United: they stood strong.

By: Oli | October 28th, 2009

Ah well, we tried. We really did try. We, and the nation via Sky, watched a lot of good performances from the Barnsley players. All we can ask going into a game like this is for a good solid performance. And that’s what we got, against a sublimely talented young United side. We could have got a lot more out of this, but 12 shots off target tells a story. If United had created our range of chances, they would have scored 5 or 6.

We had the chances to win the game. On the night, we were the better team in some areas. But, it was clear how much better than us United’s young stars were. Ferguson said that they deserved to win the game. Yep, I’m going to agree with him there, but we put in more than a decent shout out for our quality. The Scotsman also said that he can’t argue with the sending off. I’m going to agree with him there too, it was what is often called a ‘rush of blood’. Neville’s famous for them.

For the first 15-20 minutes, Anderson (Oliveira) ran the game for Man U, but his range of passing gradually faded out, and we began to boss the middle of the oak. Really, Anderson (De Silva) Hallfreddo, Hammill and Colace are all serious candidates for MOTM. Nobody can seriously accuse Colace of being a passenger here, his defensive tendencies were key in slowing down Anderson (Oliveira) and Rafael (Or was that Fabio?)

We conceded twice, which would normally be poor. But, this was the best attack we’ll play all season, Moore and Foster really weren’t over run. Also, when I heard Julian Gray read out, I was terrified. I like him, but surely he can’t deal with United? The left back/winger was another candidate for MOTM, and judging by the post-match interview on the pitch, Sky may have given it to him

No, the main problem is our forwards. They played pretty well, but didn’t score. Macken didn’t do much, but Bogdanovic, and Hume when he was on both had good touches, and missed good chances. Anderson and Hammill are also implicated in the crime of chance squandering, although I thought they did more to earn them.

By now, you’ve probably heard about the mess of crowd trouble. No, I’m not talking about the brain dead idiots that ran on the pitch. The United fans smashed up the North stand concourse afterwards, and broke into the catering areas, forcing the staff to barricade themselves in a store cupboard, before stealing all the money and food. Those ‘fans’ are on a par with those who rioted at Millwall-West Ham. Catch them, ban them, prosecute them. I do want to point out that, those weren’t the usual Man United support that travel all over Europe, These were the idiots who only got tickets because of the ready availability of tickets for this game.

Now, on Radio Sheffield before the game I heard two thing. (1) They finally talked about a team apart from Sheffield United (is that allowed?) (2) There was an expectation of a fantastic atmosphere. But, there wasn’t a fantastic atmosphere. It was dead. The Ponty End tried, but really they were drowned out by a deafening silence from the masses of people using the program to search for answers to important questions like, what colour are Barnsley in, then? And, who’s the big black lad in the middle? We were forced to suffer, as people in suits sat in silence. Now, I don’t have a problem with those people who come occasionally, maybe with a family member and chose this one for all the obvious reasons. I don’t have a problem with those who, for whatever reason, can’t usually get to games, but made it to this one. I do have a problem with people who last wanted to go to Wembley. And before that, Chelsea.
Ratings
Kozluk: 6 – Could have been a lot worse. Looked poor on the ball, but did a decent job on Tosic and Fabio.
Hammill: 8 – I’d like to think that United fans went away thinking how good he looked. Little do they know, he’s a Scouser.
Hallfredsson: 7- Well, maybe he didn’t exactly set the game alight, but for large part he out played Anderson (Oliveira).
Neville: 5 – Calm down, dear.
Owen: 5 – That goal was brilliant. In his own opinion, he didn’t really do a whole lot, but that spark is still there.
Obertan: 9 – Man, he’s incredible. Future world star.
Wellbeck: 9 – Did, err, someone say something about us signing him.
Fabio/Rafael: 7 – De Silvas, ooooooh, De Silvas, oooooooooh, when their on the pitch, we can’t tell which is which.

It’s at this point that we all pretend to have agreed with Robins when he said that he’d rather beat Peterborough than Manchester United. Scoring would have been great, winning would have been even better. We didn’t score, we didn’t win. I’d be interested to hear what any neutrals reading thought of our team, and I’d hope that it was mostly positive.