Battling Black Cats scare United

In a bizarre few weeks that had seen the Red Devils ship in 6 against City and send fans to sleep against Galati, the lads must of fancied their chances when visiting the theatre of dreams, making it an anniversary to forget for Fergie.

Despite parking the bus in front of goal, thoroughly deserving a point in the process. We were undone by one of our own, Wes Brown back to his old stomping ground, handing Fergie an anniversary present, with the solitary goal in the fixture.

In a game on bonfire night, that didn’t produce many fireworks we were dealt another casualty to add to an ever-growing injury list. Young Connor Wickham stretchered off with a knee injury with only 2 minutes on the board. Bruce resisted temptation to revert to a 4-5-1 and stuck Ji up top with Nicklas Bendtner. A move that nearly paid off, with a lacklustre United failing to get out the traps, we had a few half chances that we should have made their keeper work for.

The managers had to change their half time team talks, as on the stroke of half time Wes Brown diverted a Welbeck flick on past Westwood into the back of his own-net. But as the lads went in for half time, everybody felt an equaliser was on the horizon, as we gave as good as we got.

Unfortunately it never came. We defended as resiliently as we did in the first half, the game looked as if it was going to peter out into a dull 1-0 victory to the champions, with 20 minutes to go the game burst into life. Firstly we were awarded a penalty after Seb Larsson’s cross appeared to hit a United hand, only to have it rescinded after ref Lee Mason had a word with his assistant. Shortly after Larsson again drilled in a cross for Bendtner, who couldn’t connect with the ball.

A superb double-save by Irish stopper Westwood prevented the champions from doubling their lead, which would of effectively ended the match as a contest. After parrying a powerful strike from Rooney, he then recovered to save Evra’s follow up, by tipping the left-back’s effort over the bar. Late into the game, Darren Fletcher handballed just outside the box, but Larsson couldn’t hit his free kick past the wall, which sent the home fans back to London with a smile on their face.

Although it was a backs against the wall job at Old Trafford, we can take many positives out of the game. Fulham visit the Stadium of Light on the 19th of November, a game we can surely win!

Man of the Match – Westwood – Looked composed throughout.

By Rob Munro

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