It is incredible that a team like Manchester United have become so dependent on one player. United have not been able to pull a favorable result without the 24 year-old English international! Look at Barcelona for example, they played Real Madrid in the Clasico this weekend and managed to dominate los Blancos without Abidal, with Pique and Milito in the center of defense, without Henry, Ibrahimovic, and Iniesta!

United took on 11th place Blackburn this weekend, in what was a must win to stay in the title race and the line-up consisted of Evra on the bench, Giggs and Scholes at center mids, Macheda and Berbatov up top? This is not a lineup that is going to win you the Premier League! O’Shea is terrible at getting up the field. With all due respect to the United legends, Giggs and Scholes are too old to play side by side in the center of midfield.Up top, Berbatov and Macheda don’t know how to play a 4-4-2

It was Blackburn who would create a real threat first in the 8th minute when Samba received a great ball but didn’t hit how he would’ve liked.

Uniteds problem became clear in their first decent effort, if you could call it that. Berbatov was checking back too far for the ball all game. Notice in this particular play (min 24:37) both Berbatov and Macheda are on the right side of the pitch linking passes together for Valencia to get through! One of them needed to be in front of goal to provide Valencia with another option, other than shoot at goal with absolutely no angle. That is the job of the center mids, but where are Scholes and Giggs?

Just before the half 42 minutes in, Berbatov played a great ball in for Valencia, but lets be honest anyone could have seen and hit that pass, what was the Blackburn defender thinking giving Valencia the inside lane like that. But Valencia would make a huge mistake and try to hit the ball across the goal when he could have clearly tucked it away easily to the keepers left!

Manchester United had some other half chances in the second half, but they lacked creativity, No penetrating runs or dangerous balls down the flank.

In the 80th minute Berbatov would have another chance 15 yards out, but unlike a Wayne Rooney, or Fernando Torres, Berbatov waits for the ball to come to him and when he does have a strike its weak and right to the keeper. A world class striker would have pounced on that ball and would not have waited for that ball to come to them.

So what if Blackburn was playing with 11 defenders, United needed to get this result; the Champions League was over and done with and the premier league was all they had to play for and now that has gotten away from them as well.

It was a gamble to bring in Michael Owen, It was a gamble not to buy in the January transfer window, and it was a gamble to play Wayne Rooney in the Champions League semi-final. Has Sir Alex’s luck finally run out? It certainly has for this season.

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