Manchester United 3:0 Everton

Man of the Match:
I'm giving this to Antonio Valencia who didn't have an outstanding game, but did his job. It's odd to see such a once sided victory for United in which no player was fantastic but Valencia is turning into a very useful player at United. The guy isn't in the same technical class as pretty much everyone else going forward for United on the pitch, but he is a very smart player. His header back for the Fletcher volley was exceptional. Rarely does a player get a header in that position and not put a shot on net, Valencia however clearly made the right decision heading the ball back to Fletcher. Valencia also seems to dominate that right side of the midfield defensively. His tracking is fantastic and no left sided player has really hurt United this year when Valencia is playing. He also popped up with another goal against Everton which should help his already high confidence at the club.

Match Notes:
- Darren Fletcher's goal. Absolute class not much more to say about this strike other than wow.

- It's nice to see Michael Carrick pop in with his first Premier League goal of the season. Between this game and the Chelsea game hopefully he's recovering from a bit of a rough start to the season.

- Even when he isn't putting in man of the match, brilliant performances Ryan Giggs steps up with yet another assist. He's putting together one hell of a season.

- Wayne Rooney continues to be a threat from everywhere on the park. He is the most dynamic player on this team and one of the most creative forwards in the world. The build up on the play where he hit the crossbar came off some fabulous off the ball movement from Rooney.

- Van Der Sar made one solid save and after going so long without Van Der Sar back there, you really forget how valuable having a solid keeper is.

- Patrice Evra and Rafael both looked good making forward runs and keeping up that change of pace, that's needed to break teams down in these games.

- A lot of the time last season United had a difficult time finishing off games like this where they dominated all match, but didn't have that little change of pace. Some of the interplay from United this year has been spectacular and gone very under the radar and this was a perfect example of how they easily broke down a team which may have been a "banana peel" game.

Final Thoughts:
Even with all the injuries Everton are a very good squad and a 3-0 win is a major accomplishment, especially coming off an international break and with massive injury problems at the back. After a little rough patch winning only two of the last five Premier League games hopefully this is the start of another good run for United.

Poland 1:0 Canada

I only saw the first 55 minutes of the match until my stream died. I've only heard recounts of what happened beyond this point so my match thoughts are based on these first 55 minutes.

- Kevin McKenna had a very poor game and was at fault for the Poland goal. He should have been much closer on the initial header and at least applied some pressure even if he isn't going to go for the ball.

- Had it not been for Dejan Jakovic the final outcome could have been much worse. Jakovic is quickly becoming my favourite Canadian player. Technically he is a very good defender, he's quick at reading the play and his tackling ability is unmatched.

- Tomasz Radzinski was Canada's biggest threat going forward and it was nice to see him given an opportunity to captain the side in his country of birth. If only he was younger and would be available for the 2014 side I really think we could use someone like him.

- Lars Hirchfeld had a terrible time in net. His distribution is poor, his decision making is poor, and he looks uncomfortable on the ball. Aside from one quality save early in the second half he was very disappointing.

- Jamie Peters didn't have a huge influence on the game but when he was given the ball he was making things happen out wide. He was running down the line, and beat his man once or twice.

- The service from set pieces was beyond poor, a problem Canada had in the Gold Cup. For a team that isn't going to create too many opportunities from open plays these set pieces are key and we need someone who can take them.

- Paul Stalteri has been a model for Canadian for years, but his time with the national team should have been over two years ago. It's time for Nana.

- I thought this was one of Hutchinson's worst games for Canada in recent memory, he was constantly giving the ball away and contributed very little to the attack. When players like him aren't performing something has to be wrong.

- Rob Friend has had his chances with Canada and its not working. He just doesn't get the service he needs to make a meaningful impact.

- In the Gold Cup, Stephen Hart had Canada playing a very calm composed style of defending. No pressure was really applied until the opposition would enter the final third. Against Poland it seemed like no pressure was applied until they were in Canada's box. The midfield just completely collapsed while defending giving Poland ample space to work in. This needs to be fixed by the defenders and the midfielders all pushing further up the pitch.

- The team looks like they did improve slightly over the two games under Hart, but the performance against Poland certainly wasn't anything to celebrate.

Canada vs. Poland Preview

Tomorrow Canada will be playing Poland in front of almost no one. We will have our lone Canadian supporter from the Voyageurs there, but the Polish supporters will be boycotting this match to express their pent up frustration with the way their national team is being run. As has been several times, "at least they have a friendly to protest". Canada on the other hand played their last home friendly more than two years ago, and we ran a fairly successful protest ourselves that day.

On to the actual game it will be another quality test for our players as they begin the long preparation cycle for 2014 World Cup Qualifying. Poland are going through a bit of a rebuilding cycle themselves as they prepare to host Euro 2012, making them the only national team in the World who have a longer wait until their next competitive match than Canada (that is no exaggeration, Canada will play their next competitive match in the summer of 2011 in this time every other national team in the world with the exception of Poland will have played at least one competitive match). Macedonia was a bit of a wake up call showing us how far we really have to go until we can compete at the level we want to, and Poland will be the next test.

Hopefully Stephen Hart will have improved the team in the short time he's had the players since the embarrassing result against Macedonia. This will probably be a very different looking team than the last starting XI.

Obviously Radziński will get the start or at least an appearance in his country of birth. After giving Wagenaar the start against Macedonia, Hirschfeld will probably get an opportunity against the Polish. Another player who was on the bench against Macedonia who should get a starting place tomorrow is Rob Friend who is undoubtedly Canada's top striker at the club level, but has yet to really prove himself with the national team. I also hope we will get a chance to see Marcel De Jong on the left side of midfield, because he is a young player who still has a future with the Canadian national team.

As I've said before the left side of the park is really the one place where Canada is loaded with talent. De Jong, Simpson, Peters and Klukowski all play there but are all talented enough that they deserve at least a spot in the squad. It will be interesting to see how Hart handles the situation and who he plays against Poland may give an indication as to who he favours in the left midfield and left back position.

My final prediction is 2-0 Poland. I think Canada will play a much tighter game than they did against Macedonia and hopefully Jakovic will return sure up some of the problems at the back, but I still think Poland will be too much for Canada.

Allez les Rouges!

Canadian Terrace Talk Episode Eighteen

In this episode of Canadian Terrace Talk I'm joined by Duane from the 24th Minute once again, but this time he decides to stick around. We talk Canada, TFC-Preki links, who's the best club in Manchester, World Cup Qualifiers, and some CIS women's action.

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Enjoy!

Macedonia 3:0 Canada

Didn't actually get a chance to see the match only highlights... and it wasn't pretty. I was enjoying my Saturday elsewhere yesterday, so I won't try and analyze something I didn't get to see instead I will defer to Masster from the Voyageurs who witness the match live.

These are his thoughts:

-The experience was incredibly embarassing actually. Despite being told by Macedonians leading up to the match that this was going to be a onesided 3-0 or 4-0 affair, I assured them otherwise. We may not have a Pandev on our roster but we were solid and would provide them with a good game. I was wrong.

-The formation was 4-4-1-1. This was a deviation from our Gold Cup games. Hume played as the withdrawn striker and contrary to the write up on the CSA website, I don't think he was involved enough at all.

-I will admit I have never been a fan of Bernier. I thought he had a decent Gold Cup playing centrally. Being back out wide in this game as he has been in the past, I thought he was lost and very poor.

-Both Sigma and I chose Josh Simpson as our man of the match for Canada.

-I think we can say right now that Mike Klukowski is our best player. However, there doesn't seem to be much chemistry between him and Simpson. Hopefully that can develop over time. I still thought he had a fairly solid game. It was his cross that led to the penalty that Friend won, and I also think it was him that whipped in a ball that was just out of the reach of Friend for a great chance in the second half.

-We had a about a 10 minute spell of possession in the opening part of the first half that was alright. Did not create anything though. After that, it all changed.

-The defense was attrocious especially on set pieces. The lack of height showed. Usually you can have your striker come back and help out, but unfortunatlely Hume and Jackson can not provide that assistance. Height was not the only issue though. there was just no organization. Macedonia got their head on virtually every single corner they had. Our CB pairing had no pace either.

-You guys must have missed this on the web stream but Stalteri and McKenna almost came to blows in the first half a la Charles Gbeke and Wesley Charles. Since the stadium was so quiet we could hear them yelling at each other. I was surprised that no Canadian player really stepped in. I thought this showed a lack of team cohession. When Stalteri was subbed out, instead of giving the armband to McKenna, he threw it at his feet.

-Thank you for your service Richard Hastings. I will always remember the Golden Goal against Mexico. I think your time as a member of our national team in now up. I never want to criticize one of our players but he is not what we need. Some control on the ball in the back is required. Its like a hot potato for them. I think the loss of Jakovic really hurt. I say all this although Hastings did a decent job on Pandev.

-Despite being outplayed, we still luckily got to the half with the score tied. To start the second half, we had the nice chance by Jackson where he didn't convert and a minute later we were down a goal. This was the pivitol moment in the game even more than the penalty misses. We were playing poorly on the road but had the chance to take the lead and didn't! Sometimes your chances are going to be limited and you have to convert. We didn't despite Macedonia keeping us in the game by missing theirs.

-Its hard to say if the penalty calls were justified. The only one I had a really good look at was the McKenna penalty for Macedonia's third goal and I thought this was the correct call. The Canadians were really upset about the penalty that Stalteri gave away. This makes me assume they thought it was a dive which it very well could have been. However, when I saw McKenna arguing against his call, it made me think that our players would argue anything whether they were right or wrong.

-Some people are saying that if we convert our penalties this is a different game or the score is different and this is isn't a blow out. You can't look at it that we. Macedonia missed chances from the run of play in the first half that were easier then penalties. If 3-0 wasn't an accurate reflection, then maybe 6-2 would have been.

-If I am not mistaken, De Jong has been playing in the centre of the park in his last few appearances for us. The jury is still out on this experiment.

-Calling 18 players for 2 games just isn't enough, especially when you have a full week of training. With Radzinski not around for the first game and Jakovic's injury, there were only 16 healthy bodies. One of them was a back up keeper so only 4 substitutes were available and Hart had no options. The lineup picked itself.

-We can't afford to divide our national team in to European and North America based groups. We simply don't have the depth to do this. We need to get our best players together as much as possible so they are fighting and competing for positions. For the love of the Lord, only then can we try and build a winning attitude.

-I've touched on the stadium and Wagenaar on some other threads.

Canada vs. Macedonia Preview

Stephen Hart has added an eighteenth man to the roster in Jonathan Beaulieu-Bourgault, all reports out of the camp have been positive, it looks like Hart will soon be named full time national team coach. Despite the Jacob Lenskey saga, Canada are going into this friendly with relative confidence. Which probably means this will end as a 3-0 Macedonia victory.

I've actually predicted a 3-0 Macedonia victory with no reasoning other than this is the Canadian national team we are talking about. Canada has a history of poor matches in November losing to Jamaica 3-0 last year, South Africa 2-0 the year before and Jamaica once again 2-1 in 2006. Either way I hope to take some positives from this friendly regardless of the result. Hopefully a chance to give a few of our younger players a shot mainly Simeon Jackson, Jamie Peters and Marcel De Jong. I think those three in particular could play an important role with this team going forward. Then of course there is Dejan Jakovic who I rate as the best defender on the Canadian roster.

Going into this match he spotlight will be on Stephen Hart as it should be. With the full time job apparently imminent, it would be nice to see him pull out a few results in these two friendlies. The younger players really like working with him, so hopefully he can continue to produce results on the pitch. The Macedonia friendly provides a good opportunity for him to do this.

So my completely uninformed prediction:
Macedonia 3:0 Canada
Gordan Pandev with the hat trick mainly because I can't name any other player on the Macedonian team.

And a quick shout out to Sigma and Masster from the Voyageurs who will make up the Canadian support at this match.

ALLEZ LES ROUGES!

Rembrance Day

Today is an important day for Canada and the rest of the world that needs to be acknowledged.


LEST WE FORGET