Hypocrites

Not much time today so just concentrating on one story, Roy Keane calling managers hypocrites.

The papers love this story, featuring as it does an explicit attack on Sir Alex.

I don't want to get into slagging off Roy Keane, great player that he was, but this attack is really unneccessary, perhaps in some way he still feels in the shadow of Sir Alex as a manager (one paper (in a story I can't find now) suggests that Keane might be upset at Sir Alex's mentioning of the Andy D'urso incident as the turning point in Man Utd's attitude to referees, but I think the problem is probably deeper than that - an attack on the "father" if you will).

Here's the story in its Daily Mail version:

"You hear other managers, and I am talking big managers, talking about respecting referees, but the same managers have been sent off for foul and abusive language. Makes me sick some of them."

The independent makes the attack clearer:

Discussing player discipline, Keane, unprovoked, produced the word "hypocrites" and when later asked if Ferguson's criticism of Ashley Cole for his behaviour for Chelsea against Tottenham represented hypocrisy, Keane replied: "Was he [Ferguson] sent off against Bolton this year? At Bolton? At half-time? I don't know, you tell me?

Sent off by Clattenberg...

The final word can go to Keane, in The Daily Mail:

'

I was no angel but as a player I was in the middle of the park and I tried to leave my mark. The D'Urso incident was a major penalty call.

'If he hadn't kept running we wouldn't have kept chasing him. I met him afterwards and apologised and I still say my head was superimposed on those photos.'

Do you think this "leave my mark" was meant ironically (and yes that is a cheap shot referring to the Alf Inge Haaland challenge).
And I always thought this "he kept on running" defence was a joke, looks like I was wrong.

Beckham = Ronaldo

Not much about again today, still concentrating on the England performance. The only aspect of this I want to mention is the discussion on Wayne Rooney. I shall just mention this report in The Times, there are others and they all say pretty much the same thing: that Rooney isn't really suited to the lone forward role - it works for him at Man Utd because he has Ronaldo/Tevez/Giggs (delete as applicable) to "carry" (my word, but this is the essence of the argument) him. No one seems to notice that this statement is preposterous next to the conventional wisdom (also mentioned in most of the articles) that Rooney is our only world class player: on the one hand, he is good for Man Utd because he has these players carrying him, on the other, without him England are lost.

What I would argue is that the service to England's forward line is terrible, it doesn't matter who plays up front if the quality going into them is so awful. On Wednesday the passing from midfield was so slow that no forward would have stood a chance. Beckham's usual 50 yard hoofs (sorry, wonder passes) up front don't help either.

I like Capello, but his comments about Beckham being England's Ronaldo are frankly insane. He must have been joking. Surely.

The most ridiculous aspect of this is Steven Gerrard, in the Times report, saying:

“I think Wayne slightly has to adapt his game as well, because for me to get space in there and for it to work, he has to play a lot higher and stretch the defence,” Gerrard said. “I think that is why myself and Torres are having a lot of joy, because he is so direct and plays high up."

Steven Gerrard, England manager. The idea that Rooney should change his game to allow Steven Gerrard's ego to flourish is almost as insane as Beckham being England's Ronaldo.

England

Obviously all the papers are full of the England game today, and, as it isn't the job of this blog to look at England I'm leaving all the reports of that game.

Well almost all. There's this article on Rio Ferdinand's performance in The Telegraph which is worth reading:

As senior man in the best defence in England, Ferdinand's performances for Manchester United have rarely faltered this season. Neither did they last term on the way to United winning a Premier League title they might well repeat this time around.

The only other thing to mention is that Gary Neville thinks he won't play this season:

"Hopefully I'll get a game somewhere but that could prove difficult with the significance of the matches we have over the next few weeks. I just have to hope and pray that I get my chance at some point."

Responsibilty

Only one story to concentrate on today and that is the naming of Rio Ferdinand as England captain.

I shall first make a list of all the stories on it:

The Daily Star
The Guardian
The Guardian again
The Times
The Times again
The Telegraph
The Daily Mail
The Daily Mail again

In only one of these stories is this point made:

Given Capello's eagerness to find leaders in a team he knows are suffering a crisis of confidence, sharing the armband around makes sense, although there are limits. Mild-mannered Wayne Rooney, anyone? Ashley Cole? Glen Johnson, who was once fined £80 for switching the price on a toilet seat in B&Q so he could get it on the cheap? Ferdinand is positively statesman-like in comparison.

That is the point that while Rio has commited the odd misdemeanor in the past, who hasn't? John Terry? So all these stories discuss whether it is right for Rio to captain England given his past, some, admittedly, make passing mention to John Terry's off field behaviour, most mention his on field "antics", and yet because all the stories focus almost exclusively with Rio's behaviour one is left with the impression that he is somehow a devil among the angels. So I'm not going to spend time going through them (the quote above comes from "The Times again". Quick nod to the Daily Star report which, I'm assuming is a joke, includes this sentence:

Capello decided to ignore the Manchester United player’s ban five years ago for a missed drugs test and hand him the armband for tonight’s game against France.

How could he possibly ignore something that happened "5 years ago"? How remiss.

If you read the stories you will find quotes from Rio and mentions of his great community work.

Two other articles;

Interview with Patrice Evra in The Mail:

He has interesting views on why English teams have done so well in that competition while the national team has struggled.

"At United, when we lose a match, it's a crisis," he said.

"In two years I have never had the experience of being on the losing side twice in succession, touch wood.

Don Howe changes his tune from the other day and argues in this article that England should play like us:

I believe the England manager will have his team attacking France in a style that is very reminiscent of the way Sir Alex Ferguson has his Manchester United sides going at the opposition. It's a style that places an emphasis on movement and mobility of the front-line players, whose positions become interchangeable. The attackers keep popping up left, right and centre in a mercurial way, like that which has propelled United to the top of the Premier League.

Drab and unpretty one day, mobile and mercurial the next. Make up your mind Don.

A quiet day

Not much in the papers today.

A sensible article in The Guardian by Andy Hunter goes someway to redressing the balance from yesterday:

Mascherano's dismissal "finished the game" according to the Liverpool manager. It undeniably cleared United's path to victory but the pattern of their dominant performance had been established with the influential Argentinian on the pitch. His second yellow card and the loss of self-control that followed was a smokescreen on Liverpool's meagre offering, one Benítez clung to afterwards.

There's even an article by Kevin McCarra criticising Wenger. Yes really:

Wenger's obstinacy is quite marvellous in its way but the trends are going ever more strongly against Arsenal. Sir Alex Ferguson might have made an immense misjudgment when deciding that the £30m Juan Sebastián Verón would fit the English scene but, undeterred, he continued the outlay on Rio Ferdinand and Wayne Rooney and many expensive others. In consequence Owen Hargreaves, Michael Carrick and Anderson, for example, constitute three compelling candidates for the role in front of the defence.

Arsenal, in comparison, are wilfully starved of resources.

Then there's just some comments from Carrick reported in various papers, here, and here:

“We have a tough run-in, so we're nothing for granted, but we're happy to be in this position,” Michael Carrick, the midfield player, said. “A few weeks ago, we were three points behind. Now the door is open for us. We have a great chance. It's up to us.”

Sir Alex in The Sun:

“A lot was made of Sunday with two big games going on. Well, we did our bit.”

Tony Cascarino in The Times suggests more teams should try man marking Ronaldo.

To finish I'll just highlight one sentence from Sue Mott's article in The Telegraph in which she praises Steve Bennett. But how could this involve Manchester United in a negative way, you ask? Well:

When do managers ever come out and criticize or punish a player, as Brian Clough would have done, for behaving without respect on the field when so much is to be gained by so doing? Benitez was the guilty man on Sunday, but Sir Alex Ferguson has been in the same dock, Arsene Wenger is often in "I didn't see it" mode and, as for Jose Mourinho in Chelsea's heyday, he positively urged his players to behave like over-paid savages to exploit the weakness of the on-field authorities.

Did she read any papers last week? Sir Alex seemed to have something to say on this matter:

"We had a pivotal moment some years ago when our players surrounded Andy D'Urso," he said, referring to the incident in January 2000 when the referee gave a penalty to Middlesbrough at Old Trafford. "I went off my head with them about that, I thought it was ridiculous and it never happened again."

Of course he's not going to criticise a player publicly. Sir Alex criticises referees after games when he sees reason to. Fair comment. To go from this to include him in a list of managers who get their players to show dissent to referees in an attempt to gain an advantage seems willfully perverse.

The sweet taste of victory

The papers give us enormous credit for strolling to victory against Liverpool yesterday.

Oh. Sorry. I'm living in a fantasy.

No, Liverpool Implode seems to be the headline of the day. Or some sort of Bennett gifted us the game angle is quite popular.

I'm going to start with this link to the BBC website which has an embedded video of Benitez's post match interview. I'll post it without comment, because Benitez says so much himself.
The Guardian report here pretty much encapsulates the trend today:

Manchester United edged closer to the Premier League title by ravaging a self-destructive Liverpool side at Old Trafford today. Headers by Wes Brown and Cristiano Ronaldo, followed by a thunderous strike from Nani gave Sir Alex Ferguson's men three goals, but the three points also came courtesy of impotent Liverpool forward play, mistakes from Pepe Reina and a silly first-half dismissal for Javier Mascherano.

Emphasis fully on Liverpool here.

Begrudging praise for us from The Times:

United were deserved winners, although Rafael Benitez's side might feel they were served an injustice when Javier Mascherano, the Liverpool midfielder, received a contentious red card in the first half.

After spending the first 8 paragraphs of their match report on the Mascherano sending off, The Telegraph bizarrely then admit that, "That decision did not cost Liverpool the game". So the only reason to concentrate on it so is to make it appear more important than it was and trivialise our performance. Although Kudos must be given to The Telegraph for making Ronaldo man of the match and pointing out his 95% pass completion (Paul Scholes had an amazing 98 successful passes out of 103), against The Independent's judgement that, "It was Mascherano who most proved his worth, reducing Cristiano Ronaldo to a mere mortal for once", and against the view of their own Alan Hansen:

Of the four major forward players on the pitch at Old Trafford - Steven Gerrard, Fernando Torres, Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo - only Rooney played well while Rio Ferdinand proved he knows how to deal with Torres.

Everyone obviously just puts Ronaldo in there to perpetuate their own myth that he's not a big game player.
Hansen's words on the sending off are also completely what you'd expect - wrong:

A strong referee would have dealt with the incident completely differently. He would have gone to Gerrard, as the Liverpool captain, and to Mascherano and indicated that one more example of backchat would see the player dismissed. And the pity is that Bennett got most of the decisions of a big afternoon right, but it is the one he got wrong that he will be remembered for.

I think that with the amount of "backchat" (why not call it dissent?) he'd already received it was fairly obvious he'd have had enough. And frankly the challenge that immediately preceded the two bookings for decent was completely innocuous, only Liverpool players would have the temerity to try and get someone booked for that challenge. This fact also seems to have been lost in the reports, everyone citing the "treatment" that Torres was receiving. He was fouled a couple of time sure, but never anything that could be labelled "treatment".

A table in The Telegraph shows that Paul Scholes and Michael Carrick were the "most active" players of the weekend. Explaining our dominance and shaming the untouchable Stevie G (who completed a mere 28 of 44 passes - probably about his average for the season...)

Quick links to Sir Alex's comments - The Times - The Telegraph

After slagging off David Pleat previously I think I owe him the final word for a good article, actually praising us, without too many reservations:

Liverpool were certainly not helped by the indecision of José Reina or the erratic officiating of Steve Bennett but Manchester United's use of the forward ball was more penetrative and purposeful from the start.

Liverpool, playing to feet, contrasted with the more urgent United who never missed an opportunity to play a pass beyond the opposition defence. Wayne Rooney was looking for the space between and behind Liverpool's centre-backs and was denied three times by Reina when he got into those positions.

Missed

Just been reading through some of the comments after the Paul Wilson article in The Guardian I mentioned before and was alerted to a sentence I'd missed before which is worth quoting:

Liverpool would be well-placed for a double were it not for their points deficit in the League.

Yes. And Derby would be well placed for a Champions League place if it wasn't for the pesky matter of their points deficit...

"Truly, he is a Superman"

The big match previews continue today, but first let's start with the positive.

The Telegraph has a very good interview with Carlos Queiroz who eloquently talks on the protection of players issue, and which is worth quoting at length:

"Coming from abroad," said Queiroz, "it is my opinion that there is something special about the English game. It is the fighting spirit, the aggression of the players - they fight for everything and it is great. All over the world, it is recognised. Its positive aspects are coveted. We try to build it into our teams. So there is nothing wrong with that. But there is an issue that no one addresses. I've been here five years and I've listened countless times to fans, to coaches and to players who complain about diving. And they are right to do so. But I must invite them to think about the chicken and the egg - which comes first?
"What we see here is a lot of intimidatory tackles. And sometimes, when you fly in, the skilful player has to jump. If he doesn't lift a leg at the right moment, something terrible can happen. So when you make those tackles you are trying to take an advantage out of violence, or the threat of violence, in order to persuade the best players not to perform their skills. That is exactly what I was concerned about after the Portsmouth game.
"You don't want players to dive, to cheat on the game - but you must have the same attitude to those who try to intimidate. There are various ways of doing this and certain players who have their methods. I don't have to name them - you can tell from the blood dripping from their opponents' noses after they have used their arms in a certain way. They know how to do it. And they are cheating on the game too. I just cannot understand why it is not recognised by the fans, the players - and the referees. I see them sometimes on the television laughing and having a go at players who dive. But no one is concerned about intimidation, which, for me, is just as bad as diving. No one is concerned, when a wild tackler gets the ball, that he gets it only because the skilful player lifts his leg out of fear.
...I'm just against this anti-football atmosphere. Let me put it this way. Say you are Arsenal or Manchester United and you're playing - it doesn't matter - let's say Portsmouth. What is one of our ways to win the game? Move the ball quickly, dribble, try to keep a high tempo. So what happens? First 10 minutes, 11 fouls - the same player commits five fouls in 17 minutes. My friend, this is negative football. This is an offence against - and I have never used this expression before - the ethics of the game. We have to protect and, if the FA want me to explain why I said what I said, I'll be happy to do so."

This is a brilliant exposition of the argument, presented in an unbiased way, no longer just from a Man Utd perspective (in another section he suggests that Man Utd players can have problems with this in Europe), which in the immediate aftermath of the Portsmouth game it was understandable he couldn't escape from.
Here I shall just add a story from the papers this morning, in The Star and The News of The World:

Fergie hit back at Kop boss Benitez by saying: “He said I wanted protection for Cristiano because we were playing Liverpool, but I’ve been talking about protection for Ronaldo for two years.

“Rafa is trying to get the referee on his side - he must think we are bloody stupid.”

Which is pretty much the point I made the other day. The important thing here though is not so much why Benitez would try this on but why so many in the media would go along with it so slavishly.
Back to Carlos and, on a lighter note, his comments on Ronaldo:

"Cristiano is a player who constantly amazes you," said Queiroz. "He plays all year round for Manchester United and Portugal - and at such a level. Truly, he is a Superman."
...

"I have been privileged," responded Queiroz, "to work with some of the best players in the world on a daily basis." He threw in a few names from Real Madrid alone: "Zidane, Figo, Ronaldo, Raul, Roberto Carlos, David Beckham. And I think Cristiano is the finest and most complete football player. You think about Figo the winger, Ronaldo the forward, Zidane the playmaker - and you add the strength of Fernando Morientes in the air! Then you have Cristiano Ronaldo. I have never seen such a creation."

And so say all of us.

The Independent has an interview with Paul Scholes which is worth a read:

"There was always going to be a time when someone came in who's young and sprightly, with a lot of ability and will keep you out of the team. I know there probably isn't that much time left, so you have to try to enjoy it as much as you can, coming to training, playing games. I hope it's a long time away. I just want to concentrate on playing for as long as possible."

If that eventually means moving on from United, so be it. "It won't be far, I'm very much a home person," he says. His first love, Oldham Athletic, might be in with a shout. But Barcelona and Milan, like the Dubai Marina developers, should prepare for disappointment. As Keane once said of his erstwhile team-mate: "No celebrity bullshit... just an amazingly gifted player who has remained an unaffected human being."

The Times has an interview with Ryan Giggs:

No one in United’s history comes close to Giggs’s 34 appearances against Liverpool. His first meeting with the Merseysiders was as a 17-year-old. “I don’t remember it,” croaks the old boy. “I used to remember every game I’ve played.” He’ll never forget his second. It was Anfield, April 1992, and United lost 2-0, thereby surrendering the championship to Leeds United. Leaving the stadium, a young Scouser asked for Giggs’s signature and when Giggs obliged, he tore it up in his face.

“That was a shock,” Giggs recalls. “I mean, when someone asks you for your autograph. For the first couple of years of my career it was the biggest disappointment. I’d had such a rise into the first team and everything had gone well and that was my first real slap. You grow up quickly in football and the important thing is how you react.”

Before moving on to other Man Utd matters, there's this piece by Keith Hackett in The Guardian which I found interesting. He talks about certain misconceptions about the offside rule:

Let's be clear about this. Match officials do know the laws and apply them to the best of their ability - but time and again pundits criticise perfectly valid decisions. The Match of the Day analysis of the Aliadière decision was a case in point. They suggested the goal should not have been given, that the striker should have been flagged for 'gaining an advantage' after being in an offside position from the long ball. That is simply wrong.

The relevance of all this to this blog is in the fact that it shows up the pettiness of pundits. They are meant to be experts, guiding us through the game, and yet they can't even be bothered to find out the rules, preferring instead to scoff at anything they don't understand. I remember in the last World Cup, Mick McCarthey as co-commentator would, at every off side decision, express his confusion at the offside rule, a rule that isn't, let's face it, that hard to understand. Mick McCarthey is a football manager. Wouldn't you have thought he could have spent some time learning the rule? How can he manage effectively if he doesn't know the rules?
To stretch the point: this demonstrates why the ex-Liverpool dominated pundit Mafia hate us so much - they are stuck in the past and are unable to get past their fondness for the glory days of Liverpool, as in offside, they refuse to see the world has changed.

Speaking of which, Paul Wilson in The Guardian fantasises that Liverpool are still title contenders:

Any one of four teams could still win the title, which is unusual in itself. Yes, it would take a mighty effort for Liverpool to manage it, or, to be more accurate, an unlikely collapse by all three teams above them, but Benítez travels to Old Trafford today with a team in form and the knowledge that his first League win over Manchester United would at least challenge the assumption that Ferguson's players could always stay comfortably in front in a two-horse race.

Benitez continues the fantasy on a larger scale:

"Ferguson needed seven years to win his first Premier League," said Benitez. "We are in the fourth year and I'm disappointed because we could be closer this year, that's clear. But now we have a spine, a group of young players that we can progress with. We had the plan of how to play before but we didn't have the options we have now. Now I have confidence we can win the title before seven years.

So rather than Sir Alex making comments weeks in advance in an attempt to influence the Liverpool game, it is in fact Benitez who is obsessed with us.

Big Match Previews

Big match previews abound today but first we have the issue of Chelsea and Arsenal being bad losers.

In The Guardian Daniel Taylor and David Hytner write:

A war of words broke out between Chelsea and Manchester United last night after Sir Alex Ferguson expressed distaste about the behaviour of Ashley Cole and his team-mates during their draw at Tottenham on Wednesday. "I think the haranguing of referees we have seen is absolutely ridiculous," said the United manager.

In this article about the way players go after referees en masse we have this:

Ferguson is leaving himself open to accusations of double standards given that the Football Association is preparing a case against him, and his assistant, Carlos Queiroz, for their criticisms of Martin Atkinson after the FA Cup quarter-final defeat to Portsmouth two weeks ago.

He is leaving himself open to criticism by the haters who always criticise him. Anyone can see that there is a difference between a manager criticising a ref after a game to TV (even if he may have gone too far) and a gang of players getting into the face of referees in the ridiculous way that Chelsea players do. The accusation of double standards might have made sense if our players had reacted like this to the complete joke of a penalty decision in the Portsmouth game and if Sir Alex had defended them, but as our players didn't react like that we should probably assume that Sir Alex is right in what he says:

The United manager, whose team face Liverpool tomorrow before Chelsea play Arsenal, is still aggrieved by Arsenal's behaviour when they lost 4-0 at Old Trafford in the FA Cup. He said he would never tolerate his players acting like the London clubs'. "We had a pivotal moment some years ago when our players surrounded Andy D'Urso," he said, referring to the incident in January 2000 when the referee gave a penalty to Middlesbrough at Old Trafford. "I went off my head with them about that, I thought it was ridiculous and it never happened again.

The Independent run the story as well with a general snide manner, but nothing worth quoting. The same report then turns to the Liverpool game and makes this stupid claim:

Tomorrow's match ... pitches Ronaldo among equals for once in a while and in Fernando Torres – the country's top striker on current form – a player more likely to deliver on the big occasion.

A sentence designed solely to belittle Ronaldo, from the use of the word striker which excludes Ronaldo from being top on current form, to the unsubstantiated claim that Torres is more likely to deliver on the big occasion; while I have no encyclopedic knowledge of the goals of Torres (and I'm running late so can't look it up) I'm fairly certain he hasn't scored against "the Big 3" this season. Certainly not against us or Chelsea anyway.

The articles actually previewing the game are completely rubbish.

The Guardian starts the hilarity with some sort of points based analysis of the top teams, the only bit I'll quote is David Pleat's verdict:

The crucial game will come on April 13 against Arsenal, just after United's second leg against Roma in the Champions League. Assuming Sir Alex Ferguson's side do not beat Liverpool on Sunday, that fixture could be critical to maintain their advantage. Suggesting that the Londoners will force the draw still gives United the opportunity to take 10 points from their last four games which, with a draw at Chelsea, would be enough for the title.

Assuming we don't beat Liverpool? Why are we assuming that David? So that you can talk on an entirely different game than the one that is happening this weekend? What about Liverpool's recent record against us? What about our home form? What about our miserly 5 goals conceded at Old Trafford? We'd better just assume Liverpool are going to take all 3 points. Fantasist.

More wishful thinking in The Independent:

Since he has not managed to conjure a win – and has inflicted just a single goal – in four seasons of League combat with Sir Alex Ferguson, Rafael Benitez has fewer reasons to be cheerful about this weekend than he might care to admit, but there are grounds for accepting his contention that he is more confident of success tomorrow than before any other of their encounters.

How many times? It's like the beginning of every season where the Liverpool obsessed media predict that this is the season that Liverpool will challenge for/win the title and then within weeks (or days) they realise they are deluded but keep up the pretence for months by constantly asking whether Liverpool are actually out of the title race.

The ultimate fantasy for the Liverpool media is played out in The Times, where they discuss what it would have been like if Ronaldo was a Liverpool player. Yes, they really do. I'm not sure this is worse than Arsene Wenger smugly claiming that Ronaldo could have played for Arsenal, as if Arsenal have a divine right when it comes to poaching foreign talent. I'm not going to quote from it simply because I can't bear to read it again.

A fairly straight telling of Sir Alex's feelings on the game is a slightly better article in The Times.

Don Howe and John Barnes deliver awful verdicts in The Telegraph.

John Barnes delivers the nonsensical:

The critics should relax about Liverpool. If their supporters give Benitez time, and if the team spirit is right, then they might see what they can achieve.

First off I thought Benetiz was loved by the fans? Secondly the argument pretty much amounts to "If everything goes there way then they may just achieve something." However, given that Liverpool always get every marginal decision possible (and if anyone dare give a decision against them the whole media unites to make sure the referees know what to give next time), I'm not sure this argument works - they already get everything, yet win nothing (but cups, where "luck" counts).

The hindsight-is-a-wonderful-thing-I-knew-it-all-along argument:

It was unrealistic to think that a team that finished last season 21 points behind United could catch up in one campaign

And the xenophobic:

Torres is not a typical foreign player; he doesn't go diving in for free-kicks and he can take a tackle; he is a fantastic combination of hard work and talent.

Are we still in the eighties?

Don Howe just delivers the plain stupid:

The message will be clear: give nothing away because winning games 1-0 here and there will be the key to winning the title. That is the key to the consistency that he craves. It might not be pretty, ladies and gentlemen, but if it yields victories in a decisive phase of the season then no one will complain.

It's not every day you read that we play unpretty football. Normally even the most biased don't go that far (they just say that, "Arsenal are the most attractive team like evah", solely to belittle our beautiful attacking football, because they can't do it directly).

The Telegraph redeems itself slightly with an article on Ronaldo's free kicks interviewing Leonel Pontes, who was youth coach at Ronaldo'sSporting Lisbon:

"There was no beating him at table tennis, even when he was 13 or 14. He was the same at football. He was able to say that if you touch the ball in a certain way, it would gain that direction.

"He always wanted to be the best, the strongest, the one who scored the most goals, did the best dribbles. He was terrible for challenges."

The really stupid award goes to David Lacey in The Guardian for "Ronaldo may score lots but he's not yet a goalscorer", which plays on a quote from Brian Clough suggesting you need to score consistently over five season to be considered a goalscorer. My problem with this is that it presents this season as a potential blip in Ronaldo's career, when it is bleeding obvious that there has been a gradual progression in his goalscoring season on season. Not acknowledging this is an omission which really changes the whole essence of the article, from one that would asses his chances of progressing more, to one which just portrays him as a one season wonder.

Ronaldo, the BEST in the world?

Today's articles are full of praise for Ronaldo and full of comparisons between him and George Best.

Bill Edgar in The Times in a generally good article repeats the popular Ronaldo-isn't-very-good-in-Europe mantra, but at least admits that "this may soon need updating".

Another good article, in the Daily Mail, has Pat Crerand singing Ronaldo's praises,

Alan Smith in The Telegraph mentions something that is generally ignored by the media, namely Ronaldo's great performances in a Portugal shirt:

Unlike the Belfast Boy, though, Ronaldo was born in a country that can make a mark internationally. After a good World Cup in Germany, when he was easily man of the match in Portugal's semi-final defeat to France, a commanding showing in this summer's Euro finals should answer any lingering doubts.

There's also a good article by Tim Rich in The Telegraph on Nani's comments about Ronaldo.

The Sun bucks the general trend, Steven Howard retreading familiar ground with the usual criticisms of Ronaldo but with added ridiculous cliched opening:

IT’S difficult to offer any criticism of the supremely talented Cristiano Ronaldo.

"It's difficult so just think how clever I must be to do it! Gasp in awe as I churlishly copy arguments from every Man Utd hating journalist from the last 3 years, be astonished as I refuse to write about his amazing season but instead criticise him with my rehashed arguments!"
Don't read it.

The other great topic is Rafa Benitez and Sir Alex's mind games. All of these reports have one thing in common - they all agree with Benitez that Sir Alex is playing mind games, this is the implicit underpinning of them all. None of them suggest Rafa is playing mind games (at least one mentions that Benitez is coming out saying this to get his influence in as a reaction, I admit, but the implied criticism is still of Sir Alex)

The Independent is perhaps the worst here, the headline of Ian Herbert's article, "Benitez exposes Ferguson's mind games".

The Guardian at least puts all the emphasis on Benitez, "Liverpool's manager accuses Ferguson of trying to influence referee".

The Times wins best use of ironic quotation marks, "Sir Alex Ferguson using 'clever' remarks to sway referee, argues Rafael Benitez", though now i've written it I'm assuming that the quotation marks are just attributing the comment to Benitez, rather than commenting on the cleverness or otherwise. This article does contain the best description of why Steve Bennet probably shouldn't be refereeing the game:

Ferguson talked yesterday about the need for referees to afford Cristiano Ronaldo more protection, which was no surprise, given that Steve Bennett is scheduled to take charge of a match that could have huge repercussions as far as the title race and fight for fourth place are concerned. Two of the three red cards Ronaldo has received during his five seasons with United have been issued by Bennett, whom Ferguson suggested would have taken “great delight” in sending off the Portugal winger for head-butting Richard Hughes, the Portsmouth midfield player, in the 1-1 draw at Fratton Park in August. Ferguson also accused Bennett of failing to protect Ronaldo after the player was sent off for a reckless lunge during the 3-1 defeat away to Manchester City in January 2006, but BenÍtez has urged the official not to pay attention to his United counterpart’s inferences.

The thing I find interesting is that these comments of Ferguson's which started after the awful display of the referee in the Portsmouth FA cup tie are now somehow being seen as the first shots in the war against Liverpool. Sir Alex therefore threw a (justified) tantrum straight after the Portsmouth game just to get at the referee of this game two weeks later. Now that is clever.

Anyway, tis all ok because The Telegraph tells us that, "Benitez is relaxed about Ferguson mind games". I'm glad that's settled.

Man Utd 2 Bolton 0

Today we start with The Guardian's match report by Daniel Taylor in which we see the age old trick of praising a performance in a way which undermines at the same time. Very clever:

Better than Best? It might need thumbscrews before Manchester United's supporters of a certain generation accept the arguments in favour of Cristiano Ronaldo, certainly until he starts to bewitch foreign grounds in the way George Best once did, but the current darling of Old Trafford is entitled to feel a great deal of satisfaction that he has succeeded in making it a legitimate debate, at the very least.

Asks the question, suggests that some older folk might disagree, and then, the killer, "until he starts to bewitch foreign grounds in the way George Best once did". He's good but... Brilliant writing. And yet - How many of Ronaldo's goals have come from Europe this season? That would be 6. Didn't he recieve a standing ovation from The Sporting fans when he was subbed in the game there? Yes. The same trick is repeated further on:

to take his personal tally to 33 for the season and he can now claim to have outdone Best in at least one way, El Beatle having stood as United's most prolific winger since scoring 32 times in the 1967-68 season. Many of United's followers must have thought that record would never be broken but Ronaldo, El Brylcreem, has managed it in 37 appearances - compared with Best's 52 - and he did it with some panache, too

Of course it's slightly harder to get away with here, maybe he should have just left this bit out altogether rather than attempt such a weak gag.

Over on The Guardian blog Paul Doyle has a faintly ridiculous article, Ronaldo's brilliance masks United's problems . The first paragraph signals the stupidity to come: "Manchester United may have gone three points clear at the top of the table and been boosted by Chelsea's failure to beat Spurs, but they are still far from certain to be champions of England, let alone of Europe." Considering the bad form of Arsenal and Chelsea conceding 4 for the second time this season I'm not sure why this article is about our deficiencies stopping us winning stuff, when other's deficiencies seem in greater need of analysis.

We then have two contradictory reasons for the uncertainity:

because United's midfield often struggles to assert itself

The problem is United's forward are not reliable

So which is it? He does state this as the problem, rather than problems. Is the problem our midfield or our forward line? Is it the midfield that absolutely dominated against Arsenal (including the Fabregas Doyle lovingly refers to later on)? Or is it the forward line - the forward line that has helped us to score 61 league goals this season (of which Ronaldo has 24 - leaving 37).

We have this perverse description of the top scoring team in the Premiership:

defensively solid United are over-reliant for goals on Ronaldo, whose brilliance has regularly rescued them this season, masking the shortcomings of both the manager and some of his team-mates

Yes. We do also have the best defence in the league. Thanks for the reminder.

I suggest you read it all. It really is that bad. My favourite bit this description of Wayne Rooney bringing in the classic Arsenal-are-the-real-footballing-team stick:

It seems he overcomplicates things not because of an idealistic, Arsenalesque commitment to artistic purity, but because of a grubby lust to inflate the hype around him, to soup up his image.

It always seems to me that what these people can't stomach is that we actually play great football and win football matches (and trophies), Arsenal's very rubbishness seems to demonstrate to these people how good they actually are. It's a great argument - "we don't win anything because we are just tooooo good".

Credit to the report in The Times by Oliver Kay, gives the boy his due and points out the easiness of the game:

In one respect, it seems tedious to report another Ronaldo masterclass, but there is nothing tedious about witnessing brilliance, particularly of the mouthwatering, jaw-dropping type produced by a player whom Gary Megson, the Bolton manager, described as “the best in the world”.

Much of the evening was humdrum, with even United’s fringe players content to conserve their energies for the sterner examinations that lie ahead, but what might have been a difficult night for Sir Alex Ferguson’s team was transformed by those two early goals from Ronaldo

Can't say fairer than that.

The Telegraph report is pretty bland stuff, only a bizarre cricket captain reference and a sly remark about Ronaldo and Winston Churchill standing out worthy of mention here.

And the others I've read are of a similar vein. Bolton just weren't good enough for the media to really trash us today.

I finish off topic, but a story I found of interest anyway, from The Daily Star:

Steven Gerrard’s dream of leading England to the World Cup looks like being shattered by a Fabio Capello intelligence test.

Read the rest of the story if you must, but I prefer to leave it as Capello thinks Gerrard is too stupid to be England Captain...

Petty biases to open with

A relatively quiet opening, this article from The Guardian by Andy Hunter which is an inoffensive piece which mainly sticks to quoting Sir Alex's comments on the Bolton game tonight. So far so good, but then ... the final paragraph:

The Liverpool midfielder Xabi Alonso, meanwhile, has claimed that a run of seven successive victories in all competitions has galvanised Rafael Benítez's team for Sunday's Old Trafford encounter. "We are in a good moment, playing well and scoring goals, and we are really looking forward to Old Trafford," he said.

In an article, until this point, entirely about our game with Bolton, we have a Liverpool player commenting on their game with us on Sunday. What use does this have? This isn't some political piece in which the words of one party's spokesman needs to be weighted by the inclusion of reaction from the other major parties, it's a piece on our game tonight. The inclusion of this paragraph seems to be designed to a) trivialise the Bolton game in the sense that "this is a game they really should win, a formality if you will, the important game lies in wait on Sunday"; b) make Liverpool more important than they actually are - they lie fourth, are having an indifferent season and recent history suggests it is this game that will be the formality (The Daily Star tells us, "Benitez has still to see his side score a goal or gain a victory in seven Premier League meetings with Sir Alex Ferguson since arriving in England in 2004. Liverpool have drawn one and lost six with a John O’Shea own goal in their first meeting the only time United have conceded against their bitter rivals"); c) prepare the ground for tomorrow in the unlikely event that we lose - cue articles about our "crisis" before the mighty liverpool come to town.

To quote Sir Alex: "Sure, there are big weekends ahead, but the other matches are just as important."

In The Times there's this which I don't have much to complain about except perhaps again the feeling that they are hoping for us to get beat lots of "and yet", "although", "but", trying to build up to something on the off chance that Bolton get a result (and here that Chelsea also get a result - at Spurs, a harder fixture I would say, not that you'd know it from the article).

Another article in The Times, coming from a Bolton perspective, with the headline "Gary Megson plans to get physical with Bolton in perilous position", has Gary Megson hoping "that his team can reproduce the physical approach that unsettled United in the reverse fixture". Here I imagine a similar article involving, say, Arsenal, in which this is questioned, given the injury to Eduardo and the soul searching in the papers after that incident. Here it goes unquestioned, despite the treatment meted out to Ronaldo in recent weeks.

This article by Ian Winrow in The Telegraph isn't too bad except for this, "United fans have long viewed this game in hand as a guaranteed three-pointer", while I agree that it should be a cast iron 3 points I'm not sure this is "long viewed" since it was only March 9, when Arsenal played Wigan and we didn't play in the league because of the FA Cup, that we've had a game in hand. A simple fact check, a bit of basic knowledge about us - too much to ask?

Another article in The Telegraph, "FA's Lord Triesman wants respect for referees", includes a completely bizarre piece of linking bias, "Triesman will also travel around to meet individual managers. Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger and other leading managers have been critical of referees this season while the problem of players surrounding officials continues to scar football." Two managers mentioned, an unspecified number of players mentioned and only one link to a story about Sir Alex (rightfully) criticising a referee. I need say no more.

To finish I give you the best bit of reporting of the day from The Sun:

Fergie faces Bolton tonight, saying: “Davies will do anything he possibly can to unsettle us.

“He’s a physical lad and we have to deal with that but I think Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand have the height and ability to do that.”

Davies has committed more fouls than any other Prem player for the last FOUR SEASONS — and tops the current dirty league, with 78 offences.

United defender Patrice Evra got a kicking from him when the sides met last November — and is expecting more of the same in this evening’s clash at Old Trafford.

The Frenchman recalled: “I had more bad tackles in that game than I have in my ENTIRE career.

“His first tackle on me should have been a red card.

“It was the same last year. When Davies kicked me, I said to him ‘Why do you tackle like that?’ And he said ‘It’s because I don’t like you!’

Trotters boss Gary Megson has called on hardman Davies to get stuck in again.

To redress the balance

This blog will do exactly what it says it will do. It will watch the media from a Manchester United perspective.

The idea came to me after many years of arguing with my friends about the coverage we receive in the media. My friends, from their various perspectives, think our media coverage is pretty fair and balanced. While my friends support different clubs they all have one thing in common: they hate Manchester Utd. They won't admit it, obviously, but their words betray them. This is precisely the position of the British media: analysing games from an "impartial" perspective but with their hatred of us shining through.

So after much argument among friends I'm starting this blog as a catalogue of bias.

I'm certainly not going to pretend that this is an unbiased account. I am a Man Utd fan (why else would I devote my time to this?). This is half the point: why don't football pundits just admit their prejudice. It would be so much easier.

From tomorrow I will be rounding up the days stories and pointing out their biases.

For today I will give a few brief examples of the type of thing I mean.

Firstly. It has struck me over the last couple of weeks that every time we get a decision against us and Sir Alex complains the standard response is, "Ahh! Don't you remember that Pedro Mendes 'goal' that crossed the line but wasn't given?! How you can complain about anything ever again when that actually proves you get every decision ever! So there!" Yeah. We got a decision in 2005. Amazing. If that's the last decision we got (or equally if that's the worst decision ever given for us) then frankly it proves the opposite.



Secondly. There was a report in, I think, The Daily Star Sunday, in which it was claimed that Sir Alex's claims about Ronaldo being kicked out of games was rubbish because he was only like the 4th most fouled player in the premiership. What this ignores is the fact that this season referees seemingly have a directive to not give Ronaldo anything so, for every 5 fouls he receives he'll actually be given only 1 (ie he's kicked 5 times but the ref blows up once). Thus rendering the most fouled player table absolutely useless and boosting Sir Alex's claim that it is all Keith Hackett's, as head of referees, fault.
(Couldn't find a weblink for this story, not a big fan of the Daily Star website)

Thirdly. As an example of a more mundane bias we can look at match reports of our game against Derby at the weekend. From The Times:

Foster came into his own. But for his two brilliant saves from Kenny Miller’s shots within 60 seconds near the end of the first half, Derby could have been eyeing a shock victory.

From The Guardian report the headline will suffice:

Foster saves United from disgrace but still expects to be sent on loan

So there we have it. Our keeper has to make two saves so we were lucky to win a game of football. Two saves, imagine that, in a game of football! Amazing!

And that's basically what I'll be doing every day because they never stop slagging us off.