Terrace Talk

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On Saturday afternoon, Manchester United made the trip to Ewood Park to take on United legend Mark Hughes’ ever-improving Rovers. With Chelsea collecting all three points from their game in hand at Goodison Park, a win for Fergie’s latest crop of players became increasingly important. Blackburn of course were still pushing for a European place, and Sparky wouldn’t stand to have his men lie down quietly in light of this.

Having dispatched Arsenal last week after going a goal behind to Adebayor’s best impression of ‘La mano de Dios’, United exhumed that air of invincibility they so often possess during ’squeaky-bum time’. Surely it would be a difficult but fairly routine win. Step forward Brad Friedel.

“Brad Friedel denies Manchester United” is nothing new in the way of tabloid headlines, but heading into this match, I personally felt United would be too hot to handle, especially with the glittering lights of a League title and possible Champions League glory at the end of the tunnel. United began the game brightly enough, dominating possession for the first 3-4 minutes and when Carlos Tevez had missed a sitter that had been laid on the most silver of platters by Wayne Rooney. I immediately began to think of how much that wasted opportunity would go on to hurt us.

AP Photo/Paul Thomas

So said, so done. Having not created anything significant for the next 20 minutes, Blackburn went ahead through a combination of clinical finishing and calamitous defending. The “Super Serb” Nemanja Vidic was back in the heart of United’s defence, but the combination of himself, Rio and Evra produced a string of schoolboy errors that led to Roque Santa Cruz opening the scoring. Both central defenders seemed to attack the ball as it was thrown in, knocking into each other and hence rendering the sandwiched Jason Roberts useless. However, the ball broke kindly to Sparky’s top striker, who was left conveniently wide open by a ball-watching Patrice Evra. 1-0 to Blackburn.

AFP PHOTO/PAUL ELLIS

To be honest, I wasn’t particularly worried (clearly i’d forgotten who Rovers had in goal). A few weeks ago I said to a worried mate on the eve of United’s match against Middlesbrough, that he shouldn’t worry anymore, United weren’t going to lose again this season. So far so good, but boy did I have to sweat on Saturday!

Over the years, there have been three reasons I don’t get worried seeing United go down a goal fairly early:

1) Roy Keane
2) Ryan Giggs
3) Paul Scholes

Roy has long since gone up to the Northeast, Ryan’s form this season has left a lot to be desired to say the least, so I turned for comfort to Paul Scholes. I saw the Salford-born lad’s ability to maintain possession for his team as the key route back into the match. However, by his usually high standards, Scholesy was average at best for the first 45 on Saturday. In fact, the entire United team look as though they had one eye on Barcelona for Wednesday’s Champion’s League sem-final encounter. Blackburn continued to show the greater determination for the duration of the half.

United upped the tempo in the second half, and began to press Blackburn into their own end, but the story wasn’t about United starting to play their more natural game of free-flowing football. Instead, it was all about Brad Friedel. I’ve always rated the American, but i’m getting quite tired of his constant heroics against United. The big man pulled off 3 absolutely magnificent saves before Tevez found himself free to flick Scholes’ header into the back of the net. All in all, it was a great football match for the neutral, and i’m not too disappointed at all with the end result (in fact i’m delighted). What does worry me is the future.

AFP PHOTO/PAUL ELLIS

We’re set to go to The Nou Camp on Wednesday to take on a struggling Barcelona, but may we have to do that without Wayne Rooney? His collision with Ryan Nelsen left him struggling to play on with a bruised hip, and with Anderson and Hargreaves already slight doubts for Wednesday, the possibility of United taking on one of the most dazzling arrays of attacking talent, in Barcelona without their three most tireless workers is a prospect i’m not too pleased about.

The back of my brain just reminded me that Barcelona defend about as well as Newcastle United, so there many reasons for a United fans’ hope.