Nevertheless, to all you United haters out there, it’s not over till the obese lady sings her aria! Rumors of the imminent demise of the red devils are very much hyperbolically exaggerated. We have won the Premier League without a defense more than once and it is still within the realm of fathomable plausibility that many of the other clubs are still flawed enough that we can do it again! Sure it was only Stoke City led by Sparky Hughes–the Typhoid Mary of our club alumni–but with Moyesie finally having the wherewithal to get his substitutions right (“It’s our attack, stchoopid!”), the quick-quick frontal juggernaut of Chicharito, Rooney and Van Persie proved simply too much for Stoke’s knackered thugs as the clock ticked down. All United have to do now is keep doing the same thing consistently and the rest will be like falling off a bicycle!

Last Wednesday Our Dear Lads were a goal up in two minutes. This time we were one down after three. It all began when Stoke’s left back Erik Pieters picked up the ball, eased casually past Smalling and Cleverley and crossed to the ungainly Crouch. Crouch botched his shot and De Gea made a nice reactive save, before trusting Evans with a pass. Forever positionally challenged, Jonny Evans’ ineptitude as he attempted a point-blank panic ‘pass’ back in the direction of his stunned goalie really did seem like a slapstick gag when it somehow bounced off the bamboozled Spaniard into the goalmouth, crossed the goal line, got kicked away by Evans, but then ended up back in goal after hitting an equally stunned Peter Crouch.

Minutes later, Nani completely overcooked a half-decent shooting chance from the edge of the box and began to be the subject of a torrent of verbal abuse from a section of United fans. The booing became even more vociferous after he made a dud pass outside his own box to Walters, who came close to setting up a Crouch volley that narrowly missed. Now with Nani clearly showing how genuinely upset he felt at being the butt of the cruel home crowd’s abuse, he almost caused another away goal as he gave away a sloppy ball to N’Zonzi, whose exquisite, precise diagonal ball was chested down by Crouch, before trickling away to Walters, whose hard effort was brilliantly saved by De Gea. Minutes later, De Gea pulled off one that had the whole stadium buzzing as he dived to his right to keep out a fifteen-yard thunderbolt from Marko Arnautovic.

Then a couple of real shockers. The second goal came three minutes before the interval as Van Persie scored his eighth goal of the season with a follow-up after Begovic had produced a one-handed save to keep out a Rooney header. But in only two minutes Stoke stole their lead back as Phil Jones fouled Arnautovic on the edge of the box. The Austrian then fired a free kick with the movement of metal-tipped whip. De Gea dived in time to reach the hard curving ball, but it was so accurately placed that it carried on off his fingertip into the top right corner of his net.

Just how desperately the team needs Adnan Januzaj showed the second he arrived on the hour mark of the match, simultaneously accompanied by boos for Nani as the Portuguese winger made a sad exit. With Antonio Valencia now slotting in nicely at right back, the Ecuadorian second wave began to make the Potters defense bend in too many directions at once. He won a corner for Van Persie and Wayne Rooney was able to leap high and nod a hard, glancing header which the up to then perfect Asmir Begovic misjusged and allowed in over his head. Two minutes later Patrice Evra, barely noticeable for much of the match, charged all the way down the left flank and served up a delicious cross for Chicharito Hernandez to also nod home.

It wasn’t pretty and United in no possible way looked like champions. They did, however, pull themselves together enough to show a definite sense of determination and desire. It turned out to be the 25th Premier League game in which Robin van Persie has scored. United have won 20 of those matches and drawn the other five. This seems to be be a lot more than an omen.

Having been mauled by the pundits over his admittedly odd substitutions against Southampton in the PL at the weekend, Moyes came off as more of a jolly populist for starting Javíer ‘Chicharito’ Hernandéz and Shinji Kagawa. With Robin van Persie still suffering soreness from toe and groin injuries, the dour Scot had Hernández partnered with Rooney up front while Kagawa took over on the left from Adnan Januzaj and Ryan Giggs partnered Michael Carrick in central midfield. As the Basque team is small and built for speed, it was surely a relief for the tackle-shy Carrick to deal with the tricky but more finesse-oriented Sociedad and not have to hide behind Marouane Fellaini.

United’s nerves were soothed early as they got a second minute gift thanks to some Sociedad comedy defending. Indeed, it was wonderful to watch as a slick Wayne Rooney turned Markel Bergara inside-out deep in the penalty area, setting himself up exquisitely before blasting a bazooka which rebounded off the upright straight into the uncoordinated path of a panic-stricken Iñigo Martínez, who reached out tentatively with his right foot only to tip the spinning ball into his own net. Ten minutes on, United almost made it two as their goalie, Claudio Bravo made his first save of the game, stopping a Rooney shot on the line after a fine cross from Rafael Da Silva had set him up.

Passing with confidence, attacking relentlessly and running out every ball over each blade of Old Trafford grass, United really were sincerely in it to win it on the night. They were not, however, into the same kind of bullet-velocity wing play many of us have grown used to. Moyes is much more cautious than Ferguson when it comes to transitional play on the flanks, probably due in part to Patrice Evra’s inability to adapt his old legs to new realities. Atypically, Rooney was too high up the pitch to cope properly with an early Valencia cross. His cleverly improvised extemporaneous attempt at a scissors-kick to reach Valencia’s ball almost paid off, but a miss is good as a mile no matter what the cliché. And something identical almost happened again with minutes as Valencia let fly early with yet another shock early pass and finding an offside Hernandez. The Mexican assassin headed home, but was clearly adjudged to be offside.

Real Sociedad were not invisible, though. Luckily, the gifted shot-stopping abilities of David De Gea grow and grow. His one-handed save to prevent a Haris Seferovic shot from scoring definitely saved United because the whole team was standing around arguing, after the referee allowed the match to continue despite a blatant Martínez a foul on Giggs. United got even more fortunate as De Gea clearly wasn’t quick enough to reach a terrific free kick from Sociedad’s best player Antoine Griezmann which exploded off the crossbar. Why our defense keeps downing tools in these moments seems to defy all common sense! United survived a further scare at the start of the second half when Seferovic left Evra in the dust. His wicked shot fooled Evans, whose ugly clearance almost flew into his own net.

A quick caveat here. I can’t remember any game ever ever where the goalposts were hit so often. by both sides. Kagawa and Rooney both hit the goal posts three times. Valencia, Hernandez and Rafael once each. Bizarrely, early in the second half, Alberto de la Bella almost caught De Gea out of position with a shot that grazed the bar at one end while a wide-open Valencia badly hit a wide-open sitter against the post at the other. Valencia sensibly tried to make sure with his next opportunity, unselfishly squaring for a wide-open Kagawa goal. Unfortunately, the chance went begging once more as the Japanese took a soft touch in front of Bravo’s goal instead of shooting for power.

By the time Rooney blasted over the bar from six yards out in the 72nd minute, followed by Phil Jones header blocked by Bravo and Antonio Valencia’s low, angled shot ricocheting back off the post, United just seemed cursed. Exhausted, Sociedad barely put up a defense toward the end of the game and both Rooney and substitute Ashley Young failed to profit from a clean two-on-one situation four minutes from time, and, then, after squandering that one, as Giggs’ lovely chip found Kagawa flying again; unfortunately, alone and isolated, with only the goalkeeper in his way, the Japanese lost proper control of the ball and clipped it softly to Bravo.

Beyond Rooney’s whizz-bang display and his praise for the new manager after the game, and the voices of United’s brand-new ‘singing section,’ it’s also crystal-clear that Mr. Moyes can no longer afford to ignore Shinji Kagawa’s innate brilliance. Forced to start on the left wing, Shinji made do, working well with Ryan Giggs as they alternated positioninng in both central midfield and on the flank. When Chicharito was pulled late in the game for Ashley Young, Moyes moved Rooney front-center and put Kagawa in his favorite position, in the hole behind the striker. For the last fifteen minutes or so the industrious Japanese was an unstoppable force of nature.

It will be interesting to see if Moyes gives Robin Van Persie another chance to rest this weekend against Stoke. If the Dutchman is fit,I wouldn’t be at all averse to the boss putting a slightly withdrawn RVP on the left wing and Rooney as center-forward with Kagawa in the hole.

Before the match, United’s 18-year-old wing wünderkind, Adnan Januzaj, inked a five year contract and had a press conference accompanied by Moyes and the club’s money man, Ed Woodward. This was about as good as the day was going to get. Januzaj made a fantasy day of his first start two weeks ago against Sunderland when he scored both goals; unfortunately, lightning did not strike twice. Although we all knew that the kid had helped temporally paper over some severe cracks in United’s team, especially a desperately poor defense, quality will tell and United just don’t have it. Having sat on the lead and squandered too many opportunities, it seemed to be an inevitable moment of justice when Adam Lallana wiped out United’s complacent lead with a tap-in after a late corner.

Januzaj was in the thick of things from the beginning, not the least of which was being blatantly sent flying by a studs-up Nathaniel Clyne. Still, aside from a lot of nice dribbling and a couple of killer passes into empty space, Januzaj and his partner, right winger Nani got little succor from their strikers, Wayne Rooney and Robin Van Persie. Januzaj’s third effort, however, did the trick. His perfectly weighted through ball found a slightly offside Wayne Rooney with only the goalkeeper to beat. The referee Michael Jones did not blow his whistle, though, and Southampton’s goalie Artur Boruc made a fine save from Rooney, but had no chance of retrieving when Robin van Persie moved wide and slammed home the rebound in the 26th minute.

It was only the third goal Southampton have conceded this season, which is pretty impressive considering the PL season is already eight matches in. The Saints showed grit and good organization, proving that the point they earned at Anfield before the international break was no fluke. Had they known how to score goals also, they might well have given United another hammering. Atypically, their sole big ticket item, striker Dani Osvaldo–repeatedly given the run of the box by a reticent Jonny Evans–botched a true sitter when Rooney lost possession close to his own box. Lucky for United, Osvaldo froze in front of goal and fired a mild shot that David De Gea saved easily.

Although there was some fairly decently entertaining end-to-end stuff from both sides in the first half, the second half was mostly flat and lame as both Rooney and Osvaldo missed more chances early in. How Rooney missed an exquisite Nani pass in the 73rd minute is beyond all ken. Then again, why Nani was denied a penalty after being yanked down by Luke Shaw in the penalty area on two separate occasions only referee Mike Jones will ever know. With bookings at a premium this season, one of the main differences between the two teams, was United’s team-wide reticence to get stuck in with their tackling. Marouane Fellaini, who was shouldered with much of the blame for United’s lame performance by assorted pundits, seemed terribly reticent to throw full force into his blocks and tackles. As this is the main reason the big Belgian was brought in, one can only conjecture that Moyes gave very clear instructions to his team not to foul. Unfortunately, manager Mauricio Pocchetino’s Saints/ showed no such squeamishness.

All in all, deep into the second half, the game was still in the balance, within Southampton enjoying the lion’s-share of possession, when Van Persie headed a Rooney corner on to the crossbar, Later, Januzaj executed a swerving shot from 25 yards that Boruc made a fantastic save of. Even the disappointing Marouane Fellaini missed a rebound after collecting a rebound on the edge of the penalty area. In between these efforts Southampton kept the ball and stayed in the game with nothing but hard work and much running. Indeed, over the last fifteen minutes or so–Fergie’s old squeaky-bum time–Southampton definitely finished the stronger. as Lallana and Clyne both forced fantastic late saves from De Gea. Thus when the super-lunged Clyne won a late corner, substitute James Ward-Prowse’s effort saw the centre-back pairing of Phil Jones and Jonny Evans standing around casually, leaving Southampton’s centre-half Dejan Lovren to divert it towards goal and the completely unmarked Saints’ captain Adam Lallana to toe-poke the equalizer home.

United are now eight points behind the league leaders Arsenal. This is not good! Moyes may well ponder the calm, relaxed manner in which Morgan Schneiderlin and Victor Wanyama pulled the strings in midfield, while the selfless leadership and relentless running from Lallana meant Saints always had the kind of options United never had. With all the fuss about the fiendish training methodology utilized by Moyes and Round, one can’t help but wonder about what keeps happening late in every game. United have only had two wins in seven matches. and the transfer window in January still seems a long long way away. A slow Stoke City are up next in the Premier League and, normally, a sense of cautious confidence would be the order of the day. Nothing could be further from the truth right now, however, as our perfidious old boy, Sparky Hughes, and his band of oversize warriors will be bound and determined to catch us at a low ebb.

United’s pre-match prep was not helped by another training-ground injury to Wayne Rooney. The club’s stand-out performer of the season thus far suffered a shin injury on the eve of the game. Rooney’s absence took the number of changes to the United team beaten by West Bromwich Albion on Saturday to nine. Only David de Gea and Michael Carrick remained from the third defeat in four Premier League matches. United kept it compact and disciplined from the start, clearly focused on muting Shakhtar’s high-quality Brazilian front line led by the buccaneering Douglas Costa and Taison. Fellaini, Carrick and Cleverley kept their shape in central midfield, although their dreadful passing patterns–so very, very predictable throughout–did them no favors at all. With Patrice Evra pinned back by the pure speed of Dario Srna and Taison, Danny Welbeck and Antonio Valencia were more auxiliary wing backs than support for a lonesome Robin Van Persie.

Shakhtar remained equally as cautious in the first half. The tricky Costa and Luiz Adriano each did well to dispossess Fellaini a couple of times deep in the Donetsk half, allowing the home side to break forward unimpeded. Rafael da Silva could barely cope with Costa and he found Adriano, whose low cross teased its way across De Gea’s six-yard box but found nobody, a handful also. Then United got a moment of maximum luck when Cleverley clearly caught Alex Teixeira late inside the penalty area. Fortunately, the referee, Pavel Kralovec, dismissed Shakhtar’s appeals for a spot kick.

Cleverley created United’s first chance of the match when he chipped a high pass over Shakhtar’s central defence for Van Persie. The Dutchman shifted to his right and unleashed a trademark shot with his left, only to see the ball rise over Andriy Pyatov’s crossbar. Fellaini had problems keeping possession early on, but his presence began to tell later in the match as, playing with his back to the opposition goal, the Belgian warrior wore them down with his tackling and ability to fill in midfield holes. He may indeed not look like 30 million quid, but, once he gets used to his teammates, his kind of obstinate, albeit often awkward, determination is going to be a major factor in breaking down opponents late.

Eighteen minutes into the first half, Rafael’s throw-in found Fellaini, who muscled away his marker, crossing low to the near post where Shakhtar’s big awkward center-back Yaroslav Rakitskiy lost his footing. Welbeck then managed to slip inside unmarked and softly flick home Fellaini’s delivery beyond Pyatov into the far corner of the net. The loud Donbass Arena fell silent, except, of course, for the freezing United fans up high in the cheap seats.

The Ukrainians enjoyed the majority of possession without ever giving De Gea much trouble. Fellaini and Vidic both went into the referee’s book in rapid succession for professional fouls on Taison and Costa respectively, both fouls presenting Shakhtar’s captain, Dario Srna, with direct free-kick opportunities from 25 yards out. One that he smashed into United’s wall, another which was wasted. Fellaini was withdrawn shortly afterwards and his replacement, Ryan Giggs, playing in the 145th game in the Champions League surpassed Raul’s record number of appearances in the competition. The big-hearted Donbass crowd, in spite of their team loyalty, stood up and gave Giggsy a long round of passionate applause.

United held fast with nine men behind the ball and really looked like they might pull off a famous away victory until the 75th minute when the Shakhtar’s big central defender Rakitskiy, out to make up for his crucial early mistake, strode down the left flank and fired a cross into the heart of United’s box. Vidic managed to block it, but it got away from him, bouncing to Taison who beat De Gea with an unblockable rocket into the roof of the net from 12 yards out. Six minutes later, Taison almost scored again with a deflected shot off Smalling but De Gea reacted brilliantly, tipping it over the bar.

When the whistle blew, the relief on David Moyes’ ruddy face was there for everybody to see. A good, albeit not great, evening’s work.

The team Moyes trotted out made a shrugging sort of sense as Alexander Büttner, Anderson, and Javier Hernández, were put out there by Moyes to test the waters. Javíer Hernandez was also enjoying a rare start because of both Robin Van Persie’s problematic hamstring, and as a reward for performing so well against Liverpool on Wednesday. Tinkering against a less risky opponent like West Brom surely seemed logical to the new United brains trust.

Yet Shinji Kagawa, playing on the left flank, repeatedly showed a dithering tendency to zigzag back and forth in a search for possession, looked both bemused and lost. Along with refusing to play Wilfried Zaha, whom he insists is not ready, Moyes has already badly bruised the fragile egos of two other players who are being stalked by Borussia Dortmund (Kagawa’s old club), Juventus and Manchester City in Kagawa and Januzaj. “We want Shinji to feel he’s getting an opportunity to show what he can do. His best position may be Number 10, but even for Japan he plays off the left as well so it’s not something which is strange to him or not his position so he’s used to that. But there’s a lot of competition here and we want to push each other on to give performances and improve.” Say what? Thus, despite all of Moyes’ verbal diarrhea, Kagawa was removed at half-time for another unhappy camper, the 18-year-old Adnan Januzaj. Moyes, confirming this was a tactical substitution after the game, added. “I just decided that I wanted to try and make a change, try and inject a little bit of something and I thought Adnan showed what he could do,” he said.

Unfortunately, Steve Clarke’s Baggies’ were more than up for a bit of diligence against the champions. Dominant in the first half, they pressed hard, gummed up central midfield and the flanks with pure, unadulterated hustle, and had both Stephane Sessegnon and Scott Sinclair come close to scoring in the first half. As fate would have it, with Scott Sinclair too hurt to return in the second half, Clarke brought on a young academy player, Saido Berahino, who, in switching wings and speedily, seamlessly shifting in and out of the box, gave Phil Jones, Alexander Büttner, Rio Ferdinand and Jonny Evans all fits. It proved to be a masterstroke on Clarke’s part.

Meanwhile, United, with Anderson wearing the face and body language of someone with his head elsewhere–probably the meat buffet at Fogo de Chao–and Michael Carrick simply unwilling to run, Albion’s perpetual motion midfield of Christian Kalumbu, Morgan Amalfitano and an absolutely superb Claudio Yacob, cleverly fired keen little passes hither and thither, all the while picking off each Carrick and Anderson pass attempt at will. Indeed, after Saido Berahino scored the winning goal, Carrick and Rio Ferdinand stood there scratching their barnets like a couple of aging heroin addicts waiting nervously for their fix. Having now fallen into twelfth place with only seven points, a sense of self-pity and helplessness was distinctly palpable.

W.B.A.’s goals were a masochistic pleasure to behold. First, in the 54th minute, Morgan Amalfitano took possession of a long clever pass from Gareth McAuley, bobbed and weaved around Rio Ferdinand, nutmegging the aging Peckham reprobate, before stutter-stepping towards David de Gea and then firing a sublime chip over the advancing keeper.

Yet, within two minutes United were level. Once again, Wayne Rooney, an angry focused bear these days, was there to fire home his fifth goal in six games. His free-kick bending exquisitely to the the left, flying round Albion’s fixed defense and totally freezing their goalie Boaz Myhill to tie things up. Another United on another day would have kicked into gear at this point, but this team went back to the same casual game plan, as if they already owned a huge lead. A few more duff Carrick attempts at supplying Rooney with long-distance pass attempts went for nought and he seemed to jack it in for the rest of the evening thereafter.

West Brom simply shrugged off United’s burp of a revival, though. Amalfitano nearly added a second with a perfectly placed howitzer of a free-kick that De Gea tipped over the bar superbly. Then, the Frenchman, on loan from Marseilles, picked up a clever short pass from Sessegnon in the 67th minute which he had the delicate eye to fire on into Saido Berahino’s path. The Anglo-Burundian, who showed a lovely, assured and delicate touch throughout the second half, took his chance ruthlessly, burying it under a diving David De Gea.

Manchester United have become only the second top-flight English champions, after Blackburn in 1995-96, to begin the following season with three (or more) defeats in their opening six matches since Leeds did so in the 1974-75 season. All is certainly not lost, to be sure. The forward line will start scoring goals in bunches eventually, but the mental and physical vulnerability of our back four, having twice been casually burgled and humiliated, can not be fixed by switching personnel. Blaming our full-backs for advancing and ‘marooning’ whoever plays center-back is ridiculous, too. Last season our defense was a perpetually leaky sieve, too, but counting on scoring more than we let in this season is only going to work with a handful of opponents this time around. To be sure, I’ve been saying that Rio and Evra are both past it and sliding backwards down a slippery slope.

As much as this is true, there can also be no doubt that it’s a tactical issue, too. No team ever proved this better than the geriatric, injury-prone defense fielded by Carlo Ancelotti’s AC Milan from 2002 to 2007. Somehow the noble old guard that formed a defensive back line featuring Alessandro Nesta, Paolo Maldini. Kaka Kaladze, Alessandro Costacurta, and, for a shorter period, the ex-United star, Jaap Stam, all got it done. Indeed, despite being the source of much amusement to the pundits of the game, the team won two E.C.C. finals and lost another. Slow as molasses, they were all, nevertheless, collectively intelligent and almost religiously dedicated to their fitness and careers. Unfortunately, only Nemanja Vidic and Rafael Da Silva show this kind of dedication for United. Patrice Evra is still capable of inspired moments but refuses to realistically adjust his game now that his legs are gone. Although Rio talks the talk, he is far more dedicated to his career in the media(last week it was his football awards show!) than getting it done in the field. Jonny Evans and Chris Smalling are fine athletes who have not improved and the jury is out on Phil Jones. Time for Moyes and Phil Neville to come up with something strategically practical for the defense now!

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