MESSY AGAIN
United's season has certainly been eventful. What it hasn't exactly been is awesome. On the plus side there's the fact that we have yet to be beaten this season. However that stat is easy to forget compared to the ones that say we've only won one away game so far this season and have still yet to top the Premiership. Injuries haven't done us any favours but though things are still tight, the fact is that we have to kick into high gear sooner or later. We had two Premiership games coming up that would certainly test out our credibility and provide us with the opportunity to top the table. Question was, could we pick up the points on these occasions?
First up came Man City at the City of Manchester Stadium. Well you expect Manchester derbies to be high quality and high paced. This one was anything but. Former United assasin Carlos Tevez, as always was determined to give us a headache but he couldn't hit the net and neither could anyone else! Both sides looked to be cruising through a training session and plenty of online comments compared is derogatorilly to a Serie A game. Bottom line, this one definately felt like two points blown, the Blues were there for the taking. Neither set of fans can be happy with this result and if Robert Mancini is well...that's just another reason to laugh at City.
Next up was Aston Villa at Villa Park. Once again the Reds found themselves involved in a rather uneventful first half and given how weak the Villa side was, they really should have hit the net before half time but it was not to be. The early stages of the second weren't that much more exciting and eventually it was Villa opening the scoring thanks to Ashley Young before Marc Albrighton made it two. United bailed themselves out though with goals from Macheda and Vidic but we couldn't complete the turnaround. Once again that can't have been what Fergie had in mind. We aren't going to get our title back unless we start winning games again.
Elsewhere, Arsenal were certainly on form. First up they beat Wolves 2-0 at Molineux and didn't hang around long in getting their opening goal. They then left it as late as possible to finish the match off with their second. After that the Gunners beat Everton 2-1 at Goodison Park, with Arsene Wenger's crew opening the scoring late on in the first half before grabbing their second early in the second. Everton pulled one back late on but it was too little too late. That meant that United dropped to 3rd in the Premiership but still on course for the Champions League group stages. They lie three points behind leaders Chelsea and three points ahead of Man City and the detour through the Champions League preliminaries.
North of the border, Aberdeen continued their SPL campaign. First up came a 2-1 defeat to Inverness CT at Pittodrie. Caley were already ahead by half time and though the Dons equalised early in the second half, it was still Caley that had the last word. Then came a 2-0 defeat to Rangers at Ibrox, the Blues dispatching the Reds as they usually do on their turf, sealing the win by half time - maybe I should just be glad that the Gers didn't hit nine! That means that the Dons drop to 11th in the SPL, eight points behind Dundee United and the top half of the table and only one point ahead of Hamilton and relegation. Mark McGhee stays on, for now.
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