Bolton Wanderers 2-2 Manchester United | Evans, O’shea, Evra, Rooney …

On a day when United can put pressure on Chelsea, they wasted the opportunity to do so. To be honest though they have 66% of the position… still chased the game and are behind bolton twice. Interestingly managed 13 shots to Bolton’s 15 and committed more fouls than bolton.

United went with the same side that won against Liverpool with Rooney and Berba upfront with Scholes and Fletcher running midfield. Bolton also played 4-4-2 with Davis and Elmander upfront. Bolton started brightly and they maintained the same pace throughout the game. Game is not very much tactical to write in depth analysis but there are few interesting things about manchester united.

United continued their habit of leaking goals from the defense. For more embracement its again Johnny Evans who was at fault for first goal along with confusing position of Evra in the goal post. Then Nani sent a brilliant strike into goal to level the score. At half-time team talk, SAF told them to send the ball to Nani as much as possible but Nani was not able to send many crosses into the box. But Nani was unsuccessful through out the match to send the crosses into the box except the the one that Owen scored. The second goal which was deflected off Fletcher is not entirely his fault, had Evra or Evans did their job, that cross would never have reached Fletcher. Fletcher’s substation was not surprise since we have a midweek CL match and finally Struggling rooney was subbed. The goal was Owen is simply super and it send a reminder to SAF that, he had an option to turn to, instead of sticking with Rooney.

How many of you had observed and agree with me that, Van Der Sar is poor in this game? After the first 10mins, i started counting how many times pass from VDS finds a united player. All his long passes went to Bolton players…expect one 1 out of 13. Which means for every 8mins, Bolton’s attack came through a goal kick or free kick.

Observations:

Evra: Everyone is saying Rooney is not in form but the one who is surely struggling from that Worldcup hangover is Evra. He is not at his best in any of the games so fat this season. On the left side, we always get crosses from Evra more than the left winger many times but in the last 2-3 games those are limited to 3 or 4. Match against Bolton, he had 4 attempted crosses and just one is successful.

O’shea: Don’t know why he is still a preffered right-back this season. He is slow and not creative. Not getting into more attacking positions or crosses. in the match against Bolton, he had just 1 unsuccessful cross into the box to his name. We all know, Neville is old and not a good choice now but we have young Rafael waiting for opportunities. He may did a mistake against Bayern Munich that defeated us but he deserves a chance so is his brother. Don’t know when SAF will fix this right back issue.

Johny Evans: I’m sure he has lots of talent otherwise he will not feature in those many games for United. But this season, so far he is struggling. Against Bolton, he didn’t have a tall striker or someone Tevez, still against Davis he struggled. Also we saw Evans giving away a penalty to Torres in the match against Liverpool. Which suggests that, he not dealing properly with strikers who moves more or run around the Penalty box. Evans need to step up to cover this in his defense game, otherwise he may not be wearing that United shirt for long.

Rooney: First time, i though we could have started with any other striker. His choices are wrong and not showing any confidence. He needs to move on and make his on-field scoring count. Now, Owen has sent a signal that he is ready for action… so it would be interesting to see, if SAF opts for Owen in future.