Manchester United vs. Queens Park Rangers

3 points in the bag after yet another dire first half performance. Well first half plus 10 minutes.

I think its become crystal clear to everyone that right now, Carrick, Scholes and Giggs have lost at least a step or three in pace. Opposition players are starting to close them down quickly and teams realise that they can hit us on the counter at will by sucking our central midfield forwards by parking the bus.

Paul Scholes has yet to find the same form he showed last season. What makes it worse is he continually gives away silly freekicks and fouls whilst contributing little to our attack. He can always be counted on to ping a long ball to the wing and the rare one over the top, but other than that he is subpar at everything else. Maybe its just a loss of form and he is saving his legs for the business end of the season? Whatever the case though, we should not keep starting him in favor of players like Anderson and Cleverley who are clearly fitter, more in form and less one dimensional.

The comeback wins are great and all but we will not win the league if we keep conceding first. Its shocking how we still haven't been able to sort out this problem despite almost reaching the halfway point in the season.

The two substitutions (especially Anderson) made all the difference today. We just looked like a more mobile and dangerous team when someone actually has the ability to take the ball and beat a defender. Something which Ashley Young has failed to do for 4 months and counting now.

Nonetheless, it was a good 3 points and now we have to face a tough west ham side who have always taken points off us when we play them. I just hope we sort out our problems and put in a performance like we did against newcastle rather than pull another norwich.
 
The subs made a huge difference in finally breaking down QPR's defense which let's face it did well the first part of the game packing everyone (or almost everyone) into the box. 63% possession gives a good idea about how each team played the game. QPR played hard on defense and tried to hit on the counter for the most part. They did press the ball well, but that still did not give them a lot of possession. Even on a number of counter attacks it broke down for them due to a lack of players up top (too many still back in their end of the pitch).

Same old story at OT, a lesser team comes in and lays back hoping to hold the game close and get a goal then hope to hold off United for the rest of the game. As is mostly the case that does not work out so well for them.
 
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