TWO IN A ROW

 

 

It's that time of year when a lot of football gets played. On pretty much every day for five days straight there was Premiership action to be seen. Of course this made it impossible to combine Xmas festivities with regular match reports but now the dust has settled. Anyway, when Fergie was tucking into his Xmas turkey United were having problems keeping up with Chelsea - we still had injury trouble and were increasingly lucky that the Blues were just as inconsistant as us. So, two games to see out 2009 against relatively straightforward opposition and the hope was that that would allow us to get at least some consistency before switching to cup football.

First up was Hull at the Kingston Communications Stadium. Well United weren't on the best of form early on - we tried to cruise through the first half and as a result, Hull gave us plenty of headaches. Still, we came in at half time with the lead thanks to Wayne. A defensives blunder early in the second half led to a Hull penalty though which Craig Fagan slotted to level the scores. Just when Hull were getting big ideas though Hull defender Andy Dawson put the ball in his own net and then Berbatov finished the game off. Again, United were back winning but recently that has proved no garuntee of us getting three points in the next game.

Next up game Wigan at Old Trafford. Well there really was only one team in this match. Wayne opened the scoring with Carrick making it two just before half time and then Rafael got his first goal of the season just before half time. Berbatov made it four early on in the second half and as the match descended into a training session it looked like that was it. Still Valencia had to make it five against his old club and with that, we matched our biggest win of the season - also against Wigan. It also meantt that it was the first time in what seems like ages that we've won two games in a row. As far as the Xmas program is concerned, Fergie has to consider this mission accomplished.

Elsewhere Chelsea drew 0-0 with Birmingham at St Andrews which means that Fergie owes Alex McLeish a glass of red wine and then Carlo Ancelotti's crew regained form to beat Fulham 2-1 at Stamford Bridge by turning the game round in the second half. In the meantime Spurs have returned to form, drawing 0-0 with Fulham at Craven Cottage wouldn't have helped but beating West Ham 2-0 at White Hart Lane certainly keeps them in the mixer. So, United remain 2nd in the Premiership, two points behind leaders Chelsea and six points ahead of Spurs and a detour through the Champions League preliminaries. Could be worse.

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