Diva Operation Sex Nox

I'm beginning to think that The Independent has some sort of vendetta against us (something more than the usual bias that is)... This from James Lawton's match report:

Sunderland's defensive organisation was a tribute to the man attempting to rescue something from the wreckage of Keane's defection, assistant manager Ricky Sbragia, but as an example of a performance pitched at anything more than the most desperate survival it was pitiful.

So, too, was the way Cristiano Ronaldo represented himself as the newly crowned European Footballer of the Year.

This was whelping self-indulgence that outstripped even the exacting standards he has set for himself.

At least we've escaped from the myth of the plucky defeat, even if it's only to slag off Ronaldo (for a change, cutting edge football writing here...). He even goes back to the myth of him being on the pitch for 15 minutes, maybe he read The Times yesterday, rather than read his own paper - or actually pay attention during the game I guess...

The body language of his eventual departure, after 15 minutes of discomfort following a blow in the ribs from Andy Reid, could only be described as unprecedented as a statement of disregard for the immediate needs of his team.

He goes on in this vain for so long that it certainly feels something like 15 minutes of my life wasted - so really, don't bother with it.,
Flounce is a very popular word at The Independent, Sam Wallace uses it as well and again I wouldn't bother reading it, I think James Lawton and Sam must have wrote their pieces together over breakfast and a copy of The Sunday Times.
The Mail surprisingly don't have a bad report, looking at the fixture problems the World Club Championship is giving us:

With United flying to Japan for FIFA's self-indulgent World Club
Championship on Sunday, manager Ferguson knows he could celebrate
Christmas with his players anointed as the best on the planet.
But, more importantly, if United do not win at Tottenham, United could
also return from the Far East with an enormous job on their hands when
it comes to the far more important task of retaining their Premier
League title.

Daniel Taylor's match report in The Guardian is the best by far though, starting with a nice Roy Keane anecdote:

Everyone has a favourite Roy Keane story and they don't come much better than the time Phil Taylor came across him on a tour of Manchester United's
training ground. This was 2003, the one year out of 11 when the PDC
world championship trophy was not on Taylor's mantelpiece and he was
introduced to the players as world darts champion. Keane was injured,
in one of his coalmine-black moods, pounding away on an exercise bike.
He lifted his eyes for only a second. "Ex-champion," he replied, then
started pedalling again.

Nicely fitting this story into the context of the match:

So what would Keane, as a man whose managerial status now also
includes the prefix "ex-", have made of a match in which his old side
managed zero efforts at goal compared with 23 for the opposition? The
answer will probably never be known as Keane embarks on one of his
Trappist-like periods of silence, but it is fair to say he would not
have fallen into the trap of thinking Sunderland
played with distinction. Competitive courage, yes. But distinction? Not
in a game in which, attacking-wise, they contributed absolutely nothing.

In
football, the injury-time winner is about as brutal as it gets. It
leaves nothing but a sense of helplessness and, having already lost
their manager, it would take a stone-cold heart not to understand
Sunderland's suffering. But it is a strange set of circumstances when a
team can be so utterly dominated yet somehow feel so pleased with
themselves.

Finally someone just comes out and says it, Sunderland really deserved nothing. I take a bit of an issue with this bit though:

Perhaps the real issue is the imbalance of talent in England's top
division. Sunderland, after all, were just doing what they thought was
right to keep the game scoreless. It was an exercise in damage
limitation. Or to put it another way, they were trying to avoid a good
old-fashioned hiding.

This season is the closest the Premiership has been for seasons, both at the top and bottom, even West Brom showed more ambition than Sunderland, they got well beat, yes, but they came out with distinction and if you look at some of the good away results some of the lower teams have been getting, having a go is definately the way forward - indeed it could be argued that this is why the league is close this season, teams aren't being satisfied with points or being beaten before a ball has been kicked.

And Ronaldo? What does this report say of Ronaldo:

Wayne Rooney's fifth booking of the season means he will miss the trip
to White Hart Lane, while Patrice Evra is banned for the next five
domestic matches and Cristiano Ronaldo injured his hip on Saturday. But
it could have been much worse for the champions. Instead, they were
left to wonder whether, come next May, they will think of what happened
in the 91st minute as one of the season's decisive moments.

Perspective? In a Man Utd match report? Amazing!

One final story from The Mail (could have been The Mail on Sunday, just noticed it this morning) - Ronaldo marriage wrecker - how much more evil can one man be...

Yesterday Mr Haynes branded Ronaldo a ‘slimy toe-rag’ ...

The cleaning firm boss said: ‘I am a husband who has been deceived and cheated. I am filing for divorce.’

However friends of Alyona say the couple had already split up and were living apart when she met Ronaldo.

Her
friend said: 'It's not a full-blown love affair yet but it certainly
seems to be moving in that direction and they plan to meet up again.

'She's furious with John for accusing Ronaldo of breaking up their marriage because it was already on the rocks when they met.'

Mr Haynes said: ‘When I found a telephone at home I saw it wasn’t one of my contract phones that she normally uses.

‘Then I saw it was bleeping and I picked it up and went through the messages.

‘There
were a total of 300 messages from each of them over a two-week period.
I saw 49 messages coming in from him with his number saved as Ronaldo.

‘The text messages looked like they had been written by a seven-year-old it was dreadful English and they mentioned Portugal.