Barclays Premier League: Round 31 - Page 18

Jmste Junior Messi Star of Spurs Dannyido

You've all made good points which I totally agree with regarding player performance, tactics etc. But I dont think any of you have touched on the real reasons I think we won yesterday at all.

Firstly, Kaboul was beastly. If someone said to me at the end of 07/08 that in four years he'd be undroppable I would have laughed my ass off and sent for the men in white coats, but just look at him. Neville gave Bale MotM yesterday and I had no idea why. He just played his natural game, nothing too amazing by his standards, but a natural performance. If thats what you get MotM for, keepers should win every week, but Kaboul was fantastic from minute one. Instead of waiting for King and Dawson to be fit, now it's just a case of "who should we put next you Kaboul?"

And Secondly, and probably a far more obvious and great reason, Saha was nowhere to be seen and Rafa IS BACK! Last couple of weeks he has looked like the player we brought in 18 months ago. He looks hungry again. His set pieces are actually threatening again aswell. From what I can recall, there werent any corners that just hit the first man and had us on the end of a counter attack. that break has done him the world of good and by god it's great to see. Unlucky not to score against Chelsea, but his goal yesterday was beautiful. I scored a similar goal when I was about fifteen and I thought it was shatpank. It really isnt the easiest of things to do at all, but he's made it look easy as pie. Vorm didnt move cos he knew he'd never get it even though it wasnt anywhere near the corner. Just beautifully placed.

Those are the main reasons I feel we won the game. We'd have lost out in the middle if we'd stuck with that 4-4-2 shit. One striker works for us and I hope Redknapp takes note.

All that shite the pundits went on about how we spent all day closing Swansea down to stop them playing is true to a degree, but isnt that what we do with everybody anyway? It's not like we let teams play their game and just wait for our chance, we play our game at home and we're the ones that take possesion at WHL. That's how football works, you play your football at home, you fight for it away. Maybe they've just run out of things to say about us or fancied giving Swansea something to smile about.


Thought it was great to see Redknapp and Rodgers having a chat pitchside after the game, how often do you see that for that long?

Two decent headers from Ade aswell. Played well yesterday, but I still think we can find better in the summer. Whoever it was that used to rave about Llorente was a smart man, I dont follow La Liga at all but those performances against United were enough for me. Looks mint.


Tough game at Sunderland next week, I'd take a draw as long as we won the last six after it, but we have to play relegation battlers, so that's more points for us to dole out. With the way we've *bleep*ed this all up, I'll be very happy if we take 4th. This season will be a truly calamitous failure if we dont get into the CL. 4th will do. We'll go again, and fail again, next year.

Want Wigan and Bolton to stay up just because they're decent away days haha hoping Wolves, QPR and Blackburn go down. Looks like it could be mainly Arsenal who we're fighting with for 4th with them having to play us and Man city in the run in.

Kaboul has been a revelation this year, complete tank. Also quite impressive how big he is and he still can outrun a lot of attackers.

Rafa seems to love the club, think he's said so a lot and him and his wife seem happy here. I could see him staying for at least a few more years but we definitely need a striker who can compliment him well - Crouch was an okay start, Adebayor at the start of the season was perfect but he was quite anonymous in the past few months. If we can finally get that Berbatov Mk2 that we've needed for many years I'd be delighted. Come to think of it, Cisse might not have been a bad try.

Four more wins and I think we'll clinch top four. Which, considering our run in, looks rather possible.

matt kilgallon

Manchester United team to face Blackburn.

De Gea, Rafael, Jones, Ferdinand, Evans, Evra, Carrick, Scholes, Valencia, Rooney, Hernandez

Subs : Amos, Welbeck, Giggs, Smalling, Pogba, Young, Park

How would that look? 4-3-3/4-3-1-2

De Gea

Rafael - Ferdinand - Evans - Evra

Carrick - Jones - Scholes

Valencia - Hernandez - Rooney

100 - Antonio Valencia clocks up his 100th Manchester United appearance this evening. Centurion.

& it was only a year ago where Wayne Rooney scored his 5th ManUtd hat-trick and his 100th PL goal for us against West Ham but then swore in front of the camera & got banned

United have pretty much won already if webb is refereeing.