Feb 24
Newcastle 1-5 Man Utd: Newcastle Taken To The Cleaners At Home
Was that headline an exaggeration? I didn’t think so. However, yesterday’s win was achieved with minimum fuss, for most part, as a poor Newcastle side was run over by a team that had enough incentive to close the gap on league leaders, Arsenal. Arsenal were surprisingly held to a draw by Birmingham, with a last gap penalty from James McFadden. Although, it must be said that a horrible, horrible injury to Eduardo — something that, I pray, must never happen again to a footballer, ever — would have left the players in a state of shock throughout the game. Players need protection, and that’s what SAF was very concerned about a few weeks ago, bemoaning the fact that Ronaldo gets kicked about for fun and hardly gets much protection.
Back to the match report, though.
Ronaldo returned to goal scoring form by bagging yet another brace, while Rooney showed why he loves scoring against Newcastle by bagging a brace for himself. Saha topped it up by scoring a late one in stoppage time. However it was the first couple of goals that really killed things off for Newcastle. The first one, with a typical Ronaldo run down the left wing, a turn and a cross found Rooney who tapped it in on the volley. The second was an outstanding slide rule pass from Carrick that found Ronaldo, who, usually in these situations, can hardly do wrong.
After that the goals flowed. I think I’ll link you to the MOTD highlights (watch it before it gets taken down).
But more than United taking the Barcodes apart it was a case more of Newcastle being piss poor; when a midfield containing Fletcher can overrun you so badly, heaven knows what might have been had it been Anderson. And the defending, what of that! When Ronaldo can slip and still recover well enough to find himself one-on-one with the ‘keeper it shows the level of comedic defending that was on display. They seemed to let their shoulders droop so easily after going down too early, and that’s why I did feel a little sorry for their fans.
Anyway, on to player performances. I thought Rooney was coming back to his best, for quite sometime, now. Yesterday he found his shooting boots as well. His first was well taken, but his second was an absolute belter. Playing Nani on the wing was another nice move from the manager. It shows his growing faith in the Portuguese winger, and he didn’t disappoint. His crosses were again inch perfect on more than a couple of occasions. In fact, Tevez somehow contrived to miss a header from a Beckham-esque cross from Nani, from 5 yards out! Carrick has improved and his passing was more positive and advanced. It’s good to see that the lad has a bit of a fight in him, seeing the competition for places in the centre of the park. Fletcher continued in the same vein as he did against Arsenal.
It was nice to see Saha join in the action and also help himself to a goal. It is important for a striker to have a feel of the football, foremost, and then see a shot sail into the net. Those two things will certainly help the Frenchman, if he does, in fact return to more regular action.
So how important is this result. Well, we have closed the gap by three points. But not too much must be read into a performance against a team that, at best, resembled a pub team. The players will be told that a 5-1 doesn’t change things still. They will be told to prepare for the next game after a brief pat on the back.
The title race is hotting up and is very delicately poised. The title run-in, in particular, is tricky for both Arsenal and United, so this season promises to be exciting. So, lad, fasten your seat belts and enjoy the ride.
Related items from Red Rants:
- Update on Red Rants
- Man Utd vs Newcastle Utd: Preview
- Man Utd 2010/11 Season Fixtures Announced
- Keegan ‘I’d Love It’ Returns To Geordie-land. Heh!
- Four League Wins in a Row for United?
Tags: Match Reports
Opti (541)
Stephen (479)
RedDevilEddy (459)
Craig Mc (345)
Moscow is my heaven (272)
Fucking oath we are starting to believe Utsav!!!
We are on fellas
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i smell treble, CL will be tevez scoring yet another late goal against, roma!
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http://www.tribalfootball.com/article.php?id=80278
NO!, ah its probably a lie.
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i fail to understand grognard here.beckham was past it and his behavior bad.scholes and giggs should retire.keane had to go too.ok.a few weeks ago carrick was bad.now he should start over scholes?
truthfully,i think we should play carrick and anderson,then bring on fletcher to get a feel of games.hagreaves to me was a mistake.players like makelele are rare but honestly,hargo is a poor mans flamini and not makelele
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That would be an interesting trade eh Dan. Unfortunately we would then have to buy a new goalie probably, so we would barely save any money on the trade. But anyways it’s probably BS.
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STOP BASHING GIGGS!!!!!!!!! he has played probably 2 below par games this season, the rest he has played well. he has scored for us this season, set up quite a few goals, and also set up some almost goals that others haven’t finished! where do you people as Manchester United fans get off with criticising someone who has given his entire life from the age of 14 to Man Utd, and has given us some of our best ever football memories. He might be a bit slower and might need to be rested sometimes, like what SAF has done now (I commented a few weeks ago that Giggs needed two weeks off to freshen him up). Also, you have to remember that as Vice Captain of Man Utd, with Neville out for so long, SAF has been looking to Giggs to lead us untill Neville comes back, and he has been doing so admirably! Nani is a fantastic player but still needs another season to develop and he needs to bulk up physically, he is not the finished article yet, he still needs time. He is learning from Giggs, this culture of bashing Ryan Giggs is disgraceful. As to Scholes, the man has just come back from a longterm injury, of course he is going to be a bit rusty, but he remains a genius midfielder. I can’t believe how short a memory some people have, the man DESERVES your respect, AND ALSO, if SAF feels confident that Giggs can STILL play for us and do a job for us, then who the hell are we to second guess him!!!! ‘Nuff Said
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Grognard although I agree Scholes has been surprisingly reserved in his play and almost negative, its not as if he has just lost all of his ability. He can pass just as well as he did last season, and he can shoot just as well, and he has lacked speed for a long time so it never really made much of a difference to him, he still has the best footballing brain in our squad and he can control the pace of the game with ease, Michael Carrick being the only other cm we have in our team who can control games, and he’s still learning to do so. I mean really, you don’t go from being one of our best players last season to a player who should just retire. Although I think we rely on him so much less than before, he’s still a great player and once he picks up some form and gets back to the way he was before, he’ll probably become our regular cm again. Giggs’ form has been erratic this season, and due to Nani’s great form recently there’s no doubt Nani should be a regular starte for us, but Giggs still produces moments of quality and should be a valued member of our squad.
Although the form of both of these players this season does warrant some form of criticism, as it has more substance than “Rooney is a terrible finisher, he should be dropped” when we have no other fit striker available and Rooney is playing well in every other part of the game, or “Hargreaves is overpriced, and was a mistake” after playing great in quite a few of our matches such as against Arsenal, people should just understand its hard to appreciate what Hargreaves brings to the team, but it is alot. And he can pass well, shoot well, is fast, and he times his tackles very well. Although I admit I unfairly critcised Carrick this season, I never called for him to be immediately sold just on his poor performances(although the prospect of making a profit by selling him on to Newcastle did sound appealing), I just doubted his importance to the team, which I now understand is constantly becoming bigger as the months go by.
And Donibrasco; “Hargo is a poor mans flamini”? I bet you barely even paid any attention to flamini last season and thought Gilberto Silva was one of the best defensive midfielders in the premiership? Flamini is playing well but he’s definitely not better than Flamini, although I do think Flamini has been one of the best cm’s this season.
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Do some of you guys understand what gets said?!No one is disrespecting or bashing giggs for fucks sake!Infact giggs was my favorite player for a long time.Saying that nani should play more is not disrespecting or bashing giggs.yes he has done incredible things for the club and he has been a fantastic servant but Nani should play much more games because he now gives more to the team.I dont know how many of you have noticed but nani does a lot of defensive work.He tracks back quite a bit.He also gives us a major threat on his corners and crosses the ball much better than ANY other player in united.Its know suprise that when nani has played in the last few games we have scored lots of goals-arsenal and newcastle and he delivered against lyon.Its not disrespect!Please dont fucking mistake it,its not,its realising that someone playing better should be given a spot because he is playing better!Giggs hardly contributes anything to our play these days.FACT.he has lost his pace and ability to go past players.FACT.and so if you want to keep on praising players for what they did in the past,we might as well sign yorke,cole and sheringham.Why didnt anyone complain about solskjaer?because he contributed something!13 goals!That said fergie will still pick giggs and it doesnt matter what anyone says.Giggs the equivalent to his first born child.
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Giggs still has a great role to play as several things:
1. Role model both on the pitch and off, to young players
2. Super-sub, providing that bit of class he can in games that need, or slowing things down with his experience
3. Left footed delivery
4. Coaching
However I feel Fergie has to give some more starting time to Nani, as he simply has earned it.
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I agree with the comments. Although Giggs and Scholes have lost pace and are showing their age, they are very intelligent players with a lot of experience. While their individual contribution on the pitch has lessened, they still bring an awful lot to the team.
On the title race: I still feel that Arsenal will drop points. They have an incredibly talented team that plays beautiful football. But the team is still very young and I do not feel it has the same mental strength as we do. When things go wrong for Arsenal they just fold rather than picking themselves up.
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Scholes can still play,I have no problem with scholesy in there.Hes too clever and yea for sure arsenal will drop, well win the league if we keep winning because they wont
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look, the fact is, they have both lost it with age, they should not be kicked out of the team or club, just have to adapt to a new super sub role, let the young guns play, we destroy teams 5-0, then we bring them on to slow down the game, simple, tactics.
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Conor; I have never questioned the experience and the intelligence that both Scholes and Giggs bring to the squad, but the time has come for them to to take a substitutes role and get out of the way of players who are younger, as talented and have the quickness to compete in this new, fast and improved BPL. They still can serve a major role and start on the occasion but their best is far behind them. Scholes especially is showing lack of match fitness as well, his decision making is a little slow and opponents take him off the ball easily and far too often. It is Carrick, Nani’s and Anderson’s time.
And I won’t listen to any of you out there put dow Hargo because you are just plain wrong. Hargo has fought the injury bug but he is a world class CDM and if some of you cannot see what he can bring to our starting eleven (especially in Europe) then I am at a loss.
Dan; I totally agree with your point about bringing them on late in a game to slow things down and change tempo.
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look like the eduardo injury wasnt as bad as we thought.
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Oh yea hargos been fit for a long time.good for him.
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Removed
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thats a fake.
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I hope so, Dan.
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if that happens to anybody they’re out for much longer then 9 months, not to be rude but the foot would probably be cut of.
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I dont think that is Eduardos foot! That is grose though. But take a look at this story: http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/2402_anderson.shtml
I dont know if this is old news, but…
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GET IN ANDO! lol.
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Figured. Removed the link. Btw, the part where the report says that Evra was watching TV through all just cracked me up…
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i can imagine, andy and the model making noises and evra turning up the tv so he cant hear it lol.
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Yeah but Grognard I just seen you say “Scholes should retire.” and thought you were being a bit hasty. Although i do agree he and Giggs should now not be regular starters and I’d go as far as saying Scholes is probably our 4th best cenre-mid, with Giggs being our second best left-mid. What’s all this about Eduardo’d foot and it being a fake?
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what link got removed?
not a bad looking broad for ando to pick up w/no english. haha
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Well at least anderson is scorin off the pitch lol”"” BTW i feel we have to give scholes some time to get into his stride.So many of us were harsh on carrick as well in the beginning and all of a sudden all of those who criticized carrick have changed their opinions about him so i think we need to be more patient with scholes .Who knows he could probably win us the chmpions league this year.
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F**k, f**k, f**k!
BTW how do I remove the link Utsav?
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why remove? besides removing links takes timing and intelligence, and is a day halting thing, it takes so long but its worth it in the end lol, just refresh the page go to your comment quick time, then click when it says edit comment.
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What do you guys think? Shall I remove it or let it stand?
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Yup thats the best way …Do as Dan Says…
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When I refresh, I still get the edit bar.. Quickly click on your comment within the first 5 seconds and remove whatever you wanna….
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Letit stand, I say. Its a fun read.
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I think so too! You da man Andy
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http://www.manutdtalk.com/forums/man-utd-chat/7402-fergies-tactics-europe.html I just got this link
from another blog…..seems like the verdict is out on Scholes”"”"
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I am starting to worry about this Eduardo situation! Against Arsenal last week, Eduardo came in on a tackle exactly like the one he broke his leg with. He was only yellow carded, even though his tackle on Nani was in knee-height. Who knows how many tackles like this does Ronaldo have to go through in just one season. Tackles flying in, studs first and in knee height! It is amazing opposition teams dont get more red cards against us! If Ronaldo should get an injury like Eduardos or Smudgers(I am praying to God for that not to happend!) I dont know how much damage that would bring to his play, if he even would be able to play anymore. He is strong, no doubt about that, but his feet is his strength and if he would damage them in any serious way, I dont think he would be playing football anymore. He would lose his speed, dribbling skills and he would be more frightened of his opponents. That is why I think referees should look at that Eduardo situation, and understand that players who does these kind of tackles should be banned for 10 games at least. That should make them stop doing these kind of tackles!
Just to add something! I know this is looking very much like the 1998/99 season because of Spurs winning the Carling Cup, Tevez and Rooney being Uniteds best pairing since Yorke and Coles(some might disagree, but I think so) and all that, but for me this is turning just more and more like the 1997/98 season! Just switch United with Arsenal that is. In 1998 United lost many first team players because of injury, and they lost the title since Arsenal won the last 10 games. And United had been leading the race until early April.
This season, Arsenal have been top of the league for most of the season, but now they seem to struggle because of many injuries and losing their consentration(Clichy and Gallas), while United are just edging closer and closer to our 10th Premier League title. If we go the the rest of the season unbeaten(but thats unlikely) it will be an Arsenal 1998 achievement. If we add the FA cup and the Champions league to our 2008 collection it would be amazing!
Oh, and City are losing 2-0 against the toffes!
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Is anybody else salivating over the Fulham fixture on the weekend? Especially after what we just did to Newcastle.
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frickin idiot sven////ericksson
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hey that story is hilarious great for the lad
back 2 berbatov i heard today he doesn’t want to move also is he worth 20 mill i want a goal scorer Berba isn’t prolific is he
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I have no idea what this shite about Eduardo’s fake foot is all about???????
Conor; I love Giggs and I like Scholes. It’s hard for me to admit to the fact that their day is up. They are no longer starting material. Sorry if that bothers you but they just are too long in the tooth. Giggs still has his moments but Scholes for me has really slowed down and his contribution on the field echoes caution and security. Long gone are his probing runs and long speculative passes and blistering low shots from outside the box. The man has become the Back Pass Kid. I can’t stomach watching him any longer. It hurts me to say that but watching Anderson and the reinvented and rejuvinated Michael Carrick is much more interesting and fun to view on the pitch. Giggs and Scholes are very smart players and so they can contribute well as subs and the occasional start, but the future is now. It’s time for them to realize that as well as Fergie and to step aside for the younger blokes.
I’d like to see them hang around for a couple years in this role but truthfully, Scholes looks like he is done to me. Giggs I think has another year left in him. It’s time for Fergie to look for backups to Nani and Ronaldo. Carrick, Anderson, Hargo and Fletcher have the center of midfield quite secure right ow.
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Manuforlife; That idiot Sven Goran Erickson has done the derby double on United this season. I doubt Fergie is an idiot….correct? Erickson is a quality manager but he needs to sell many players and bring many new ones in. His job isn’t nearly as hard as Keegan’s is in Toon Town but he still has a lot of work to build City into a true contender. He has won everywhere he has gone and although I hate City, I am confident he will turn them around.
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Grognard- Park can cover for Nani and Fletcher can cover for Ronaldo; or the opposite. Anderson, Carrick and Hargreaves as midfielders are okey to me. And maybe Veloso will join this summer so we have an other midfielder.
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It doesn’t bother me at all, I agree! Although I just can’t believe you’ve gone as low as to say Scholes is worse than Fletcher, I mean give the guy some credit! In his first game back for us after his injury he played some great long passes and pinged it about the pitch with ease, showing he still has some quality left, but he definitely seems to be using it a lot more sparingly this season and I can’t see why, although it seems he lacks the hunger, and even he said himself he would quit once he’s lost his passion for the game, that time may be now, so I understand your point.
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Grognard: To be fair to Scholes he is just back from a fairly nasty injury, we should maybe be cut a bit more slack. I wouldn’t have in my starting 11 but it still might be a bit early to completely consign him to the scrap heap.
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Look guys, Scholes looked old and washed up 18 months ago. I’m really sorry but it is not in my nature to protect a player under a bunch of warm blankets just because he was a loyal and valued servant from the past. It’s his time to go. For crying out loud, it sure wasn’t Beckham’s or RVN’S, but Fergie had no problem showing them the door. And why? because he didn’t like them as much and saw them as selfish. Well it’s time for Scholes to show he is not selfish by not getting in the way of Carrick, Anderson and YES Fletcher any longer. I’m not ungrateful or unappreciative but many of you do not know how to let go. I hope you don’t have 18 year old daughters who want to move out any time soon.
And JB, read my post please. I have stated on more than one occasion that I would welcome both of them as very experienced and tactically game changing substitutes. Although I feel retirement is close for both them and Neville, I feel that all three can be valuable in that role and as mentors on the practice pitch. They still have their value, and I for one still love to see Giggsy on the pitch. Scholes on the other hand gets on my bloody nerves when he is on the pitch. Next time he makes a back pass in an non threatening position I will throw a brick through my tv. Still, he is a calming presence on the field and he is intelligent. Problem is that he has become even slower of foot than Carrick and gets dispossessed of the ball more often.
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RedDevil; If there is one player that I have never warmed to because he doesn’t fit the quality standards of a Manchester United player it is Park. The lad shows plenty of effort and passion and his work rate is excellent but for all that, there is very little skill on display and he lacks composure big time. He would be fine on a bottom end BPL team where his work rate would make him a star like it has with Kieren Richardson. When I see him in the starting lineup or when he comes in as a sub I feel we are playing with ten men. I don’t really care if this sounds insensitive and it’s certainly has nothing to do with his race or culture, it’s just that he is not refined enough of a player and although he has quickness of feet, he really lacks speed which frustrates me greatly. I find he has a hard time beating fullbacks wide in order to get in a cross or to get around them. Enough said on him.
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Waht was the difference between Petrov’s kick last night, for which he got a red and Gallas’ for which, despite video replay after the match, the ref decided not to do anything?
This is grossly unfair.
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Good point Utsav…
Hey Grognard would you be saying the same things you are saying about Hargo if he were not part Canadian?
I think not.
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it seems every team around us is crumbling, chelsea, arsenal, pool.
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i still agree with scholes especially coming on when we have wrapped up a game.
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2-0 to the blues, thats is great, city loose and pool drop to 5th.
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