Siege of the Twilight Loon

Certain papers make a huge deal out of Ronaldo being injured and going off the pitch during the game yesterday.  The usual agenda.  Read the headline of this from The Telegraph (which is fast replacing The Mail as stupidest paper: "Christiano Ronaldo's bizarre Old Trafford substitution leaves Alex Ferguson bemused".  How do The Telegraph know he was bemused?  Let us see:

Sir Alex Ferguson watched bemused from the directors' box - the Scot is
serving a two-match touchline ban - and was quickly on the phone as Ronaldo
headed off the pitch.

"He got real kick on the hip-joint, just like Wayne Rooney did last year
when he was in pain for a while and missed a couple of games," said
Ferguson.

"There was no need for him to come to the bench, though. The best thing
is to get treatment straightaway. It was the sensible thing to do.

"We will see what he is like, although I was going to make changes for
the Champions League game against Aalborg on Wednesday anyway."

I didn't see this "bemused" look, whether I blinked or whether The Telegraph are capable of reading more into Sir Alex's looks than me I'm not sure.  Either way his comments after the game, surely a better guide to his thoughts don't speak of bemusement.

The Times version of events seems entirely wrong as well:

Ronaldo, who appeared one dropped lollipop away from a tantrum from the moment
the game kicked off, took a blow to the ribs when attempting to convert a
chance created by Dimitar Berbatov early in the second half. A quarter of an
hour later, after much wincing and limping, Ronaldo just walked off the
field.

Starts with the usual cliches about him before, and I had had a bit to drink by this stage of the game but still, blatantly exageratting the amount of time between the injury and going off the pitch, presumably intending to give an image of Ronaldo "wincing and limping" for a ridiculous amount of time, rather than the minutes I'm fairly sure it was (The Independent claim 5 minutes between Ronaldo's injury and him going
off, and I think that's probably a rounded up estimate...).

To the actual game.  I think it is fair to say that it wasn't the greatest performance ever, first half we played some nice football, second half we maybe got lost a bit.  But 22 shots to 0 tells its own story as far as I'm concerned.  And, if you read between the lines of the reports, it even comes out in the papers despite their hatred of us.

The Observer report exemplifies this, first off praising Sunderland:

Moral victories will not keep Sunderland in the Premier League, though a few more performances of this quality should see them shooting up the table.

The
fact the game had entered the 91st minute when Nemanja Vidic secured
the points says it all, apart from adding that Old Trafford was
mightily relieved and that Sunderland still managed to come back and
scare Manchester United in stoppage time.

It
would appear Sunderland could teach their former manager a few lessons
in stickability and refusing to give up the ghost just because the odds
seem stacked against you. Judged on this gritty display there does not
seem a lot wrong with the Wearside fighting spirit.

Yes Sunderland defended well, but performances like this one won't see them "shooting up the table" for the simple reason that they couldn't muster up a single shot, and last time I checked it helped in scoring goals.
The Independent go for the having cake and eating it approach - they praise Sunderland, while at the same time berate them:

This is why you would not want to be a football manager. Not just Roy
Keane, anybody. After holding out for 90 minutes and four seconds,
after frustrating Manchester United at every turn with a performance of
massed defiance and no little spirit, Sunderland finally cracked last
night. They did not deserve to win and, given United had 23 chances and
71 per cent of possession, you could argue that Sunderland did not even
deserve a point; but that they held out for so long meant that when the
crack came it felt sharp and cruel.

Sunderland deserved what they got but it was still so cruel.  Great analysis.  Especially as the bizarre report also concludes, with regards to Sunderland, "at times the lack of forward progress was an embarrassment to the League".  So what was so cruel? And then they turn round again and say that Roy Keane would probably be feeling "some pride".  Pride at being an embarrassment to the league?   Odd.