Whoever writes these Man U v Tottenham scripts needs a holiday. I mean come on, where’s the originality? We’re not asking for Murakami, but honestly, this is like watching the last 10 years of Adam Sandler’s career. Or one of those dreadful talent shows where they pedal out all the freaks early on, a horribly and unnecessarily long bit where nothing really happens, followed by a bargain bin bound Mum-pleaser pay-off at the end. Except there’s never any hits for Tottenham, and Mum pleasing was at a minimum. And there was quite a lot to mull over in that middle bit. I’ve overstretched here.
Positives first. Dawson and Kaboul look like a reasonably solid centre back pairing, and BAE seems to have picked up where he left off as being really quite an excellent full back. As much as I love Gomes and his eccentric genius, Big Bad Brad showed us what we’ve been missing for some time by catching footballs, making saves that he’s expected to, and all manner of other boring, professional flim flam. Bale also looked decent in flashes.
Believe me Rafa, I was just as frustrated at Aaron for not pulling that ball back to you as you were. I sympathised and even got into your head a bit. ‘Who are these clowns I’m playing with?!’. Yes, I said that too. On your behalf. I then sat myself back down, hoped we’d make another couple of those openings, but feared ‘that was probably our big chance’. You didn’t have that luxury of course, but chose to disappear for the final half hour anyway. Unfortunately, you weren’t alone, and once that first goal went in, everyone disappeared. We all saw what happened next. 3 goals was harsh on the balance of the whole game, but it was just punishment for switching off on dangerous ground.
The substitutions were too little and about 15 minutes too late. Regular readers will know I’m no Harry basher, but his inability to change our game plan or personnel in a pro-active rather than reactive way wasn’t pleasant viewing.
Having said all that, I'll say again; we won’t be playing them every week. Travelling without your first choice midfield pairing and any sort of decent forward to OT is about as tough as it gets, and our season doesn’t start and end with this one result. I mean it DID start there, but it’s not ended there, you know? Let’s give it at least 3 games before the knives come out. Anyone who thought we'd be going up to Manchester having conducted minimal business over the summer, to take on a side who've strengthened markedly after finishing last term as Champions, probably needs a bit of a reality check. That's not defeatest, it's how the football world works.
There are 2, maybe 3 teams which are almost certainly, definitely going to finish above us, and we’ve just lost away to the best of them. There are 2, maybe 3 others who, over a whole season, we’ll be competing with for a top 4 spot. I saw 2 of them play on Saturday lunchtime and there was absolutely nothing there for us to be overly worried about. This result doesn’t change any of my expectations for this season.
