It goes without saying that Javier Hernandez is making himself into hero at the club, Gary Neville praised him on Sunday after his performance against Stoke and last night he added to his ever growing legend scoring a late winner against Wolves.
Hernandez has been likened to Michael Owen and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer lofty praise indeed but but he is doing himself no harm and although he still has a huge way until he is as good as either or held in as high regard by United fans the way Ole is, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him reach such heights.
Chris Smalling has been take huge strides since joining United, he has grown into his role as a United player and if he continues this way the money we paid could become a bargain. Attack minded, a good reader of the game and decent with the ball, Smalling is pushing his way up the ranks and with Jonny Evans not looking great he may have over taken the Northern Irish international as our 3rd choice center back.
For all the hype surrounding him hopefully Bebe showed enough to keep the naysayers at bay. He looked like our most likely outlet getting forward, his scuffed cross almost set up Macheda then he opened the scoring with a deflected cross. I won’t lie he looked rough at times in terms of touch etc but he also looked a bit anxious hopefully he is getting the nerves out of his system and we get to see his best.
For all his talent Kiko Macheda cut a lonely figure up top alone adding weight to the theory that he does his best work as a sub. He hasn’t scored for the first team since April and looked bereft of ideas and confidence, his frustration ultimately showed as he kicked the ball away in frustration late on. There is massive expectation on his shoulders and it’s easy to forget that he is just 19. He has a bright future ahead of him but he has a lot of work to do until he is ready.
Darron Gibson and Michael Carrick did very little to enhance their reputations tonight. Against Wolves I had hoped to see them take a hold of the game yet Gibson didn’t do anything to make me think he could go on to be a star in fact he lost the ball for their second goal whilst Carrick still doesn’t look anywhere near his best quite scary considering he was playing against Wolves and not a ‘top’ team.
Happy to see us in the next round we will be favourites to win the competition for a 3rd straight year and hopefully in the next round we won’t make such hard work of it and thus players like Ravel Morrison will get more than 30 seconds!
I agree with most of it, I think Macheda should have come off at some point during the second half. He was highly fustrating to watch! As soon as the ball touched his feet, he lost it!
I personally believe Obertan had a decent game.
He ran at defenders, there were a few stray passes, but he displayed enough quality to prove there is potential in him to become not a great but good winger.
Hernandez is a star! We’ll see his true ability next season. His touch has improved, his movement is precise and his comfortable on the ball.
I do hope Macheda hits a purple patch. He was touted by SAF before the start of last season for playing a bigger role in the squad. That didn’t happen, frankly, but his opportunities in the early stages of this season have been plenty (he’s nearly topped his appearances for the whole of last season already and it’s only the end of October) so he’s going to have to chalk up some goals pretty sharpish.