Sour Times

We're through to the final, which is the important thing. First half we were excellent, second half injuries made us disjointed but we still showed some great attacking play. The injuries to our defence are beginning to look a bit troublesome and we can only be thankful that the FA cup tie against a, presumably, weakened Spurs team intervenes to give everyone a chance to recuperate.
The reports today are all a bit bland; Oliver Kay in The Times doesn't see fit to mention his slagging off of Nani yesterday instead just basically says, "well of course they were going to win, what's it matter how?" And he even finishes his report claiming that Giles Barnes deserves the "final word". That's nothing against Barnes, great free kick, but surely a report on a semi-final should end up congratulating, or at least praising, those who reached the final?
That's nothing like the churlishness in the match report by serial offenders The Independent, who describe Nani's goal thus:

Nani's goal certainly looked spectacular, he cut in from the left, ignoring O'Shea's overlap and unleashed his shot from around 30 yards. The former United goalkeeper Roy Carroll got a hand to the ball and really might have done better in the circumstances. From then, United smelled blood and Derby duly crumbled.

What's wrong here? "It looked spectacular"? It didn't look it, it was spectacular. The implication being that it looked better than it was, and then we have the classic sour grapes expression, "and the keeper should have saved it anyway". And the churlishness continues with the final words:

There was no debating that United were worth their place at Wembley, it remains to be seen whether it was worth all the aggravation.

Disparaging the cup we've just reached the final of and a rather nonsensical suggestion that we could have chosen the way the injuries fell. What?! It remains to be seen? How do we judge that? If we lose the final it won't have been worth it? If we lose a league between now and forever The Independent's writer is proved correct? Whatever...
The Sun has a concise guide to injuries and Sir Alex's comments regarding them:

“We had six or seven injured. The serious one is Anderson but Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville and Nani all picked up knocks.

“Jonny Evans has got a recurrence of the ankle injury that has bothered him for a few weeks but hopefully he’ll be OK in a week’s time.

“Rafael has a hamstring injury and will be out for a few weeks.

In other news The Mail reports on comments by Ronaldo that he's happy at United:

'The only thing that is true is that I am happy at Manchester United.

'This is my home. Because I am winning things, because of friends, because of fans, I have always felt very loved.

'I feel at home here, it is a very lovely stage in my career, as much because of the coach, who has always supported me, as because of the players.

This morning comes confirmation that AIG aren't renewing their sponsorship when it runs out in 2010.
As an update to my post on the papers' reaction to the Middlesboro players' reaction to the sending off in their game against West Brom at the weekend, I was interested to read this from the BBC:

Middlesbrough have been charged by the Football Association with failing to control their players during their 3-0 defeat by West Brom on Saturday.

While I haven't scoured every inch of every paper I couldn't see any that actually reported on this. Double standards? YES.