Everton 0 - 1 United

Line Up:
VDS

Brown, Ferdinand, Vida, Silvestre

Ronaldo, Carrick, Scholes, Evra

Tevez, Giggs

After the International break, and witnessing some good football by England(at last), the Premier League action is back. To sum up a perfect week, in terms of football that is, United won 1-0 and at last we’re leapfrogging some teams and heading to the top of the table. By no means was this a good United performance but we survived with Vidic’s sole goal.

The first half was literally event-less, United didn’t trouble the debuting Everton goalie and nor did Everton. We were playing without a centre forward, for some reason Saha who is supposedly ‘fit’ didn’t start the match, only God knows why(and Ferguson.) Scholes was given a yellow card, for a mad reaction and could have been sent off seconds later had the referee been senseless, and luckily the ref was a bit cruel(to everton that is) when he awarded a freekick, for a dubious foul committed by Yakubu on Brown, had the ref not given the foul, Yakubu would have ended up one on one with Van der Sar. Silvestre got injured and I bet he will be sidelined for a few weeks, I wish him a speedy recovery. Anyway the first half ended with little to recall except the above mentioned incidents.

So the Second half got underway, in my opinion it was a decent second half performance by United. Scholes should have scored after some good passing by Tevez and Carrick, and Ronaldo should have been given a penalty, instead what did he get? A yellow card, that sums up his diving reputation. But in the end Vidic was our hero, after superbly heading in the back of the net. Although we didn't play so well, we were way better than Everton, they barely threatened our goalie, but I should say that our defenders were spot on at times, in fact Ferdinand saved the 3 points when he blocked a promising shot by Yakubu at the face of goal. Saha who entered instead of Giggs wasn’t as effective as the game vs Sunderland.

Another 3 points in the bag, this time at a difficult stadium, in front of a hostile crowd. I was quite excited by the prospect of seeing Ronaldo play again after the suspension but to be honest he made me sick. He was a step over too far and didn’t manage to beat Arteta nor any other Everton defender, maybe his alleged partying has got him off the pace. Another thing that bothers me is that he alywas steps up to take a freekick, spends a whole minute 'concentrating' and then he sends it staight to the player wall. It's about time Ferguson had the balls to tell Ronaldo to give up on hitting freekicks, even I could hit them better. Tevez played brilliantly but still he wasn’t a threat in front of goal, maybe we should have bought Owen after all, his revival is there for all to see after scoring 3 international goals, he was cheaper and yeah he could score goals but Tevez’s work rate is unquestionable. Last year, after 6 games we bagged 13 points, this year we bagged 11. So we’re not doing horribly after all. What is our only problem? You don’t have to be a graduate to realize that it’s GOALS! We only scored 4, but to be on the positive side we only conceded 2, credit to our great defence. Anyway our next match is vs Sporting Lisbon in the Champs league and then vs Chelsea in the Premier league. I’m off to my Accounts private lessons. So long.
Over and Out.

Player Ratings (thanks to Karan for his help)
VDS-6, Brown-6, Vida-8, Ferdinand-8, Silvestre-5, Ronaldo-5, Scholes-7, Carrick-7, Evra-7, Tevez-7, Giggs-6. (Nani-6, Pique-6)