The Bridge record remains intact

Park Ji Sung draws first blood for Manchester United

Fair result. Both deserved a point. But I thought that Man Utd would have gotten the kill steal with a 1-0 win if they had held on. So many "would be-s" eh for Man Utd in the past two big match up against rivals. Both games also saw United taking the lead first but at least yesterday's game didn't end tragically for United.

Man Utd showed their desire to attack right from the beginning. It's surprising to see Park or Fletcher starting but, I guess Fergie had put them there because of their good form. There's good variation on the right flank as Fletcher and Hargreaves could exchange each other's roles with ease. Anyways, because of Hargreaves' excellent technical crosses, he ends up charging on the right most of the time. I guess Brown got dropped because of his howler last week and in place was Captain Neville and young boy Evans who had impressed at the Villareal match.

Chelsea nearly conceded a boo boo goal when Cech awkwardly tried to close down Berbatov, leaving much space behind him. Before Cech could run back, Rooney tried a speculative lob over him. He was lucky there because the lob narrowly missed the goal mouth. Afterthat, another opportunity presented itself when Ferdinand was on the receiving end of a perfect opportunity and position to drill the ball past Cech. However, the Chelsea goalkeeper succeeded in saving it with his legs.

Man Utd were 1-0 up at the 18th minute as a result of an excellent attacking build up. Patrice Evra shrugged off Bosingwa to provide a ball for Berbatov to shoot. Cech managed to push it away only and unfortunately for him, it went straight to Park Ji Sung's boots who delightfully slotted the ball past the keeper. United held on nicely for a 1-0 lead at half-time. Chelsea tried hard to come back but I would say the United backline did well in closing down the shots from Chelsea. There were one or two panic moments, but Chelsea certainly had a hard time trying to break down the stubborn United defence. Anelka could have equalised but he helplessly watched as the ball glided across him without making contact with his boots into the goal. Btw, Evans did quite well for his starting line-up place. At the 80th minute, Rooney's clumsy challenge resulted in a free kick for Chelsea. Mikel floated the ball into the box and Kalou emerged out of a sudden unmarked by anyone and nodded it past off Kuszczak's reach. Ferdinand was late for a few seconds in realising that Kalou was unmarked. Well well, nobody would have anticipated that Solomon would whack one in his head cos he seldom does that. The score shouldn't have been 1-1 but instead 2-2 or 3-3, cos both teams had great opportunities to score. Joe Cole, in particular, was guilty of squandering two one-on-one opportunities with the goalies. Lol, I'm not sure how he could miss that.

Ahhhhh, Man Utd were so close in getting the three points! It was just 10 minutes more! Chelsea's unbeaten home record stays that way for now. Uhhh..Man Utd need some victories now. 4 games played and only 1 win. Fortunately, the next batch of games looks to be quite easy. Seriously, Rooney needs to get his scoring boots on, and so does Ronaldo, Tevez and Berbatov. For the other Premier League games, Tottenham's misery at the bottom of the table continues as they were held to a 0-0 goal at White Hart Lane. Newcastle continues to be hopelessly hopeless as they were beaten 1-3 by West Ham. Boardroom troubles and King Kev's self-induced departure are affecting the players' morale severely. Ohh..and the most impressive result of the weekend is Man City's 6-0 thrashing of Portsmouth. This is impressive considering that Portsmouth themselves are quite a decent team. Gosh, this is a sign of things to come. A 2nd Chelsea is emerging and Robinho is proving superbly well why he's worth 32 million pounds. 2 goals in 2 games. They are the team to watch out for and very soon, there could be England's Big five instead of four eh. I would say Liverpool's minimal 4th place position would be most threatened especially and their 0-0 draw against Stoke gives a little credit to the theory.

Hehe, I'm forseeing that the English Premier League will no longer be as clear cut in the past. The traditional Big Four will have to work hard for their points and emerging teams like Man City and Aston Villa are threatening to dislodge the comfortable positioning. The new boys of the block are not falling down as easily while Tottenham and Newcastle continues to underperform. Looks like we're having a rollercoaster ride of a season ahead of us! =p