Half Time Report: Birmingham City vs Manchester United
Starting XI for Birmingham City: Foster, Carr, Johnson, Dann, Ridgewell, Larsson, Ferguson, Gardner, Bowyer, Beausejour, Jerome. Subs: Taylor, Phillips, Derbyshire, Fahey, Zigic, Hleb, Jiranek
Starting XI for Manchester United: Van der Sar, Rafael Da Silva, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra, Gibson, Carrick, Anderson, Giggs, Berbatov, Rooney. Subs: Kuszczak, Neville, Hernandez, Evans, Fletcher, Obertan, Macheda
A boring first half was on display when Manchester United travelled to St. Andrews. There were no goals and only 4 shots on target for the entire 45 minutes.
United started the match with composed attacking play and Wayne Rooney got close to scoring on two separate occasions. Ryan Giggs then managed a brilliant shot on goal which was expertly saved by Ben Foster. The ball still went on to hit the post and that
was the closest either of the two teams got to scoring a goal in the first half.
After the 30th minute mark, Birmingham enjoyed most of the possession and threatened the opposition defenders with their fast flowing game. Although, Van Der Sar had nothing to save for the entire first half, the home side did manage to go forward
in numbers.
Manchester United made just one change from their 2-0 thrashing of Sunderland two days earlier, with Darren Gibson replacing J.S. Park on the right hand side. Park has already flown to Korea to take part in the Asia Cup.
Manchester United didn’t look their brilliant self towards the end of the first half and Sir Alex Ferguson would be looking to change something. The side was seen struggling to retain possession for the last 25 or so minutes of the match and a traditional
winger would be needed to turn things around. Darren Gibson is a central midfielder and has seemed out of place since the first minute.
It would surely require something special from the Royal Blues to end United’s six month long undefeated streak in the Premier League.