The Devil In Me

This was decidedly middle-notch entertainment. In fact, the most interesting part of the evening was trying to decipher the team selection. There were bound to be changes made after Anfield and Fergie must be bricking it about central defence for the Chelsea game.

Johnny ‘no means no’ Evans played okay, and whilst he couldn’t quite keep our defensive areas completed zipped up, he did manage to penetrate the Villareal box against its wishes and nearly scored at the end. Gary Neville is starting to remind me of the original version of the King Kong movie, brilliant in its time but painfully dated now. He needs a major restoration and he may well not be the man to try and stop Joe cole and Bang/Crash/Whallop Drogba on Sunday. I would play Wes at right back and John O’Shea at centre back in the vain hope that he utilises some of that luck his countrymen are famous for.

The mysteries of the midfield continue. Was Fergie punishing the central players for last week’s result? Or was this too, another dry run for Sunday’s outing at the bridge? Or do we simply have no idea who are the first choices in that area? I always like the look of Hargreaves and when he is fit he should play, other than that it is hard to choose, for the most part we will need grafters on Sunday.

Villareal played a very nice, neat passing game. When they got possession they held possession and seemed a very organised team. This result is no tragedy but we are far from in form at the moment.
We are not in trouble in Europe, yet, and Fergie will know his midfield and defence for the weekend now he has had this little experiment. The thing that nobody seems to mention is that, frankly, it is time to drop Rooney.