Palace 1 - 2 United

DDG

Valencia Jones Smalling(McNair) Shaw(Evans)

Blind Herrera

Mata Fellaini Young

Rooney(Falcao)

What league position would we be in if it wasn't for De Gea?

That was painful to watch. Palace were all over us during the second half and, I must say, we were a bit lucky to get out of Selhurst Park with the three points. But that's football for you, we probably deserved better from two of our three most recent games but got nothing. Today, after Shaw's injury and the forced change in formation, we were dreadful but won the game. 

We started the game decently and Palace weren't really troubling our defence. Blind hit the post and Young was tormenting Ward on the left. However, I felt that there were too many United players who didn't really look up for it. Rooney wasn't at his best, Valencia had a handful in Zaha and Bolasie and I know both Mata and Herrera can do much better than they did today. Blind is not Carrick and he'll never be (duh!), Shaw's jinxed season persists and Smalling didn't have the best of matches. 

Excellent Young.

A first half penalty, calmly taken by new pen kick taker Juan Mata, put us in front. I must admit that the penalty was a tad dubious but I'm not complaining. Palace got back into the game after the break and scored a freekick. That's the second set piece we've conceded in two weeks (both deflected). Blind, in the wall, should have done much better. He got his head out of the way instead of taking one in his face for the team. Anyhow, thankfully that goal didn't prove costly. Near the 80th minute mark, the excellent Young crossed the ball in the box and Fellaini headed home. Falcao played a huge part in this goal; he pushed one of Palace's defenders into the goalkeeper and the latter got caught in no man's land. He deserves the 300 grand he will be paid this week. Ha. 

Carra this DDG is off this summer. I've got the same feeling.

After three games of doing absolutely nothing in goal, except for picking the ball from the net, De Gea made two world class saves that kept us in the game. At 1-1 he produced a close range stop and then saved a volley. That, according to Ashley Young, spurred us on and eventually Maroune got the winner. If anything, David's performance showed us what we'll be missing come next season. I don't think he will be at Manchester United in August. I really hope he stays but if his transfer doesn't happen this summer it will happen eventually. I think him moving to Spain is inevitable and I kind of understand him. He's Spanish and he's a Madrid boy. 

I know these wins aren't so pleasing on the eye but I kind of like it when we grind out results like today. It used to happen quite often in our away games under Fergie and such wins tend to be sweeter. The passion shown by Fellaini and the boys when the second went in was beautiful to watch. It's also been a while since I've seen delirious Man Utd fans running on the pitch to celebrate with the scorer. 

We're now 7 point above Liverpool who will be playing Chelsea on Sunday. If Pool fail to get the 3 points, we'll have a CL spot in the bag. Getting back in Europe was our main target, hopefully we'll take one step forward next year. Having seen Europe's top four teams play last week, I think we're miles behind that level but, hopefully, we'll get there.

PS - Welcome to Old Traffod Memphis Depay. Exciting buy but I won't bang on about how good he is and how amazing he'll be at Old Trafford. I've learned my lesson with the Falcao and Di Maria purchases.