Review: Manchester United 2 - Arsenal 1

God does have a sense of humour; and the footballing gods have a particularly dark and black sense. Nothing much to say that I am still in a state of shock, depression, incomprehension that threatens to draken my moods for the next 2 weeks till we get back on the pitch.

It was a game, as I'd said - was ripe for our taking. A game that we shoul've won quite comfortably; a game where Man U were consistently second best; a game that we gave away and wrecked by the referee and his assistants.

The start of the game was typical Arse-Man U. Cagey, nervous, error strewn. Once that was out of the way, however, we came out on top, with RVP and then Arshavin having near misses in the 25th minute or so. First sign of a crap referee (who over the course of the game would dish out 9 yellow cards that was on the whole NOT an over-the-top game) was when he turned down the Fletcher-Arshavin challenge that could not not have been a penalty. Of course, the Arsh made it all academic when he released a typical Arsh-Henry-esque thunderbolt to deservedly give us the lead.

The start of the second half, and we continue to boss. RVP really should've put the game to bed, but somehow, Foster got lucky with a clearance following some super running again from the Arsh.

Like some kind of nightmare, it all changes in a couple of minutes. A 50-50 penalty. The sheer irony. RVP hitting the bar, and the Diaby fiasco. Don't know what can be said, and what RVP said to him at the re-start thereafter. What he should've done though, was at least hit the target when clear through immediately after. Poor guy seemed shattered.

I'm not going to go into the player ratings. It would be too painful. We played well, far better than Man U, but came away with nothing. In the larger scheme to things, it's not a diasatrous defeat, in that we have the whole season ahead of us. It would, however, have been significant if we'd done. Man U's credentials would be seriously dented, and we would be in great shape. I can only hope that we can bounce back, with City in 2 weeks. The important thing would be get this inexplicable moment out of our systems, and get back to winning ways. The international break could be good and bad. To have a mid-week game now would probably be too much, but I'm sure it would be better to get back to football without having this game linger too long in our memories.

I'm pretty proud of the boys, and the performance they put in. Miles ahead of the displays we had in the Champions League against them.

It's painful to lose against Man U; excrutiating to lose in the manner we did. But it's just three points. We can get over it, and we must. Perhaps on the bright side, it was all for the better that this happened early in the season. All seasons must have their moments of inexplicable disaster. We've had ours. Now let's push ahead. On this performance alone, we're in good shape.

I have to say though - at half time, glowing our our lead and performance, I SMS-ed the guru to say that I had the awful feeling that the ref would screw everything over. Well. Let's just say that the ref and his fourth official put in a truly pathetic performance. The yellow cards - and I won't go into Le Boss's claims of partiality, the missed penalty, and finally, the sending off of Le Boss. That in my mind, just showed to what extent refs are human, and we have placed too much currency on their performances. Why and how Le Boss should be sanctioned for kicking a water bottle. Get a life. Yes, the refs got affected by the game and the atmosphere, but that's the last things ref should do. Pathetic.

For now, let's see what happens by the end of transfer deadline on Tuesday, whether UEFA get Eduardo hung, drawn and quartered, and whether our first team gets injured while on international duty.

In the meantime, I hope this depression doesn't last too long for me. Good luck to us all.