Brazil? Who they?

So I was away for the weekend and, this here being a one man town, didn't have access to the internet to post anything. Today I'll give a brief summary of what I missed over the weekend, before continuing with the normal service, concentrating on the build up to our Champions League game tonight.

It seems that our performance against Aston Villa means that only the absolutely most churlish can find anything to criticise. Just look at the hyperbole from Ian Ridley in The Mail:

Whichever team you support, whatever you think of Manchester United, savour these days. While Cristiano Ronaldo is in the English game to exhibit his sublime, almost ridiculous talent, we are all blessed indeed.

As the rain lashed the north-west, Old Trafford's lights shone brightly in the evening sky. Within the stadium, Ronaldo's light shone brightest of all. United's support demands a marquee player, a singular figure who will thrill them, dating back to Billy Meredith a century ago.

It being Tuesday now I won't bother going through all the reports, this one from The Telegraph sums things up nicely.

It remains to turn to the churlish.

This report from The Guardian takes up Rooney's comments:

"Growing up, I used to love watching Brazil and I think the football we play is similar to the way Brazil play," said the England international. "It's an honour to play in this team and I love it." Rooney is not prone to hyperbole and there was no reason to suspect the striker was losing his senses in the wake of an exhilarating display that will be greeted with a sense of foreboding in Rome.

Everything OK so far, "an exhilarating display", fair words. However, the article ends taking the comparison up a notch, comparing some of our players with the greats of Brazilian football. What's the point of that, other than after a great display by us to belittle us? Obviously the Brazilians win the comparison. I do find it strange that it compares the international form of the Brazilians against the domestic form of our players - this just demonstrates how insane the comparisons are, and how churlish it is to include the comparison in the article.

Martin Samuel in The Times decides to just ignore our performance and concentrate instead on why "Europe is United's to lose":

No, it is in Europe where United have it all to lose. For if this most talented United team do not win the Champions League final in the Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow, on May 21, they will have underachieved and Sir Alex Ferguson knows it. United are the best in Europe. This is their time, just as it was Barcelona’s two years ago, and they must make the most of it, as Frank Rijkaard’s team did, for who knows what is around the corner?

And after claiming we have to win the Champions League to call it a good year he then goes on to try and claim that even this wouldn't amount to much, given that "this is not a vintage year in Europe". So we lose even if we win it, I see how it works now...

Paul Wilson in The Guardian writes on England and gets a very bizarre dig in on us:

Capello claims that Rooney plays up front on his own for his club, but he doesn't really. He plays up front in fluid combinations with Carlos Tevez, Ronaldo, Ryan Giggs and sometimes Nani or Anderson. United play without a target man, and no one stations himself upfield with his back to goal. When it works it works a treat - few teams have the defensive resources to hold off all those attackers at once - although in terms of the ratio of goals-to-possession it does not always impress. Sir Alex Ferguson has complained several times about his team's wastefulness in front of goal, United's lack of a reliable goalscorer almost certainly cost them their place in next weekend's FA Cup semi-finals, and Rooney's goal tally for the season has been dwarfed by the input from Ronaldo on the right wing.

So our goal difference is 20 better than the second place team, we're averaging over 2 goals a game and scored 8 more than the next highest scorers in the league, and yet we miss a "reliable goalscorer"? Our "goals-to-possession" ratio doesn't impress? Idiot.

One other article of note is this profile of Anderson from The Observer:

'Scared? I've never been scared of anything,' says Anderson. 'And when the subject is playing football I'm not scared of anyone. In football you can't be scared. You are there for the football; you are there to have fun, to play.'