“Who’s that team you called United? ‘Cause they lost to Fulham!”

By: timmyg | March 21st, 2009

Games: 3. Wins: 2. Draws 1. GF: 5. GA: 2.

That that right there is our home form against the Big Four this season. Although Liverpool come to town in a fortnight and could muck it up, thats still an unbelievable stat.

After two matches in a month and 7-0 aggregate, what was so different this time around?

You could chalk it up to some visitation from lady luck. Or Scholes and Rooney, and possibly Ronaldo, going mental. Or Schwarzer’s finest performance of the season, worthy of a statue outside the Cottage, immediately.

But its simpler than that in my mind. For once, we attacked them.

Remember when Barcelona went through that rough patch? All the pundits said it was because people went after them, and they were so unused to it they buckled under the pressure.

The same can be applied for United. For most of the season teams were content with letting them do their thing. Granted their thing was the best thing around, but a 2-0 loss was inexplicably viewed as an accomplishment.

Our trip to Old Trafford highlighted that, as it seemed Roy’s pre-game talk consisted of “See you in 90!”. The FA Cup match at Craven Cottage strategy was slightly different, but still revered Carrick too much.

Today? We came out firing. Last week? Liverpool came out firing.

Although we learned Zamora doesn’t have a right foot, in case we didnt know already, he took a quarter(?) of the TWENTY-FOUR shots today. Johnson was not lethal, but a presence. The real change was in the middle of the park, as Murphy and Etuhu, and Dacourt once Murphy hurt his leg, were ferocious.

Like last week against ‘Pool, luck was not with the Red Devils. But neither were brains, thanks to Scholes’ gifting us what seemed at least a point, and Rooney sealing all three. There were moments were they seemed to be back on track, particularly the first 25-plus minutes of the second half.

We couldn’t hold onto the ball, and Schwarzer was called upon. Dacourt and particularly Kamara’s introduction helped steady the ship. Especially Gera…

Who I would be remiss to not congratulate, as I actually yelled the f-word when he was subbed in. Now? I’ll bite my tongue. What a finish.