3 points, decent start but awful 2nd half performance.
Thought Joe Cole played pretty well, Gerrard was good in the 1st, Becks and Crouch were OK too. Got nothing from either full back, and at times Terry and Ferdinand were less than convincing.
But the ref didn't help by penalising Peter Crouch every time he challenged for the ball (presumably for being too tall
), and they only had two moments where they looked slightly dangerous. Don't think they had a decent effort on target.
TV here was showering praise on the performance at half time, which puzzled me as I thought we were no better than average tbh, but the second half was terrible offensively. The lack of attacking options (in terms of both personnel and creativity) without Rooney showed itself - we had no-one who could replace Owen: either Cole or Gerrard had to be alongside Crouch rather than just behind him if we were going to hit it in the air to the big fella every time.
But, I guess winning the first game is what really matters.