1. Poor refereeing – the gift that keeps on giving.
Those that have been watching long enough will argue if Kompany’s tackle was really worth the red card. A few years ago, it would have been a brilliant tackle but now considered a foul, but honestly to fans on both sides, was it really worth a red card? This leads of course to City being short one man and letting United score 2 more before the half. But then Chris Foy gifts a point to Manchester City at the opening of the 2nd half by calling a foul on Evra which may have been clean tangle up and of course…there may have been a handball off of Jones, but hey, what’s a Manchester derby without controversy?
2. Battle of the B sides
Let’s face it both teams were without all of their top talent. No Hernandez or Vidic no Balotelli on Dzeko. Nasir was out there somewhere but with Scholes’ blunder to let City back in the game with City being down one, you have to ask yourselves, who capitalized more ? 1st half United dominated the match and really should have been up 5 nil before the ½ but City found the fire to really make a game out of it. Phil Jones was a lot more aggressive on the ball than I have seen him in most games making a concerted effort to establish his presence on defense. Still refer back to number 1 to see why this was a close game.
3. Is Lindergaard United’s best answer going forward?
While it’s starting to look more and more like Lindergaard is the better goalkeeper, I can’t help but keep noting how there have been times when United’s back 4 have not really helped either goalkeeper in critical games. Granted as I said earlier City got one of their goals on a bad call, there were plenty of blunders on United’s defense (yes Rio, I am looking at you!) that threatened United’s chance of winning. Lazy and bad passing, particularly a few from Rio to Jones, among them. Ferdinand’s risky yellow card play in stoppage time surely didn’t help much either (showing how much of a step he’s lost!), but thankfully with Lindergaard’s blocking of the ensuing penalty kick really looks to me that he has more confidence under pressure than de Gea. I will grudgingly give City credit for finding ways to stay in the game despite being short and the somewhat odd change that Mancini made at the start of the 2nd half.
If I had to pick a man of the Match, as much as I was happy for Rooney’s 2 goals, I would have to pick Phil Jones.
The goat of the match was Chris Foy.
Good points. 1, Referee Foy was correct, in my opinion, to issue a
red card to Kompany. The rules state that “serious foul play” where
dangerous injury to a player may result must be punished with a red
card, with or without contact. I agree, that looking at it, 3-4
years ago, it was a fair tackle, but in the Premier League for the
past 2-3 seasons, referees have mandated that two-footed tackles
need to be shown a red card. It’s the law. Also, City’s appeal to
have it overturned will be rejected as the FA Panel only reverses
when they can establish that the referee made a serious blatant
error in judgement which was not the case here. 2. I thought before
the game that Ferguson would not start a strong side but that
line-up today was his strongest available eleven. I was also
surprised that Mancini left out Joe Hart. 3. Goalkeeping is a
shambles at United still but Lindegaard needs to stay there now for
the rest of the season. De Gea is clearly not ready and the
platooning that has gone on has increased the uncertainty. It is
now causing errors in the defenders in front of him and Ferdinand
and Evra have gone way past their sell by date.
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