We went from being on a high and finishing last season in great form to crashing out to a team who were over 40 places lower than us in the league, at home and our biggest rivals. How the hell did this happen? I really don’t know who to blame as there were so many bad performances and even Sir Alex himself needs to be questioned which is something that I rarely do. So where did it all go wrong?
Vidic Injury in the warm up
There has been a lot of speculation about Vidic’s future in the last couple of weeks and when he pulled out at the last minute it was a big surprise and really unsettled the team. Fergie had this to say after the game…”I could not tell you what the situation is with Nemanja” and Mike Phelan said “Nemanja said he felt there was something that wasn’t right with his body. So he came in and told the manager and myself and we made the decision to change it.” That really does sound a bit fishy to me and even though Vidic’s commitment can not be questioned up until now you have to wonder is his head elsewhere? Brown had to step in to his place and he was clearly not prepared mentally for the game and although he put some decent hard tackles in he was fairly slack at the back and League one forwards were giving him and Johny Evans the runaround.
The Midfield
We have had lots of problems at the back recently but the man issues yesterday were in the midfield. Wellbeck and Obertan didn’t really do a thing on the wings and looked very light weight. I really expected more from them but they just seemed to be lacking confidence and conviction to take their men on and they will have to be given more time as subs in the big games if they are to come on from this. Gibson was OK and at least had some drive and tried a couple of long range efforts and played some decent forward balls but he has played much better in the past month than he did yesterday. The big problem was once again Anderson who had to be taken off early in the second half. I really am not a fan of his (although I was) and if he doesn’t improve rapidly he is going to face a bit of time on the sidelines. This was meant to be the year that he broke in to the first team and really cemented his place in the team after a good first year but he has gone backwards and some of this passing yesterday was just rubbish.
Poor Finishing
We didn’t actually have that many clear cut chances and on another day Leeds could actually have beaten us by more. When the chances did fall to us we tried too much intricate play and nobody was able t get many chances on target. Owen looked rusty when he came on, Berba didn’t have a shot on target which as the main striker is not acceptable and Rooney had one of his poorer days even if he did have plenty of passion.
Leeds Passion
Leeds had far more passion than us on the day and were well up for the match. All we could do was get wound up by them in the second half and concede a load of pointless free kicks as they got under our skin much to their delight. They came at us with a positive attitude from the very start and showed what can be achieved at Old Trafford if you attack instead of just trying to shut up shop and hope for a goaless draw. We were totally out fought on the day
The Gaffer
There were some suspect decisions and not just on the day. Michael Own is a form player and always has been so when he scored a hatrick against Wolfsburg he should have been given a run in the team rather than being left pretty much on the sidelines for a month apart from a game against Fulham where he didn’t get a kick. He had a chance that he would normally have buried yesterday but fluffed it due to lack of match sharpness. Berba was a disaster once again and for all his nice touches and a couple of smart passes he just doesn’t get enough goals or put himself in the position to score enough goals partly because he is too lazy to drag his big ass in to the six yard box for crosses. The gaffer is going to have to look at some striking options pretty soon as we need some more cutting edge. You also can’ play a whole new back 4 and inexperienced midfield and expect to win a game where the other team fight that hard, should one of Carrick or Fletcher not have been in the middle to control the flow of the game?
A sad sad day for us all 
