Rasping Ratings & Raspberries

Hola,

Player ratings and after sleeping on it, I’m no more cheery about the tactics both on the pitch and off it. I understand it was ‘only’ the first game, but our team was more rested than United’s and with the exception of Modric we weren’t missing anyone we needed to do a better job.

The blunt reality is that for an hour or so the game could have gone either way, as bwin betting suggested. Then they scored and and we collapsed. The collapse came in the shape of poor tactics and an inability to concentrate. They scented blood.

But instead of doing the best with what we had, the pot shot tactics that had failed were repeated again and again.They tasted blood with the second goal and Rooney in particular was becoming visibly tetchy he hadn’t scored.

The net result of our dual substitutions was zip. The net result of Sluralix’s substitutions was to provide a more sophisticated foil for Wazza. Giggs was on a matter of minutes before he did what he was told to do.

I refuse to buy anything the Arry apologists are selling. That team, with those tactics last night wouldn’t have put 5 past Hearts. Our tactics were poor. So poor I struggled to work out what, beyond VdV taking pot shots, they actually were.

Friedel -Brad. Dammit Janet! He must be good, he conceded three and still Gomes’ days are sadly unnumbered rather than numbered. If Arry had given him a number it might at least given him some idea of when this humiliation might end.

Walker -We appear to have an ongoing pattern of players who get a bit Tom & Dick. Is this girly nerves, or are they simply not washing their hands after they have been to the toilet?

Dawson – Particularly unawesome this evening. I saw no Captain.

Kaboul – MOTM for the first have and ran out of steam in the second. He was steamless. We are paying these guys too much for them to buckle after an hour.

BAE – Assued stuff in the main. Was he told not to make any runs up field? Ah so that’ll answer that one then.

Lennon – Frail, vulnerable. Like a new born chick he pecked about a bit but largely he fell over and missed the security of his shell. We should sell him …to Venkys.

Kranjcar – It wasn’t Heart you see and under real pressure his touch was less sublime. That said, he was good. He’s a great player. Worth keepin and worth our respect.

Livermore – Ran his heart out and this was largely as he was doing most of our defending on his own. To that note he was a little out of his depth. He’s good stuff, but this was the deep end.

Van der Vaart – Great to see him all lithe and energetic, but less great to see such wasteful play, de Gea is a bit of  a wobbler – but all bar one of his shots at him were actually useless. Was this dumb greed or was he instructed?

Bale – Took a while to get into things and then decided he didn’t fancy it all that much after all. Which was a pity, we could have used him. It was big game.

Defoe – Looked right up for it. Like a dog chasing for scraps. Had his shot that hit the post gone in people wouldn’t be cursing him. Again.

Corluka – He calls his slow cooker ‘the microwave’.

Huddlestone – An abysmal contribution from a Sub. This was Old Trafford and we were lagging. Utterly abysmal.