New year, new United? Maybe, I mean, we actually won some competitive games in the new year which was a nice change to things but of course, we started with a loss. So, let's get on with it.
A Brief(ish) Review Of The Month On the second day of the brand new year, United travelled to London and Selhurst Park where we continued to be consistent in the worst way and lose 2-0 to two first half goals from Crystal Palace with Eberechi Eze scoring the pick of the goals with a dancing run through our backline before placing the ball past Rammers. The monotony of the league campaign was broken up with a visit to old League 1 rivals Bristol Rovers and, after 6 months without a competitive win, United pulled off a hard fought victory against The Gas. United opened the scoring through a deflected Lys Mousset header that harshly went down as an own goal. Rovers didn't roll over however and got an equaliser 15 minutes later via a header from a well placed free kick. That was the end of the scoring in the first half but just before the hour mark Oli Burke used his blazing pace to put himself through on goal where he duly bagged to open his goalscoring account for United. Bristol again came back and just 3 minutes later they were back in it with a close range finish from Ehmer. The drama didn't stop there and to top off a crazy 4 minutes Jayden Bogle finished off a lovely team move to score our third and the last goal of the game so, we've won a game of football! And, more importantly, we were through to the 4th round of the FA Cup. Following up on the success against Rovers, we won our first league game of the season 3 days later with 10 man Newcastle eventually succumbing to Blades pressure by giving away a penalty that Billy Sharp duly dispatched to give us a vital 3 points and give Billy his 100th goal in a United shirt. It was back to normal however in the next game against Tottenham with Spurs running away with a 3-1 win with Ndombele scoring an outrageous effort shortly after McGoldrick put a header past Lloris to give us a chance to get something. It was back to Cup action next with Plymouth visiting The Lane and United booked their place in the 5th Round with a commanding(ish) performance against The Pilgrims with a Basham header and a Sharp finish being just enough to see off the visitors. Up next however, is arguably one of our best wins in our short stint in the Prem where we went to Old Trafford and beat the mighty Manchester United 2-1. Kean Bryan (yes, really) opened the scoring with a header from a corner but despite some impressive rear guard action, mainly marshalled by the outstanding Phil Jagielka, Harry Maguire equalised for Man United with his own header from a corner. But, instead of sitting back and defending like we'd done so many times before this season, we actually went on the offensive and only bloody scored! Oli Burke (yes, really) sent a deflected effort that hoodwinked De Gea and gave us a most unlikely second win of the season. We ended the month still in Manchester with a visit to the soon to be crowned champions. United put up another good performance that was only undone by a poor bit of early defending that allowed Ferran Torres to get up off his arse and score a goal. Flecky nearly got a goal late on but it wasn't to be. But at least we won some games. Player Of The Month: Chris Basham I was thinking of giving the award this month to Jags after his standout performance against Man United but unfortunately that was only one game. So, I'll give it to the other United stalwart in the team in Chris Basham who also played a crucial part in that backline that night. At times, it really has just been Bash who has been the attacking threat for United this season with him being the only one of our once fabled overlapping centre backs who actually still tried to overlap. His dribbling was still bamboozling top quality defenders but unlike last season, he just didn't have anyone to lay the ball off to when he finished his darts forward. So congrats on the award Bash, it's the least you deserve. Goal Of The Month: Jayden Bogle VS Bristol Rovers, 9th January 2021 Remember when we were a well oiled attacking team last season? I'm thinking the goals against Villa at home, Burnley at home, you know the one's. Well, we didn't do that as much this season but we did do it at least once. This goal that Jayden Bogle started and managed to finish brought a real reminder that these players that hadn't won a competitive game for half a year still did have some of the quality that led us to finishing 9th in the Prem last season despite what they were showing week in, week out. It was a free flowing, fast moving manoeuvre that eventually saw Jayden slotting home to ultimately give us our first win of the season.
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AuthorHi my name is John and i will be giving my thoughts on the blades matches and all blades related news in this section Archives
November 2022
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