For a Moment there…

At 1-1 going into the 75th minute at the Kingston Communication Stadium in Hull on Sunday, it seemed like United’s run of worst defensive leaks had proved their undoing yet again. Most cruelly, it seemed like their best attacking option and ever-relaible frontman had handed Hull the lifeline back into the game. Wayne Rooney put United ahead in stoppage time in the first half, and then drew Hull level straight after the break as he played a wonderful defense-splitting through ball for Fagan. Sure he pulled the ball back for Altidore, but the back-tracking Rafael just about got a touch on him. Altidore, on the other hand (pun unintended), got both his hands on the ball. How the heck is it a friggin penalty? The ref’s punishing United for the bad backpass? Alan ‘unfit’ Wiley, in more than one sense of the word.Rafael was the enthusiastic younger cousin playing with his older cousin’s friends throughout the game. Extremely willing to go forward and sufficiently accurate in his tackles, he finally gave United some hope about their right-back position. In fact, the right-footed twin was so willing to venture forward that he suddenly found himself through on goal at the end of United’s first intricate move of the match. However, the ball unfortunately fell on his left foot, which was his wrong foot but would have been Fabio’s right foot (his left foot that is), and his tame shot was easily gathered by Myhill. Of course, Myhill also tried his best to give us the lead, slicing a clearance approximately two yards from the 6-yard box. However, Giggs was not fast enough to latch on to this piece of generosity.

When the first goal arrived, it was from a straightforward training-ground move. Curling ball in from the wing, three attacking players move towards it, one gets a touch (and who else but The One), 1-0, jog back to center line, go into half-time with a satisfied feeling, and Rooney gets one extra chocolate for being a good boy. Then of course, the chocolate messes with his head and that penalty-that-wasn’t happens. Which cuts us back to the 75th minute, the minute where the feeling expressed in the title was experienced. With Chelsea going goalless against ‘Team of the Month’ Birmingham, surely United weren’t going to miss the opportunity to close the gap?

Thankfully, Hull got ahead of themselves and thought they were Fulham or something. As they pressed players forward in attack, they left the back four without the midfield cover, which they had provided all match. On one such break, the ball fell to the BBC Sports Personality of the Year who looked up to see, surprise surprise, Rooney running diagonally down to the right. A perfectly wieghted ball which allowed Rooney to go around it and whip a fierce low ball across the box, past Myhill’s hand. After that there were only two options. Either Dawson put it in himself, or the sliding Ji-Sun overshot it and the ball rolled across goal. Thankfully, the first part happened, and both the ball and a bewildered Ji-Sun were picked up from the back of the net. Rooney started jumping around in joy as his bonus chocolate was restored. At this point, Rooney had scored all 3 goals in the match.

8 minutes later, and make that All 4 goals. A towering clearance from Vidic found Rooney again running free in the channel, the left one this time, and The Man laid a ball across the face of goal which beat three defenders, rolled to a stop in front of Berba’s right foot, looked up to him with pleading eyes and said ‘Go ahead, put me in’. Berba, of course, our most alert player, reacted with his famed alacrity and promptly satisfied the ball’s desire. At 3-1, Phil Brown finally realized he’s not Roy Hodgson, and we realized we’d closed up to within 2 points of Chelsea. A gap that could’ve grown even shorter yesterday if the afore-mentioned Roy Hodgson had nearly pulled off the impossible with a Stamford Bridge win. No matter though, Wigan at home next, and plenty of time left in the season. This year has been very interesting indeed.