STOKE CITY 1 MANCHESTER UNITED 2

Plenty to keep you interested at The Brit on so many different levels. The Rooney riddle....he’d sorted his contract heist. Would Sir Alex play him? If he did then a hattrick was inevitable! Well he didn’t ....so what does that tell us....more for another day there! What I suspect is that  Mr.Rooney’s life at Man U is about to become a whole lot more interesting behind the scenes.

What about the Stokie chants? Memorable yes definitely (well more or less in the case of the second one,the words of which I think I remember).” Robbed by a scouser,you’ve just been robbed by a Scouser”. Mint, I think is the word. The second...”You’re shite, Rooney says you are” (repeated).You all know the tunes....

Respect from the Man U manager for Stoke, fielding what most considered to be the strongest side at his disposal, and through his after match comments genuinely,IMHO, expressing the view that this had been a tough game for them.

A novelty - if my memory serves me well – our goal was the first that we have scored against them in the five games since we returned to the Prem. Bigger novelty....Tuncay even got onto the pitch to massive acclaim by the fans, who had been calling for him earlier. Massive bigger novelty....he scored our equaliser....a cracking shot across Van Der Sar, after a mistake by Scholes (who didn’t have one of his better days).What struck me most was that the fans unreserved adulation and celebration was not altogether matched by his team mates,who seemed reluctant to join him as he milked the applause.Did wonder whether this shows what they really feel about him.

 Still there we were drawing with one of the greats with just a few minutes to go and a seriously pumped up full house daring to hope that we would get a deserved  hard earned point from a game in which we had had to do a lot of running to win the ball,but to which we had contributed some fine football too.

United’s opener toward the end of the first half came from a corner,a brilliant improvised header from Hernandez which left our defence flat footed.The late winner was notched from close in by the same player after a series of one two’s between Berbertov and others around the edge of our penalty box.Two years ago we would have knocked him over,before the final ball was played in,and taken our chances with the free kick. The man who would might well have intervened as he does so often breaking moves up, Dean Whitehead, was missing yesterday,and it showed at times.

Talking of breaking things up......Gary Neville.....he knew Ethers had the beating of him...his nasty first foul earned him a yellow card, when a red might have been more appropriate. His second foul, which  was not a great deal prettier but brought no sanction.As everyone around commented.....if he’d been a Stoke player he would have been sent off. But there you are....

All told an absorbing end to end game, but a point each would have been fairer.

C’est la vie!!