Man of the Match:
With a two goal performance the man of the match has to go to Darren Fletcher. In the first half Nigel De Jong and Gareth Barry did a pretty good job of winning midfield battles for City, but in the second half Fletcher absolutely dominated the midfield. He was a big reason for United's second half performance as he completely bossed the match during the second half. After going almost a year without scoring Fletcher got back on the score sheet in style with two quality headers at crucial moments in the match. A brilliant performance from Darren Fletcher in what is shaping up to be a brilliant season for the Scot.
Match Notes:
- Ryan Giggs is an absolute genius. The man keeps getting better and better, he had another fantastic game out wide left. He assisted the two Fletcher goals and the Owen goal in injury time. He was putting quality balls into the City box the entire second half and he could have assisted two more had it not been for some Shay Given heroics.
- Antonio Valencia's introduction changed the game. United switched back into an orthodox 4-4-2 after Park left the match, and United were getting in quality crosses from the right and left sides of the pitch all match. The pace of Valencia opened the game up and he had a few crosses like Giggs that were close to being converted into goals.
- Ben Foster had by far his worst game for United yet with a disgusting error for the opening goal, and one could argue a poor decision on the Bellamy goal in injury time. Foster had very little to do all day but turned seemingly innocuous incidents into City chances.
- The defending was poor at times. Rio Ferdinand's mistake in injury time was very amateurish and could have cost United the match. It was just a stupid ball to play and Bellamy capitalized.
- Wayne Rooney popped up again with yet another goal that is six in six for Rooney in the Premier League as he continues on the form of his life. Rooney goals are almost becoming as common as Ronaldo goals were in the 2007-2008 season.
- Anderson had a very good game. Like Fletcher he dominated the midfield after United switched to the traditional 4-4-2 with United constantly trying to get down the wings. Anderson was getting forward, spraying the ball around and creating quality chances.
- For about twenty-five minutes during the second half Manchester United played some of the most dominating fluid football that they've played in any recent derby. They were all over City and it came down to the four midfielders all putting in a brilliant shift.
- Michael Owen is officially a fantastic buy for Manchester United. It doesn't matter if he does nothing for the rest of his United career, that goal will go down in Manchester United history for winning possibly the greatest Manchester derby of alltime.
- To be fair to them City looked very good. Without Robinho, Santa Cruz and Adebayor they were still extremely potent on the attack. Despite the loss, seven goals in two games against "the big four" should be a warning sign for the rest of the league.
Final Thoughts:
Certainly the most entertaining derby of my lifetime, Kristian Jack of the Footy Show called it the greatest match in Premier League history. Wherever you rate it that was an absolutely magnificent match. Very rarely does a match with that much hype live up to expectations but this one certainly did. Despite some poor defensive errors on both sides of the ball the quality of football was top class and the late drama with Michael Owen's controversial 96th minute winner was epic.
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