This was indeed a very strange game. Just over 3 months ago, Blackburn won the reversed fixture by 6-1 against a United-side which on paper looked stronger than the one we had yesterday (Mastny, Savage, Shoretire and Bennett all started in that fixture) - yet the difference in quality was so huge in our favour yesterday, it was strange that we didn't win by a bigger margin than 6-1. We really were that dominant
In all my years of being a United-fan, the most dominant I have ever seen a United-side be against P.L-opposition was when we played that awful Sunderland-side about 20 years ago. Sunderland took the lead after 4 minutes, and the rest of the match was one way traffic - but we didn't score until the 82th and 90th minute by Becks and Scholes. We almost were as dominant yesterday, and despite all this we only won by 2-1.
And to take the negative first - despite our dominance, the goalkeeper really didn't need to make that many great saves. The one stand out save I remember as I write this is the one he made from Forson's volley , fairly late in the game. Forson also hit the bar and we had one goal correctly disallowed. But most of the shots went wide from very good positions (Iqbal had a few, Hansen Aarøen had one, Forson had one) - and time and time again we made the wrong choices around Blackburns box, and failed to come to any clear cut chances. Which on several occations, we really should have.
But the positive far outweighed the negative. The build-up play at times was excellent. Blackburn couldn't get near Forson, Hansen Aarøen channelled his inner Modric and danced around in midfield, and Gore and Iqbal sprayed passes around of the highest quality. Our defenders had full controll for 99% of the game, and Blackburn struggled to even come near our penalty area. (27-5 in goal attempts).
If we had been just slightly more prolific, I would say that this was our best performance of the season. I have been critical of Dempsey in the past but he deserves credit for the way he has managed to turn things around. We started the season with 1 win in 12, now we are midtable with 4 straight wins.
A lot of players performed really well yesterday, but Gore, Hansen Aarøen and Iqbal were in a league of their own. I have never seen Hansen Aarøen better, he danced between the opponents with the ball at his feet. Iqbal looked ready for better opposition as he controlled the midfield. And Gore's evening can best be described in the build up to Emerans goal. He receives a really hard pass, turns with the ball glued to his feet and sets up Emeran for the goal. Amazing. I also have to give a lot of credit to Forson despite his inability to score. He created so much down his side. A really good performance from him as well.
