A farce in 3D: Random musings from Old Trafford

I said earlier, this week would be pivotal in our season but win or lose we would not be down for the count. Now the results are in for both games it’s safe to say we have a huge mountain to climb.

Before I start I will say congrats to Chelsea (grudgingly) if your opposition come and only play for 30 minutes out of the 90 then it would be hard for anyone to say you didn’t deserve the win. They dominated for 60 minutes and right came away with the 3 points.

In the first two thirds of the game we looked leggy and I instantly thought of the Everton game. Chelsea out performed us and forced errors (seasoned vets like Giggs and Scholes were uncharacteristically sloppy) whilst Valencia was horrible in probably his worst performance in a United shirt. But around the hour mark we woke up and came back firing. The introduction of Macheda and Nani was huge and they both played a huge part in dragging us back into the game (although Nani needs to stay on his feet).

Now I’ll vent. Having decided to watch the game down at my local in 3D you can imagine how angry I was when I got an all too good view of how we lost the game.

During the week much was made of Mike Dean being selected to officiate the game and he messed up quite a few decisions, I felt Park could have got a penalty and Gary Neville could have conceded one too.

Despite that, the whole Man United get all the breaks from refs/officials needs to end now. I can pick numerous moments from this season where we have been knocked but today was probably the most infuriating. In a match as big as this how the linesman didn’t see that Didier Drogba was offside is beyond me.

I have watched the replay on Sky as well as seeing it as it happened and I as well as everyone else in the pub caught it, probably one of the more inept pieces pieces of officiating I have seen in a while. People will say Macheda’s goal was a hand ball but it was hardly intentional as the ball bounced off him rather than him looking to get an advantage by using his hands, it does not balance out.

Everyone talked about how today was Berbatov’s day to shine, we’ll he was far from impressive. He tried but didn’t have proper support thus he looked poor despite his efforts. Chelsea easily dealt with him in his lone striker role. He did have chances, caught in possession in the box when he should have just struck it and an easy volley for Cech but apart from that he did nothing to show that he can replace Rooney in his injury enforced absence.

When Macheda scored I’m sure I was not the only person that wondered if he was about to come on and rescue us for the second season in a row but it was not to be.

Chelsea were deserving winners but it does not make the manner of our defeat any easier to accept. For all the stick Fergie has got for complaining about the officiating of our games he has a point, the standard this season all over has been poor and could have just cost us the title.