Sir Alex Ferguson was celebrating his 70th birthday in the New Year, another milestone to go along with his 25th year in charge at Old Trafford. Yet as with 20 years ago, when one Dennis Bailey scored a hat-trick for QPR in a famous 4-1 victory on Fergie's 50th birthday, away teams do not seem to read the script.
The stage was set. Manchester United joint top on points with their city rivals, City who played the day after at Sunderland, so the opportunity was there to get a lead over them. And the fixture machine gave them bottom of the table Blackburn Rovers at home, although heartened by a gritty point away at Anfield, this is still a team without an away win all season. The chance was there for the taking, yet the underdog had bite.
Blackburn Rovers were led impressively by their lead man Yakubu who ended up scoring twice, and the eventual winner came from the unheralded Grant Henley with 10 minutes remaining for a famous victory and extend the stay of execution for Steve Kean, who was supported in the build up to the game by SAF saying he should be given a chance to save Blackburn.
Kean and his spirited side were helped by an odd team selection by the elder statesman. A squad that has been ravaged by injuries in defence and midfield led to a centre back pairing of Phil Jones and Michael Carrick; a central midfield duo of Antonio Valencia and Ji-Sun Park, with Danny Welbeck marooned on the left wing with Javier Hernandez and Dimitar Berbatov up front with Wayne Rooney omitted from the squad altogether.
(It transpired that SAF disciplined Rooney, Darron Gibson and Jonny Evans for an ill-advised piss up on Boxing Day night which led to them being physically unable to train on Dec 27th. Rooney admits he was fine to train, yet the punishment was handed out).
This was a bizarre thing for Ferguson to do; something as trivial as footballers drinking should be dealt in-house. Ferguson must have thought that dropping Rooney would not warrant a mention, nor turn a head; all the more the media would be on his side.
Yet I feel he was very arrogant in choosing the Blackburn game to drop three players from - three players who would have all started more than likely - as he felt the strength of his squad would see them past the bottom side in the League quite easily. The sheer arrogance came back to bite him on the behind.
A penalty against Berbatov for a clear shirt pull led to Blackburn's opener coolly converted by Yakubu, then Yakubu's sheer physical presence led to the 2-0 advantage as he powered past an out of sorts Carrick and a fortuitous ricochet to fire past David de Gea who was recalled over Anders Lindegaard.
Yet count Man.United out at your peril as Berbatov quickly replied a minute after the second goal, and then got his second ten minutes later. You would have expected United to convert their momentum to a victory, yet it was Blackburn who got their third goal first and eventual winner; a goal which showed the falliability of the makeshift United defence as Henley cleanly outjumped a flapping de Gea and then easily headed in the dropping ball at the second opportunity against a lead footed Rafael on the line.
Luckily for United and Ferguson, there was a silver lining as City suffered their second defeat of the season at resurgent Sunderland as a last minute winner by Ji gave Martin O'Neill's side the spoils.
Both Manchester sides were guilty of not converting chances and heaps of possession; yet for Ferguson the chance to leapfrog their rivals has gone. He may rely again on Liverpool defeating a mentally flustered City side working on one day's rest, whilst United travel to Newcastle.
The title race may well go to the wire, and longer than you think if managers intend to dismiss lesser teams in this division with this awful team selection.
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