destruction from 30 minutes onwards. Although Liverpool deserved their win, it had to be Babel, a wide player (Rafa take note), that scuffed in from a mistake to crown a pig of a day. To cap it all, Vidic deserved to go as it was a dangerous lunge, I don’t expect him to start against Villarreal.

However, I do expect one Cristiano Ronaldo to play some part in the first game of our Champion’s League defence. Will he be the same? Will he have one eye on the transfer window? How will the fans react? Will they still love him? All these questions answered and more on Wednesday, which, thank the lord, is another day.

PS Thanks for all the comments from my last post, it’s good to be here, let me know how you want me to retort!