David Moyes has taken a lot of stick so far this season, but it seems a home loss to Spurs is about as bad as it gets for United fans, with forums and message boards demanding he be 'axed', 'stabbed', and in one strange individuals mind 'bricked'.
TO THE GAME - Moyes' first mistake was in his team sheet. He started Rooney who was just back from injury and clearly less fit than usual (which isn't very fit). He would have been better used as an impact sub in the second half, Instead he played the whole match, and even went into midfield later in the game.
United started well, they had lots of the ball in the opening half, but didn't particularly do anything. The first real talking point coming from a long ball over the top. Michael Dawson took 30 seconds to turn around, and then another 30 seconds to start running, by which time Danny Welbeck had stopped chirpsing some gyal dem in the front row and scampered after it. This was also the first time we got to see the quite clearly demented Hugo Lloris do something completely odd. Welbeck got onto the ball, but couldn't quite get enough on it to get passed Dawson (who was being northern right behind him) and out came Lloris with a double fisted forward diving punch for absolutely no reason. He didn't touch the ball, but luckily it was so comical that Welbeck was too busy 'having jokes' to capitalize.
Touching on Lloris, he used to be so calm and collected. Ever since Lukaku blapsed him in the nut with his knee, he hasn't been the same. Its either that, or Gomes and him had a Harry Potter style wand fight at the training ground, Lloris did the cruciatus curse, and now some of Gomes' soul has attached itself to him. Much like Voldemort's (Jonjo Shelvey's) did in said books/films/every piece of merchandise you can ever imagine (i saw a Harry Potter ice cream maker the other day - i mean, what the fuck? When does Harry Potter eat ice cream? And why would you think to yourself 'yeah i love thinking about Harry Potter whilst i make ice cream'? Just extraordinary)
BACK TO THE GAME - As i mentioned earlier, United had lots of the ball in the first half, but didn't create anything of note. Most of their play came down the right, with the (sometimes really dangerous) Antonio 'T Dog' Valencia. He was making Danny Rose look average (basically making Danny Rose look like Danny Rose) but in terms of final delivery he was pathetic. I believe he crossed the ball 13 times in the first half, and not one was to a United player.
aaaaaaaaaand HERE COME SPURSSSSSSS. Tim Sherwood is a genius, if he isn't the most successful manager of all time within 20 years, i will be gobsmacked (gobsmacked is such a shit word). He made a mistake against West Brom a couple of weeks ago in playing a midfield of Holtby and Eriksen, and has now realised that you need some sort of defensively minded player in there. He went with Capoue and Dembele at Old Trafford, the former doing a decent job of breaking shit up, the latter doing a decent job of just about everything (god i love Dembele). Spurs did well to soak up the pressure, and then hit United on the counter, and could well have been 3-0 up by half time on another day (not another day of the week just on another occasion that they played United - which is a saying that makes no sense)
They had the first clear cut chance of the game from one of these counter attacks. Bobby (yes Bobby) Soldado playing an excellent ball inside Evra (who was absolutely abysmal) to the red hot Aaron Lennon, who side footed it onto the side of the foot of David De Gea, side foot squared you might say (or might not - i don't care im not your dad, say what you want)
Spurs then broke the deadlock (deadlock - another shit one) with an impressive Adebayor header. Say what you want about the guy, but he is pretty much unplayable at the moment. Every single time he got the ball he made something happen, his industry is really impressive. Eriksen floated the ball in from the right and Adebayor floated above Smalling to float the ball into the bottom right corner with a real floaty header.
And then it was Bobby Soldado's turn...............to miss from a yard. Another counter attack sent Lennon down the right, who whipped in a first time cross low and hard to the back post. HERE COMES BOBBY, YES FINALLY A GOAL IN OPEN PL oh he's kneed it over the bar. I like the guy, and i think he's a good player, but when you buy someone for £26 Million to score goals, you would expect said person to be able to score from pretty much under the cross bar.
Half time came and went, BT sport wheeled out that Jake Prat who said a load of stuff that wasn't relevant in the slightest (Pot......Kettle), whilst Daveed Ginola had sex with his chair and Owen Hargreaves spoke in what can only be described as the most irritating accent i have ever heard. On the BT Sport front, if they are going to buy all these games and become a big force in sports broadcasting, they need to get a better co-commentator than Michael Owen, and when i say co-commentator i use the word loosely. A co-commentator usually offers more insight and analysis than 'well you would expect him to score there' Yes we would Michael, do you have any analysis that can maybe offer us an insight into why he missed? Being a striker yourself? Maybe the ball just bouncing before it came to him put him off a bit?.................'i think he should be scoring there' Oh OK thanks Michael, glad we cleared that one up.
The second half was exactly the same as the first. Lots of United pressure, and Spurs counter attacks.
Lets sum up the Penalty appeals all in one go. Welbeck - Dived, Januzaj - Dived, Young - Dived. Good night thanks for coming. People (and David Moyes) think the Young one was a penalty, Chris Waddle thought it was a 'Penulltry' and Michael Owen thought he 'may have had a shout, but also may not have had a shout'. Ashley Young is a diver, of that there is no doubt, and unfortunately for United it means he will never be given a penalty ever again. Lloris had one of his mental episodes and ran out with his arms flailing, but he DIDN'T touch Young, and Young had already crossed it before Lloris had (not contacted) him. If the penalty was given i wouldn't have complained, but it wasn't a penalty, Webb (who is usually a serial homer) made completely the right decision.
Spurs survived the appeals to have another counter attack, and a great counter attack it was. Adebayor picked the ball up, played it wide to Soldado, who played a ball into Lennon's path. Lennon drove into the box and hit a cross onto the despairing leg of Vidic, the ball bobbled up in slow motion and Christian Eriksen nipped in front of Valencia (moved to right back - defends like a winger that's been moved to right back) and nodded past De Gea for a 2-0 lead. Surely this was unassailable now, surely Spurs are comfortable, surely they can relax. Oh look Welbeck has scored directly from kick off. It was an incredibly 'Spursy' thing to happen. Everyone ran 6,000 yards to celebrate, so were knackered by the time the game restarted, the ball went out to Januzaj who played a perfect ball behind the (very impressive) Vlad Chiriches, and Welbeck nipped in with a deft finish.
United were back in it, and i genuinely thought they would go on to win the game. Sherwood made the quite mental decision (not a genius) to bring off Capoue and replace him with the (quite clearly equally as mental) 19 year old Nabil Bentaleb. So off comes the defensive midfielder, and on comes a young attacking midfielder to play next to Dembele who is a young attacking midfielder, whilst Young who is an attacking midfielder was brought on by United.
United then basically hammered Spurs into the ground for the next 20 minutes. Having a plethora of corners and pretty much the entirety of possession. Spurs ended up with just Harry Kane ahead of the ball, and his only contribution was quite hilarious. He was in an offside position, the ball was played forwards to him, he waited until it reached him, before smashing it into row Z (giving away a free kick for offside, but also wasting a bit of time). Genius you might say, the camera then zoomed in only for him to try and spit, catching it on his bottom lip and said spit dripping onto his shirt, comedy gold.
Another piece of comedy gold was Hugo Lloris rushing to the edge of his box to connect with a diving header from a long United ball forward. The reason? No one knows, why he didn't just catch it? No one knows, but do we like to watch it? Yes, Yes we do.
Spurs survived the onslaught for a well earned win, and now find themselves only 2 points behind Liverpool. You would imagine they are back in the race for 4th, whilst Sherwood has them playing some nice stuff at the moment. The future is looking reasonably good for spurs fans right now.
And what of United? Say what you want about Moyes, but he did try everything he could to get back into the game, bringing on Hernandez, Kagawa and Young. However they should have had enough to open up a Spurs team with Michael Dawson at the back. It would seem Moyes is intent on ALL play coming down the sides, even though it was plain to see that a ball over the top or in between centre backs was clearly a better option (Welbeck scoring and going close on both occasions that ball was played). United fans calling for his head have every right to do so, but i feel in this case they will be better off supporting the manager and trying to stomach this 'transition season'
Being a Spurs fan, that is without a doubt the most obnoxious thing I have ever said.
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