Monday, September 18, 2006

It's not over yet


Wow. A 1-0 loss to Arsenal, and the doom and gloom merchants are out in full force. It's astonishing to read that Ronaldo is a wasted talent, and that the five wins to open the season were a fluke.

First things first, we weren't good enough on the day. Arsenal played well, though not as 'delightfully' as the media would have you believe, and we were a shambles. Our best passes were often directly to a player in yellow.

Cristiano Ronaldo has been pilloried in the press, to nobody's surprise, for his role in the Arsenal goal, but most seem to have forgotten that he was probably our best player on the day, and the only one who really tested Lehmann. And who didn't enjoy the Arsenal goalie getting smacked upside the face by a pile driver?

Rooney may as well not have been on the pitch, and I'm not sure that Louis Saha did much on the day either. Perhaps the only player to really enhance his reputation in my eyes was Darren Fletcher, who managed to produce a series of top quality passes in the first half an hour. Just maybe there's more to him than I previously thought.

So we lost a game. There's not much I hate more than losing to Arsenal, but we're still in second place, ahead of Chelsea, and with a long way to go. We're right in the race, and we're certainly good enough to beat the poorer teams, so we will never quite be out of it. Perhaps the pessimists should just wait a little before they start the bleating.

1 comment:

Ayush Trivedi said...

I think we're more than right in the race. I think we're at the head of the race. If only Rooney could pull his finger out, we would have the most potent attack in the league.

Love your work though mate.