The Manchester rain is ruining the Old Trafford playing surface, especially through the middle, bringing back memories of the seasons where we laid 3 fields a year, and giving our overworked midfield tired legs.

After the excitement of the 4-3 win against Newcastle, Manchester United started in a 4-4-1-1 formation that featured the welcome return of Shinji Kagawa and the reinstatement of Nemanja Vidic, with Rafael and Rooney injured for discipline and form reasons.

Whether Sir Alex Ferguson accepts this point, given his hot temper these days, the fact is that we look better without Fatman sorry Rooney but Phil Jones and Chris Smalling can’t cover for the excellent Rafael.

After caning Alan Pardew for his criticism of Sir Alex, the boss clearly sent out the troops as fired up as his verbal response was. For 40 minutes this was United at their flowing best, ripping West Brom to pieces, with fast flowing football on a surface that was hardly fit for play.

Michael Carrick and Tom Cleverley totally dominated midfield, while Patrice Evra, Ashley Young and Antonio Valencia controlled the less muddy flanks with the mobile strike force lacking the killer instinct that Robin van Persie and Javier Hernandez would have provided.

In all honesty 1-0 was not a fair reflection of that period, and the poorly conceded, but well defended free kicks for the visitors that ended the half showed us how fragile that scoreline is.

Perhaps a happy boss meant halftime was a calmer affair than last week, and United stepped back onto the mud patch with less verve and vigor than they did an hour earlier.

West Brom reversed the trend for the next 30 minutes, leading to speculation that the rain had caused the pitch to slope one way. They dominated possession as our tired midfield legs, and deep defensive positions created a huge gap between midfield and our strikers. We simply shrank into our own box and gave up ground.

Peter Odemwinge and Long, were joined by baby Drogba aka Romelu Lukaku and they started to look dangerous. But this trio also gave Vidic the chance to show us what we have been missing as the Warrior Captain threw himself at every shot like his life depended on it.

Some of that even rubbed off on Jonny Evans who also started to look like a defender. We actually looked like we wanted a clean sheet and despite all the West Brom pressure David De Gea was not tested in the entire game.

As the clock hit 70 minutes Sir Alex decided to remove the labouring Cleverley and add the class of RVP to the attack. This solved the problem as Robin simply blasted West Brom apart and Paul Scholes retained possession in a cameo full of tackles and simple passing.

If we owned another midfielder Carrick would also have been rested, but we don’t. SAF said Carrick was running on memory, I thought he had run out of gas, but whatever it was he wasn’t running in the last 20 minutes as few players his age can run thru mud for 90 minutes and the pitch was pure mud by that time.

Overall this was a great result, 2-0, clean sheet and another win to stay 7 points clear.

I thought Evra was excellent, Vidic man of the match, but otherwise no bad performances allied to few outstanding ones.

The next visitors are Liverpool, the team that dominated us at Anfield but lost. That Jekyll and Hyde outfit that battered Fulham but lost to Stoke.

Frankly, if the weather remains as wet as it has been we will need 3 in midfield against those impostors. I am sure RVP and Hernandez will be most people’s choice to play, and we need to pin both fullbacks in their own half with Valencia and Young.  Vidic and Rio Ferdinand will play with Rafael and Evra outside them.

My fear is that Carrick and Cleverley get outnumbered by Lucas, Steven Gerrard and Joe Allen in that muddy strip that runs through the summit of our crowned field.

Given that I would seriously consider Kagawa in midfield, and a 4-3-3 formation.

However 2013 beckons with us top of the league and Real Madrid ahead in the Champions League.

That’s one Happy New Year for all of us and so whatever team we put on the pitch I’m just happy to be a Manchester United fan.

By Steve Burrows CBE @ifollowsteve