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Solomon Kalou fires off the winning shot for Chelsea

The football season is back and Stan is here to whine again about football..haha. Yup, season 2009/2010 of the English Premier League kicks off with the Community Shield match between Man Utd and Chelsea. United have won it twice in a row on penalties. The question is, will they be third time fortunate to win it again? The squad is certainly a different one without Tevez and Ronaldo while Chelsea's squad has little difference since there are no major transfers happening there.

Within 10 minutes of the game, Nani opened the bank with a fierce long range diagonal shot beyong the reach of Cech. I have to say Nani had been superb in this game with the passes and the runs timely placed. It's a pity that he had to be taken off halfway at the second half for injury. If Nani can continue to keep up displays like this, that would be great since last season was not a really good one for him. It's time to step up to cover part of the void that was left behind. Anyways, Man Utd looked like the sharper side at the first half. Attacks were well coordinated and there were a couple of times they could have easily gone ahead further with a few more goals.

The second half was a different story though. Ivanovic was clearly struggling against the United attackers and so Ancleotti replaced him with Bosingwa. That was a good change of tactics from the new boss. Well, the Blues look more threatening in the second half, and I guess it must be that half-time talk. Chelski punished United for their sloppy defending in the 52nd minute. Both Foster and Drogba collided with each other while going for the ball and Carvalho was just at the right position to connect the spilled ball with a diving header. It's a small fortune for Chelsea for that open goal but I thought that Foster should have performed better in such situations by plucking the ball in the air commandingly. There are a couple of times where Foster dealt with his saves and command of area poorly. There was one time where it was reminiscent of the Malaysia match where Foster nearly screwed up from a defender backpass. At other times, he looked like gifting a free goal to the Chelski poachers for dwelling too much on the ball. Foster's lack of exposure to first team duties and major clashes could be the reasons for his failure to impress. Nevertheless, it seems that Fergie is gonna keep faith in him for an extended run with our beloved van der Sar injured for 8 weeks straight. Hopefully, Foster could withstand that period of time and show perhaps that he deserves to be United's next keeper in line after vds.

Chelski's second goal was more of a dubious and controversial kind. The dirty rat Ballack had a couple of tricks up his sleeves when he "obstructed" Evra, leaving the left back stranded behind on the ground when Chelsea pumped a long ball ahead for a counter-attack. The result was 3 Chelsea attackers vs. 2 United defenders scrambling back and Lampard being the free man slots it in without trouble to give Chelsea the lead. The United players protested but the goal stands. I was already resigned to having Chelski winning the game 2-1 but out of nowhere, Rooney bulldozed through to beat the defensive line and scored at the death to at least provide United another chance to win the game. This is a preview of what to be expected if you allow Rooney to run rampant in his central forward position..haha

So, it has to go into the the penalties but I had this awful feeling that Man Utd will lose the shootout firstly because vds was not there and secondly, I had a pre-emptive prediction that some weird blokes will be chosen to take the penalty shots. Giggs was the first to take for Man Utd and I was right to say that he would miss this since it's kinda predictable where his left foot will strike. Usually, for left-footed kickers like Giggs, the only thing that would beat experienced keepers like Cech will be speed and power of the shot. I was annoyed to see Carrick as the next penalty taker but he did well in putting the ball into the net eventhough Cech guessed his direction properly. And the last penalty taker for Man Utd was a shocker. It was Patrice and experience tells you that defenders are one of the worst people to take shots. Lo and behold, Patrice's gay shot was so bad that even John O Shea could save that kind of kick with his eyes closed. Kalou finishes off the final kick and looks like Man Utd don't get to be third time fortunate.

I find Man Utd's attacking department doing well for the match but the quality of the defence is questionable. Perhaps the absence of Vidic is one of the contributing factors. With him out for a month and vds for eight weeks, maybe it could be time for Fergie to press the emergency button to open the bank again. Oh well, Man Utd need to get this out of their system and prepare for their first league game next week. Foster has to warm his gloves better if he wants to continue on in between the post.