Man United and Man City met at Old Trafford today in what was a clash of two in-form sides. It was expected to be a fairly tight, hotly contested affair with little margin for error. It turned out quite different, in a match in which Carlos Tevez made a huge statement towards Alex Ferguson regarding his future at the club.

City, off the back of three wins in a row were expected to provide stiff competition for United but were very disappointing. United controlled the game from start to finish and came out convincing winners.

City started well but couldn’t make any chances as they settled into the game. United quickly earned a foothold in the game and began to pull the strings. City’s midfield had possession in good positions but good marking and tackling from the United midfield and the defence prevented any danger. United got the goal they deserved in the eighteenth minute after a free-kick was awarded for Ireland’s foul on a much-improved Berbatov. Ronaldo (who else?) stepped up to take it and pounded it past a wrong-footed Shay Given in the Citizens’ goal. It appeared to take a touch off Nigel de Jong but no one could take the goal away from Ronaldo.

Carlos Tevez, who earlier today spoke of his inevitable departure from Old Trafford played a cracker of a game. He posed a great threat at all times and of course, did his usual running. He came very close to doubling United’s lead during the first half, as he shimmied on the edge of the box and curled a beauty of a shot towards Shay Given’s goal. It was just a few inches off as it clattered back off the upright. They say you can’t hold a good man down and they were right, as in the forty-fifth minute Tevez gathered the ball on the edge of the box – after great control and a neat pass from Berbatov – took a touch and swung an unstoppable shot past the City ‘keeper. This one, too, hit the post but thankfully it nestled into the net. Tevez celebration was one of great intent, reminiscent of Beckham’s against Chelsea many moons ago, as he ran to the middle of the pitch with his hands cocking his ears up. It was clearly intended at Alex Ferguson but it remains to be seen if the Scot takes any notice of it.

After having a good game, Cristiano Ronaldo was taken off in the sixtieth minute. It was obviously a move to rest the Portuguese winger but he wasn’t happy; throwing the training top to the ground and sitting with a scowl on his face for the remainder of the match. Not nice to see at the time but good to see a player that passionate about playing.

Rooney and Scholes made late appearances and steadied the match, calming the tone down for the remainder of the game. Aside from Berba and Tevez’ great performances Darren Fletcher was great today. He completely nullified the City threat from midfield and as usual tracked back, it was, if anything, a sign of what we could be missing in Rome later this month. In light of all of this though, my man of the match has to be the brilliant Carlos Tevez.

So United ran out easy 2-0 winners today, in a match that was as easy as it appears. City were blunt, ineffective and seemed like a tired side. United, in contrast, looked like a side determined to finish the season in barnstorming fashion and if they keep playing like this they will.

Up next for united is Wigan on Wednesday at the JJB and Arsenal on Saturday at old Trafford. Four points from those two games and the title is once again ours, not much motivation needed, eh?

Man Utd vs Man City – Match Highlights

Wow! The only word I could say for the first hour after tonight’s match. Then the elation sank in as I realised what had just occurred before my eyes.

What’s that they always say about champions winning games when they don’t play well? That’s quite fitting in my opinion. We were pretty awful today. A bit better than against Fulham but that’s not saying much. It was a strange day with all of us knowing that a win was needed, not only to take back the lead in the title race, but also to curb this slide of form and get back on the horse, so to speak.

We took the lead after a silly back-pass from Milner to Friedel. Giggs laid it off to Ronaldo who curled into the back of the net. Villa had a man at the back post, but that man was Nicky Shorey, who’s quite small, so he had no real chance of reaching it.

After our goal however, Villa came storming back into the match. They equalized through John Carew who headed in a wonderful cross from Villa captain Gareth Barry. Villa looked really up for this game adn well deserved the lead when they took it, just short of the hour mark. A neat cross from Carew to Gabby Agbonlahor was headed in past VDS by the Vila youngster.

At this point, me and may mates (who were watching the match with me) were fuming, as I’m sure all other Man Utd fans were. I was especially fuming with Ron, whose dicking around gave Villa the ball for their second goal. But, United kept on chugging along, knowing that a goal was needed out of somewhere.

Ronaldo got his second of the game in the 80th minute when he shot from outside the box into the bottom corner. It wasn’t a great connection on the ball but that helped it, as the ball spun away from Friedel into the net. Game on. We all knew that this game was never going to end as a draw. One of these teams would win it, because so much was at stake for both teams.

Time ticked on, and both teams attacked with little result. Just as the injury time was being announced, I said that I didn’t expect there to be much, as there hadn’t been huge delays. But somehow, the ref plucked five minutes out his ass and it was announced. Sweet. Five minutes is a lot of time, and as it turned out more than we needed.

In the 93rd minute, a young man called Federico Macheda, who’d come on not long before and had had some nice touches throughout, was passed the ball at the edge of the box by Giggsy. Macheda backheeled the ball into his path and as he was falling launched the sweetest of shots into the far corner, just past Friedel. 3-2!

What a fucking goal! What an important goal! What a comeback! What a result!

After the Scousers scored a last minute winner at Fulham, we needed to win. And thanks in no small part to the seventeen year old Macheda, we did.

And a funny wee note, thanks to the Liverpool supporters who left some nice comments on my last post during the match. Just to say, probably shouldn’t taunt a team until you know they’ve lost, ‘cos you just look a bit silly when we’re back on top of the EPL.

A huge step towards winning our third EPL in a row, and equalling ‘Pool’s record. Can you smell it? We’re close. This win will be huge for belief, and shows that even with a depleted squad we have something worthwhile waiting in the wings. Take a bow, Federico Macheda.

Oh, and look at this, how could I forget?

(Photo of Macheda by Matthew Peters/Manchester United via Getty Images)

Very short. We lost 2-0 to Fulham at Craven Cottage.

Scholes sent off for deliberate handball, Danny Murphy scored from the penalty. Berbatov had probably his worse match ever for us, the kind of display that makes you think he’s not worth €1, never mind €30M.

Ronaldo was awful, some typical petulance towards officials and the type of display that reaffirms the notion that Messi is undeniably the best player in the world.

Rooney came on in the second half, made a real difference. Made chances and United should have scored two, Ronaldo missed a free header and Park had a great chance saved, as did Rooney. Schwarzer had a great game.

United showed fight but no bite in the second half. Then Zoltan Gera scored in the dying minutes after United brought O’Shea off for Tevez, leaving us with three at the back. Rooney had got booked for a cynical foul on Dacourt in the middle of the second half and then got his second yellow for throwing away the ball.

Finished 2-0 to Fulham. United finish with nine men.

Disgraceful. These pieces of shit are earning 100 times more than they deserve; no effort, fuck all heart, seemingly no pride in the badge.

These guys better buck themselves up if they want to win this title because at the moment they don’t deserve it.

(Photo by Getty Images)

We lost 1-4 at home today to the Scousers. It was a game with calamity after calamity with every one of Liverpool’s goals (except Dossena’s cracker) a direct result of a stupid United mistake. Vidic let the ball go past him and Torres drift in for the first goal. Evra uncharacteristically let the ball go past him instead of dealing with it before Gerrard stole the chase, only to be hacked down by the wee Frenchman. Liverpool’s third goal was from a free-kick; once again Vidic (who had his worse in a Utd shirt that I can remember) didn’t deal with the ball and Gerrard ran to close it down. Vidic, however, didn’t see this as an option. He came into contact with Gerrard with a tackle that would have been more at home at Murrayfield today than at OT. Maybe he thought getting a red card was worth not conceding again…Hmmmm…Not so lucky, he was sent off (for the second time this season against ‘Pool) and Fabio Aurelio knocked it an extraordinary free-kick.

Oh yeah, and United took the lead through a Ronaldo penalty after Reina dragged down Park. It was the one good thing Ronaldo did today, he was awful. So were most of United’s players; Roo was AWOL, Carrick off the boil, the only two players worth their salt today were Rio and Park who both worked their arses off for the ultimately fruitless cause. Most of those players out there should be ashamed of themselves for such a shambles of a ‘performance’.

So, a 1-4 defeat at home. Apparently our heaviest home defeat since New years Day 1992. There’s a bright side though, we’re still four points ahead with a game in hand. The title’s still in our hands.

Congratulations to Liverpool, they did well and ripped apart a Man Utd team who were out of sorts and appeared to be believing their own hype. They deserved their win and were ruthless in claiming it.

Just thinking though, what sorta odds will I get on Liverpool losing to Villa next weekend at Anfield?

I’ll think I’ll put some money on it.

(Photos: PA Photos)

So the date was Sunday, March 1. The place was Wembley Stadium. The time was…emmmm…well it was about 2pm, I’m not quite sure though because I slept in until 3.30pm. Thankfully, I re-watched the match and am now up to speed on the events of the match.

Let’s face it, United were expected to win. To Spurs, this was basically just a glimmer of sweet, brief relief in what’s been an awful season. But for what was billed as a one-sided encounter it was very close. United had the better of the start of the match with Rio and Michael Carrick wannabe Darren Gibson (I’m still not convinced about him) coming close with long range shots. Spurs, however came more into the game and were looking the more threatening as the first half ended. Aaron Lennon had a good first half, making nice runs here and there with only his final ball being poor, prompting Andy Gray to consistently say that if he sorted out his crossing he’d be world-class. I mean, Andy Gray was saying this every time Lennon hit the ball. I almost started to believe it by the end of the first half. Thankfully though, this train of thought was interrupted by the half time ads, phew!

As usual, the second half followed half time. This half started much like the first with United threatening early on with Spurs coming more and more into the match. The standout performer in this half was undoubtably Ben Foster. The goalkeeper, playing in only his seventh United game had a cracking second half making many a vital save. United threatened on a fairly regular basis too, with Evra coming very close with a beautifully struck half-volley that just went over the bar. I very nearly thought we had won the match in the last minute of injury time when Ronaldo, making a run in from the right, struck a beautiful shot against the inside of Heurelho Gomes’ post, Nani could only tepidly strike the rebound wide. The main talking point of the second half however was another incident involving Ronnie. As Ronaldo made a run into the box he knocked the ball ahead of himself, as he reached to get it he was fouled by Spurs captain Ledley King. It looked like a stone cold penalty but somehow the ref thought that Ronaldo had dived and gave him a yellow card, much to his astonishment.

Extra-time ensued and it was all United. Spurs looked knackered and were content with slowing down the game. In the end it got to the stage where penaties looked inevitable, and were.

I’m not going to go into depth about the penalties aside from saying that Spurs didn’t look confident taking penalties and United did. See the penalties here.

Anyway, United won thanks largely to the magnificent Ben Foster; making a good save from O’Hara’s penalty and many previous to that.

One thing I noticed from the celebrations was, not only the happiness (obviously) but the team looked really focused, even in celebration. I got the feeling that they really see this as the start of something great. And so do I…

Man Utd v Spurs – Carling Cup – Highlights

Sorry for my ridiculous absence on here lately. The guys here at the The Offside know the reason and have been great guys, seriously. But I thought the fitting time for me to return to the Man Utd blog was now.

After a fairly poor (okay, terrible) first half performance against Bolton from the boys in red, they pulled out all the stops and…wait…What? Bad second half performance too? Are you sure? Really? Okay.

So we sucked pretty much in the second half too, but the main reason we are considered the favourites for the title is that although we played very badly we still came away with an incredibly important victory against a tough bottom-half team. Watch a tape of the match Rafa, that’s why you put your best team out, no EPL game is easy.

Did Fergie leave Berba and Tevez on the bench in favour of Danny Wellbeck? No. He knew what was at stake and put his best team out. Saying that, he was about to sub Carlitos just before he set up Berba’s goal.

But as the title of this post suggests, we are now back on top of the EPL, the first time we’ve been there since the end of last season. A long time, no doubt, but it’s all about who’s there at the end, not at the beginning. All hats off to Bolton who were very good today. They stood strong and put the game to Vidic and co., but as they did against Arsenal, they stepped back in the last 10 minutes and paid the ultimate price. Once again, Jonny Evans was incredible and the guy really looks like not only one for the future, but one for right now.

So, back on the summit. Noses are dry. Sure the air is less dense up here, but United are used to that. Vidic doesn’t even need oxygen to live.

Champions League, Group Stage
Parkhead, Glasgow
Celtic 1 -1 Man Utd

Some may think the headline sounds over-dramatic but I was so incredibly frustrated throughout the entire 90 minutes of the match at Parkhead it was unreal. It was one of those nights that happens to Man Utd once every one or two seasons in the Champions League. They go a goal down (in this case courtesy of Scott McDonald’s sublime 14th minute volleyed lob) and throughout the rest of the match attempt to fight back without great success. But although more often than not Man Utd do equalize, I’m always left with the feeling that a draw could and really, really should have been a win. Most will be happy with a draw, as we were so close to defeat. But seriously, these results do feel like defeats.

From the start of the match Man Utd had a lack of creativity. This was in no small part down to the fact that Patrice Evra, Anderson, Wayne Rooney and Dimitar Berbatov were rested on the bench with one eye firmly fixed on Saturday’s win against Arsenal. Tevez played up front, with Giggsy just behind him, while Ronaldo played on the right wing. Throughout this match, there seemed to be no lack of effort from Utd, but for the first time in a while I saw a real lack of dynamism and fluency. Apart from Scott McDonald’s opener, there were no real moments of merit in the first half. In the second half, Berba was brought on but there was still no fluency. Some of Berba’s linking with John O’Shea was off and it was so annoying to watch. When Evra and Rooney came on for Rafael and an annoyed Tevez respectively things improved. As you’d expect Evra spent his evening parading up the wing either with or in chase of the ball. While Rooney had some nice shots and even in the cauldron of Parkhead seemed very cool and calm. Man Utd spent the entire evening either knocking in poor crosses to the heads of McManus and co. or giving the ball to Ronaldo to shoot.

He was going nowhere with his shots but thankfully, he didn’t give up, surprise surprise, eh? He received the ball about 30 yards out and rifled a shot at Boruc, it was a rasping shot but one that you’d have expected Boruc to catch, instead he punched the ball down and Giggs jogged in to nod the ball into the net in the 83rd minute. From there on in Utd piled on even more pressure and although most peeps will be happy with a draw, many will be disappointed as Berba missed a shot from 6 yards out in the dying seconds.

Still, a draw at Parkhead is never a bad result but a win would have been great, and would have booked our place in the next 16. Disappointing though. Giggs later admitted that Utd should have won the match.

You can watch highlights on Taylor’s post here.

Team Line-Ups

CELTIC: Boruc; Hinkel, Caldwell, McManus, Wilson; Hartley, Brown, Robson, Maloney (O’Dea 76); McDonald (Hutchinson 82), Sheridan (Donati 64).
Subs not used: Brown, Naylor, Caddis, Nakamura.

MANCHESTER UNITED: Foster; Rafael Da Silva (Evra, 66), Ferdinand, Vidic, O’Shea; Ronaldo, Fletcher, Carrick, Nani (Berbatov, 46); Giggs, Tévez (Rooney, 71).
Subs not used: Kuszczak, Evans, Anderson, Park Ji Sung.
Bookings: Nani.

Champions League, Group Stage
Old Trafford, Manchester
Man Utd 3 – 0 Celtic

It had been billed the ‘Battle of Britain’ but in truth it couldn’t have been further from a battle. Whereas WBA put up stern resistance in the first half at Old Trafford on Saturday, Celtic never really looked like troubling United, who dominated from start to finish and really should have scored more.

We all knew that Patrice Evra was ruled out and John O’Shea took his place. What surprised me slightly was seeing Gary Neville start ahead of Rafael, who’s really impressed me lately. However, it’s probably a good idea to pace the lad and give him glimpses of big-stage football at the moment.

Gary Caldwell had Celtic’s first and only real chance of the game, before Berba continued his rich vein of form in the CL with a 30th minute goal. Video replays showed however that he was offside. Daz Fletcher then had a golden opportunity. The ball was sprayed towards the box and fell kindly to his feet. From just a few yards out, and with the whole goal to aim at he lost his composure and blazed it over Boruc’s goal. Towards the end of the second half United began to play some lovely one-touch football with Berba, Rooney and Ronaldo linking up beautifully on a few occasions.

The second half was even more one-way traffic as United began to pull the strings. Anderson and Nani, along with the the front 3 played some great stuff, knocking the ball around and making Celtic look like a underage school team. Saying that, the Bhoys did cause an occasional threat but nothing that wasn’t handled well by Vidic and the mature beyond his years Evans. Berba made it 2-0 after a rebound from a Ronaldo free-kick but again, he appeared to be was offside. Rooney had had a wonderful game, and he wasn’t going to let his good run finish here. In the 76th minute he received a pass from Tevez, he took a step back from the edge of the box and calmly but firmly placed a lovely shot into Boruc’s bottom right-hand corner.

All in all, United gave Celtic a masterclass in football. United have had a slow start to the season but are really starting to kick on now, especially with Berba and Rooney appearing to be in great form. Following this fantastic display I can see them going from strength to strength.

Team Line-Ups

MANCHESTER UNITED: Van der Sar; Neville (Brown 60), Vidic, Evans, O’Shea; Ronaldo (Park 82), Anderson, Fletcher, Nani; Berbatov (Tevez 60), Rooney.
Subs not used: Kuszczak, Giggs, Rafael, Gibson.

CELTIC: Boruc; Wilson, Loovens, Caldwell, McManus, Naylor; Nakamura (Hartley 62), S Brown, Robson (Maloney 62), McGeady; McDonald (Sheridan 76).
Subs not used: Brown, Hinkel, Donati, O’Dea.
Bookings: Loovens.

*Carlos Tevez keeps Man Utd on target — [The Telegraph]

*Fear of failure fires United, says Hughes — [The Daily Mail]

*Last-gasp Tevez saves United blushes — [The Independent]

*Touch of Tevez takes United to the brink — [The Observer]

*Carlos Tevez brings the prize into view for Manchester United — [The Times]

In my opinion, if holding Man Yoo to a draw at home, is a result worth celebrating – then you are not a big club. Except in the minds of your myopic supporters.

United might come to regret these dropped points. After taking the lead – we should have kicked on, and finished the game off.

But Newcastle equalized – and won the “we drew at home to Man Yoo Cup”. Well done Geordies!