Mr Consistency United’s hero again
Some may even cast their vote for Steven Gerrard or Frank Lampard (as long as international form is taken out of the equation), but it is a fair assumption to suggest that Paul Scholes would be lucky to scrape into the top ten.
Not that he deserves to be so lowly ranked. While the goals of Drogba and the eye-catching brilliance of Ronaldo, a driving force for United this season, make them obvious front-runners, Scholes is just too damned consistent to be hoist to the top of the pile.
Scholes’s problem is that he is always a nine out of ten man, the engine that propels the Rolls-Royce that is Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United.
Predictable is boring, even when you are predictably outstanding.
Without Scholes’s probing, vision and burning desire to win, however, United’s ultimately emphatic victory over Blackburn at Old Trafford, which keeps them six points clear of Chelsea with just seven games left to play, may have turned into a defeat that could have sent their season spiralling towards the abyss.
A goal down following Matt Derbyshire’s first-half effort for Mark Hughes’s team, United found themselves toiling away against a Blackburn side that had emerged victorious from Old Trafford last season.
Wayne Rooney, performing as abjectly in front of goal as he had done for England during the internationals against Israel and Andorra last week, was doing his best to spurn every goalscoring chance that came United’s way. Heavy United pressure consistently crashed onto the rocks as soon as the ball reached the out-of-sorts forward.
As Rooney sank deeper into his personal trough, however, Scholes remained the constant spark, the brain that kept the home side on the edge of the Blackburn penalty area, but, with his team-mates failing to beat the impressive Brad Friedel, he took it upon himself to drag United back into the game with a stunning solo goal just after the hour.
Having dispossessed Christopher Samba 20 yards out, Scholes entered the penalty area, beat Ryan Nelsen and then Stephen Warnock before scoring past the helpless Friedel. Eric Cantona once seemingly won a league title single-handedly for United with his crucial goal-scoring interventions in the closing stages of the season and Scholes had just helped edge Ferguson one step closer to another.
Rovers manager Hughes said: “We’ve seen him do that many times. In those situations he has a very cool head and great technical ability and awareness.
“Once he got past the last man I expected him to hit the net and he did. If you get players like Scholes in decent areas you know he’s likely to deliver an end product.
With their resistance broken, Blackburn simply could not withstand that incessant United raids that followed and further goals from Michael Carrick, Ji-Sung Park and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer left them contemplating a 4-1 hammering when a narrow victory looked a distinct possibility for an hour of the game.
Hughes added: “In the end, the reason United are top and champions-elect is that they are able to galvanise themselves in a situation where they’re struggling to find a bit of form, are able to get themselves together and go again. That’s what they did in the second half.”
The only blot on United’s impressive victory was the shoulder injury suffered by centre-half Nemanja Vidic, which is expected to sideline the Serbian for at least five weeks.
Despite Vidic’s first-half exit from the action, United were still able to claim a priceless victory and midfielder Carrick admits that results are now the only issue as the title race enters the final straight.
He said: “At the moment we are just keeping on winning and hopefully that will continue.
“We’re playing some great stuff and we’re back to top form.
“There were a few weeks when we weren’t so good but kept on winning and that was the key.
“Whether we play well or badly in the next few games doesn’t matter as long as we’re winning them”
Opta Fact: Michael Carrick scored his second Premiership goal against Blackburn — the first came in less happy circumstances as West Ham lost 7-1 to Rovers.
Opta Fact: United have taken a maximum 30 points from 10 Premiership north-west derbies this season.
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