Red Devils too hot to handle! Man Utd 3-0 Newcastle.
Posted on August 17th, 2010 | 135 Comments |
Mistakes get punished in this league, and all three goals conceded could easily be attributed to an error from a player in a black and white shirt at some point.
To use that as an excuse would be harsh on Manchester United though. At times they were sublime, and even if our players hadn’t have made the errors that cost the goals, I am pretty sure that the Red Devils would have got them eventually. Paul Scholes put on a masterclass as did another old head, Ryan Giggs, who came of the bench to score the best goal of the game.
The Newcastle squad looked thin last night, down to the bare bones already. They had started the match pretty decent in fairness. They fought for the ball, scrapped, looked tidy and could have even taken a shock lead had Andy Carroll got his header from a Joey Barton corner on target.
As time progressed it was Manchester United who started to assert themselves. The pressure was starting to build and you could sense that a goal for the home side could be on the way. Man Utd attacked but the ball broke free allowing Jonas Gutierrez the chance to counter-attack. John O’Shea nicked the ball from him though and played it to Paul Scholes who teased a pass just beyond the reach Jose Enrique and into the path of Dimitar Berbatov who shot across goal to make it 1-0 on 33 minutes.
Up until then Newcastle had been holding their own. Manchester United had a few chances but they were generally dealt with quite comfortably. The game changed as soon as that first goal went in though. Newcastle were no longer chasing the ball, their passing had gone awry, and it wasn’t long before the defecit was doubled.
Nani ran at James Perch before slipping the ball inside his opponent for Patrice Evra to drive a low centre across the penalty area. Rooney couldn’t adjust his body to recieve the ball and it bobbled kindly for Darren Fletcher who turned Fabricio Coloccini inside the six-yard area and shot past Harper.
That was 2-0 and pretty much game over. After a decent start, Newcastle were now on a damage limitation mission. Manchester United pretty much dominated the second half, although the introduction of Shola Ameobi for Kevin Nolan seemed to give the away side a lift.
The game was starting to die out when, on 85 minutes, the evergreen Ryan Giggs volleyed home a Paul Scholes cross to make it 3-0. That goal can be attributed to Jose Enrique fannying around with the ball rather than just trying to clear it out of play.
I can’t argue with the score to be honest, but it was better than some had predicted. More teams will go to Old Trafford this season and get the same treatment as we did, which is nothing to be ashamed of. There was only ever a slim chance of Newcastle getting a result last night, and in the end the gulf in class between the two teams was too great to bridge.
Next up for us is Aston Villa on Sunday. We must try and get a result against them as most of our points are going to have to come at St James’ Park if we are to survive, and especially if we persist with this 4-5-1 system away from home. This team is screaming out for a bit of creativity and pace, and hopefully the onlooking Mike Ashley will have noticed the same thing and be willing to do something about it, like buy a player!
I won’t hold my breath though!
Man Utd – Edwin van der Saar, Patrice Evra, Nemanja Vidic, Jonny Evans, John O’Shea, Nani, Paul Scholes, Darren Fletcher, Antonio Valencia, Dimitar Berbatov, Wayne Rooney.
Subs – Tomasz Kuszczak, Ryan Giggs, Chris Smalling, Javier Hernandez, Michael Carrick, Rafael da Silva, Federico Macheda.
Newcastle – Steve Harper, James Perch, Mike Williamson, Fabricio Coloccini, Jonas Enrique, Wayne Routledge, Alan Smith, Joey Barton, Jonas Gutierrez, Kevin Nolan, Andy Carroll.
Subs – Tim Krul, Ryan Taylor, Xisco, Shola Ameobi, Haris Vuckic, Nile Ranger, James Tavernier.
Attendance – 75,221.
Referee – Chris Foy.
NUFCBlog Author: toonsy
toonsy has written 643 articles on this blog.
I was listening on fivelive last night and Robbie Savage was really ripping into us, saying more or less we were certs for relegation. We’re we really that bad? The stats don’t point that way with a couple of shots on target & couple of misses, away to Man U that doesn’t seem terrible or was it that Man U just picked us off at a canter? I still think we’ll pick up enough points at home to be safe by Easter.