Monday, December 18, 2006

It’s taken a while to let it all sink in but yes, we did beat Man Utd on Sunday 1-0. I would have happily taken a loss as long as we played with commitment and passion but to steal a victory when our performance deserved a draw was unfathomable. When you’re team, the one that has been under so much pressure and is staring relegation in the face, scores the go 1-0, words cannot describe the jubilation and release of so much anguish. Hugging, jumping up and down and shouting as loud as you can. Those moments live with you and I for one am glad I was at Upton Park. Our win owed a big part to Robert Green. The 2nd half save from Ronaldo was very instinctive and strong to push the ball round the post. Collins, Anton, Spector and Konchesky looked a totally different animal then the one that whimpered and died at Bolton. At times they did back off Ronaldo and Giggs and Rooney when they had the ball at their feet’s but strong in the tackle and decisive in the pass made for great defensive work. The midfield however was a bit of a problem. Reo-Coker was making runs but Mullins was not as tight to Scholes as he should have been and that allowed Scholes time on the ball to play it where he wanted. Bowyer is not a natural width player so at times he kept drifting inside, leaving Spector exposed to balls over the top for Ronaldo to control and star this routine of step overs. Upfront, Zamora is shot of confidence and Harewood for all his challenging and hustle & bustle did not look like a man in form.

Enough of the negativity. The side played well as a collective unit. Some of the one touch football was crisp and full of confidence. Shame it took the sacking of a manager to get them going. To follow on from a point I made in my previous post, this is now the forth game against one of the big four sides that the side have upped their game. Shame the bread and butter matches of Reading and Wigan were losses. Fulham away is coming up this Saturday and me and my brother will be taking our seats (well standing in front of them) in the “Neutral End” with a bit more hope but my brother has not seen us win in person since Bradford at home in the last match of Sir Trevor Brooking’s second caretaker spell at the club and that was 2003!

Some other bits and pieces have been floating about.
Arsenal have banned all national flags from their ground after one man flew a Turkish Cypriot flag at the Emirates stadium. I can perfectly understand why that particular flag was banned but to blanket ban all flags is a massive knee jerk reaction. Would be great to see one set of away fans at the Emirates wearing cross of St. George t-shirts.Also Everton have demanded an apology from Chelseaover Jose Mourinho's comments about Andy Johnson. Involve the police? Desperately sad to do that. All you have to do is discredit what he said and let people make their minds up.


Oh and one last thing:



Is the Santa suit lucky? We will see at Fulham.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The Santa suit looks good on you, a win away at Fulham will be the best Xmas gift for WHU.