Return of the Ironman

He's back!  Paul Scholes' goal against Bolton




And Welbeck makes it two -



And Carrick scores a classy third, passed into net from 20 yards

A Dead, Sinking Story

Still not got my computer fixed, so still difficult to post too much, however, I've made an extra special effort today after noticing a bit of a "media campaign" against us in the last couple of days.  At least from The Observer/Guardian.  And possibly ITV.  

Call me a crazy conspiracist but ITV did seem to want us to lose yesterday, and it links in with the couple of articles I'll point to from The Observer, it seems as though everyone is predicting our demise, there was a certain amount of this last season as well, and this, combined with the spending, or "the rise" as journalists would put it, of Man City, leads to a narrative construction in the media which everything must be included in.  So ITV started the commentary with this idea, of the rise of one against the demise of the other, and the match would illustrate this, hence the disbelief at the sending off of Kompany - this, and our goals, wasn't in the script, how could this have happened?  Andy Townsend's insistence on questioning the sending off throughout the half was out of all proportion to the decision.  It was the hysterical reaction of a man whose whole world view  had just collapsed. 

Andy Townsend should have taken a leaf out of Rob Smyth's book, whose reaction to things which go against his world view is "fuck facts, I'm right."  His article from The Observer, which tells us why we're in inexorable decline ends:

United may beat City on Sunday and go on to do the Double; it does not matter. There can be no happy ending here.

Yes, we could win the double but we'd still be finished apparently.  Humorously, he said pretty much the same thing back in 2006, all the trophy's we've won since, meaningless, because in the world of Rob Smyth, we're finished.  His end prediction from that article -  "United fans think this season is going to be bad. It hasn't even started."

This narrative turn can also be illustrated with the figures I've seen quoted like a mantra the last few days about how our net transfer spend is the same as x,y or z's, it is only through the distorting mirror of the Glazers that this takes on its sinister mask.  Remove the Glazers and everyone would be like, "wow, look how well we've done while those all around spend millions, we're financially responsible, just like the new UEFA guidelines want us to be, although of course the money recieved from Ronaldo skews the figures but what the hell - we've still been pretty shrewd in the transfer market."

(There's a certain element of this negativity from fans as well, where everything is linked back to the narrative of the Glazers, no transfers?  its the Glazers; transfers?  it's the Glazers trying to appease people; price rises?  its the greedy Glazers; price freeze?  greedy Glazers appeasing fans to keep them buying.  And there is a crossover with the media narrative, because the takeover by the Glazers was meant to be it for us, they'd milk us dry and we'd go under)

The other article is here, by Paul Wilson, who with a lot of ifs and buts, makes much the same point as Rob Smyth, but his narrative is based on City's rise as much as our fall.

The point being that, and I know the old cliché about Sir Alex liking to create a siege mentality could apply here, our narrative versus their's but, I feel that the danger is that it becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, we begin to believe the narrative ourselves, and we start instituting our own decline.  Now, more than ever, it is time to Believe. 

Race Riot

I argued yesterday that we shouldn't allow the Blatter issue to distract from the problems of our own game, nd with that in mind I'd like to look at the Suarez situation.  

If the constant briefing of innocence and support from Liverpool football club isn't distasteful enough, especially given that the FA asked both clubs not to comment, something we've stuck to - though I hope Sir Alex rips into the subject today at his press conference, given their constant comments - but the actual excuse that Suarez has come up with is frankly preposterous.  The defence - that he was just calling Evra something that is okay to call someone in his native Uruguay - might be acceptable if this was his first season out of Uruguay.  It isn't though, he's played in Europe since 2006.  So we are led to believe that the words he spoke, that were so inoffensive, so common, in his native land, haven't crossed his lips in the previous 5 years of playing in Europe.  Surely, had they crossed his lips he'd have already had it pointed out to him that these words aren't appropriate or accepted in Europe, and he'd have apologised and stopped using them.  But no, 5 years later he, while arguing with Evra, just happens to use these perfectly normal and inoffensive words, for the first time since moving to Europe.  This is self-evidently a crock of shit.  In fact, that anyone would give credence to this excuse is, as far as I'm concerned, borderline racist.  It's the patronising, "but they are a simple folk, he knows not what he does,"  as if all South Americans are unable to tell what is and isn't the "done thing."  It's the equivalent of Basil Fawlty excusing Manuel with "He's from Barcelona."  - "It's ok, he's not a racist - just South American..."

Head Under Water

The fuss created by Sepp Blatter's comments on racism in football, and the reaction of the football community in this country should not make us forget that all is not right in our own football. 

The difference in reaction between something happening outside our borders and something happening inside is obvious. Something happens outside and condemnation is swift and immediate action and punishment demanded. Something happens inside our borders and everyone mumbles quietly to themselves, coughs, embarrassed, looking at their shoes, hoping everyone will move on. "Nothing to see here, that's their problem"

Racism is something that happens outside our country. Outside our football. You wouldn't see our football establishment supporting racism would you. John Terry England captain? Kenny Dalglish wanting Evra banned for daring to mention racist abuse and continually backing his player despite everything? And our football writers wouldn't write articles taking Blatter's position avant la lettre would they?

The reaction to John Terry's defence was, to quote Rio Ferdinand, "laughable." The ridiculous, " I didn't say it, I was just using them words to tell I him I didn't say them." He really couldn't think of anything better? And he was taken seriously? What he obviously should have said was, "As we are all agreed that there is no problem with racism in English football it stands to reason that what I said could not have been racist"

It might not even be too much of a stretch - it's a mighty lucky coincidence otherwise - to suggest that the timing of the announcement of Suarez being charged was influenced by the Blatter story, "Let's rush this out now, Blatter can distract attention from us, so much nicer for everyone to be concentrating on the racism of them."  Blatter has allowed our smug establishment to once again take the moral high ground, even though the reaction of most of the establishment towards Evra was very much the Blatter way - "Did he have to speak out?  There's no racism in our game." Blatter's true crime is not what he said, but that it's allowed the focus to be put back outside, when it should still be focused firmly inside.

Goal

Valencia opens the scoring -

 

Goal

Berba's scores our first -




Owen with the second


And Valencia with a cracker for three

szólj hozzá: Ald 0-3 Mnu

The Noise of Carpet

First off, apologies for the lack of posts recently, but my laptop screen has broken and it's not the easiest thing to work around, eventually I'll get it fixed and normal service will resume.

Anyway, I've forced myself to work around the problem today because of the ridiculous responses to Evra saying Suarez racially abused him.

Football is a game with a recognised racism problem - why else do we have the "kick racism out of football" campaign/  Why else has there been a recent debate on the lack of black managers in the game? When English teams go abroad and face racism condemnation and calls for action fill many column inches.  When a black player is abused in a game in the Premier League everybody wants to ignore it or cast doubt on the possibility of it happen, or, even worse, try and cast doubt on the trustworthiness of the man who suffered the abuse.  The reaction of Liverpool, wanting Evra banned if there's no proof found is ridiculous, almost an attempt to make sure any racism in future is hushed up, swept away - if no one says anything we can pretend it isn't there.  Gordon Taylor suggesting the PFA could help mediate in the "row." Was it a row?  I thought it was one player racially abusing another. Is mediation needed here?

And why was Suarez's denial given such po-faced creedance?

"We are all the same. I go to the field with the maximum illusion of a little child who enjoys what he does, not to create conflicts."

Any other time this would be laughable coming from such a cynical diver.  But no one pointed this out in the media.  

The fact that no one wants to believe this happened in this day and age, in our, most cosmopolitan of leagues, is no excuse to sweep it away, report it as if it cannot be true, as if Evra must have made it up.  This whole episode (whatever the outcome) shows the problems with the game and its inability to finally deal with racism, or sexism (the whole Andy Gray and Richard Keys row, where they were scape-goated so that nothing actually had to change) or homophobia.  It's alright when it's eastern european countries with the problems, we can patronisingly chastise them and feel good about ourselves, but when its closer to home it's best ignored or rubbished.

(The final straw here was the usually brilliant 101 Great Goals site putting this up - a video that showed nothing of what it claims to with these words attached:

"new footage has now been released which taints Patrice Evra’s character in relation to truth-telling"

Which is absolutely shameful - even if it did show him diving - there is no comparison between diving, something which, like it or not, is deeply ingrained in the game, and saying one has been racially abused.)