Derby delight
I had mentioned one
drab football derby last week, between Real Madrid and Barcelona.
Fervently hoping that neither the Manchester nor London Derby would be
as tame, I organised a mini gathering at my house. Manchester City had
enough motivation to beat United; they are chasing a Champions League
spot, have also lost three times to United this season and would have
wanted a chance to finally kill off the Red Devils’ title hopes. As
with any tangle of neighbours, emotions run high among fans and players
and the media will tend to stoke the fire of rivalry.
Therefore, it was all about the Carlos Tevez-Gary Neville incident from their last meeting.
At Old Trafford in
the first half of the season, Michael Owen had scored the winner deep
into injury time and that was the talking point. Coming on the back of
a draw with Blackburn, a seemingly less than fit Wayne Rooney and again
no Rio in defence, City appeared to have the personnel advantage.
Former Red, Tevez seems annoyingly able to score against his former
employers.
Adebayor was also back, having missed the last meeting.
The stage was set
for an exciting clash. Perhaps in Fantasy Football: In reality, both
sides made very little use of any possession of the ball. I am happy to
report that the trio of Tevez,
Adebayor and
Bellamy threatened more in my imagination than on the pitch. Some end
to end football followed while arguments broke out between rival
supporters at our impromptu viewing centre.
Truly, that was more exciting than the game. Just when we thought it would end in a goalless stalemate,
Patrice Evra sent a
cross into the penalty area and Paul Scholes buried it in the second
minute of added time! There is still a dent in the furniture as
evidence of my celebration. Scholes recently signed a new one year
extension at United. Admittedly, I was sceptical of this at the time as
there are quite a few aging thirty-something players at the club but
the veteran has showed us that there’s something to be said for
balancing youth with experience. Arsene Wenger might want to take note
of this.
We then moved on to
the London derby between Spurs and Chelsea. Harry Redknapp has worked
wonders with the then relegation-threatened club that he inherited. I
swiftly became a Spurs fan for 90 minutes, hoping that they would do
United the favour of beating Chelsea.
A Chelsea defeat
would close the gap to one point and leave a glimmer of hope for a
record fourth consecutive premier league crown. I hadn’t seriously
thought a Spurs victory was likely but as the game unfolded with
Chelsea looking out of sorts, the improbable became probable; by half
time, Spurs were leading. John Terry was sent off for two bookable
offences and I held my breath until the match ended in United’s (sorry,
Spurs’) favour. Oh, the Beautiful Game! It certainly throws up
surprises.
It’s so good to be
able to gloat for a while. A good-sized novel would be too small to
accommodate the overconfident boasts of the Chelsea fans. They were
duly silenced and long may it last.
At this point, we
would like to thank everyone at White Hart Lane for their assistance
and wish them success in their games, but only after tomorrow. Yes
you’ve guessed it, United host Spurs.
Here’s hoping the
North Londoners will suffer from complacency after beating Arsenal and
Chelsea back to back… and that Stoke will prove very stubborn at
Stamford Bridge.
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