After the first match report of the season provided nothing but a brief build up and description of a slap, I was slightly more optimistic going into reporting the West Brom vs Manchester United game at The Hawthorns. With United edging out 2-1 winners last year, it was a surprise the result was the same this time around with United seemingly have a much stronger line-up than last time.
I will warn you; this will have a slight biased tinge to it. It’s something I promised I wouldn’t get sucked into but with the hate David de Gea has received from one small sector of United fans on my twitter timeline, I’m five blogs in and one rant is due. But before that happens, let’s kick-off with the match.
Man United started stronger with the attacking empathises of the starting eleven showing early on. Within the first ten minutes, West Brom was pegged back into their own half, with only a corner or two to be proud of. Scoring on top is key and United showed how to do it, unlike Chelsea earlier in the day. A free flowing move lead up to Ashley Young feeding the ball into Wayne Rooney, which was similar to his goal against West Ham, with a near perfect first touch and strike from just outside of the box with his left.
The fifteen pass move was a glorious start to the champions’ season but like all United seasons, it’s not so straightforward. New goalkeeper David de Gea showed his frailties from dealing with crosses and nerves were apparent with the Spanish under-21 international. This was shown again when West Brom equalised with a tame Shane Long effort somehow trickling underneath de Gea. No excuses.
West Brom then kicked on in the last ten minutes of the first half; thankfully the defence did their job. De Gea did make a smart save to Paul Scharner just before the equalizer but was only tested with aerial crosses from then on in. One of them crosses was dealt with accordingly after recovering from a poor position due to the poorness of the cross, shame Martin Taylor had already jumped on the de Gea bandwagon describing it as “awkward.”
Manchester United didn’t kick start at the start of the second half and to their horror, Rio Ferdinand (out for six weeks) and fellow centre back Nemanja Vidic (out for two weeks) had to go off injured leaving the job to Jonny Evans and new signing Phil Jones to lead from the back. With a youthful outfit second half, with a average age of around 23, Young was the operative word going into the last ten minutes.
Ashley Young, another new signing, broke down the left hand side all game and took the most of his chance, beating one and whipping a low devilish ball which caused havoc to Steven Reid, who was unlucky to be on the end of it, which sharply ended up in the back of the net.
United closed the game out well and looked comfortable absorbing the West Brom pressure. Some could say United were lucky but with the five minute spell which led to 90% possession and the overall slickness of the attacking threat, United ran out deserved winners. Shane Long had a fantastic debut for West Brom and the Albion fans shouldn’t be downhearted with their players display.
An obvious defender is needed for Albion and you get the feeling they’ll concede sloppy goals. We now move onto Manchester City vs Swansea tomorrow, with City being touted as easy winners.
Referee: Mike Jones – 5/10. Made some poor decisions for both sides and showed no consistency with his booking policy. Let West Brom get away with their animalistic approach to hustling de Gea unnecessarily in the second half which left the Spaniard on the floor in some pain.
Thanks for reading,
Footylad.
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