United 1 - 1 Newcastle
Not the end of the world but not the end of a summer of discontent either. Ferguson will be hoping that the midwinter will not be as bleak as things appeared to be after this game.
To look at things honestly we must give credit to our barcoded cousins. They ran and chased every ball, as did we, but their commitment was a match and they deserved their point. You would think that the superior quality of our players would carry us over the line in fixtures like this but today it was not to be.
This puts into stark focus how reliant we are on Ronaldo’s goals and the lack of cutting edge we showed was a worry. Rooney is indeed my favourite player at the moment (sorry Rio but you’re just not good looking enough) but we still don’t have somebody with that ‘Mark Hughes’ quality of winning games from nowhere.
So with our sharpest weapons seemingly on the treatment table and potentially in the shopping basket it looks like we could have a fairly sluggish start to the season. This has happened before but this time our first four games contain fixtures against the Roubles and the Bindippers. This could get ugly because Chelsea are most certainly out of the traps.
Goals against Portsmouth are a must.