Stoke City Versus Manchester United Saturday 26thSeptember2009 3.00pm

manutd

Photi wrote: »

O'Shea's 350th appearance today.

That should put him in a pretty rarified list of players.

Deserves a lot of credit, John.

He has be a great player for united since 1998 and is as important as Fletcher

Zonda999

manutd wrote: »

He has be a great player for united since 1998 and is as important as Fletcher

Absolutely, has evolved to much more than just a squad player

manutd

Game over, my Man of the Match go to Ryan Giggs. Will have to start on Wedneday.

ROCKMAN

Josey Wales wrote: »

I missed something in the commentary. Who is stuck on 99 league goals?

Giggs I THINK

Peyton Manning

Top of the table lads, Wigan are 3-1 up now.

Zonda999

Archimedes wrote: »

Wigan are 3-1 up

now.

Spoilers please! Didnt want to find out till MoTD later!

Aidric

Delighted with that result, Giggs was brilliant again by all accounts.

Tom65

3-1 to Wigan.

Good day today

manutd

Archimedes wrote: »

Top of the table lads, Wigan are 3-1 up now.

Come on united

manutd

MagicMarker wrote: »

Were you watching the Utd match? They showed the scores throughout the match.

It was saying the score at the end of the game.

Iago

thread is for the united match and the united result only, please keep it that way

flahavaj

Aidric wrote: »

Delighted with that result, Giggs was brilliant again by all accounts.

5 assists in 6 days. Jesus hes a phenomenon.:eek:

Dave!

That fella Geaggs or Goggs or whatever his name is -- he's gonna be big ! Lots of potential !

IvySlayer

Dave! wrote: »

That fella Geaggs or Goggs or whatever his name is -- he's gonna be big ! Lots of potential !

Along with Anderton and Mooney, and Beerbaton.

jaykay74

Delighted with the win today. Giggs kept it simple when he came on. Ironically when Giggs was a speed merchant in his youth his crossing was pretty weak, now its top drawer. I think Nani thinks he is appearing in "The Nani Show".

Stoke are a tough team to watch, all built around trying to engineer set pieces. Hate to see teams like that survive, give me Burnley any day of the week.

NaiveMelodies

Really unenjoyable match to watch! Pitch looked awful and stoke are a farce of a side.
Nani really pissed me off, if he thinks hes gonna be hanging around united for long with performances like that he can fcuk right off.
Valencia was poor, looked really clumsy.

**** that match annoyed me and im glad its over.

Although im quite pleased with the way we controlled game and never panicked.

found it very hard to warm to berba today, and im really starting to dislike nani.

Shaneomac

any links to the goals lads?

NaiveMelodies

Shaneomac wrote: »

any links to the goals lads?

www.101greatgoals.com

jaykay74

Shaneomac wrote: »

any links to the goals lads?

The goals are linked below...

http://therepublikofmancunia.com/video-berbatov-oshea-goals-against-stoke/

After match quotes below...

http://www.sportinglife.com/football/live/quotes/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=soccer/09/09/26/SOCCER_Stoke_Quotes.html

Sir Alex Ferguson felt Ryan Giggs' extra bit of intelligence was the difference for table-topping Manchester United in their 2-0 win at Stoke.
United were struggling to turn their overwhelming dominance into goals at the Britannia Stadium until Giggs replaced Nani 10 minutes into the second half.
The improvement was instant. First Giggs provided record signing Dimitar Berbatov with a tap-in before curling over a free-kick that allowed John O'Shea to mark his 350th Red Devils appearance with a goal as he guided a header into the far corner.
"Ryan is important," said Ferguson. "He made the goals.
"I felt his intelligence would give them a bit of bother on that side of the pitch. Nani did pretty well but Ryan gives you something else.
"He has the intelligence to take up good positions. For the first goal he went on a lovely run behind their defence and the second was an excellent free-kick."
In truth, there could have been few smoother victories for the visitors.
Indeed, the only moment of concern came when Paul Scholes appeared to handle Liam Lawrence's cross after already being booked.
Not that Ferguson felt the former England star - a clear man of the match in the view of Stoke boss Tony Pulis - was in danger of being sent off for the second time this season.
"I didn't think it was handball but it would have been an injustice if he had been sent off because he was wrongly booked in the first place," said the United boss.
"He only made two tackles but Paul is an easy target for referees."
With Chelsea conceding a third goal late on at Wigan, it allowed United to take over at the top for the first time this season.
But Ferguson is not taking anything for granted at such an early stage of his team's bid for an unprecedented fourth successive title.
"I wish we were saying this at the beginning of May," said Ferguson.
"There is a long way to go but it has been a good day for us."
Pulis could put up little defence for a disappointing display from his team.
Stoke only survived as long as they did because Antonio Valencia failed to take a ninth-minute chance after finding himself with a clear run at the home goal.
Pulis could not even take some satisfaction for keeping United at bay for an hour, acknowledging Stoke's opponents were in charge throughout.
"The best team won," he admitted.
"For us to compete against a team like Manchester United we need everybody to be at their maximum. Instead I felt we were flat right from the start."
Pulis had warm words for Giggs but reserved the best for Scholes, who he also claimed should not have been sent off.
"They are both great players but Scholes was magnificent," he said.
"He was the best player on the pitch by a country mile. Then Giggs makes the two goals.
"You can only respect and admire them. They are absolutely fantastic players."

SlickRic

basically, he's calling nani stupid.

Pro. F

Very happy with the result and happy enough with the performance.

Stoke away is a big test. We managed to control the ball for big periods of the game, largely thanks to Scholes, which was what was needed. And the key opening goal was a sharp bit of play. Great pass from Fletcher to split the defence.

I was happy to see Rio, Vidic and Foster looking reasonably comfortable, i was very worried about that before the game.

Evra is consistently a motm candidate. He gave Nani a great platform today and you have to say Nani wasted it.

Valencia still hasn't found his form imo. He's quite slow to get his crosses in but i'm still confident that he'll improve.

Best start to the league in 10 years now for us i think. Whoop

Mars Bar

I reiterate once again that Nani is USELESS!:mad:

Oh Giggsy how I do love you. Fair play to John O' Shea, usually any goal he gets is a right place at the right time kind of thing when it just bounces off him and in but that was a top class header!

Pro. F

mars bar wrote: »

Fair play to John O' Shea, usually any goal he gets is a right place at the right time kind of thing when it just bounces off him and in but that was a top class header!

yeah +1 on that. Very happy for him.

The Muppet

As pro F says Stoke away is a potential bananna skin for every team. They play on a very narrow pitch and then set up the team in a very defensive manner, they will take points at home from some of the title contenders.

Nani was very poor today but he has had some positive games recently so I think he's better than todays performance indicated . He needs to get his head up and pass the ball better , he does need to improve if he is to have a future at United, I think he has teh ability and will prove his worth over the season.

Giggs is on fire thsi season and Scholes had his bet game in a long while. Foster was solid and came and collected everything taht he should have.

Another 3 points and top of the league, we're looking good.

Liam O

Nani needs games to play well, if he's in the team one week then out of it the next he's going to play like he has to prove something every game and just ends up trying too hard. He has great pace, has a very good cross and a cracking shot, he just needs to slow himself down a bit and make the right decision because he has all the attributes, just the execution is lacking. When he was getting games at the start and was high on confidence he played very well, then Fergie leaves him out for 2 odd weeks and we're back to square one.

SlickRic

scholes obviously took whatever giggs has been taking.