(Watch Goals Below)
It was a quiet night at Old Trafford, in which the United team didn’t hit their top gear, but bombarded the Valencia goalkeeper with shot after shot – with only one hitting the back of the net. It was a game of sloppy individual errors, wasted chances, and doing just enough to please everyone.
United conceded first, which dashed their chances of setting a new clean sheet record in the group stages of the Champions League. Michael Carrick gave the ball away inside his own half, to which the Valencia attackers pounced on the rare chnce to score. Dominguez ran with the ball, and slid it to Pablo Hernandez on the right, with the 25 year-old midfielder subsequently hitting the ball through Ben Amos’ legs in the United goal.
United deserved to have at least one goal if you were looking at the amount of chances that they had – Anderson and Berbatov having excellent chances, running through the defence, but not testing the goalkeeper well enough. Rooney tried a fantastic shot from the corner of the box which dipped onto the crossbar as the helpless keeper just watched. Rooney wasn’t yet back to his best of course, but showed his fantastic ability with glimpses of brilliance.
Anderson was probably the man of the match. He hasn’t convinced a lot of the United fans since his £17 million move with Nani to United, but if he keeps playing like this; bursting into the box, dominating the midfield, winning the ball, creating chances – he will win over the doubters soon enough. He scored the equaliser too, as he broke into the box to pounce on a rebound from Ji Sung Park’s vicious shot, and rippling the net with his finish. His celebration of dancing with himself was briefly interrupted with Rooney running in and slapping him over the head in joy, but it didn’t stop the Brazilian boy.
From then on it was all about not conceding. United didn’t push themselves to grab a winner while Valencia looked the more likely in the closing minutes.
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