Middlesbrough 2-2 Manchester United: Adrift in the Snow

April 8, 2008

Middlesbrough 2-2 Manchester United: Adrift in the Snow Paul James

The climax to the season looms, the tension notches up. In a rip-roaring, helter-skelter match on Sunday, United and Middlesbrough shared four goals. United were unlucky, denied the clearest of penalties at a crucial moment and unrewarded for much command. Yet it was a cracking match we could so easily have lost.

Ferguson played O’Shea in the middle alongside Ferdinand to cover for the missing Serbian. Otherwise we fielded our strongest side. Middlesbrough were giving a second start to the most expensive acquisition in their history, the Brazilian striker Alfonso Alves who had hit the woodwork twice last week at Stamford Bridge.

Unsuccessful in the away ticket ballot as usual I watched from a South London under a couple of inches of snow while the match on the North East coast started in the sunshine of a brilliant spring day. Probably safe from relegation now, Boro’ played some fast, adventurous football in their quest to win the unofficial North East mini-league which is achieved by ending up in fifteenth place. The result was an open, attacking game played to the background of impressively vocal United support.

Alves established himself as a handful from the start but the early match was defined when Arca clattered Carrick about thirty yards out. The recipient of vocal abuse every time he touched the ball and the object of a clever banner alleging he dives (the cheek of it!), Ronaldo clearly meant business. His kick was ferocious and goalbound until one of the leaping defenders was unwise enough to get a head to it.

Giggs took the corner from the right and Ronaldo went for the header; he took Boateng out of the equation but the ball grazed his crown and landed with Carrick wide left. Carrick beat his man and picked out Ronnie. There were ten defenders in the area but Ronnie could find space in the Black Hole of Calcutta; he surreptitiously drifted off his marker and cracked it in from eight yards. The commentator called it a tap-in but it was a good deal harder than I can kick a ball; 9 minutes 1-0.

For the next half hour United ran the show, our dominance and confidence on the ball matched only by our inability to shoot on target, but when Boro’ broke they put together some good moves of their own, getting uncomfortably near to goal. Mike Riley, the pernickety referee, failed to penalise O’Neill for the comprehensive clattering of Evra. He was still on the floor as Boro’ broke and Alladiere would have scored if he could shoot straight.

Meanwhile Young made a great saving tackle on Rooney, Ronaldo produced a dribble to go through four players only to blaze his shot over, and Rooney was free and clean through when wrongly given offside. Then Rio fouled Alves, whose free kick was violent. Van der Sar parried it and then palmed over the second attempt without much help from defenders. If there was any doubt we were missing Vidic, it evaporated within seconds of this incident.

Carrick put an optimistic long ball forward. It was intercepted and then hit back, equally optimistically, over forty yards by O’Neill. Rio and O’Shea were bisected as Alladiere headed on to Alves, in so much space he must have felt lonely. Where was the defence?

The only man alive to the threat was Carrick, who was not up to catching him; Alves motored into the area and finished coolly from fifteen yards; 34 minutes 1-1. It might have been against the balance of play, but we could hardly complain when all our dominance had led to only two shots on target in half an hour whilst Boro’ had conjured three in as many minutes.

Suddenly the stadium was alive; there are Boro’ fans, after all! Van der Sar did brilliantly to smother Downing, unmarked at the far post about eight or ten yards out but it was United who should have gone in ahead; Ronaldo’s shot was hurtling goalwards like a bullet from 25 yards when Taylor, taking advantage of the two goalkeeper rule developed by Hamann at Liverpool, dived to his right well inside his area and saved it brilliantly with his left arm.

The commentary team attributed Riley’s lack of action to the velocity of the shot; I put it down to blindness until I looked him up in Wikipedia and discovered he is from Leeds.

At half time Wes Brown moved into the centre of defence and O’Shea to right back. The effect was immediate; at the restart Alves beat Brown to a ball at the post and there was something approaching panic as Carrick cleared Pogatetz’ poke off the line. Despite this moment you felt generally that United were regaining control of the proceedings but as the air began to fill with sleet and snow, out of nothing Boro’ scored.

It came from another hopeful punt up the field, this one accidentally achieved by Boateng, who was just trying to clear. Brown rose above Alladiere and was unlucky as his header ricocheted and there was Alves, unmarked and in the clear with the ball at his feet and O’Shea watching him; Rio got close but Alves’ strike, curled around Van der Sar, was impressive; 55 minutes 1-2. Rio and I were both annoyed.

On came Park for Tevez. Tevez had worked hard and got himself into good positions but Park proved more effective. United were commanding more and more territory but still the defence looked unsound and now Rio was limping; Alladiere won a header in front of the goal and should have scored, but chose to nod it down to the man on a hat trick at the other post. Alves hit it from four yards out and Rio just got a knee to it.

Hargreaves came on at right back for O’Shea and then Rio surrendered to the inevitable and Pique came on for him. Boro were defending with guts but the pressure grew; Rooney blasted a volley inches wide from a Giggs corner, then Giggs, down the middle, refused to give up the ball, resisting several challenges and got it back to Carrick, who fed Park, on the right.

He sold Taylor a great dummy and stepped back to pick out Rooney on the penalty spot; Rooney shot hard and, courtesy of a deflection which may well have been the decisive factor in sending Schwarzer the wrong way, it was 73 minutes and 2-2.

We went for the winner but the match became chaotic in the snowstorm. One moment Ronaldo was dribbling brilliantly through two of them only to be felled with a hefty kick on the calf inches outside the area, the next Van der Sar slipped and fell and just managed to stick out a leg to prevent Alves being odds on for another goal

As the minutes died away Hargreaves put in a lovely right wing ball but Rooney’s header was saved and the rebound scrambled away and though the four minutes added time was all about them hanging on, it was they who almost stole it at the last gasp, Tuncay turning brilliantly and dribbling through; Van der Sar saved at his feet.

My pre-match fears were well founded, then; we managed to drop two points to a Middlesbrough side playing disgracefully out of their skins. Wes Brown had trouble with the speed of Downing and almost every aspect of Alves’ game but he was not solely to blame; we were disorganised at the back where we were vulnerable to pace, weak in the air, and left wide gaps.

The midfield lost effect as everybody was forced to drop back. In some ways we have got lazy, so utterly dependent on immunity from conceding that we do not react well when it happens; for all the flowing football and hard work of recent weeks we convert too few of our chances; if you are going to let in two goals, that matters. We had 66% of possession, 12 shots (to Middlesbrough’s 10) and 6 corners to their 4, yet only 4 shots on target.

If Middlesbrough played like that every week they would be a successful club; I suppose we should take it as some kind of complement. City, similarly disgracefully, conceded defeat to Chelsea like the bunch of hapless wimps they are when they don’t play us, so now we are only three points ahead of Chelsea and it really is squeaky bum time.

Middlesbrough 2-2 Manchester United: Adrift in the Snow

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Middlesbrough 2-2 Manchester United: Adrift in the Snow

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