New Season, Same Old Trafford
United Made To Pay In Premier League Opener
It may be a new season but some things never change and once again Newcastle return from a vist to Old Trafford with no points and a heavy defeat. Although whilst the result was never really in doubt the perforamance was decent against the might of the men from Manchester.
I was certainly heartened by the performance and saw enough to suggest that we can survive in this league. At the end of the day it's not games away against the big 4 or 5 times that are going to decide our season, it's our home games and more importantly all our games against the teams that are going to be in and around us. Realistically this was always going to be a defeat as much as you would like to wish for a miracle and really the season starts now for us with that game out of the way.
3-0 may sound like a battering but we did frustrate them for 35 minutes and actually should have gone ahead after 10 minutes when Andy Carroll missed a header that he would normally bury. They then made us pay with 2 quick fire goals that both had an element of luck about them coupled with some sloppy play and defending by us. That was game over and then as we pushed a few more men forward late on Ryan Giggs scored a 3rd for them which made the scorline look a bit more favourable.
The important thing for me was not to be humilated and take a 5 or 6 nil pasting. Like I say we put up a fight, kept going to the end and realistically just came up against a team that is far superior to us with the evergreen Paul Scholes as usual the chief tormentor. I think we will play worse than that this season and win and the really big thing for me which I think is different to the last time we were in the Premier League is that we look a lot more solid and together as a team, in seasons past I think we would maybe have lost this game 5 or 6 nil.
The only negative tonight for me other than a few sloppy bits of defending was our right hand side - I thought James Perch and Wayne Routledge were very very poor. Of course it's far too early to judge Perch and he will not come up against Man United every week but on first glance he looks out of his depth to me. He wasn't helped by Routledge however who put in another ineffective performance away from St James' park like he seems to do quite often. He comes across as a bit of an enigma and we can't really afford to be carrying anyone this season. Im just hoping that those two come good, apart from that I thought everyone else put in a decent shift.
So like I say really the season starts next Sunday for me against Aston Villa at St James's Park. If we can get a win there then with 3 points from these 1st two games I would be a very happy man.
What did people think of tonight's performance, do people agree we were slightly unlucky or am I going to easy on a team that has just been beaten 3-0??
