When you get royally stuffed by your up-and-coming rivals there must be no sweeter feeling than seeing that next on your travels is lowly-Hampshire based team Aldershot. It is basic human psychology; boy gets bullied in playground, boy licks his wounds, boy hunts out even weaker target and boy becomes the bully.
Well yes, it is a fair assumption. But now take that boy and in the short prelude before he performs a bottom splitting wedgie on the kid with spectacles, ginger hair and dungarees, replace his brain with a fresh one. The boy still has the same plan of action, but if you return his original grey matter after the vent of frustration and anger, he still feels that frustration and anger.
This boy is Manchester United.
Mid-week, Admiral Ferguson took his battalion down to the fields of Hampshire and did battle with League Two’s Aldershot Town. The club’s existence, 19 years, isn’t even as long as Ferguson’s reign at Old Trafford; 25 years next week. The experience and gulf in size shone through and the one-trick pony Dimitar Berbatov struck home first, before the old-warhorse Owen doubled the lead before the break. Antonio Valencia’s strike took United’s lead to three and in effect ordered the van for The Shots which would take them all to the Glue Factory.
The eleven changes made for the fourth round of the F.A Cup were most certainly inevitable; not because of the thumping that Super Mario & co. inflicted but because of the opposition. Yet the convenience of the tie has allowed serial wound-licking for the eleven men disgraced at Old Trafford.
The Tuesday night clash would’ve come too soon for Ferdinand, Nani, Rooney and the rest of United’s unattractive Sunday suicide selection, but it has given the likes of Cleverley and Vidic, who both returned from injury mid-week, as well as Park, Jones and Valencia, the chance to earn a start at Everton.
Squad rotation is something analogous to Ferguson’s game-to-game antics, having once gone 180 games before starting the same XI on the bounce but Everton provides a headache.
In the past three meetings at Goodison Park the result has always favoured the home side; in the 2008/09 season Everton trailed to United at half-time by one goal, but a second half strike from Fellaini ensured the spoils were shared. The next meeting saw Everton take all three points with a 3-1 win and last season The Toffees did what they did last week to Fulham. This time, the score line wasn’t level; two goals from Cahill and Arteta inside injury time saw the score line change from 3-1 to United with only added time left, to 3-3 and Moyes believing a fourth could’ve been scored, “The referee allowed Manchester United to take the corner and we broke up-field in about eight or nine seconds and then he blew up. That was wrong.”