Source: Telegraph
Stoke City 0 Manchester United 2: match report
Halfway to 70 and still giving his opponents twisted blood. Ryan Giggs has started more than 700 games for Manchester United but even by the standards of his youthful exuberance, his most recent performances, at an autumnal 35, have been exceptional. Sir Alex Ferguson thinks it’s the fear of life after football that keeps Giggs going — he should have a thought for the Welsh winger’s opponents.
It took the oldest player in Ferguson’s match day squad to inject a bit of enthusiasm into a flat United team, Giggs coming on for a frustrated and frustrating Nani after 55 minutes, to create two goals and win the game for United, taking them top of the table on goal difference.
Having created three goals in the derby, that makes it five assists in two games so you can understand why his team-mates so obviously love playing with him. After he set up Dimitar Berbatov, the Bulgarian made a point of giving Giggs the glory.
“I felt his intelligence would give them a bit of bother on that side of the pitch,” Ferguson said. “Nani did pretty well but Ryan gives you something else. For the goal he went on a lovely run behind them. It was marvellous movement.”
This was ultimately a routine win for United - Stoke City were surprisingly tame and struggled to get any sustained possession.
Still, United had also underperformed in a poor first half and it took Giggs’ introduction 10 minutes after the break to bring the cohesion and purpose to United’s attacking play that had been lacking. Darren Fletcher picked out the Welsh winger darting down the left side of the box with a fine pass and Giggs carefully threaded a square ball into the six-yard box for Berbatov to tap-in.
Minutes later he nearly had a second, pulling out to the left touchline, high up the pitch to get on the end of Ben Foster’s punt. He could not get the ball under control, though. He missed an even better chance, after being found, unmarked, by Scholes when United were already two to the good.
A quarter of an hour after creating the first, he made the second, sending in an inswinging free-kick from the right flank that John O’Shea headed impressively past Thomas Sorensen in the Stoke goal. It was the kind of set-piece goal Stoke were supposed to score.
The threatened aerial barrage of Foster’s goalmouth never materialised. “It’s the first time this year we haven’t given it a right good go,” said Tony Pulis, the Stoke manager. “For the first 10 minutes we seemed very flat and never really got going after that.”
While Giggs is growing old gracefully, his fellow veteran Scholes has not lost his spikiness. He was at the hub of much of United’s best work with the ball and combative without it — “the best player on the park by a country mile,” was Pulis’ verdict.
He was, though, fortunate to avoid a booking for a full-on first-half tackle, was booked after the break for a foul on Liam Lawrence and then walked a fine line when he blocked Lawrence’s cross with his arms. He was only just back from his suspension for being sent off at Tottenham a fortnight ago. That will never change with Giggs and Scholes — winners to the marrow.
