A MATCH WORTH MISSING

 

Last time around, United played their first Premiership match at Old Trafford and wound up only drawing with them 2-2 with the visitors largely running the show. The last game of the season saw us at The Stadium of Light and we beat them 1-0 but that wasn't enough for us to win the title. The last time we did the double over Sunderland though was in 08/09. Roy Keane started that season as Mackems manager but bailed mid season to be replaced by another United connection, former reserves coach Ricky Sbragia. United won 1-0 at Old Trafford. That was followed up by a 2-1 win at the Stadium of Light on the way to us lifting the Premiership trophy on that occasion.

This season, like last season, 90s United captain Steve Bruce is Sunderland gaffer and the Mackems haven't been doing so badly under his stewardship this time around. In the meantime United have still to get an away win in the Premiership and couldn't hang around too long in getting it otherwise Chelsea would start running away. So this Premiership match at the Stadium of Light was pretty important from a Red Devils point of view. United went with O'Shea at left back, Anderson, Scholes and Fletcher in midfield with Nani, Macheda and Owen up front. Not our strongest lineup but then again we did still have injuries to deal. Should have been good enough for this match though.

Having said that, it was Sunderland that were attacking immediately. The home side then stayed on the attack and Steed Malbranque had the first real chance to get the ball in the net but couldn't pull it off. In short, the early stages of the game were not good viewing for United fans as Fergie's men were amazingly boxed into their own half. Eventually United did go on the attack and got themselves a freekick as a result, but it was nothing the Sunderland goalie couldn't handle. Other than that though the half time whistle couldn't have come soon enough. Fergie can't have been happy with that display and we had to hope that better was to come in the second half.

Well a halftime substitution was an inevitability for United and we didn't wait too long after that before going on an attack that led to that sub Berbatov putting the ball in the net - slight problem, he was given offside. United kept up their new found lease of life with more subs being brought in but weren't able to hit the net legitly. In the meantime Sunderland went on the attack again but we managed to get away with just having to concede a corner. We had our own late chances but weren't able to do much with them. The latter stages of the match looked much more even but with neither side able to hit the net well, safe to say, this won't go down as one of the classics.

Elsewhere Man City faced Newcastle at the City of Manchester Stadium. Carlos Tevez opened the scoring with a penalty for City only for Jonas Guitierrez to equalise for the Magpies soon after and the scores remained level at half time with City having a slight edge. They went on to retain that edge going into the second half and then Adam Johnson hit what turned out to be the winner for the Blues. That'll keep the City fans happy for a while - particularly as it means that United drop to 3rd in the Premiership. They're still on course for the Champions League group stages but lie five points behind leaders Chelsea and two points ahead of Arsenal(who Chelsea beat 2-0 at Stamford Bridge) and a detour into the Champions League preliminaries.

North of the border, Aberdeen faced Inverness CT at the Caledonian Stadium in the SPL. Unfortunately for the Dons, Caley ran the show to start with, Johnathon Hayes opening the scoring for the home side early on. Adam Rooney then made it two for the home side and that was quickly followed by the Dons going down to ten men. I suppose Dons fans should be grateful that Caley didn't grab a third late on given all of that. In short though the Dons needed that result like they needed a hole in the head with Mark McGhee blaming dodgy play by the defence for both of the Caley goals. Please tell me this isn't a sense of deja vu I'm getting.

Elsewhere Hearts were beaten 2-1 by Rangers at Tynecastle. The home side opened the scoring early on and led for most of the match but for the second weekend in a row, the Gers pulled off a late turnaround to grab the win. St Mirren were beaten 3-1 by Motherwell at Fir Park with Well opening the scoring early on though the Buddies actually managed to level the match in the second half before two late goals secured a win for the home side. That means that the Dons drop to 7th in the SPL, one point behind Hearts and the top half of the table but still three points ahead of St Mirren and relegation. The bottom half of the table is certainly looking pretty tight.

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