If it was all about “Wayne in Spain mainly causes pain” mid-week, it will mostly be about “he scores goals, Paul Scholes” after this weekend. The Ginger Prince scored his first goal of the season in the 2-0 win over Charlton at Old Trafford on Saturday. (Reports: BBC, Soccernet, Guardian, ManUtd.com)
Ferguson rested Ronaldo, Gary Neville and Heinze, and replaced them with Giggs, Brown and Fortune. It was otherwise the same line-up and formation we saw in the match against Newcastle.
Unlike Newcastle, however, Charlton sat back for most of the first-half and were content to absorb pressure and stymy their opponents. (Indeed, if memory serves, Charlton registered only one shot on goal in the entire match.) They were aided in their cause by an excellent performance by their central defender, El Karkouri.
It looked as if Curbishley’s team would be able to reach half-time maintaining parity but Giggs had other ideas. The Welshman made one of his twisting, turning runs into the box in the 41st minute and his shot cruelly deflected off Young to give United the lead.
Scholes struck five minutes after the break to double the lead. Fletcher’s cross into the Charlton box was behind the pocket-sized midfielder but he merely took a step back and acrobatically steered the ball with his right foot into the net in spectacular fashion. Goodbye, barren spell; hello, Goal of the Week.
United had further chances — Rooney, in particular, had opportunity after opportunity — but the score remained the same and the match sort of petered out towards the end. Ferguson won’t lose any sleep over that nor will he mind the fact the first goal came courtesy of a deflection and there was a suspicion of offside about the second. On the contrary, he was left hoping United would get more breaks of that sort since they hadn’t been getting them earlier.
The result means United move up to fifth and are now nine points off the pace, thanks to slip-ups by Chelsea and Arsenal. Ferguson needs a few more weekends like this one.
