The Fonz!

BORO 2 - 2 Manchester United

BORO put in one of their best performances of the season in front of a capacity crowd and narrowly missed out on three points against title defenders Manchester United.

As expected, United fired out of the starting blocks and it wasn't long before they made BORO pay. Like Chelsea last Sunday, United bagged the early goal as some sloppy BORO defending from a United corner lead to Carrick; who squared into the box from the left hand side, Ronaldo had lost his marker, Boateng, and slotted the ball past Schwarzer to record his 37th goal of the season.

But, despite conceding the early goal, BORO mounted a strong comeback battle as they managed to string some good passing moves together and close down United.

Julio Arca returned to the side and looked almost back to his best as he and the on-fire George Boateng scrapped for every ball in midfield and battled to keep the charging attacks of Ronaldo, Tevez and company.

Downing was also in good form, beating Wes Brown for pace in each attack and Gary O'Neil was bombing forward with a more central attacking role, whilst new boy Afonso Alves looked dead set on getting his first goal after being handed his second start for the BORO.

United's deffence looked rocky, missing Nemanja Vidic, and Gareth Southgate was determined his side would exploit this. Like Chelsea, last week, united seemed to be on the back foot after taking the lead and BORO strung together chance after chance.

First Alves skewed a header wide, before Aliadiere nearly benefited from a spearing BORO counter attack, however his shot was scuffed wide.

Luke Young turned hero in front of the BORO goal as he made a last ditch slide tackle to deny Wayne Rooney and the game, like so many encounters between these two sides, was set alight.

Ronaldo then silenced the barracking BORO fans as he single handedly embarrassed four BORO players before bursting into the box, fortunately he skewed his shot into the crowd.

Alves continued to threaten and came closest from a stinging free-kick as Van Der Sar could only parry the power-drive before scrambling away a later cross from O'Neil.

Then, on 35 minutes a superbly weighted cross from Gary O'Neil found Aliadiere who flicked the ball past the United deffence into the path of Alves. With Van Der Sar rushing out to Alves the entire BORO crowd had fingers crossed and the Brazilian didn't fail to deliver, smashing the ball past the goalie and into the back of the net, the crowd went wild.

BORO then came close to second, as United looked edgy, a cross from Boateng bounced inside the area and found Downing at the back post who controlled and angled a volley towards goal, but Van Der Sar made himself big and managed to block for a corner.

The sides went in for half time at 1-1, with Gareth Southgate likely feeling the happier with his sides performance.

The second half brought blizzard conditions and the mandatory yellow match ball, but the weather didn't seem to dampen BORO's vigor and just ten minutes into the half a defensive disaster from United saw Wes Brown attempt to clear a high ball, his headed clearance was deflected off Aliadiere and into the path of Alves who angled an even more sublime shot into the far corner of Van Der Sar's goal.

Alves then, for the second game in a row, came close to a hat-trick, but for Rio Ferdinand who cleared Alves' headed effort of the line.

Alex Ferguson was becoming clearly irate with his team's performance and began pacing the technical area and, in trademark style, pounding his chewing gum into submission before removing Carlos Tevez (Park) and John O'Shea (Hargreaves), he then saw Rio Ferdinand limp off and have to be replaced by Gerard Pique.

Agonisingly, the changes appeared to galvanize United and Ji-Sung Park had the beating of Andrew Taylor before cutting inside and playing the ball to Rooney inside the area. But for a crucial deflection from David Wheater Mark Schwarzer might have kept the effort out, but as it were he was wrong footed and so the ball found the back of the net with just over 15 minutes to go.

Moments later Alves went off to a standing ovation as Tuncay replaced him, following a knock he picked up earlier in the half.

BORO scrapped to hold on to the draw and even created a handful of last minute chances, as the referee somehow found four minutes to add on, but then Alex Ferguson always seems to get gifted ridiculous amounts of stoppage time when his time aren't winning. However neither side could break the deadlock and they finished 2-2. A well fought point, that could have been a win for BORO, but perhaps a slight blip in United's title charge?


Attendance: 33,952, biggest Riverside league attendance of the season
BORO Blog BORO Man of the Match: Afonso Alves


Pictures courtesy of BBC Sport (news.bbc.co.uk/sport)