WELCOME back to the main order of business everyone. Facebook pages are a little more packed, I’ve seen a few more celebrities get yelled at by a genius chef and I’ve fallen out of a pub and been stranded on the other side of the River Mersey since last we met. But now, England is out of the way and the bread and butter stuff is back.
I know, I know. You don’t know what’s wrong with Man United, it’s all pretty play but lacks the punch of a proven goal scorer? This isn’t the start we should be making with the money we have invested in our squad over the summer? Yawn.
This is the start we have made and when you actually sit down and look at the table now, after the weekends trip to Goodison park, we aren’t too far off the pace because I don’t know if you noticed but Chelsea’s start has not been fantastic either. We gained our first away win, our third consecutive victory and we were top of the league at the end of the game. Not bad for a team that had ‘lost the plot’ as many people told me.
On Saturday I thought it was a good performance, it wasn’t outstanding but it was solid. I certainly get the feeling that we are playing within ourselves. Most of the time this season that has been a source of disappointment for many but on Saturday, for the first time, it dawned on me that playing within ourselves is not such a bad thing at the moment. Far from the ‘could do better’ reaction I have had to the other games, I was oddly satisfied on Saturday because this is our lot at the moment and the players who are out there are really giving their all.
Okay so we may not be blowing teams away and scoring freely but neither are we conceding. I get it now, we are playing like a team who is doing just enough to progress through the difficult times without some of our big players and match winners. We are watching players find their feet on the pitch and while they are at it they are all turning in some good performances, and without noticing United have bubbled near to the surface of the Premiership.
Against Reading, Portsmouth and Man City, at times we lacked something and it was disappointing because we are used to so much more. Against Sunderland we did enough to get the points, against Everton we did enough to get the points and at times we played quite well. If it sounds like I’m surprised by that last line then maybe I am because maybe I had bought into the panic and the doom mongering that I had tried to avoid.
Take it on the facts and the performances are okay, the results are okay and we are third. Our doom and gloom could actually be a doom and gloom season, if we supported Bolton, it would be. After all, if you can keep your job while players around you are losing games, your name must be Sammy Lee.
So there we go, United win again and while radio commentators everywhere on Saturday were bemoaning the lack of chances taken by United’s forward players, Nemanja ‘Ivan Drago’ Vidic must have heard them, for he took responsibility for sticking the ball in the net. Leaping like a salmon and heading the ball home rather like the other tall scary footballer, the one that used to grace the Everton team – Duncan Ferguson.
Not so ‘ard this scoring lark is it, Nemanja lad? I bet you don’t know what all the fuss about! By hook or by crook (or by the big man in defence) we are getting through and keeping the home fires smouldering, ready for when they will eventually spark into fire we all know and love from our team. No-one said it was gonna be easy!
So wont the Man United fans please sit down! Please sit down! Please sit down!
Given to Score 