It would appear that most of the matches this weekend will go forward as planned, so our season opener against Manchester United is on for Sunday. We've made a few changes in our side, as have United. I believe we have the potential to do well this season, having had our best finish in the Premier League era last year. Few people will give us a chance tomorrow, even though we are the home side. We did get thrashed at Chelsea last year to begin the season, but we did manage to finish quite respectably for a newly promoted side. United had a particularly successful pre-season, capping it off with their Community Shield win over their rivals City last week. On current form perhaps one should not be surprised to see them put four or five past us tomorrow, especially if our defending continues to be as poor as it appeared last season and during the recent pre-season. But let us not forget that we earned a 2-2 draw at Old Trafford last season and lost by but a single goal in the return fixture at The Hawthorns. The Red Devils dominated the run of play both times, but we did prove ourselves capable of creating scoring chances against them. Can we get lucky this year? It might make for a great boost to start the season if we can get an upset, or a draw where we played United evenly.
Albion 1, Manchester United 2 Now is it just me, or did I write the script of what happened in Sunday's match in my post above? Just like in both of last year's matches, United dominated possession and chances for most of the match. After Rooney put them ahead, however, we did occasionally find our groove in the match and created a number of chances in the United end. We looked quite good at the end of the first half and our new striker shane Long earned his first goal against United. United did look the sharper of the teams in the second half but I think it was unfortunate that it was an own goal by Steven Reid off a cross by ex-Vi**a Ashley Young that ultimately earned the three points for the visitors. In short, not terrible performance by Albion against probably the top side in England... but it could have been a bit better. Finishing apart from Long's goal was dreadful. We begin the season again on pace to let in two goals per match... not good. And zero points is still zero points. On to Chelsea away, site of our 6-0 disaster last season...