MANYOO HOODOO

We do struggle against Man Utd don't we? It's becoming a very boring hoodoo. Sure, they're a good side - they're a very good side, but we've played and beaten good sides so why not them? I'm almost certain we'll make a better stab at it at Stamford Bridge next week, even though on paper that's the tougher match.

We were superb for the first 20 minutes on Saturday. Hustling and bustling the top teams is exactly how to beat them. They don't like it up 'em you know! However, Wilson got booked, we perhaps tired a little and slowly the inevitable started to happen. Still, I can live with losing this game - I could have lived with it even better if we hadn't conceded against 10 men. That annoyed me somewhat.

Harry tells us we learned a lot when we played Barca in preseason. Movement, possession and patience were apparently what the boys took from that game. Perhaps we need another lesson because for the first time this season I think we got a little over excited. We gave the ball away far too cheaply due to all and sundry lumping it up to the big fella whenever they were remotely under pressure. That's not the beanpole's fault though, God bless him. It's just a direct result of him being on the pitch. It's fantastic in the last 15 minutes, not so great for the other 75 though.

Jenas did alright when he came on, but Hudd and Jenas holding the fort against this level of opposition? It looked ambitious to me. This was example #1 of why we should have bought another DM in August. They were running us ragged through the middle. Where's that Jamie O'Hara when you need him?

I thought the ref had a good game. He could have blown up every 2 minutes at one point in the first half, but he let it flow and the result was a cracking display of real men playing aggressive football. How Palacious even made it to half time is beyond me! I'm taking some consolation in the fact that we didn't limply roll over.

With the benefit of hindsight maybe Krancjar should have started and Pav should definitely have come on at half time - he's banging them in for fun for his country at the moment. Although Corluka had performed his usual trick of looking a bit slow and lazy, he had nonetheless done a decent job of marking Rooney out of the game for long periods, so I'm not really seeing how the introduction of Hutton was supposed to provide the platform for us to go on and win it. In the end it had the opposite affect unfortunately. I think Harry got the key decisions wrong I'm afraid.

Chin up though chaps, would rather be brought back down to earth by the champions rather than by a bunch of newly promoted herberts. We're still in good shape, a few of the walking wounded will be soon be donning the shirt again and, unlike last week where Harry probably had about 2 fit players to shout at, this week we'll have 6 days on the training ground to prepare for our next, equally massive test. A good result there and we're right back on track.

Up the Spurs!