With Gameweek 2 now completed, it’s time to reflect on my beloved Manchester United’s home fixture against late starters Tottenham. Both clubs were missing key figures, United without Captain Nemanja Vidic and fellow centre back Rio Ferdinand, as well as several other key figures, United were left with a second string back four with inexperienced goalkeeper David de Gea leading from the back, providing many to believe they’ll be goals in the game, for both sides.
Tottenham weren’t exactly at full strength either, Luka Modric was left out of the side for his “head not being right” and other, slightly less important players, also not playing, leading to the like of Jake Livermore playing central midfield. Gareth Bale and Rafael Van der Vaart were the main attacking threats available and they needed to have played a near perfect game to get some points out of Old Trafford, something Tottenham haven’t done for a long time.
With these match reports, I’ve been told to not focus so much on the match itself so what I’ve decided to do is discuss individual performances, why’s that? Because I can pretty much guarantee you’ve already watched the game, so, me describing the key parts of the game step-by-step is just simply boring, so, I need to keep it opinionated.
Firstly, the first shock for me is with team selection. Again, I was proven wrong by Ferguson’s managerial ability but I was shocked that how he stuck with Cleverley and Anderson, I expected Carrick to start with possibly Anderson and early on in the game, it was evident that the United midfield was non-existent. Another surprise was sticking with local boy Danny Welbeck over ex-Spurs forward Dimitar Berbatov, who has clearly stepped down the pecking order.
In the early stages, the United defence was tested with the game seemingly stretched from the start. A point that no-one has seemed to make is De Gea’s saves from range. Tottenham didn’t have a proper clear cut chance but the shots they did have were dealt with surprising ease. His concentration was also good after being criticized for that in the previous week, as well as improving his issues, he also showed a far wider audience how good is distribution was, always setting up attacks from the back. An issue was the aerial ball late in the second half but overall, he’s performance improved dramatically.
Moving onto the defence, every player played their part with one shining out. Don’t get me wrong, Chris Smalling, Jonny Evans and Patrice Evra all played their part but I just want to talk about Phil Jones this time around. With a string of fantastic performances for Blackburn Rovers last year, keeping them up, it was no surprise he moved to a bigger club and what a debut he had. His anticipation was a key attribute to his game, breaking the play up, which has made many fans see his potential to fill in a defensive midfield role, but why? No need to. He’s playing well at centre back and no need to alter things when he’s playing well.
In the second half, Cleverley and Anderson did their jobs but someone I weren’t impressed with is Ashley Young. I say this due to the rare poorness of his corners. Him and Nani both can’t get it past the front man and with the power we possessed in Smalling and Jones, going short was always the wrong option and I feel we could of created far more chances if you just whip it in there, anything can happen.
Moving onto Tottenham, it’s clear a striker is needed. Defoe is a poacher that had nothing to poach; it was clear, without the Modric spark, players like Bale couldn’t get involved in the game, with Smalling doing an excellent job keeping him quiet. VdV had a clear target to embarrass de Gea which failed dramatically, annoying his teammates. The difference between that and Man United was there was no team spirit, when going one down there was no urgency, with United there’s a real team emphasis about them, Van der Vaart is just so selfish and, at times, seems to not care about the game, just his own performance.
A final note to take on the game is Javier Hernandez’s return, igniting the question of who to play up front against Arsenal. Quite frankly, against that back four, Mama Diouf could do a job but for me he has to stick with Welbeck, Hernandez is more of an impact player, and still isn’t fully fit.
That’s it from me.
Thanks for reading,
Footylad.
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