Older Gods

Basically nothing about today, just some quotes from Sir Alex and a response from Ramon Calderon on a comment made by Sir Alex the other day.  Both stories are contained here in The Guardian.  Nothing to say about it, and nothing worth quoting.

This is Why I'm Hot

A good win yesterday which, unfortunately, I only saw highlights of on MOTD so I'm not altogether able to fully analyse the differences between the reality and the reports.
I'll start with this one from The Mail which, surprisingly for The Mail, expresses reality in at least one place:

Even though arch rivals Liverpool have started this campaign brightly, does Rafael Benitez really have a squad deep enough to outrun Ferguson's? Does Arsene Wenger at Arsenal?

In truth, they probably do not. United, for example, have three good right backs. Liverpool do not really have one.

So it will still be a surprise if United do not again battle head to head with Chelsea for supremacy when the season enters its business end in the spring.

It's nice to have a dose of reality after days of harping on Liverpool's title credentials (and seeing as I missed blogging it at the time I'll take this opportunity to point out that but for one sloppy bit of defending we'd have broken Chelsea's home record (and but for 2 bits of sloppy defending Liverpool wouldn't have beaten us either)).
The Guardian has a little analysis of Ronaldo's goal celebration:

Nani played the ball across the penalty area and Ronaldo was on to it in a flash, lashing a left-foot shot into the corner of Green's net. How would he celebrate? Old Trafford's amateur psychologists waited to analyse his body language and, after a dramatic pause of which Robert de Niro would have been proud, there was an explosion of unrestrained joy. Point made.

I thought it was more a point made to the media who it seems have been doing most of the analysing (Alan Hansen on MOTD on Saturday showing random clips of him celebrating and not celebrating to demonstrate his banal point).
The Guardian has the best description of Berbatov's skill for Ronaldo's second:

The Bulgarian had done well even to keep Anderson's through-ball in play, reaching it only a few inches before it went out for a goal kick, but it was what came next which took the breath away. In one sublime movement Berbatov spun, pirouetted and danced away from Collins. The defender was still coming to his senses as Berbatov advanced towards goal and slid a beautifully weighted pass across the six-yard area. Ronaldo, alert as always, got there first, leaving Ferguson to eulogise about his £30.5m new signing.

One interesting feature of the reports is that they nearly all say something along the lines of this, from The Independent:

Ronaldo will take the headlines for two well-taken goals that increased his tally to five for the season, yet it was Berbatov who tormented the visiting defence most with the talents

It's obviously an easy way for journalists to point out how great they are at recognising that someone who doesn't score can also have had a great game.  Very clever...
While I'm on this report I might as well add the post match comments from Sir Alex:

Ferguson said: "The first half was magnificent and I was looking for more of the same in the second half. Goals can be important come the end of the season but we took our foot of the pedal. They ended up too lax for me.

"Ronaldo took his goals very well, but Berbatov's play was magnificent. He showed fantastic imagination, control and balance and you'd pay double the money to watch that."

Following this theme, The Times makes the same point:

Aside from a five-minute spell at the start of the game, United’s domination was total and any fears that Ferguson had taken a risk by omitting Edwin van der Sar and leaving Ryan Giggs and Wayne Rooney on the substitutes’ bench were quickly dispelled. Patrice Evra and Nani formed a lethal combination down the left; the increasingly impressive Rafael Da Silva and Ronaldo did much the same on the right. The only disappointment for United was that the expected landslide failed to materialise.

And some sour grapes in The Telegraph:

Despite the club wallowing in self-congratulation before kick-off: with Ronaldo accepting yet another award for what must be a mantelpiece sagging under the weight of silverware, and entering to the kind of fanfare usually reserved for boxers at Caesars Palace, Manchester United’s beginning was sluggish and sloppy.

Finally, there's this, from The Guardian, which has Sir Alex's comments on Tevez:

"I sat down with him only last week to stress that our faith in him
is absolute, that he remains a top player in the eyes of myself, the
players and our supporters," said Ferguson.

"It's just that three
players won't fit into two positions and my job is to balance the team.
It could be done against certain opposition, but it isn't the real
solution and we are doing so well I don't want to meddle too much.
Carlos understands this and I have explained that when the season
really hots up we will need everyone."

He added: "Our attackers
have been drawing all the attention, with Rooney having the time of his
life and striking up a fine partnership with Berbatov. But my thoughts
have probably centred on the forward who has been the odd man out. I am
thinking of Carlos and the fact that I have not started him in as many
games as he would like. But Carlos remains as important as the guys who
have been hogging the headlines."

The Palpatations Form A Limit

Ignoring the England stories I have only this to post, an interview with Gary Pallister from The Guardian:

Tell us, what was Eric Cantona like as a colleague? Just one of the lads?
Yes, he really was. Obviously he came with this reputation as the enfant terrible
but we never saw that. Whenever Bryan Robson called his Tuesday
meetings – which meant all day at the pub – Eric would come along and I
think it's fair to say it was an event he approved of! The only
difference between Eric and the rest of the lads was that it got to a
point where he had to have a security man with him, but that was just a
reality he had to accept and it didn't affect the way he was. Basically
I think he found happiness at United because he realised that the
players we had would help him get the best out of himself and achieve
what he wanted to achieve.

Sexual Sportswear

For want of anything else to post recently, here's a story from The Daily Mail:

The CR7 store aspires to sell clothes for 'fans who want to dress like Ronaldo'.

Sorry Charlie

A good win yesterday, but, surprise, surprise, the papers (with the odd exception) prefer to concentrate on our first goal, comparing it to last week's penalty in some cases.
Take this from The Mail on Sunday:

Yet, honest endeavour will only get you so far. A combination of the
world's greatest players and weak refereeing is unbeatable and though
the prelude for the opening goal was delightful, as Berbatov and Rooney
combined to force a sharp save from Brown, the finale was ugly.

From
a short corner, Rooney sent a swirling cross to the far post. Vidic
jumped forcefully at Blackburn's keeper Brown in a manner more
befitting a 1950s centre-forward and knocked him off his stride. In the
same moment, Wes Brown stole in behind to send his looping header in at
the far post.

I watched the game and this is just not what happened at all, I don't even think Vidic left the ground, he certainly didn't jump at the Keeper.  From my view, it seemed as though the Keeper, with his eye on the ball, ran into Vidic, who, also with eyes on the ball, was going backwards.  It wasn't a deliberate jump into the keeper by any stretch of the imagination.  And I admit that it's the type of the decision that the keeper often gets, but it's also the type of decision that the commentators generally say "the keeper was lucky to get away with that one".  To me the usual mode of referees automatically giving that type of decision to the keeper is weakness, the easy option.  Bennett, who certainly didn't referee the game in our favour (how many times did he turn a blind eye to fouls on Ronaldo?), at least had the balls to let it go.

The Telegraph go for this view as well:

Blackburn protested that Vidic had fouled Jason Brown but, for once in the
modern game, the goalkeeper had not been given the benefit of the doubt.
Ince accompanied Steve Bennett off at half-time, but his breath and his
protests were utterly wasted.

Although starting their report with comparisions to last week's Bolton game, perhaps undermines this realism:

Then, United benefited from a fortunate penalty; here at an Ewood
Park soaked in wintry rain, their first goal might have been ruled out for a
foul on the Blackburn goalkeeper, Jason Brown.

The Sunday Times description gives the wrong impression as well:

Blackburn’s goalkeeper tried to claim it
but Nemanja Vidic, turning his back in attempting a header, caught the
goalkeeper on the jaw with his arm. The foul seemed unintentional but a foul
just the same but there was no whistle from Bennett and Wes Brown nodded
home from two yards.

Again the active party is Vidic, the passive, Brown.

The Independent's report nicely makes light of the challenge, simply registering that Brown felt aggrieved.

The best reporting of the incident comes from The Guardian:

That ought to have done wonders for the reserve goalkeeper's
confidence, but he rather spoiled the effect by allowing United a soft
goal from the resulting corner. Even if there was a strong suggestion
he was shouldered out of the way by Nemanja Vidic as Wes Brown nodded
in Rooney's cross at the far post, the Blackburn Brown should still
have made a more determined attempt to reach the ball first and was
entitled to a lot more protection from his central defenders

Goalkeepers are renowned for blaming everyone but themselves for goals so is it any wonder he covers himself by protesting?

Onto the rest of the game and the papers generally single out Berbatov for praise with Rooney also getting some good press for once.  The Telegraph oddly have Wes Brown as Man of the Match on their stats thing, while The Star heap praise on Ronaldo, who did look like he was coming back to full fitness:

Manchester United’s Portuguese superstar proved to be a real pest for
Blackburn boss Paul Ince too as he made all the difference on a
rain-sodden day at Ewood Park.

His
teamwork couldn’t be faulted. His build-up play awesome. His
effectiveness unquestioned.

The only
criticism would have been his lack of clinical finishing which, by his
high standards of last season, was well below his best.

Here's The Times on Berbatov:

Manchester United deserved victory and the be-gloved guile of Dimitar
Berbatov was sublime.

The memory of slow starts are fast-fading. Berbatov began quietly for United
but now looks a fully functioning part of the shredding machine which, on
good days like these, is their attack.

And The Independent praising Rooney and Berbatov:

there was no arguing with the second one, scored by Wayne Rooney, which
provided a bonus for the England manager Fabio Capello. He had rushed
from watching Emile Heskey at Wigan to Ewood Park, to see Rooney
unexpectedly start and give an outstanding performance. Having broken
his scoring duck in midweek, Dimitar Berbatov was equally good,
providing all the craft as a leader of the line that Ferguson had hoped
for when acting as taxi-driver to facilitate the Bulgarian's £30m move
from Tottenham on the last day of the summer transfer window.

One other story is in The News of the World, Sir Alex bans the Christmas party:

The United boss has ruled out a repeat of last year’s private gig when they
bussed in groups of women to a luxury hotel in Manchester city centre.

And there's this from Paul Wilson in The Observer, which criticises Sir Alex's criticism of the media, but I shall just quote from the bit on Arsene Wnger, because it's funnier:

But at least Ferguson did not say he felt physically sick, which as
unsporting reactions to unexpected home defeats go is almost as bad as
confusing Hull City with West Brom. Sour grapes in the immediate
aftermath of Hull's stirring performance at the Emirates could just
about be excused, though when Wenger was still moaning two days later
it just sounded plain sour. Especially when he expressly stated, the
day before Porto were rolled over 4-0 in a one-sided match much more to
Wenger's liking, that Champions League opponents know they have a
responsibility to play, whereas Hull's first responsibility was not to
lose.

The famous Wenger habit of missing crucial incidents
appears suddenly to have been extended to whole games. In the match
most people saw last week, Hull adventurously turned up with three up
front and then bravely bounced back from an own goal, playing with such
panache throughout that the home crowd applauded them off at the end.
Wenger seems unable to work out how this could have happened. If
Arsenal lost they must have been kicked off the park or stifled by a
10-man defence. It was as if Hull simply had no right to win. Wenger's
reputation as a fair-minded devotee of attacking football has just
taken a knock, as will his reputation as a manager if he cannot sort
out his defence.

Holy Tears

No news today - there was the odd story about Rooney's fitness for England duty but nothing worth writing.  Luckily I tuned into 5 Live last night for some segment in which they discussed the "crisis" in refereeing with Graham Poll. 
The whole thing degenerated into an opportunity to slag of Christiano Ronaldo for diving, which was a rather odd turn of events given the build-up to the segment which featured 3 incidents:  the Watford-Reading "ghost goal", the Rob Styles awful penalty decision for us and the Wigan-Man City penalty in which the Wigan player (I forget who) did the world's most outrageous dive.  So in the discussion there were at least two (again I forget) people who phoned in to say that they wanted to defend Rob Styles.  And how did they do this?  By saying that it was hard for him because of Ronaldo's diving.  I'm sorry?  Diving?  In that incident there was absolutely no inkling of a dive.  The ball was won, Ronaldo's run took him over the outstretched leg, he went over and didn't even look for a penalty.  I mean, in a situation in which the defender wins the ball from the front what would be the point of diving?  He's won the ball, it's not a foul anyway, dive or no dive.  Are these people insane?  The main point here being that neither Poll or the presenter (I forget...) said, "But Ronaldo didn't dive, if you want to talk about diving talk about the Wigan player".  But no.  They just carried on as if if it was fact that Ronaldo dived in that incident.  Insanity Abounds. (I don't even need to point out that even Gary Megson said that Ronaldo didn't dive, it might have been nice if the BBC had though... they even played a bit of the interview with Megson, but not that bit:  No agenda there then...

Welcome to the Jungle

Wasn't around to comment on the weekend's action, which was a shame, because there was a hell of a lot of bias going down. I won't rehash everything with links and detailed comment but the general tone of the coverage seemed to be rife with innuendo of the "well, Ronaldo may not have dived, but it was still Ronaldo, wasn't it? Eh? Eh?"  kind.  Frankly, after some of the decisions we've already had this season, it's about time we got something.

On to yesterday's action and there's nothing to get my teeth into at all today.  The game was so easy that no one can be bothered to slag us off.

Best report comes from Daniel Taylor in The Guardian:

United should have had six, maybe even more. Ronaldo, in particular,
will wonder how his own performance did not include a goal. He and Nani
shimmered with menace on the wings, Rooney was alert and impressive and
Ryan Giggs, Scholes's replacement, delivered a masterclass in the
centre of midfield.

The piece also contains the odd post-match comment from Sir Alex, but the most comprehensive source for comments comes in The Telegraph:

“Paul has ligament damage, but we don’t know how serious it is at
this stage,’’ Ferguson said. ‘‘It isn’t clear, but we think he has suffered
medial damage and we hope that’s all. He’ll be out for six to eight weeks,
though, so it’s a big price to pay.