iHooligan

Manchester United v Manchester City 4-3

Not even two minutes in and Rooney tiptoed through a somnambulistic City defense and scored. Tevez was up field thinking, “Really?” Perhaps he was learning what is means to cry out for a leading role and then getting one while the team you use to play for fires the ball past your mighty expensive team. Is it me or does Man City look like a squad full of more players disgruntled with their former teams than any other?

Of course Man City did without the services of Adebayor due to his three match ban and Robihno and Santa Cruz due to ankle and knee injuries respectively.

Wright-Phllips had a nice run up the left but crossed too far ahead of Tevez for him to take advantage. Wright-Phillips was quick and perhaps too quick for his other team mates. I wonder if he would not be better used as a second striker instead of having Tevez forward all by his lonesome.

Man United supporters started an ironic chant of “Tevez! Tevez! Sign him on!”

Lescott sent a terrible ball forward that ambled into Man United goal keep Ben Foster’s feet who was not at all expecting Tevez to run at him and struggle for the ball but struggle he did. Tevez swiped the ball from Foster, spun around, and passed it over to Gareth Barry who sailed it into a completely unprotected goal.

Then the Man City supporters started singing “Tevez! Tevez! Sign him on!”

Wright-Phillips had another swift run up the right and lobbed the ball to Tevez who couldn’t quite get the angle on it and headed it high over the crossbar

Tevez slid in for a late tackle on Ferdinand and picked up a yellow card for his troubles.

Anderson (that’s Anderson Luís de Abreu Oliveira to you) fled the scene of his yellow card foul on Tevez but ref caught up with him anyway.

Toure ran the ball up from from midfield where it wound up with Tevez who was so close to a goal but hit the post – beautiful play until the finish.

Ryan Giggs curled a ball into the air where it stayed for quite some time before drifting back as if from a gust of wind where back on earth Darren Fletcher nicely headed it in bringing Man United up 2-1.

Five minutes later Bellamy, who was far out on the left, stormed through the Man United defense and scorched the ball into the far top corner; a beautiful goal for the Welshman.

At 58 minutes Bellamy picked up his own yellow card for fouling Anderson who went down clutching his shins until he was sure the yellow card was lofted into the blue sky by the referee.

The last third of the game saw Given a very busy man as Man United started to hammer away at the City goal. Suddenly it didn’t seem like a 2-2 game as Man United had the wind at their backs and Man City inexplicably deflated.

At 80 minutes, what seemed inevitable at this point, a free kick by Giggs was headed in by Darren Fletcher bringing Manchester United into the lead.

It wasn’t until 8 minutes later that Man City got their first corner compared to United’s ten but they squandered it.

And then. . .Bellamy rocketed up the left side ahead of the Man United defence, outwitting Ferdinand, and slid the ball in with his left foot bringing the match to 3-3.

The announced four minutes of over time began to approach five and then six minutes as City manager Mark Hughes started to short circuit with anger on the touch line.  And he was well to be worried as Michael Owen pounded in a goal in the dying seconds.   Mark Hughes was furious. It was a great, dramatic derby though with a lot of terrific goals.  Tevez managed not to look too terribly dejected as he walked off the field.