Cardiff City 2 - 2 United

DDG

Smalling Rio Evans Evra

Valencia Fellaini Cleverley Januzaj(Welbeck)

Chicharito(Giggs) Rooney

Today's game showed how important Michael Carrick is to our side. Without him, our midfield was average at best. Fellaini and Cleverley failed to impose their authority in the middle of the park and that's why we didn't win the game today. Cardiff aren't exactly the best side in the world but they do seem to put in that extra effort whenever one of the big boys visits their stadium. 

I expected a tough game and I even went as far as saying that we'll probably lose today. In fact I would have taken a draw before the game. Having said that, the manner at which we lost two points is disappointing so I'm not really happy with the draw now. We've lost 4 points by conceding on the 90th minute this season. If we held on and won both games, we'd be sitting comfortably second only three points away from Arsenal. But a football game is 90 minutes long and it's useless contemplating the ifs and maybes. We wouldn't have won all those league titles and the treble had our opponents held on to their lead during the past couple of decades.

Rooney was our main man today...yet again. He scored a goal, assisted Evra for the second, kicked an opponent after losing his temper and fluffed a very good chance to score on the 92nd minute. That chance, which was beautifully assisted by Giggsy, would have won us the game. I couldn't believe he tried to pass to Welbeck when he could have easily gone round the goalie and passed the ball into an open net. It was that easy. 

There was little to be done about their first goal but the second was perfectly avoidable. First Smalling conceded a needless freekick and then Evra left his opponent unmarked. That's very poor defending. Cardiff also hit the bar when former red Campbell lobbed the ball over De Gea. I don't know what Cleverley and our defenders were doing on that particular occasion. 

Anyway, some of our players were below par today and that reflects in the result. We've got too many injured players and their replacements aren't really doing well. Chicharito, Rio and Fellaini who were replacing RVP, Vidic and Jones were very poor today. We're also missing Rafael! I hope we manage to get our act together for the upcoming crunch games. Bayern Leverkusen and Tottenham await us...then we've got games vs Everton and Newcastle, for which I'll be at Old Trafford supporting our boys. Come on United!