I’m using the term “favourite” here to mean “most memorable” because this game was a torturous yet fascinating affair.
81 crosses! 81 desperate, first-man-hitting, leading-to-nowhere attempts at finding a Manchester United head.
Manchester United v Fulham on 9 February this year was the game that many consider to be a 90-minute representation of David Moyes’ hellish tenure at Old Trafford.
Despite having worse matches in terms of results – the 3-0 home defeats to Liverpool and Man City stand out – this 2-2 draw with Fulham was seen as rock bottom in terms of United tactics.
For a Manchester United fan, a trip across the water to Old Trafford is supposed to be a magical experience and, with my previous visits including a 3-1 win over Man City in 2006 and a 2-1 result against Liverpool in 2013, optimism was at an all time high when bottom-placed Fulham came to play.
Rene Meulensteen, who had been first team coach under David Moyes little-known predecessor Alex Ferguson, obviously had different ideas and came with the intention of upsetting the Red Devils as well as this expectant supporter.
Manchester had just recovered from a vicious storm and the bite of the crisp February wind was a lot stronger than the creative bite of Moyesy’s men that day.
United started well, putting significant pressure on a vulnerable Fulham back line but the London side breakthrough came against the run of play when Steve Sidwell latched on to a Lewis Holtby ball to fire past David de Gea.
To be fair to the United crowd, of which I was a loudly groaning part, the noise didn’t ease around the Theatre of Dreams.
As frustration and panic began to mount around the stadium, with United enjoying a whopping 72% of possession in the first half, the crowd couldn’t help but notice that their team were beginning to whip balls into the box at a rate of almost one every minute.
The only problem was that, of the 81 crosses that came into the Fulham box, only 18 managed to reach a United player.
The amount of balls into the area soon went from noticeable to interesting to frustrating to “what the f**k are they doing out there?”
There were more bloody crosses on display than a Christian fashion show (pretty sure those don’t exist but you get the sentiment).
But the annoyance among the Old Trafford faithful was quelled after Robin van Persie finished neatly to make it 1-1 with twelve minutes remaining.
The relief soon turned into the typical smugness of us United fans when Michael Carrick fired us into a late lead in the 80th minute and 70,000 of us shared a thought of “ah we’ve done it again!”
But there was a sting in the tail of the Cottagers when a shot from United old boy Kieran Richardson was parried into the path of an onrushing Darren Bent who headed home to give Fulham an unlikely point and ruin a Corkman’s Christmas present.
Manchester United’s performance that woeful Sunday made history for all the wrong reasons. It ended up being just the second time that Fulham had avoided defeat at Old Trafford in 51 years and the excessive crossing of United’s wide men broke a record that was in place since 2006 in terms of balls into the box.
Quotes afterwards from the Fulham camp echoed the thoughts of all of us that weekend with defender Dan Burn saying he had “never headed that many balls since the Conference” and manager Rene Meulensteen referring to United’s playing style as “straightforward”.
The draw was just one of the atrocious performances put in by Manchester United in the 2013-14 season and, as much as I spent the 90 minutes that day bending my match programme into an unreadable piece of red and black paper, I’ll always be able to say I was there the day that United attempted 81 crosses.
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