Manchester United 1 v 1 Everton
Old Trafford, Manchester
11th December 2005
It was the story of Manchester United's season (and last season for that matter). They simply couldn't score, despite having the players to do so, and their defending simply wasn't good enough. End of story.
Having crashed out of Europe earlier this week, United had to put in a good performance, if only to keep the disillusioned fans coming to Old Trafford!
Richardson was given his chance ahead of O'Shea at left-back, but these attacking changes meant nothing when Mcfadden, who proved himself as the poor finisher he really is later in the game, ghosted through unmarked and blasted the ball home past van der Sar for a disappointingly easy goal.
United's response was good, with a few close range efforts being kept out by Richard Wright before Gigs managed to square things up. A looping ball from Scholes was met by the left foot of Giggs, who simply flicked the ball past the keeper, making what was an incredibly difficult shot seem incredibly easy!
After that United's pressure mounted, but they still didn't manage to get past all 10 of Everton's defenders.
The second half began with a high tempo, but soon dropped down as both sets of players started to tire. Ronaldo entered on 60 minutes, but was unable to make any real impact on a game that was slowly wasting away, or should that be time-wasting away.
Everton fans can claim that their dour brand of football could have won them all three points, but it certainly won't win them any more fans or admirers. Their counter-attacks were poorly finished, and they were simply lukcy United insisted on sending pretty much everyone up in a desperate attempt to grab the winner.
One day, I hope not too far away, I would love to see United players going down, feigning injury, generally taking forever to get the ball back in play, etc, but I daresay they probably wouldn't bother, and certainly not against such a dull, un-offensive team as Everton. And yet its what Everton (and Benfica) will quite happily do to us.
United couldn't grab the breakthrough, and another two points went begging. What was the point in beating Chelsea when we can't beat teams that are just above relegation?
Fergie has his work cut out.
Man Utd: Van der Sar, Neville, Ferdinand, Silvestre, Richardson (Rossi 79), Park (Ronaldo 64), Smith (Fletcher 74), Scholes, Giggs, Rooney, Saha.
