by bigmick » Sun Mar 21, 2010 5:29 pm
Taking the game in isolation I didn't think we played too bad to be totally honest. We got ourselves a good foothold by getting in front with an excellent goal, before a mistake from our left back put Valencia in. I did think it was a penalty to be totally honest. I know the initial contact was outside the box but he was well on his way into the area before he hit the deck. The mancs wanted Mash sent off and they probably had a shout at the very least, althbough I think the referee got it right. Where I don't think he got it right was with the Fletcher incident which was as clear a red as you'll ever see.
As for us though, I thought we hung on in there pretty well, and the only selection which I didn't agree with was the one of Rodriguez for Babel. Babel not for the first time is showing signs of getting something going, and I think he would have given Gary Neville plenty of problems. Rodriguez on the other hand has that Carlos Kickaball look about him to me, and I'll be surprised if he makes any impact in England. People moan about the selection of Lucas but in all honesty I don't think we had much choice. Aquilani would have been swamped (as indeed he was when he came on) and would have provided nothing defensively, whereas Lucas while providing nothing at all going forward does at least run around a bit. Kuyt did his usual, neither Torres nor Gerrard look 100% fit to me, and in the main we contained Rooney fairly well.
All in all I didn't think it was a disasterous performance by any means, we just have a couple too many average players to go to such places and play any other way unfortunately.
"se e in una bottigla ed e bianco, e latte".