Manchester United indoors is one of those ones that inspires anxiety and blind hope in equal amounts.
It’s difficult to recall in recent times when we were better placed to give these bar stewards a going over. Unless of course you want to imagine a future occasion when we’d be able to field the boy Bale against them.
Raging Kaboul In A Chinashop returns from his non event head butt ban but I’d prefer to field Gallas. A&E, Sir Les and Generalissimo Begbie would make up the four. Of all the concerns I could have it’s the cold fear of conceding a penalty that niggles at me.
Younes and Benoît both have form for committing acts of daftness and the wide eyed, pleading to the Ref routine only serves to make me less understanding. Let’s hope Arry shows the challenge on Berbatov last week to the lads repeatedly until they get the message.
A midfield of VdV and Modders will provide the creativity. It’s anyone’s guess if Sgt Wilson will provide the bullish bite required to prevent us looking shorthanded when they break. Azza Blud on the wing and let’s hope he has an out and out flyer.
I’m fed up with 3MP. And this is unlikely to be a game that will yield dozens of chances. So when we get the ball I’d like to pass it to one of our strikers and not turn it into a 50/50 ball by hoofing it at his head. Or a few inches over his head.
Defoe and Crazingpavin’ for me and Crouch from the bench to ‘unlock’ them if all else fails. Defoe was pretty unforgiving in the Cup, but he’ll need to think about sharing the ball with Pav here because we ain’t playing Stevenage this afternoon.
Predictions?
I fully expect Sluralix play Wazza and The Rat Faced Baldgarian. Evra was supposedly removed from the training pitch by golf buggy today. That strikes me as some class of idiotic mind game (Christ! They’ve got golf buggies!) rather than a consideration to factor in. I expect him to start.
Scholes on the bench and Giggs to continue with his depressingly good twilight form.
I opened up whining about penalties yet to be conceded and I’ll close on fretting over Mike Dean’s ability to do a decent job and not let this be another one of ‘those games’ where we keep playing until United get the result they want.
So where’s the value?
United to lead at half time, full time the draw is 12/1. Pav to score anytime in a 2-2 draw is 18/1. Van der Vaart to score first an Spurs go in at half time 1-0 up is 13/1 all at Bet365 who’ll double any deposit you make up to £200 when you click dis > 
i love marmite,marge and muffins,lovely jubbly
why does no one ask harry about crouch,it gets boring banging on about it,but he is our main striker by the looks of things,i can’t be arsed to check how many appearances he has had in the league and he has got 1 goal
how the hell is that good and why doesn’t any journo ask the question
we won’t make CL with one upfront with that sort of goals return from your main man,i’d rather have an overpaid,selfish,arrogant stinking goon c*nt up there instead of crouch,that is how bad the problem is
i think pav or defoe should have got the second half today,crouch didn’t deserve 2 halves
On that show I’d be surprised if Pav wants to stay – arry didn’t deem him worthy despite the crouch “missed again” grinathon – tw*t.
Go on Daniel my son.
With Harry picking Crouch, I was amazed United didn’t take advantage of the extra man.
United clearly came to not lose and Spurs were inexplicably set up to not score. Crouch was anonymous for the vast majority of the game, hardly got a sniff and when he did… well.
A new striker would be fab.
See what I did there? Read some itk about Harry’s new no.1 target and got all cryptic like what POTL does!
There’s a lot of angry Utd fans on sky sports not happy with the reffereeing. Ah bless.. the irony makes my heart bleed!
Is this thread still open?
Went over the game again. Some things stood out.
4-4-1-1 did not work. Not just because Crouch was wanting in all aspects of play required by this system, but also because VdV did not fit in either (I’m talking about this one game, though it makes you wonder whether sticking with 4-4-2 isn’t better suited to our style and the talents of our squad). He does/did not have the vision of Modders, but that’s in some part due to his wanting to do it all by himself, a la Defoe.
The Hutton/Lennon axis did not deliver. Not that a RB has only to concern himself with feeding his RM (why can’t I say right wing?) but he should at least by now have established the sort of understanding that A&E and Baler have achieved. In fact, Lennon did not really come through. Whether Townshend would have (was he on the bench? I don’t think so) I was reminded of the truth of the saying: “a good big’un is better than a good littl’un.” If the youngster Rafael can thrive, having been given his chance, there’s no reason why Townshend cannot either. Hutton did well. His was the cross any three quarters decent striker would have buried – certainly Pav. would have – but there were times (four in particular which stood out) when a better understanding would have seen the Manure defence stretched on the right. When Hutton has the ball Lennon seems to hesitate. Is it worth zimming down the line? going down and in? what the heck should I do?
Not immediately to take advantage of Rafael’s first half yellow card was a grave error. Either way, by making him more cautious or by sucking him into a second yellow, we had everything to gain. The Hudd would have exploited that. What were ‘Arry’s instructions at half time?
We seemed at our least imaginative/effective in those last 16 minutes! Got in each other’s way in the box. Why can’t we set aside training periods to rehearse the correct tactics for such occasions? It is not the first time we have failed to take advantage of 11 on 10 men situations.
But, it’s all hindsight, armchair quarterbacking. I am proud of the lads. The back five made Berbi Doll and Roo Baby look ordinary, and in the first half especially a visitor from Mars would without hesitation have chosen us as the PL leaders and the Manure as fourth place hopefuls.
COYS, wherever you make your home!