Paul Scholes With Possibly the Best Handball Ever

It didn’t count, and it got him sent off for a second bookable offence. But Paul Schol’s handball in the dying moments of Man Utd’s 2-1 defeat to Zenit St Petersburg was still a might impressive effort.

First of all it’s bravely blatant. None of that sneaky stuff favoured by Diego Maradone, just a full on swipe at the ball. Second, look at the direction on that thing. It arcs perfectly up, down and into the side netting, giving the keeper no chance. Downside is that Scholes now misses the Champions league game against Villarreal.

Oddly intriguing as Scholes’ effort was, there were three other goals in this game that actually counted. They looked like this:

First is a brave header from Pavel Pogrebnyak. The sort of header my dad loves to say reminds him of when Andy Gray played because “he’d put his head where you wouldn’t put your feet.” (Never sure if the “you” in that sentence is a general “you” – ie everyone – or the specific “you” – ie me). Either way, good goal.

But not as good as the second. The scorer is Danny Alves, still the most expensive signing in the world this summer at €30m. And he looked worth every penny (or euro-cent) as he made fools of Utd’s defence to score the second.

Nemanja Vidic pulled one back in the 73rd minute, causing a late Man Utd resurgence that culminated in Scholes one-upping Maradona (or at least he would have one-upped El Diego had he gotten away with it.)

Interestingly, Zenit left wantaway Andrei Arshavin on the bench until halftime, and didn’t really seem to miss him. Which is sort of good news for Man Utd because an Arshavin move to Spurs would make Dimitar Berbatov that bit more available, and Utd really looked like they could have used the Bulgarian last night.

Some Related Stories:

Category: Europe