{"id":9609,"date":"2024-05-12T19:28:56","date_gmt":"2024-05-12T18:28:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=9609"},"modified":"2024-05-18T14:22:57","modified_gmt":"2024-05-18T13:22:57","slug":"taking-it-to-the-wire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=9609","title":{"rendered":"Taking It To The Wire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

All we all needed to do today was take three points and that is exactly what we did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frankly, I\u2019d be happy enough to leave this report there as I\u2019ve already covered all the important points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, there are probably a few more things that can reasonably be said about a strange game of football that was a far cry from the blood and thunder clashes these two clubs used to be famous for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We started unchanged for the fourth time in a row, just as bt8 predicted. It was not his only correct prediction on the day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We began brightly before United asserted some control of the ball without getting it into threatening positions. For us, Partey dropped deep, between the central defenders, and tried to find passes forward. A couple of times we were lax in midfield and Raya came out quickly to clear up the danger from loose balls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On twenty minutes, Casemiro failed to get out fast enough (due to slowness of thinking rather than lack of physical speed) as Saliba headed an Onana clearance to White, who helped it onto the conveniently onside Havertz in space on the right. He made his way into the box, holding the ball until Trossard had got across his man before playing a perfect ball for the Belgian to sweep in from a few yards out. It was poor from United and clinical from us and, ultimately, this moment decided the match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I won\u2019t go blow by blow, the game does not deserve such minute analysis. It was not great fare. United sucked us down to their disjointed level. The Old Trafford pitch is large, and at times it looked enormous, with both teams stretched when pockets of space became acres opening up in front of players with the ball at their feet only for a distinct lack of quality to prevent them taking advantage. I do wonder if United look less compact than they would do if they didn\u2019t play on such a gigantic surface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As half-time approached, I was unimpressed by a sly push in Saliba\u2019s back from the ineffective Hojland. Our defender was in the air and landed awkwardly. This kind of foul is not even allowed in rugby, lacking in any sort of sporting legitimacy as well as being potentially dangerous. The refs need to cut it out, not ignore it. Thankfully, Paul Tierney did not make any match-changing decisions today, but he was bad in a characteristically low-level way, favouring United with a string of nothing decisions (he seemed especially keen to let United take throw-ins from wherever they fancied) and managing to book Raya for timewasting at the end as our keeper was in his run-up to take a goal kick. At that point, Paul, you\u2019ve probably missed your window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He did correctly ignore a penalty claim from Diallo when Partey got the ball. His subsequent treatment gave Arteta the time to get his troops into a huddle and impart a few words\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJust \u2018cos they are fucking eh-shit, doesn\u2019t mean you lot have to be!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second half had a little more incident but nothing hugely exciting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Onana made some saves. A good shot from Rice and a corner flicked on by Wan-Bissaka were both going in before he got a hand on them. Rice rolled it across the goalmouth but Martinelli, on for our match winner Trossard, failed to get on the end of it. He continues to look rusty and could have been away at the end but his control was poor. The one time he did get released over the top he cut inside and delayed too long but still managed to force another decent save from Onana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 67 minutes Casemiro shot tamely from fully thirty-five yards. It was United\u2019s first shot on target.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raya made a few good grabs from crosses. Garnacho ran at White and Saliba a couple of times. The former let him go when cutting inside on one occasion, but the nasty little w(h)inger shot well over. On another occasion, Saliba made a beautiful, perfectly judged tackle in the box. Deschamps is a fool if he cannot see how good that kid is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Generally speaking, we had the better chances and certainly deserved to win, poor as United were. However, we were not particularly good. Rice was our best player, Trossard also pretty good. Havertz worked hard but had a few loose touches, which is pretty much true of all of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We did not give much away defensively, and despite a nervy last ten minutes when we all knew that conceding would be disastrous, we saw the game out without any real scares against a toothless Manure side who are going to finish out of the European places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final whistle was greeted with relief more than anything (apart from in bt8\u2019s gaff, where it also received a judicious nod of satisfaction). Our record at this ground is bad, we have often failed to take advantage of having a better side than them to improve it, so today it was good to see us take the points even if the performance was rugged rather than imperious. We shut them out and made the most of a relatively early chance to score, and then we played the game that was on offer, as Clive Palmer is fond of saying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result ensures that, whatever happens, we will go into the final day of the season with a chance of being champions. It has been a long road, and we need one more big push, but today was an opportunity to keep ourselves in with a chance of a famous league win by beating old rivals at a ground we\u2019ve messed up at before. We did that, and now it goes to the final day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel dirty saying it\u2026 but I\u2019ll be rooting for the spuds on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a personal note, let me just say that, after my last two assignments were the losses to Villa and Bayern, I am chuffed to have proved that I am not the jinx who has blighted our season! I was worried for a while there\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have a good week and we will be back for the final showdown. All to play for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until next time \u2018holics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All we all needed to do today was take three points and that is exactly what we did. Frankly, I\u2019d be happy enough to leave this report there as I\u2019ve already covered all the important points. However, there are probably a few more things that can reasonably be said about a strange game of football […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9609"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9609"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9615,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9609\/revisions\/9615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}