Trying not to think about time

Everything is going pretty well in the world of Man Utd. We beat our rivals convincingly. Liverpool slip up at Stoke. We can go top of the league by winning beating Wigan and Bolton. SO now seems like a great time to ... have a go at us...? Come on down Martin Samuel with an article on, bizarrely( although it is less bizarre if you remember the bias towards us and the fact that there's nothing else to criticise us on), given how long it is before the competition restarts, why we're probably not going to win the Champions League... I won't quote from it, I couldn't even be bothered to read through most of it. I wonder if he'll regurgitate it in time for the Champions League to actually kick off again...
Elsewhere, it is interesting to read the ever-magnanimous (HA) Keith Hackett on our disallowed corner/goal:

"It was a mistake," Hackett told the Guardian. "In his defence, the assistant referee appears to have been caught by surprise, just like Chelsea, who didn't defend it. It's a tough, instant decision to make, but the way to judge it is this. First, was the ball correctly placed in the quadrant? In this case, yes. Was it kicked? In this case, rolled with the base of the foot, which I'd give as a kick. And third, had the referee signalled for the kick to be taken? Corner-kicks are taken without a huge wave from the referee, so that's fine too. It's also important to note than the ball doesn't have to leave the quadrant to be live.

"So it was a good goal – it should have been allowed. I've spoken to Howard Webb, and the incident will be discussed in detail with our Select Group referees and assistants. It'll be a lively debate."

Ummm, I'm sure he'd have said the same thing had it cost us the goal. No, really, I do...

Also in The Guardian is this article praising Giggs. Like I said on Monday I thought he had an amazing game on Sunday, and it made me reconsider all the time I've spent criticising his performances recently, but, in the midst of its praise, the article also mentions what I have always maintained - that Giggs gets an easy ride from the media because he's the Man Utd player it's okay to like:

Unless you are a fan of the club it has been easy during their period of Premier League dominance to find grounds to object to almost all of their players — for reasons of behaviour or attitude or just simply good old spite — but Giggs is the exception, the one United player it has always been difficult to dislike

To finish, here's a summary, from The Telegraph, of Sir Alex's comments from the press conference yesterday.