Manchester United v Fulham!

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<div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.22.4/52032?ns=guardian&pageName=Manchester+United+v+Fulham+%7C+John+Ashdown%3AArticle%3A1723055&ch=Football&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Premier+League+2011-12%2CManchester+United+%28Football%29%2CFulham+%28Football%29%2CFootball%2CSport&c5=Unclassified%2CEuropa+League%2CPremier+League&c6=John+Ashdown&c7=12-Mar-26&c8=1723055&c9=Article&c10=Match+report%2CMinute+by+minute&c11=Football&c13=&c25=&c30=content&c42=Sport&h2=GU%2FSport%2FFootball%2FPremier+League+2011-12" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">• Press refresh or turn on the auto-update for the latest<br />• Email <a href="mailto:john.ashdown@guardian.co.uk">john.ashdown@guardian.co.uk</a> with your thoughts<br />• Or tweet <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/john_ashdown">@John_Ashdown,</a> if you swing that way</p><!-- Block 39 --><p><strong>Half-time email dept.</strong></p><p>"Hungry John?" wonders the concerned Robin Hazlehurst. "Young serves dinner (an egg I presume, if Evans scrambled it) then Valencia is a chip ... Is the half-time snackathon approaching by any chance? How many chocolate eggs will you be scoffing in the break? (remember, they're only little, you can have another...)" Strangely enough, I've not long had my tea. Still, as is company policy, the completed MBM will be sent off to psychoanalysts for testing after the final whistle.</p><p>"Butler and Blakey from On the Buses (Paul and Nathan in fact) featured weekly for Wolves in the early 2000s," writes Aidan Arrowsmith, "although the search for comedy gold is better served by the Wanderers of 2012, especially the defence." </p><p>"A personal favourite of mine is when Ireland have Shane Long and Simon Cox up front," notes Colm Collins. I'll let you all add your own punchline</p><p>"They're not players with famous namesakes, but not too long ago Charlton had a back four of Young Fish Costa Fortune," notes Matt Dony. "Any other complete sentences in teams?" Wasn't there a World Cup 1994 (or perhaps 1998) combined XI that ended "Ipoua Egan Hoftun"? Any Fantasy Football fans remember that one?</p><!-- Block 38 --><p><strong>Peep!</strong> That'll do for Half No1.</p><!-- Block 37 --><p><strong>45 min:</strong> Dempsey's deflected shot almost falls straight into Pobgrebnyak's path, but the Russian can't quite get his legs sorted in time in order to rattle off a shot. "Does this count?" wonders Simon Frank. "David Currie and Brian Rice, at Forest together for a few games in the late 80s."</p><!-- Block 36 --><p><strong>44 min:</strong> Valencia again skips and pops, like a chip in a deep fat fryer, into the area, but his low pass is behind the run of the front two.</p><!-- Block 35 --><p><strong>GOAL!!! Manchester Utd 1-0 Fulham (Rooney 41)</strong> Young delivers an inswinging cross from the right so tasty you could serve it with mustard and call it dinner. Riisse misses his clearing header, Evans scrambles it back to Rooney, who roofs the thing from eight yards. A scrappy goal to concede, but it was that cross that made it.</p><!-- Block 34 --><p><strong>40 min:</strong> "HANDBALL!" goes up from behind the goal. Evra has whacked a cross into Kelly's arm. No penalty.</p><!-- Block 33 --><p><strong>38 min:</strong> Valencia and Rafael go all warm cutlery and churned dairy spread down the right, and from the pull-back Giggs is perhaps unlucky not to get a free-kick on the edge of the box.</p><!-- Block 32 --><p><strong>35 min:</strong> Frei tumbles under Rafael's challenge and United rampage forward. Welbeck, though, like a fish with wanderlust, only has eyes for the net. But his shot is tame and straight at Schwarzer once more.</p><!-- Block 31 --><p><strong>33 min:</strong> Giggs going flying in on Dembele and gets a booking. "Didn't Lennon and McCartney play together for Northern Ireland?" wonders Finnur Birgisson. "George McCartney and Neil Lennon that is."</p><!-- Block 30 --><p><strong>32 min:</strong> Rafael plays a one-two with Valencia, taking to two defenders out of the game. His jabbed shot is straight at Schwarzer. "In answer to Keith Wright (22 mins) we, i.e. Bristol City, had Matt Bryant and Andy May fairly regularly in our line-up for a period in the 1990s," writes Alan Gibbs. "We didn't win many matches ..." Bom tish!</p><!-- Block 29 --><p><strong>31 min:</strong> … "Go, go, go" shouts someone in the Old Trafford crowd as they play it short. The ball ends up at head height 10 yards out where Evra attempts an overhead kick. Aesthetics: 10 points. Accuracy: 7.5 points. Goal kicks: 1.</p><!-- Block 28 --><p><strong>30 min:</strong> "For a while at Ipswich we had Jamie Peters and Alan Lee," suggests Tony Cowards on our partnership theme, "although I don't think we ever fielded them as the strikeforce Peters and Lee." United force another corner …</p><!-- Block 27 --><p><strong>28 min:</strong> Valencia skitters into the box and plays a one-two with Welback, but Fulham keep him out with some pretty desperate last-ditch defending. Riise made a crucial block in the midst of it all.</p><!-- Block 26 --><p><strong>26 min:</strong> Young whips in a cross. Fulham head clear. Apologies for the lack of scoreline at the top of the page, by the way. We fed the mogwais after midnight last night and now there are gremlins in the system. Just so you know, it's still <strong>0-0</strong>.</p><!-- Block 25 --><p><strong>24 min:</strong> Young slides a beautiful pass inside Kelly for Welbeck to sprint on to. Hughes blocks it out for a corner. Which is cleared as far as Valencia. Who fails for a second time in the match with a strange straight-legged dinked toe-poke of a cross.</p><!-- Block 24 --><p><strong>23 min:</strong> Dempsey again tests De Gea, who leaps in remarkably feline fashion to claw a curling shot out of the air.</p><!-- Block 23 --><p><strong>22 min:</strong> "My team Cheltenham, in a last throw of the dice/save our season/clutch of straws, have signed Burgess & McLean, albeit not the cold-war spying duo of the same name, on loan till the end of the season," writes Keith Wright. "Do our readers know of any other namesake duos in tandem at a club at the same time? Did anyone ever have a Laurel & Hardy? A Marks & Spencer? A Stanley & Livingstone?"</p><!-- Block 22 --><p><strong>20 min:</strong> Hughes flies out to block Young's shot from the edge of the box. "You must not be a fan of Wallander, John," notes Nicholas. "The village idiot is not to be underestimated."</p><!-- Block 21 --><p><strong>19 min:</strong> Dempsey finds himself between United's midfield and defence inside the home side's half and wriggles forward. Evans backpeddles, but Dempsey's shot is snaffled by the keeper.</p><!-- Block 20 --><p><strong>18 min:</strong> Fulham's turn for a little possession football. The wind has rather gone from United's sails since that early 10-minute burst.</p><!-- Block 19 --><p><strong>17 min:</strong> Dembele trundles forward but wangs his shot well wide of De Gea's goal.</p><!-- Block 18 --><p><strong>15 min:</strong> Rooney finds Young over on the right, but his cross plops into Schwarzer's hands.</p><!-- Block 17 --><p><strong>13 min:</strong> … De Gea punches away from under his own crossbar as Carrick's defensive header loops into the night sky. Decent stop and United scramble clear.</p><!-- Block 16 --><p><strong>12 min:</strong> Duff pulls a low cross back to Dempsey. The American just about turns a shot at goal, but Carrick makes a block. Corner …</p><!-- Block 15 --><p><strong>10 min:</strong> Rafael swerves into the box and delivers the ball onto Ryan Giggs's tastefully greying noggin on the penalty spot. He gets his neck into the header but Schwarzer gathers comfortably.</p><!-- Block 14 --><p><strong>9 min:</strong> Fulham finally get a foot on the ball, but Duff's pass in the direction of Pogrebnyak is over optimistic.</p><!-- Block 13 --><p><strong>8 min:</strong> Rooney picks a Fulham pocket in midfield and then surges forward, but his pass is just behind Welbeck. Valencia dinks in a cross that drifts too deep. Like Derby city centre, it's all one-way traffic at the moment.</p><!-- Block 12 --><p><strong>6 min:</strong> "Bad news for you I'm afraid," notes Robin Hazlehurst. "The chocolate eggs have not got smaller. It is us who got bigger." This I will not accept. My hands haven't really grown since I was 12. Evra's burst has Fulham scrambling for the first time, but Rooney plants his shot into a defender.</p><!-- Block 11 --><p><strong>5 min:</strong> United string together more passes than a village idiot on Mastermind, but Fulham remain compact and they go nowhere.</p><!-- Block 10 --><p><strong>4 min:</strong> With Duff and Fry on the Fulham wings we have the start of a Matt Groening XI on the pitch. You may have guessed this has been a low-key opening.</p><!-- Block 9 --><p><strong>2 min:</strong> Fulham seem to have set up in a 4-1-4-1, with Diarra the holding man in midfield.</p><!-- Block 8 --><p><strong>PEEP!</strong> Off we go then, with United kicking from left to right. Or, if your watching in HD 3D, from left to right.</p><!-- Block 7 --><p><strong>ADVERTS, ADVERTS, ADVERTS …</strong> Drink lager, gamble loudly and in Italian, bank, erm … paint your house (possibly), eat egg-shaped chocolate that seems to have gotten smaller and smaller over the years, buy an unnecessarily large car …</p><!-- Block 6 --><p><strong>Click-clack, click-clack …</strong> the teams are in the tunnel.</p><!-- Block 5 --><p><strong>U-turn dept.</strong> I'd not really been on the Gary Neville bandwagon previously, but his pre-match TV analysis has been excellent tonight, particularly on Tottenham and Manchester City. Someone give me a leg-up.</p><!-- Block 4 --><p><strong>And here's Sir Alex:</strong> "We have a deficit in goal difference, so I hope we can catch that up. It's going to be an important issue." United's goal difference is currently +46, Manchester City's +50.</p><!-- Block 3 --><p><strong>Here's Martin Jol:</strong> "If you make it difficult for them, they have a few questions to answer," he tells Sky's man in the tunnel. Wonderfully enigmatic statement that. Hopefully it suggests his side will take the game to United. We shall see.</p><!-- Block 2 --><p><strong>The bare facts</strong></p><p>Fulham have not won at Old Trafford since 34BC, when Junichi Inamoto scored the final goal in a 3-1 win. In the Cottagers' past eight visits to Old Trafford they've come away with precisely zero points. Martin Jol has never beaten Manchester United as a manager in the Premier League. Away win anyone?</p><!-- Block 1 --><p><strong>Preamble:</strong> Evening all. How are we? Good, good. Me? I'm fine, thanks for asking. </p><p>Handily for a man with no pre-prepared preamble, the teams are already in:</p><p><strong>Man Utd:</strong> De Gea, Rafael Da Silva, Ferdinand, Evans, Evra, Valencia, Carrick, Giggs, Young, Welbeck, Rooney. Subs: Amos, Jones, Berbatov, Smalling, Hernandez, Scholes, Cleverley.<br /><strong>Fulham:</strong> Schwarzer, Kelly, Hughes, Hangeland, John Arne Riise, Duff, Dembele, Diarra, Frei, Pogrebnyak, Dempsey. Subs: Stockdale, Ruiz, Murphy, Senderos, Etuhu, Briggs, Trotta.<br />Referee: Michael Oliver (Northumberland) </p><p>Kerim Frei, a maverick talent who has impressed in the odd cameos I've witnessed, gets a start for Fulham in what seems likely from that XI to be a packed midfield. Aaron Hughes and Damien Duff also come into the Fulham side. For United Hernandez drops to the bench with Young returning and Giggs is preferred to Scholes in the middle of midfield.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/premier-league-2011-12">Premier League 2011-12</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/manchester-united">Manchester United</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/fulham">Fulham</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/johnashdown">John Ashdown</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> &copy; 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> | <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />
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