Certain biases are our daily fare

We got a good point at Ewood Park, but for Brad Friedel (and Rob Styles...) we'd have probably won it. I'm not going to claim that the papers are having a real go at us today but reading the match reports today is certainly interesting.

Take this from The Telegraph. The penultimate paragraph of the match report:

After seeing Arsenal implode and throw away a five-point lead at the top of the table, Ferguson's team were in danger of a more serious failure of nerve. Fortunate to keep their season on track by beating Arsenal, United were even luckier to steal a point at Middlesbrough the week before.

Pardon?

After seeing Arsenal implode and throw away a five-point lead at the top of the table, Ferguson's team were in danger of a more serious failure of nerve. Fortunate to keep their season on track by beating Arsenal, United were even luckier to steal a point at Middlesbrough the week before.

Has this guy been watching the games? The man is insane. Not just for that ridiculous sentence but for that sentence taken in conjunction with the opening paragraph of his report:

Just as the Premier League title race had looked to be fading into another Manchester United stroll to the line, a Roque Santa Cruz goal had Chelsea daring to believe that they were about to engage United in the most thrilling one-game head-to-head for the crown since Arsenal's 2-0 win against Liverpool at Anfield in 1989.

So, on the one hand we're strolling to the title. On the other we're lucky to have won our last three games? I'm not sure it's possible for these two things to go together - at least not in the real world. Even by paragraph 3 he's actually changed his mind to have us "wobbling down the finishing straight for the past fortnight", not strolling then?
The report also makes no mention of any of the penalties we should have had and consequently takes Rooney's poor challenge on Samba completely out of context, making the bizarre claim that "Wayne Rooney stained his reputation". Yeah. He's never had a reputation for getting frustrated and making bad challenges has he?
Another utterly bizarre claim that he makes in the report is that Sir Alex "dared to gamble" on his team selection in view of the Barcelona game on Wednesday. What? Did he see the team we fielded? He gambled by leaving out Edwin Van Der Sar and Anderson apparently. Even though he admits Van Der Sar was out with a groin injury, and as for Anderson, I'm glad this Telegraph writer knows our first choice midfield.

The Observer match report at least makes some attempt to report the game as it happened. It makes the point that the Telegraph writer wilfully ignored on team selection -"United's first-choice XI is quite difficult to identify when everyone is fit, as the manager has admitted".
They admit we should have had a penalty, and put Rooney's challenge in the appropriate context:

Rooney was denied a penalty when Rob Styles failed to notice that Steven Reid took his legs rather than the ball just before half time, but there was no chance of anyone missing the ludicrous lunge on Christopher Samba that earned the wound-up striker a booking minutes later.

And yet there are still awful moments of bias in the report, take this for example:

Ronaldo attempted to inject some fizz into the free-kick, but it bounced harmlessly off the wall, which is more than could be said for Ronaldo a minute later, when he bounced spectacularly, and somewhat painfully, off a surprisingly robust Pedersen. After a few more theatrical rolls than were strictly necessary...

This was a challenge which deserved a booking more than most and yet the only criticism is reserved for Ronaldo, playing on the lazy (and untrue) stereotype of Ronaldo as a diver. Refer back to the Steven Gerrard diving non-controversy I mentioned a few days back and see the horrible bias at work.

The Independent gives about the most accurate report. Pointing out that "Four strong penalty appeals (three of them to United) were turned down" and being the only paper to recognise that, "For the remaining 25 minutes the ball seemed to be in or around the home team's area."

The News of The World has a good round up of Sir Alex's post match interview:

"We would have preferred three points and I think we deserved them. It was marvellous to take a point so late with another goal for Carlos.

"Our performance in the second half was brilliant. The tenacity and passion we showed was fantastic. They played like champions. We could have had three penalties but these breaks seem to be going against us at the moment."

To the European previews, The Observer looks at Barcelona:

There is a strange sub-contest taking place in this season's Champions League. Not to be the best football club in Europe, but the continent's most dysfunctional. Only at Manchester United do the waters run untroubled. Along the M62, owner tears shreds off owner as a forlorn chief executive attempts to remind them of 'the Liverpool way'. Down in London, a mutinous Chelsea support regularly remind their manager Avram Grant that he does not know what he is doing.
And then, there is Barcelona.
Regular observers describe a team that 'walks instead of running'. Where attacking play was once concentrated in the opposition's half of the field, it now begins in their own. Possession is handed over too easily, while the famed invention of their attacking play has withered to predictability. The aggressive pressing of opponents formerly led by Deco has dissipated. 'You can see it in their play,' says a leading coach. 'The players have lost their desire.'

The Times concentrates on Messi:

Messi will line up against Manchester United on Wednesday in a Champions League semi-final in front of a crowd of close to 90,000 who expect a virtuoso goal, or imagine it’s time for another hat-trick, and at the same time shift uncomfortably in their seats if he seems to strain to reach a ball, or suffers a heavy collision. Messi has become a fragile messiah for an anxious club. For two separate periods this season he has been out through injury. In the 14 matches he missed, Barcelona won just five.

And The Telegraph have the thoughts of Mark Hughes on playing for both teams, and on Sir Alex:

Sir Alex ensures his teams stay together. The key to his longevity is the fact he's never stood still. A lot of old-time managers have fallen by the wayside because they were too set in their ways but Alex has had a number of fantastic teams and I had the pleasure of playing in the 1993-94 Double-winning side. But I would have relished playing alongside Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo in this team.

To finish on an off-topic note, I give you Rafa Benitez on Neil Warnock, from The Observer :

Rafa Benítez is considering legal action against Neil Warnock after the former Sheffield United manager questioned the Spaniard's integrity in a newspaper column. Warnock, now at Crystal Palace, is still angry that a weakened Liverpool team were beaten a year ago at Fulham, a result that enabled them to stay up at the expense of the Blades.

Liverpool won 2-0 at Craven Cottage yesterday, fielding a team with eight changes from last Sunday's victory against Blackburn but no reserves. After what had been an upbeat press conference, Benítez bristled at a question about Warnock's comments and said: 'Somebody told me [about them]. We knew he was bad as a manager and prehistoric, but we didn't know he was a person like this. I will speak to my lawyer. We don't need to waste time with him.'

And what had Warnock said?

'Integrity, doing what is right for the game, comes way down Rafa's list of priorities... That is good news for Fulham, just as it was last year when he fielded the reserves and Fulham won and stayed up... Maybe Rafa gets a yearly hamper from Harrods for his team selections.'

Not sure he'll find a lawyer who'll see anything wrong there...