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Well, that was fun [R, and kind of gloat-y]
It kind of feels like piling on, since I've made cracks about Wigan since pretty much the first day of this blog's existence, but I have to admit I was getting a little worried, season-wise, for the first 45 minutes of today's match (following on a similar disturbance from the Burnley match.) Then I got less worried. Rapidly.
I'm still not entirely pleased with the fact that the finishing waited until the second half, considering how thoroughly United was drubbing the Wigan defense (Melchiot, particularly, looked like he wanted to be somewhere else) and Paul Scholes, one of my all-time favorite players, is looking grizzled. But Rooney's performance, Owen's debut goal, and Nani's pretty little free kick were all quality stuff.
And Berbatov. His self-service was in the finest of styles (second goal):
Despite the scoreline, it wasn't a match from which to extrapolate season-long success - Wigan looked and seemingly felt beaten, even before they started getting beat. But it certainly provided entertainment, and necessary points after Wednesday.
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You really thought Wigan played like a beaten team before the goals? I thought they showed a lot of iniative and aggressiveness in the attack. There were multiple occasions on which I thought Man U might go down a goal before the half, and players like Rodallega looked confident for the first 55 minutes. Then the goals came.
Scoring is about confidence—some of the limp dribblers from the first half showed how Man U was struggling to believe in their striking. But after 5 goals and some of the emotional release we saw, I’d guess that performance will carry over for a while.
My only reservation is Owen. Can he do more than score when the pressure is entirely off thanks to a 3 goal lead? We’ll see. But Rooney will challenge for the golden boot the whole season.