Manchester United have been hit hard with defensive injuries at the start of the season; with Vidic, Ferdinand, Rafael and Neville out, and in the opening match of the year against Birmingham their back line looked a bit makeshift.  However their midfield and forwards looked close to first choice.

The game began in the way that many of United games go against the smaller clubs, with Birmingham playing a lone striker and trying to soak up the United pressure.   It took the red devils 34 minutes before Rooney jumped high to head Nani’s cross into Joe Hart’s net.  It looked like United might go on to dominate from this point and grab a hand full of goals, but Birmingham fought back well.

Birmingham almost snatched an equalizer before the break but Evra for the second time in two matches headed the ball off the line.   Darren Fletch, who in my opinion did not have the best game, should have put United 2-0 up when Evra cut the ball back to him six yard out from goal, but he blazed it wide.

In the second half Manchester United certainly didn’t make it easy on the fans’ nerves by putting the game to bed, and although they came close on several occasions, still Birmingham remained just one goal away from an upset.  And when Benitez and O’Connor came on they looked like they might just be able to beat the nervy Ben Foster and grab a result for Birmingham.

One thing that was clearly lacking for Man United in the post Ronaldo era was urgency.  Whenever Ronaldo would pick up the ball from a long throw or cleared corner he would immediately start an attacked, but particularly Valencia and Berbatov seemed to want to hold the ball up and slow the game down although having acres of space to run into.

Michael Owen made his premier league debut for United and in the last 10 minutes he went through one on one with Joe Hart twice.  The first time he was a fraction offside, and the second time Hart saved his shot.  But this is still encouraging as Owen seems to be able to create these kind of chances every game; the finishing will come back with time.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 16th, 2009 at 5:16 pm and is filed under Matches. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.