12th Clean Sheet

Edwin is the delighted owner of 1122 minutes of safe hands

Two ex-United players made a homecoming visit at Old Trafford for the Everton match and they are Tim Howard and Phil Neville. Lol..they were once comrades in arms for United in defence right at this stadium. Saha would have been the third old boy but he's MIA at the moment. It would be an excellent psychological and practical advantage if Man Utd were to grab the three points since it would heap tremendous pressure for the two giants clashing on the next day to get some favourable results so as to keep up. Fergie kept almost the whole of the same team that whipped the Baggies. The only change he made was Fletcher taking over Giggs at the center.

As expected, Everton were not an easy team and they won't roll over easily. Howard himself made several brave saves. I thought Tevez looked particularly impressive in this game. He was hardworking and his pace enabled the whole team to penetrate deep inside into Everton territory. Of course, if his finishing was as lethal, United would probably be up by several goals already. The main threat from Everton will always be Arteta and given that Everton is lacking from an established striker, the only possible way that they will do damage to United is through free-kicks by Arteta. Ahhh..Man Utd's breakthrough moment came in just before half time when Carrick was tripped in the box and the referee pointed at the spot. It wasn't really super duper obvious but not many Everton players protested since I think Carrick looked like an honest player to them..haha. I bet that if it was Ronaldo who tripped in the box, all of them will be crowding round the referee..lol. Of course, Ronaldo duly converted the penalty and that would prove to be the only decisive winning goal of the match. Carrick actually had another valid penalty claim in the 2nd half but the referee kinda refused to give it coz it would looked suspiciously..err..biased even if Carrick was indeed a honest lad. Anyways, a win is still is a win even with another 1-0 style. Edwin would have been proud though because his record now stretches to 12 consecutive games without conceding.

Now, for the clash of the titans, United supporters will definitely be pleased if both Scousers and Chelski screwed themselves all over with a draw. But if there has to be a winner in this match, I'll have to go for the lesser evil of Liverpool because once again, I feel that they have a higher tendency to screw up than Chelsea..haha. After getting an infamous win at the Bridge, the Scousers would fancy their chances in repeating the feat at Anfield itself. Both teams looked quite evenly matched and although Liverpool had more chances at goals, they didn't find the needed killing touch. At the hour marked, the scales were truly tipped to Liverpool's favour when Lampard was shown a straight red for studs raised high on the ankles. Aikkkss..and he was my captain for this gameweek for my fantasy football team. It's gonna be double minus points =(. Anyways, I thought Frank was unfortunate in getting sent off because he really did get the ball but just that one second of wrong positioning for his boots got him the matching orders.

With a man advantage, the Scousers started to knock hard on the door of the Chelsea goal. But in my opinion, the closest of threatening shots came only and strangely too, with the subbing in of Yossi Benayoun. Now, Ratatouille fired once a spectacular shot but it was matched up with an equally superb save by Cech. Then, the second one was beyond the reach of Cech but it went just narrowly off target. At the 89th minute, Torres pops in a glancing header to put the Scousers up at 1-0. There's still time for Chelski to get the equaliser to run off with a sucker punch draw but Yossi was there to provide Torres with a simple finishing and thereby, condemning Chelski to a defeat. Oh yea, Bosingwa could have been sent off towards the last minute because that fella couldn't stand Yossi running down the clock at the corner flag. He gave Yossi a nice kick in the ass and I'm surprised the referee or his assistant didn't see that. Well, Yossi will show Bosingwa who's butt is more golden after the match..haha. I realised also that in the battle between two managers with kidney stones, the younger one actually won..lol.

It looks like Liverpool is now putting some small streaks of daylight between themselves and Chelsea until the next time when they screw up..haha. With Scolari's Chelsea having a trend of losing embarrassingly this season to their close rivals, questions will be asked on whether Scolari had the mentality to piece together a final push for the title. Man Utd are certainly not playing the free flowing scoring days like last season but they are grinding out the important results. A miserly defence would prove to be as important as scoring goals. Nowadays, United fans are looking more at the thrill of defenders guarding the goal for the clean sheet than the attackers doing the scoring. Lol..all the 1-0 wins are starting to give me an impression of headshot sniping goals...