We lost 3-1 in a match I had been anticipating for a while and I was bitterly disappointed. I won't go into too much detail with the goals, first one credit to Nani for two great bits of skill, good cross but Almunia acted as Man United's striker and pushed the ball into his own net. Granted Park was lurking at the back post, but, to be fair this is with hindsight, if he had completely left the cross which he probably was never going to do anything about and paid more attention to the player at the back post, we might not have conceded, but as I said this is all with hindsight.
Second goal was a great counter-attack but again we should have done better, mainly Denilson, who I have stuck up for recently as he's been out of position, but not this time. Doesn't matter what position you're playing, when arguably the most in-form player is sprinting into space that he's spotted, the advisable thing to do would be to sprint as well, clever huh? Not Denilson, he even seemed to slow his pace and just let Rooney finish (well).
Second half they scored pretty early on, another counter attack and Clichy was the only one with a chance of stopping them from scoring, but he had to stop Rooney, Nani and Park. Park was in possession and Clichy was caught in two minds as most people would have been in his situation, which allowed Park space to run into and slot home.
Vermaelen scored on 80 minutes and I was desperate for us to score again but it wasn't so. It was good technique in the finish, quite acrobatic, but it took a deflection and without that it wouldn't have gone in probably. Bendtner, Walcott and Eboue came on, but none of them could help us score another and it finished 3-1.
Now, onto more detail. My hit-list:
Almunia - Seemed to do his best to gift Nani a goal not once but twice, the first time with their goal and the second time when a pass came back to him and he decided to scuff it straight to Nani who was completely on his own and should have scored really. I would say drop him, but who for?!
Arshavin - Probably my second favourite player but he missed three or four chances in the first half that I expected him to bury, each and every one of them. It's hard to blame him because of how much I like him, but those missed chances were a huge part in us not getting at least a point if not all three.
Giggs - Took his sweet motherf***ing time every time he trotted over (and I mean trotted) to take a corner, each time was about 40 seconds, no hyperbole, wasted, especially when he decided after delaying play for 15 seconds that Nani would be better suited to taking the corner.
Park - Also wasted time, when he was being substituted. Walked off the pitch carelessly which added to my anger and frustration whilst watching the game.
Denilson - While the first goal was creditted to the man at fault, Almunia, the second goal might as well have been too for all the space Denilson allowed Rooney. In games like these, hell, in all games, Denilson should be busting a gut to get there ahead of the opposition player, but no. He slowed his pace.
Rest of the team - They didn't pick up the slack.
So, at least we can look forward to our next couple of ga-.... what's that? Oh. We're playing Chelsea and Liverpool. Forget about looking forward then, more like dreading if we play like we did. Talk about the fixture list kicking us when we're down.