It wasn't the easiest of games to play tonight, the weather made the pitch rather skiddy and lots of passes were over hit. It took United a while to get into the game, but once they settled down they took control. The two Jones in the middle played well in the first half though in the second Ritchie was MIA. Moving Kieran Lee in there added to the problems a bit as he looked lost in there. I rate Lee, but he's certainly not a midfielder.
Smith looked well out of touch, if anything he looked worse than Ole did against Liverpool last season, when he came back. If SAF thinks he's going to be ready for mid September he's got to have something up his sleeve. It's going to be more like October on this performance.
The sending off was the correct decision, but from an experienced player to do that was just stupid, similar to Campo last year. What makes it worse for Jeffers is that Mark Hughes was in the stands watching. He didn't even complain about the decision, unlike the penalty call. I think he knew what was coming.
Once this team get's going and one or two players settle down a bit, I'm sure we're going to see a good season once more, but and this is a similar problem to the first team, we are a bit devoid of strikers at this level. With Rossi gone, it was left to Marsh to jump in up front.