Even though 8:30am is an ungodly hour at which to wake I bravely defied the
time and a lovely warm morning (and having to put up with Tommy Smyth's
commentary) to get up and take in the game... ;)
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Utd (1) 2 - Golden Brown 4, RVN 82
Juve (0) 1 - Nedved 92
Team (4-4-1-1): Barthez; Gary, Rio, Wes, Mikky (O'Shea 75?); Beckham,
Keane, Butt, Giggs (Forlan 87); Scholes (Ole 83?); RVN
Subs: (not sure): Ricardo, PNev, O'Shea, Ole, Diegoal, Pugh, Fletcher.
Juve were very depleted (only 3 subs named on the bench) due to a flu
epidemic in the team. They lost Conte during the warm-up besides... It
showed too really -- they had little to no invention where it mattered
despite easily leading the possession and territory stakes. Utd grabbed an
early lead through a Wes Brown header (utterly unchallenged) off a Beckham
corner, and from then on seemed content to just sit back and absorb what
they knew would be a severely weakened attack. It was like this for most
of the game and for once I felt no fear or threat for Utd's goal -- Juve's
only options were through their two wide players, Nedved and Camoranesi.
Davids was keep quietish by an also-subdued pairing of Keane and Butt --
both did heaps of tracking and covering in defence but hardly contributed a
pass or run forward. This lead to Scholes having a quiet game too as his
playing in the pocket role is reliant on having central midfielders who can
find him (stand up and take a bow Seba Veron) and he appeared to just be
feeding on scraps today (which led to him drifting back into midfield
proper again). Scholesly might have bene lucky to stay on after a few full
throttle challenges on their players -- getting booked once for swiping
Tacchinardi's feet from under him and somehow avoiding the second card for
two similar offenses later.
All Italian teams are neat passers of the ball and gaining possession back
once they have it is next to impossible -- and Juve are the masters of
this, even with crap teams they're that well coached they rarely give the
oppo a sniff. They just will not give it away cheaply... unlike what Utd
were doing. nearly all of Utd's players passed the ball away at some point
or other -- almost as annoying was the constant playing of each other in to
trouble; "Here Ryan, I'm utterly free with time to turn and run but I'll
give the ball to you because you've actually got Juve players marking or
running at you".
Second half and it did even out a bit, or at least that Utd appeared to
string a few more passes together going forward. RVN should have had a
penalty when bursting into the box on a 1v1 he had his feet deliberately
taken out from under him in the box by their keeper. At first I thought
he'd dived... and obviously so did the ref (that Scandawegian stickler) but
a replay showed that RVN nudged to ball to the keepers left and then dodged
the outflung foot on to be grabbed by the keeper's arm as he skipped over
him. Very clear cut (at least on the slow-mo replay) and you can only
wonder if RVN's rep as a diver caught up with him here.
The second goal came in the 82 min when Davids was mugged by 3 Utd players,
Beckham came forward with the ball before chipping it forward in the box
where RVN just lifted a toe and tapped it over their stand in keeper.
Mikky got subbed due to an injury -- I think he picked it up in the first
half but a dive to stop a cross later might have stretched it out too far
for his comfort. Late on Scholes (groin?), Beckham (calf?) and Giggs (eye)
all appeared to be in some distress and unlucky for Becks as he missed out
on the 3rd sub spot and spent the last 2-3 min gamely limping about the
pitch.
Their late goal was a pretty freakish one really. Nedved cut in from the
left, curled a weak shot in from the corner of the penalty area and both
Beckham and Rio missed it much to Barthez's evident surprise and his dive
couldn't stop it just creeping inside the far post.
Player performances:
Barthez: little to do really, stopped a few from going in, wasn't tall
enough to reach their goal with his dive. Could only improve by growing
taller (perhaps Fergie should introduce a rack into changing room retinue
of torture devices ala freak-boot).
Defence: All solid. Gary Nev was showing the most commitment as usual but
let himself down with a few late mistakes, getting skinned twice and
falling down - -went forward well on a couple of occasions. He also saved
Utd on a few occasions besides though. The Wes and Rio show continues it's
impressive run and both looked solid. Mikky struggled a bit vs Camoranesi
defensively; which O'Shea sorted out on his introduction in a very good
display. O'Shea also looked a lot better going forward.
Midfield: Out wide Beckham was so-so bar his two excellent 'assists'; might
have been the calf slowing him but he's trying those long sweeping
low-percentage balls much too often again, which is even worse when we've
only got the one striker to aim at, and when he's got acres of space with
which to run forward in front of him. Scholes is there for a reason as
hitting him has a much higher chance of success. Giggs was great with his
incisions one min, woeful the next but at least he was trying the defence
on (and working better with Scholesy than the rest of the midfield was).
Keano and Butt spent most of the game cleaning stuff up and making life
easy for the centre-halves. Scholes drifted back and fell into his choppy
hacky self sometimes but still looked like our only viable creative option
for most of the game. Quite frankly we really missed JSV; amazing how
quickly his form has made him indispensable.
Forwards: RVN spent most of the game chasing wasteful long balls or
dropping back to pick stuff up. Took his chance well when it came.
Diegoal and Ole didn't have enough time on the pitch to make impressions.
Basle beat Deportivo (and their lousy away form) 1-0 to leave the group
standings as follows:
P W D L F A GD PTS
Man Utd 3 3 0 0 7 2 +5 9
Juventus 3 1 1 1 7 4 +3 4
Basle 3 1 0 2 2 7 -5 3
D_Coruna 3 0 1 2 2 5 -3 1
Utd' remaining games: away to Juve, home to Basle, away to Depor.
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