A narrow 1-0 for Man United in a tricky looking fixture against Spurs saw us keep our 100% record so far this season, and meant a good end to week for Alex Ferguson after a protest against his management on Friday.

Usually a protest against a manager by five fans would not be deserving of much attention but an outburst against Ferguson ? albeit a small one ? is almost unprecedented since his early days as United boss.

It must be said that the protesters picked a strange time to vent their frustration, what with the side in good form, sitting top of the league and Ferguson being the reigning Manager of the Month. What was needed at Old Trafford on Saturday though was another three points and a performance to silence the doubters. While the team achieved the former, they did not achieve the latter.

Martin Jol set his stall out by stringing four central midfielders across the midfield, presumably hoping that Edgar Davids and Hossam Ghali would stifle the attacking outlets of Cristiano Ronaldo and Kieran Richardson. Unfortunately for Spurs, Ronaldo was too quick and clever for the ageing Davids to cope with and while Ghali was willing and worked hard, he was clearly uncomfortable as a makeshift right winger. In addition, David?s natural instinct to drift infield saw Mido often filling in on the left ? hardly the place you want your big target man to be ? which in turn left Robbie Keane isolated and ineffectual up front.

Tottenham offered little in the way of a goal threat in the first half, bar a chance that fell to Dawson, and while United were hardly scintillating, the side were good value for their lead in the first half. It was fitting that Ryan Giggs, who had been award the Player of the Month award for the first time in his career before the match, scored the only goal. The Welshman was on hand to head the ball in off the underside of the bar after Robinson parried Ronaldo?s long-range free kick back into the penalty area.

We were 1-0 up inside ten minutes and at that point it looked as though we were in for a comfortable afternoon. The movement of Ronaldo, Saha and Giggs (stationed up front as Rooney sat out the final game of his suspension) was causing the Spurs backline plenty of problems while Carrick was using the ball as intelligently as you would expect on his home debut. After Giggs had put the ball in the net, a two or three nil win did not look out of the question - especially since Spurs offered little going forward, with Keane looking out of his depth ploughing a lone furrow up front.

Of course with United these days things are rarely that simple. To Tottenham?s credit they soon came back into the match and in the end were unlucky not to come away with at least a point. It wasn?t so much that United performed worse in the second half, but Spurs? improvement highlighted just ordinary we had been throughout. It was just not hugely noticeable early on because Tottenham had been so sluggish themselves.

A largely average performance is not all Ferguson has to worry about. Static defending on crosses would have been a much more pressig concern. As the second half wore on, Defoe and then Mido missed glorious headed chances after our defence stood stock still watching the crosses come in. had either of those chances gone in it would have been a deserving punishment for such slack defending. Neither Ferdinand nor Brown are poor in the air, but both are prone to lapses in concentration. I’m looking forward to the return of the commanding Vidic, which should help eliminate these kind of problems. It really tells you something that our most assured-looking defender was Mikael Silvestre, of all people, during his brief injury-time cameo.

Another worry was the haphazard finishing of Louis Saha. I?ve often said that I think Saha ? if he can stay fit ? is a more than adequate replacement for van Nistelrooy, and his movement and work rate make us a better side. Indeed, Saha didn?t play badly on Saturday. With his strike partner Giggs drifting all over the pitch, the Frenchman was often on his own up front but he still worked hard and chased every ball for the cause. The only problem ? and it?s a significant one for a striker ? was his finishing. Take his golden chance in stoppage time as an example. Springing the Spurs offside trap and scampering clear, he did well to hold off the excellent Dawson but Robinson saved his tame shot. My first thought was: van Nistelrooy would have scored that. However on reflection that?s probably not a fair assessment. Would van Nistelrooy have had the pace to run from practically the halfway line to make the chance for himself? I doubt it.

So despite a win in front of another record attendance that saw us stay at the top of the Premiership, I cannot glibly salute this victory, even though the three points are welcome. This was far from an accomplished performance. To win the difficult upcoming games against Celtic in midweek and Arsenal next weekend we’ll need to be more alert at the back and learn to kill teams off once we have the lead. Not doing this cost us at times last season, and we’ve been rather lucky that it didn’t do so this week as well.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 11th, 2006 at 8:53 am and is filed under Manchester United. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.