Charging Upfront

Berba celebrates his last-minute finishing with Carlos and Michael

Man Utd moved to the head of the Premier League for the first time this season after their relentless 10th consecutive clean sheet in the Premier League. The defence has been something of a bad ass miser in the League for the past month and of course, games are not won with 0-0 draws. It threatened to look that way for United's match away at the Reebok stadium despite United's domination and good attacking play which pushed upwards very often. Many shots were on target but Jaasklainen was in one of his best days as goalkeeper as he stopped shot after shot. One of his best saves was when Anderson blasted one on target from outside of the box and Jassklainen prevented the young Brazilian from scoring his first for United.

I think Evra's absence is really felt in the game because while United's attack were excellent, it was one dimensional. Very often, the final ball was a disappointment because after all the possession, the finishing was just poor. With Evra in the team, he would act as an excellent support left wing back with pace to the left winger, in this case, Ronaldo. That was how the Chelsea defence was unlocked in Old Trafford. Evra is very skillful when in comes to wing attack. For the Bolton match, neither John O Shea or Neville could fulfill the role. Neville was once like that in his younger days but those old legs cannot be expected to perform the same way as he did 10 years ago. Scholes' introduction was refreshing to the squad and he had a few opportunities to use his classic outside-of-the-box-blast but he was closed down by the Bolton defenders on those occasions. Rooney was also another figure that was missed because his physicality would have aided in snatching those rough balls from Bolton.

A goalless draw would not look too bad on that occasion given that there were news that Chelsea were going down to a Stoke goal from Rory Delap. Well well, looks like Delap has other uses other than his hands eh..haha. Anyways, no win at Reebok will mean a wasted opportunity AGAIN to reach the top as what had happened many times this season. And it sounds like the same story when United left real late to win the game 1-0. It was a moment of brilliance from Carlos and his aggressive style in pushing forward caused two Bolton defenders to bungle up and bang embarrassingly into each other. He slipped through and provided a nice ball for Berbatov to connect a diving header. United fans can breathe easy afterthat because it was a kinda suffocating game where chance after chance were denied either by Jaasklainen or poor execution. United were clearly doing a lot of shots but it's frustrating that none of them were going in. Nevertheless, it's a fantastic result in the bag. 3 points is 3 points afterall. And Chelski rescued their season from a disastrous collapse when Lampard also left it late to provide a win for them at the Bridge. Awwww..I thought Stoke deserved to draw at least. But at least Scholari gets to keep his job for a few more months..haha.

With Man Utd having done their homework, the onus is on Liverpool to regain back to pole position with their match against Everton. As predicted, the derby was a stumbling block for the Scousers as they were held to a 1-1 draw at Anfield, courtesy of Cahill's last minute strike. Indeed, as mention before, there's nothing to worry with Liverpool being at the top even after they beat Untied 1-2 at Anfield. They always end up screwed up somewhere else. I'm still of the opinion that Chelsea would remain to be the strongest contender against Man Utd despite some awful displays recently. Ahhh..so now the Scousers are level on points but United have one more game in hand and technically, it would be a 3 point lead if Man Utd had won this missing match. Of course, it will also be nice if Man Utd could consolidate their position as soon as possible to have that 3 point lead. Hopefully, the partnership between Berbatov and Tevez be taken to one level higher now that Wayne is going to be out for a couple of weeks.