De Gea got his debut in goal and was accompanied in defence by Smalling, Jones (also making his debut), Fabio and Evra which, were it not for Evra, must be one of the average youngest ever defensive units fielded by Manchester United!
The midfield was interesting, however with Welbeck, Cleverly, Carrick and Obertan (for another largely youthful section) and then Diouf and Berbatov up front.
The first half started out lively enough, despite the sweltering heat with United sometimes creating some decent openings which weren’t used to full advantage but Chicago Fire played their part extremely well but it was still something of a shock when they took the lead after thirteen minutes through a deftly-headed goal from a defender (Gibbs) from a free-kick – apparently his first goal in twelve months with the club which gave De Gea no chance.
Following this little wake up call, United huffed and puffed a bit but still couldn’t make the breakthrough but even by this stage the players had worked up the kind of sweat that usually takes a good seventy minutes to work up here in England and it was obvious that any player carrying a few summer pounds would be working them off and then some in this game. By the time the half-time whistle came, the score remained at 1-0 to the Fire (could have been 2-0 but for a great De Gea save just before half-time) but we’d had a few half-chances which weren’t taken but it was time for Fergie to start making the substitutions. However, there had been four players in the first half who are perhaps playing to stake a claim for when the season starts proper and these were Cleverly, Welbeck, Obertan and Diouf and I must say that of the four, Welbeck stood out by a mile. Diouf wasn’t given an awful lot to feed on but Obertan was fairly impressive in what he did but he still shows a lack of composure at critical times for me. During last summer’s pre-season tour, he was playing with a smile on his face, scoring goals and generally looking happy with life, football and the universe but in this match he was giving it out to everyone for not playing the exact ball he required again. He played much better at the start of last season due to this new-found demeanour but it doesn’t bode too well if he’s getting upset at this stage of pre-season. Anyway, as the second half got underway Fergie made the expected changes with five players being taken off (Fabio, Cleverly, Berbatov, Carrick, Diouf making way for Evans, Anderson, Giggs, Rooney and Park) to give the side a much more experienced feel to it. Perhaps, interestingly, Fergie wanted to see a little bit more of Welbeck and Obertan.
Within two minutes of the restart, Smalling found himself up front and scored an cracking goal – unfortunately, he was slightly offside and the goal was disallowed (it was extremely marginal) but it really was a cracking finish which any striker would have been proud of.
Evans switched to left-back with Jones and Ferdinand in the centre of defence.
But still the breakthrough for United seemed a long way away as the minutes ticked on to the hour mark whilst Chicago Fire were creating some very decent chances which we were somewhat lucky to get away with unscathed and this was becoming a bit worrying as the clock hit sixty-five minutes.
But then Rio Ferdinand produced a great bit of skill to create a bit of space for himself before launching an inch-perfect long pass for Rooney who deftly lobbed over the advancing keeper for the ball to drop into the net. 1-1 was the score but given our lack of chances so far, another Chicago Fire draw wasn’t out of the question at this stage.
Nani, Rooney, Giggs and Park in particular were beginning to shape themselves into a decent attacking/midfield force.
3-1 to United.
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