BLOG: CREDIT AT CRUNCH TIME
ManUtd.com's Adam Marshall hopes some of the media will be ready to eat humble pie . It's easy to grow a little frustrated with the lack of wider appreciation for United's season thus far. Credit must surely be applied soon for a team written off as a shadow of Sir Alex Ferguson's illustrious sides of the past. Two huge tests await on the domestic front which will go a long way to deciding if a record 19th title is safely secured ahead of what everybody hopes will be a Champions League final to savour at Wembley, providing Schalke are unable to pull off an amazing comeback at Old Trafford. So when do the plaudits start arriving for a defence that hasn't conceded away from home in Europe all season? Or a strikeforce containing the rejuvenated Wayne Rooney and the revelation that is Javier Hernandez? And what about the midfield? The area that would cost United dearly this term, according to most pundits supposedly in the know, and yet it continues to dominate much-vaunted opponents. United controlled the match against Schalke with a disciplined, high-tempo team performance that proved far too much for the Bundesliga side to handle. Any praise for Sir Alex's charges was tempered by criticism of the home team for not being up to scratch. I'm sure at one point I heard Liverpool legend Graeme Souness make this astonishing statement on Sky Sports: "Schalke didn't want to win." Yet Schalke went into the tie with a 100 percent home record in the Champions League, had beaten Inter Milan convincingly home and away and, of course, gone further in the competition than England's other three representatives. Never mind, they were written off as unworthy opponents because of United's dominance - as though reaching finals at this rarefied level is sometimes guaranteed. If Barcelona had destroyed Schalke in similar fashion, the tributes would have flowed for their version of the beautiful game. United? We're apparently scraping through by sheer will alone, topping the league only because everybody else is so poor. Surely that doesn't explain why teams in Europe can't beat us either? The Reds' stars obviously, and quite rightly, play down their achievements, talking only of finishing the job at home and not looking further ahead than the next fixture. But if the leaders can produce similar performances in the three big games to come in the next week then the time will come for many observers to eat humble pie and acclaim the manager's latest team. It won't be Sir Alex's greatest achievement as some suggest nor validification of any perceived lack of quality elsewhere. It will be the realisation that this squad has been good enough all along and many were wrong to doubt it.
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