Top
Browse > Home / Match Zone / Wigan 0-2 ManUtd: Rest at Last

Wigan 0-2 ManUtd: Rest at Last

May 31, 2008

Email This Page To a Friend Email This Page To a Friend

Wigan 0-2 ManUtd: Rest at LastPaul James

By Jupiter (as Dan Dare used to say) the season took us to the brink. I have wished more of my life away in the last few weeks than in almost any other season. On Sunday humiliation was a possibility. For Chelsea the only possibilities were glory or the acceptance of the expected. It speaks volumes that our players (with a little help from the referee) worked through their nerves and delivered in style.

I was not amongst the 25,133 who were there. 50,000 will claim they were, but I did not get a ticket and was in a pub in Bradford-upon-Avon suffering like tens of thousands around the world, watching the drama unfold on the screen.

Steve Bruce has rescued Wigan, for a season at any rate. Some see him as Ferguson’s replacement; others see him as part of a Ferguson plan to populate the league with his ex-employees. Friend he may be but Steve Bruce is a fighter; this was never going to be any more of a cakewalk than Blackburn under Mark Hughes a few weeks ago.

At least Vidic and Rooney were back; the team was up to strength – even Louis Saha was on the bench. Beyond my understanding (but, hey, Ferguson has just won us another championship) Park was in the side and not Giggs; neither Hargreaves (on the bench) nor Anderson (in the stands) were starting. Why has our midfield magician not featured since being taken off in full flow at Stamford Bridge?

Wigan played with gusto and direction. Palacios at right back (rumoured, along with his team mate Valencia, to be a United target), Heskey, Kumas and even Bent caused trouble. For fifteen minutes or so as a team Wigan gave as good as they got, and we rode our luck outscoring them in the first half.

Paul Scholes performed one of his trademark tackles on Palacios, who tumbled spectacularly (do we need another diver?). Scholes was booked, not unfairly. Heskey got himself unmarked in our area at a corner and Boyce missed his chance. Kumas shot from outside the area and the ball hit Rio Ferdinand’s shoulder (no, actually; Rio deliberately deflected it with the uppermost part of his arm); referee Steve Bennett ignored the penalty claims.

For our part Ronaldo had a free kick saved by Kirkland and then in a sustained piece of attacking Rooney was tripped from behind by Boyce while trying to dribble through the crowd around the penalty spot. Wigan players complained, Steve Bruce whinged afterwards, but it was a clear penalty.

High noon. The man who missed his last one, in Barcelona, stepped up to take it. There were none of his hallmarks. Ronaldo ran and struck it; no hesitation, no change in the run. Kirkland went flying right and it was a good job he did because the ball was cracked into the net on his other side, very hard but not far away from where the goalkeeper had been standing; Ronaldo’s 41st goal of the season; 32 minutes 1-0.

The jitters would not be dispelled; Scholes obstructed Palacios, nudged him off the ball with no intention to play it and the television pundits went on about how Bennett should have shown a yellow card and sent him off. Indeed he might have done but we got lucky again; Bennett gave Scholes a wigging instead. In another Wigan attack Bent, in a heavily populated area, missed the goal by a whisker.

Was it the tension, was it me, or did it all become slightly surreal at half time? There were we and, I think, nearly all the rest of the country sweltering in the sticky heat of un-air conditioned pubs whilst at Wigan they were drenched in the downpour, forking stubborn puddles off the pitch.

Then the Football Association stepped in. In sport you can always count on the administrators to make matters worse. The Chelsea game was running late because of an injury to John Terry, so our second half had to be delayed so that the games kicked off together.

We were kept waiting for more than twenty minutes; this from an organisation which week in, week out over the last two months has given the London sides the edge by ensuring that the result of our game is known before theirs starts. Why does this become a vital issue of fairness on the last afternoon?

Quite contrary to the FA’s wishes, however, the break turned out well for us because United turned in a second half performance befitting our position in the league; the kind of away performance we have been producing all season; 60% and more possession of the ball and all but one of the chances; sound and cool in defence, swift on the break.

We needed that second goal, though, and it would not come. Scholes was put through into the area and chopped by Bramble, a cast iron penalty not given. Rooney cut in from the left and shot, Kirkland saved brilliantly. Then with just over twenty minutes to go Hargreaves came on for Scholes and, crucially, Giggs came on for Park. It was Giggs’ 758th United appearance, drawing him level with Bobby Charlton as the man most honoured in wearing the red shirt.

The news came through that Chelsea had scored. At Wigan the rain had stopped and Emile Heskey headed over our bar from Kumas’ free kick. I thought it miles over, but the replay showed it was inches and Van der Sar would not have got it. Could it all still go wrong?

Another solid attack, backed by numbers, Rooney gets the ball on the left and works it nicely inside. On the screen you can see Giggs’ movement between Bramble and Scharner who are standing in formation and not sensing the danger and then Rooney releases the perfect ball forward.

The great players always appear to have time; Giggs controls it and turns giving the illusion he is in oceans of space just as Bobby Charlton might have done and then, like the younger Ryan at the peak of his powers, clips it effortlessly past Kirkland. In that moment an entire season’s work is won and lost; 79 minutes 2-0 and what might be happening at Stamford Bridge becomes an irrelevance.

But just to put the icing on it, as the fans dance and sing in delirium and the minutes tick by the news comes through that Bolton have equalised there anyway.

We might despise Chelsea and their Russian money and annual quarter of a million pound deficit and I derided Avram Grant earlier in the season for being a boring whinger in need of a charisma transplant but give him his due, he now speaks sportingly and warmly of United’s achievement and congratulates Ferguson. Take note, Arsenal; we are still awaiting your congratulations from 2003.

I leave the pub in the heat of the warmest, sunniest day in the warmest and sunniest of moods. How fitting that it is Ryan Giggs, the man so much involved in decisive moments over the last sixteen years, who scored the decisive goal.

There’s this bloke in front of us at Old Trafford who had the nerve to question our credentials. He turns up only for the really big games and comes five minutes late and leaves five minutes early no matter how tight the scoreline and never sings but spends his time screaming abuse if Giggs or Fletcher or O’Shea are playing (and lately Van der Sar). I am so pleased for him and for any other such fuckwits that it was Giggs who settled it.

Enough of this negative thinking on our day of glory. I reflect on Grant’s ridiculous suggestion that there should have been a play-off if we had finished the season level on points. I delight in the final table. Two points ahead. Two more wins. Fifteen more goals scored. Four less conceded. Aggregate winners on the head-to-head. Five points clear on the record against the top four. It might have been a close race but on all rational measures we have been superior.

I walk down the street back to the family and know that for the first time in weeks I’ll be getting some decent kip tonight. We are the champions. There is no feeling like it. Roll on Moscow, the icing on the cake. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

Copyright © Paul James

Related Articles

Written by FredRed · Filed Under Match Zone 

Comments

Got something to say?





Bottom