Pleasure Principal

Here's the promised piece on Lacan and football.

Why do people hate Manchester United so? Psychoanalysis can tell us something about this, in particular the notion of enjoyment. Enjoyment is different to pleasure: Zizek glosses this Lacanian idea,

enjoyment is not to be equated with pleasure: enjoyment designates the paradoxical satisfaction procured by a painful encounter with a Thing that perturbs the equilibrium of the "pleasure principle." In other words, enjoyment is located "beyond the pleasure principle." (Slavoj Zizek, Tarrying With the Negative

And isn't this appropriate with regards to football (or any sport)? Quite often, watching football is not pleasurable, and yet there is certainly enjoyment there. The "pleasure principle" is about reaching a point of stasis, of quiet happiness, unruffled by either excessive pain or excessive pleasure, and football is quite the opposite, enduring moments of pain for moments of pure ecstasy.
Zizek, who, in his work, offers a political interpretation of Lacan, looks at the question of national identity via this notion, and I think it is applicable to football as well (and not just at national level). Zizek argues that the Nation is sustained by enjoyment:

The element which holds together a given community cannot be reduced to the point of symbolic identification: the bond linking together its members always implies a shared relationship toward a Thing, toward enjoyment incarnated. This relationship toward the Thing, structured by means of fantasies, is what is at stake when we speak of the menace to our "way of life" presented by the Other: it is what is threatened when, for example, a white Englishman is panicked because of the growing presence of "aliens." What he wants to defend at any price is not reducible to the so-called set of values that offer support to national identity. ... If we are asked how we can recognize the presence of this Thing, the only consistent answer is that the Thing is present in that elusive entity called "our way of life." All we can do is enumerate disconnected fragments of the way our community organizes its feasts, its rituals of mating, its initiation ceremonies, in short, all the details by which is made visible the unique way a community organizes its enjoyment. (Tarrying with the Negative)

And doesn't the same go for supporting a football team? That it is impossible to account for club loyalties in any reasonable way without referring back endlessly to "disconnected fragments?" This argument is even more meaningful when one considers the argument about supporting "your local team": football as grounded in place, as nation is grounded. "It's just around the corner" would be no answer to the why of enjoyment. Zizek continues:

It would however be erroneous simply to reduce the national Thing to the features composing a specific "way of life." The Thing is not directly a collection of these features; there is "something more" in it, something that is present in these features, that appears through them. Members of a community who partake in a given "way of life" believe in their Thing, where this belief has a reflexive structure proper to the intersubjective space: "I believe in the (national) Thing" equals "I believe that others (members of my community) believe in the Thing" ... The national Thing exists as long as members of the community believe in it; it is literally an effect of this belief in itself.(Tarrying with the Negative)

"It is just around the corner," becomes "around the corner there are people who believe in the rituals, and thus I enjoy" - "A nation exists only as long as its specific enjoyment continues to be materialized in a set of social practices and transmitted through national myths that structure these practices" (Zizek, Tarrying with the Negative).
We can now look at what Zizek says about ethnic tensions (which gets us closer to the point of all this...):

What is therefore at stake in ethnic tensions is always the possession of the national Thing. We always impute to the "other" an excessive enjoyment: he wants to steal our enjoyment (by ruining our way of life) and/or he has access to some secret, perverse enjoyment. ... To the racist, the "other" is either a workaholic stealing our jobs or an idler living on our labor. The basic paradox is that our Thing is conceived as something inaccessible to the other and at the same time threatened by him. (Tarrying with the Negative)

One good example of this is in the way foreign ownership of football clubs is generally presented in one of two ways: either "they are coming in and they know nothing of our club, our traditions), or "they are coming in with all their money and they will buy all our players and buy titles", which are two sides of the same coin - one from the home support, the other from opposition supporters; both are variations on "they are stealing our enjoyment". The second of these can be seen most clearly in the recent takeover of Manchester City, where stories of their wealth led to Michel Platini saying:

"During this year's festive season, one club which had suddenly become very rich made various astronomical bids in the transfer market," said Platini. "Of course, there was a tremendous outcry in the football family, people called it outrageous and scandalous.

"Is it morally acceptable to offer such sums of money for a single player? We are currently looking at the idea of limiting, to a certain degree, a club's expenditure on staff – salary and transfer fees combined – to an as yet undecided percentage of its direct and indirect sporting revenue."

Considering how many of Man City's bids were successful this statement is certainly more excessive than necessary, showing that enjoyment is what is at stake. The same could be said of the criticisms of English teams dominating the Champions League at the moment. Platini's proposals can be seen in the context of English football as that which ruins the European enjoyment, but which has, at the same time, an enjoyment which is inaccessible - the proposals being an attempt to render "our" enjoyment accessible to "them". That it bears little relation to "reality" shows it is linked to enjoyment and fantasy - take Real Madrid's constant attentions and huge sums of money offered to buy Ronaldo, is this not just as "scandalous" to Platini? No, because it does not threaten his enjoyment.
Other examples abound. Take the still common practice (especially on ITV) of commentators using the stereotype of "diving foreigners", in a Champions league tie the team playing an English team are always "diving", always "time-wasting", whereas the English team's players are simply "making the most of it", or "being professional", this despite the fact that most players for English teams in the Champions League tend to be foreign. But "our" foreign players have become part of the community, they no are no longer a threat, it is the opposition players who are threatening to steal our enjoyment.
To concentrate now on Manchester United and the same threat to enjoyment can be seen in many of the attitudes towards us. Consider how seriously everyone took Rafa Benitez's assertion that Liverpool were at a disadvantage to Manchester United because of the difference in money available. The fact that Liverpool also have vast amounts of money was never really considered, nor Chelsea's or Arsenal's. It was just taken for granted that he was right. There was some quibbling over the actual figures but nevertheless the one "fact" that remained for everyone was that Man Utd are some monolith of money and power, putting everyone else at a disadvantage. Reality never came into it. In relation to other clubs we are in the position of the "other" who steals enjoyment and at the same time has access to some secret enjoyment, inaccessible to the other clubs.
On the subject of this inaccessible enjoyment a comparison with Arsenal is interesting. Arsenal get many plaudits for their "beautiful" football while Man Utd get only grudging praise, always qualified with "but" ... Why this difference? It seems to me that the difference is that it is OK to play great football as long as you don't win anything. Just look at the rather patronising praise for West Brom this season, "they may well go down, but at least they've tried to play football". And isn't it the same with Arsenal? Admittedly Arsenal occasionally win things but the essential point remains - the difference between Man Utd and Arsenal is success. Our inaccessible enjoyment is therefore the marriage of good football with success. Of course on another level Arsenal are praised to the hilt simply because they are not us, in the same way that Chelsea, no matter how awful their football might have been under Mourinho, were still praised because they were stopping us winning things.
Again, reality doesn't come into any of this, the fact is, this season apart, we don't win everything all the time, it is a fantasy construction - our place in the structure is that of the team that prevents other teams' enjoyment. This can of course be spread to the entire top 4 (and, considering Platini's comments, English football), "If it wasn't for them, we'd be winning trophies!"
The difference between our football and Arsenal's football lies precisely in the success it breeds. I'd like to suggest that Arsenal's "beautiful" football, their wage policy and their adherence to playing youngsters is a defence against failure. Which is to say that rather than compete, their adherence to principles becomes an excuse for not winning anything - "you can't win anything with kids", "I'd rather play beautiful football than win by playing long balls". Whereas our "beautiful" football is a means to success, we fully assume the risk, thus when we lose there is excessive enjoyment on the part of the other at our failure, when Arsenal fail (and the same can be said of West Brom, "we may go down, but at least we stuck to our principles.") they get sympathy for sticking to their beliefs. As an aside, it is interesting to look at Arsene Wenger in the context of the figure of the miser. Doesn't his adherence to youth simply disguise the fact that he hates spending money? And don't the stories of the money that Arsenal could spend every summer but never do, place him even more in this place - he hoards his money, never to spend it. In this context Lee Edelman's discussion of Silas Marner in No Future is also interesting - its placing of the figure of the miser as against futurism can lead to an interpretation of Wenger as a man who, for all his talk of the future ("these young players are the future of Arsenal") is presiding over an Arsenal who are treading water.
The other thing to note is the criticism of the supporters of Man Utd, the distance from the club, the overseas support. The fact that other clubs have a similar diaspora of supporters and actively seek to increase the numbers of overseas supporters matters nothing. The scenario that is constructed is of a Man Utd which is soulless against the other clubs which are in some way considered "authentic". And this is the other side of the coin - if our enjoyment is inaccessible to them, they consider their enjoyment as inaccessible to us, and that we are trying to ruin it by globalising the game, turning the "authenticity" of the English game into one big money making factory. That they are all trying to do the same, only less successfully, doesn't matter, because, as we pointed out earlier, the Thing is not made up of actual content, it is only a result of other's belief, so reality doesn't need to come into it - the fantasy is maintained despite the facts.
I already mentioned, in my post on Freud on and "Rafa's Rant", Sir Alex as the figure of the father. For convenience's sake I'll repeat what I said there (with the odd revision) before adding to it.
Sir Alex is in the position of the Father. There is in Freudian theory two father's; one, the father of the Oedipus complex, the father who is an obstacle to our enjoyment; and two, the Primal Father, described in Freud's Totem and Taboo, "a violent and jealous father who keeps all the females for himself and drives away his sons as they grow up". This is the all-powerful father, the only one allowed to enjoy. With regard to football one can see how Sir Alex occupies the position of the father, not only through his longevity, but in the respect he is afforded, the weight his words are given, and most importantly in the fact that he is perceived as he who must be beaten (killed) for the other managers to attain enjoyment (winning the league). He is the obstacle to enjoyment, and in the way he sentimentally offloads certain players (Keane, Beckham, Ince, for example) he can be seen driving "away his sons as they grow up", as they become a perceived threat.
What does all this have to do with RR you may ask? It is in the difference between the two fathers that we find our answer. Slavoj Zizek describes this in Looking Awry:

The Oedipus myth is based on the premise that it is the father, as the agent of prohibition, who denies us access to enjoyment (i.e., incest, the sexual relationship with the mother). The underlying implication is that parricide would remove this obstacle and thus allow us fully to enjoy the forbidden object. The myth of the primal father is almost the exact opposite of this: the result of the parricide is not the removal of an obstacle, enjoyment is not brought fully within our reach. Quite the contrary - the dead father turns out to be stronger than the living one. After the parricide, the former reigns as the Name-of-the-Father, the agent of the symbolic law that irrevocably precludes access to the forbidden fruit of enjoyment.

First off we should note that Sir Alex occupies this position, not because of any personal quality, but simply because he is manager of Manchester United. "I symbolize the subject by the barred S, in so far as it is constituted as secondary in relation to the signifier" (Jacques Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Pyscho-analysis). It would take us too far away to look closely at this concept, but the essential point in this context is that the subject is constituted by the symbolic network and not vice versa. We can see this most clearly by looking at the weight given to Sir Alex's words. When he speaks, his words are given greater meaning by virtue of his being Manchester United manager. His longevity as manager is secondary, for otherwise wouldn't, for instance, Alan Curbishley's words have been given similar weight when he was Charlton manager? Zizek sums this up well in The Sublime Object of Ideology:

The Lacanian definition of a fool is somebody who believes in his immediate identity with himself ... like a king who thinks he's a king, who takes his being-a-king as his immediate property and not as a symbolic mandate imposed on him by a network of intersubjective relations of which he is a part.

Secondly, this reinforces what we have been saying: that the position of Man Utd as bar to enjoyment allows other clubs to keep the illusion that a full enjoyment is possible - "If it wasn't for Man Utd we could win things!", in a similar way that the figure of the foreign "other" allows the racist to keep the idea that if one was to exclude the other the nation would be perfect. This comparison is also apt in that, as the figure of the foreign "other" hides the essential antagonisms inherent in the capitalist system, so, by having a club such as Manchester United to take aim at, the essential disparities throughout football are disguised. Which is to say that we have a football system which reflects the capitalist system of which it is a part, consequently all attempts to redress the balance in football fail because nothing can be changed unless we are willing to change society. On a very simple level we can see this in the way that proposals to make football more equitable generally fail because of laws guaranteeing the system of free trade in the wider society.
So it can be seen that an inaccessible enjoyment is imputed to us, that Sir Alex as the primal father enjoying everything is exemplary of this, and that all of it serves to distract from two things - the impossibility of full enjoyment and the inherent antagonisms of capitalist society. The only point still to make why should this be so fascinating to the other - at the same time as everyone complains that, "Man Utd are on the TV again", everyone still watches. Why? Let's refer to Zizek again:

What we gain by transposing the perception of inherent social antagonisms into the fascination with the other ... is the fantasy-organization of desire. The Lacanian thesis that enjoyment is ultimately always enjoyment of the Other, i.e., enjoyment supposed, imputed to the other, and that, conversely, the hatred of the Other's enjoyment is always hatred of one's own enjoyment, is perfectly exemplified by this logic of this "theft of enjoyment." ...Do we not find enjoyment precisely in fantasising about the Other's enjoyment, in this ambivalent attitude toward it? Do we not obtain satisfaction by means of the very supposition that the Other enjoys in a way inaccessible to us? Does not the Other's enjoyment exert such a powerful fascination because in it we represent to ourselves our own innermost relationship toward enjoyment? ... the fascinating image of the Other gives body to our own innermost split, to what is "in us more than ourselves" and thus prevents us from achieving full identity with ourselves. The hatred of the Other is the hatred of our own excess of enjoyment. (Tarrying With the Negative)

We go all the way, so they don't have to.

In the second part of this I shall look at this from the other side of the coin. Here we looked at how other people see us, there, I shall look at what all this means from the Man Utd side.

Italian Shoes Continuum

Man Utd reserves in action against Newcastle Reserves. Federico Macheda scores a hat trick in a 3-3 draw

Luxury Of Infancy

Still with England and Rooney is named as England Fans Player of the year, or something, quotes from The Guardian:

"It's an amazing feeling, playing for your country. So to be voted player of the year is a great feeling and I'd like to thank all the fans who voted for me. ...
"Obviously I want to win more trophies, earn more caps and score more goals. When I finish my career I can look back then on those kind of things, but while I'm still playing I don't want to be looking back. I want to only look ­forward to the achievements I can get in the future.

"After [Manchester United] won the Champions League last season we were thinking about the start of the next season straight away. The manager [Sir Alex Ferguson] said straight after the game: 'Make sure we're ready for next season'. It's something that you have to do. You can enjoy the night when you win trophies but after that you're looking forward to winning them again."

There's some Rooney quotes doing the rounds from Nuts magazine today on him not changing, quotes from The Daily Star:

“I do get frustrated at times, but aggression has always been part of my game. The desire to win makes me the player I am. Take that away and I’d be totally different. If I’m honest, I’ll never get used to losing!”

In The Times, Oliver Kay contrasts Rooney with Owen, past and future:

There are two sides to every coin and, while the furore over Michael Owen’s continued exclusion from the England squad seems unlikely to subside at a time when the attacking options have been severely reduced by injury, the flip side yesterday came from Wayne Rooney. The forward prepared for his 50th appearance for his country tomorrow by citing Fabio Capello as the principal factor in his blossoming on the international stage.

The Sun report that Rio Ferdinand should be fit for Wednesday's game (and hopefully therefore our game on Sunday).
The Mirror has some quotes from Ronaldo, originally from Zoo magazine:

"I like people whistling and booing!" he said. "It's normal for fans to do that. There's nothing I can do and it doesn't matter anyway.

"I have to concentrate on the game, so I don't think about that sort of thing. On the pitch I'm a target, but it is difficult to avoid these things. I don't believe that people want to hurt me on purpose.

"In my experience, the game just doesn't happen that way. Truthfully, I've never had any serious problems."

While Henry Winter, in The Telegraph, advises Ronaldo to either stay at Man Utd or to move to Barcelona instead of Real:

Ronaldo should ask himself some questions. Apart from for the money and the sunshine, why leave the Premier League, and particularly the most lauded team in the world? Why close the door on a dressing room that is free of politics and egos? Why forsake team-mates who will fight for you, not against you? Why turn your back on the guidance of a manager who has made you European Footballer of the Year?

United to Barcelona makes more sense: class acts such as Lionel Messi led by an outstanding young coach in Pep Guardiola. But joining Real? Legendary club, lousy time.

Sir Alex makes some comments about Barcelona being the threat in the Champions League:

"They have been terrific this season," he said. "Their first-half performance against Lyons in the second leg of the first knock-out round [which they won 5-2 at the Nou Camp] was absolutely brilliant – they were four up in no time. We have to recognise that our threats don't just come from England, the big one will come from Barcelona."

I think this is more of a dig at Liverpool than anything, especially as he goes on:

"I'm not sure they have improved a lot from when we played them last season but they have had a better defensive record since Guardiola took over as coach last year," the United manager told Inside United magazine.

"There has maybe been a bit more concentration on defending than there had been in previous times. That's not a criticism of Frank Rijkaard, I just think Guardiola has brought in the awareness that defending is just as important as attacking."

And we beat them last season...

Stay Golden

Highlights of Ronaldo's performance against Sweden

Our Change into Rain is No Change at All (Talkin' 'bout Us)

Wayne Rooney is England's saviour it turns out according to the papers today. I suppose this will last a week or so ... until he plays for Man Utd again and goes back to being the usual whipping boy ...
Anyway. Let's see what they're saying. Sam Wallace in The Independent:

At this rate Wayne Rooney should break every significant England record from caps to goals, and he should do it before he turns 30. He will play more games than Peter Shilton, he will score more goals than Bobby Charlton and when he is finished he might well have raised the standard so high that it is another 50 years before anyone is good enough to beat it.

Never more than since he starred at Euro 2004 has Rooney looked more ready to take the international game by the scruff of the neck and change England's dismal record. On Wednesday against Ukraine he will win his 50th cap. To put that in perspective, when David Beckham was Rooney's age – 23 years and five months – he had won 19 caps. Which suggests that by the time Rooney is the age Beckham is now, 34, he could be closing in on his 150th appearance for England.

Kevin Garside in The Telegraph:

On Wednesday he collects his 50th cap against Ukraine. In 49 England matches he has hit 21 goals; seven of those have come in the past four games.

His double against Slovakia demonstrated his footballing range, one a header that reprised Nat Lofthouse, the second a finish that remains within the gift of the exceptional alone.

Rooney's velvet feet trod every blade of grass. With five minutes to go he was chasing down the opposition midfield back towards the halfway line.

Were we to ask an opinion of Zinedine Zidane today about who the best player on the planet might be, I'd have a tenner on Rooney pipping Steven Gerrard.

Oliver Kay in The Times:

After all the debate over the past six years about how best to accommodate Rooney in the England team, Capello, whose historical preference is for dressing his teams in a tactical straitjacket, has ended up settling on the most liberal solution, leaving the forward free to roam where he wishes. It calls to mind Jock Stein’s response about whether Kenny Dalglish’s best position was in attack or in midfield. “Och,” Stein replied, “just let him on the park.”

Rooney will make his 50th appearance for England in the World Cup qualifier against Ukraine at Wembley Stadium on Wednesday and, if it is anything like the 49th – or the 48th, 47th or 46th, for the matter – Capello will be delighted. Even before you take his two goals on Saturday into account, Rooney was outstanding against Slovakia, so much so that the injuries suffered by all three of his strike partners over the course of the evening – Emile Heskey, Carlton Cole and Peter Crouch – at times felt like a mere detail.

Neil Ashton in The Mail:

Nothing, it seems, can stand in Wayne Rooney’s way.

He is suddenly unstoppable in an England shirt, the first player to score in four successive matches for the country since Gary Lineker began an impressive sequence with a hat-trick against Poland at the 1986 World Cup.

Rooney’s second goal against Slovakia was of the highest quality, combining movement and speed of thought to wrongfoot Senecky with his right boot and seamlessly finishing in his next stride with his left.

It's kind of annoying that the same people who slag him off week in week out for us, can praise him so much for England. Steven Howard puts the praise of Rooney into a Man Utd context, but it feels as if he's just setting him up so that after the next game he plays for us he can have a go at him for not doing what he suggested, and he gets to slag off lots of other Man Utd players:

When he came on at half-time against Fulham the other week, he galvanised a United team who had looked a parody of themselves before the break.

Then, of course, he ruined it all.

As such, he will join the equally unpredictable Scholes (sent off eight times in his career now) and Serbian defender Nemanja Vidic on the sidelines when United meet Aston Villa at Old Trafford next Sunday.

What United need most of all is the sort of Rooney we saw at Wembley on Saturday.

A bloke who bounces back and lets his talent do the talking.

A player who inspires those around him.

United won’t get it right now from Cristiano Ronaldo.

His mind has once again drifted off in the direction of Madrid after two seasons of brilliance that probably even surprised him.

Nor from the injured Dimitar Berbatov. The £31million Bulgarian striker is fine when the sun is on his back and all is going well but too prone to hide in the shadows when the clouds come rolling in.

Carlos Tevez is too much a bit-part player, Patrice Evra and Michael Carrick both a little off form while Vidic could be having a slight crisis of confidence.

Throw in defender Rio Ferdinand’s fitness problems and the sands of time that are gradually running out for Scholes and United’s need for a revved-up but responsible Rooney are both paramount and obvious.

The only thing I'll pick up here is the "Michael Carrick a little off form". This'll be the Carrick who didn't play against Fulham will it? The Michael Carrick who Sir Alex suggested was in need of a rest after his (for him) bad game against Liverpool. And that's him being a little off form is it?
Rooney's comments on the game are best represented in The Daily Star:

“I hope the next 50 caps will be even better.

“I will be pleased to get to 50 on Wednesday, but I want to win a trophy and hopefully we can do that in the near future.

“I am a bit more experienced now. I have played in big games at club level and that has really helped me.

“It was a good performance. I thought in the first half-hour especially we played some really good football and overall we deserved to win by the margin.

“I enjoy being free and it’s a great position to play.

“You can get on the ball a lot and get the chance to create goals and score goals. It’s something I really enjoy doing." ...

When it was suggested after this victory that he had played in a controlled manner for the whole of the game, Rooney stared at the questioner, narrowed his eyes and with a cheeky gleam in them said: “I’m always in a controlled manner.”

Elsewhere The Telegraph report that Samsung are the latest company to be linked with sponsoring us. And on the subject of sponsorship, Patrick Barclay in The Times writes that we should sack off the deal with AIG and have some charity on our shirts. He then goes on to explain why that won't happen, making his original point seem a trifle like having a go at us just for the sake of it:

The honourable course facing United is clear: they should forgo the £18 million or so still due on a contract expiring at the end of next season and put something admirable on their shirts free of charge, following the examples of Barcelona, who advertise Unicef, and Aston Villa (also American-owned), whose friendship is with Acorns, a children’s hospice.

For United, unfortunately, making such a decision would be like Uturning a liner, in that it would involve the scrapping of global mountains of Nike kit and other merchandise already prepared for the summer tour to China, and next season.

Note the totally unnecessary reference to China there.
And The Sun report that Jose gave "a big hint" that he could take over from Sir Alex:

When asked if he and United could be ‘a marriage’ when Fergie finally retires, Mourinho said: “Who can say no? Nobody could say ‘no’.

“Manchester United belongs to a small group of clubs around the world where nobody can say ‘no’.

“But I don’t believe he is leaving in 2010. I think he will be the same the year after, healthy and happy.

“I don’t see a reason for him to quit and I hope he still goes on."

Foreign Language

A brief international round-up, looking at performances by Man Utd players, obviously.
Here's Rooney's two goals from England's 4-0 win over Slovakia, one a nice header, the other, a hint of offside, but a nice finish nevertheless:





Tevez scores for Argentina in their 4-0 win over Venezuela:



Jonny Evans scores for Northern Ireland in their 3-2 win over Poland:



Some brief comment from Evans on the game here.

Portugal, despite a host of chances couldn't score against Sweden and they're now 4 points off the top 2 in their group and qualification looking dodgy. Ronaldo had a few chances and could have wrapped it up late on with a header that went just over.
Darren Fletcher played 90 minutes in Scotland's 3-0 loss against the Dutch, The Guardian reporting:

Van Persie lost Darren Fletcher at Robben's corner and headed past McGregor with the final touch of the first half.

A mixed day then.

The Game is Crazy

There's a lot of love in the papers for Rooney this morning, with the News of The World leading the cheering squad with this report:

the Manchester United striker dominated this game from start to finish. And how appropriate he rounded it off with his second strike deep into stoppage time.

He wasn't just the Man of the Match, he was the Men of the Match. If there are no centre-forwards left for Wednesday, Rooney can partner himself. ...

There is little point debating Rooney's best position. Just put him on the field. Honestly. Simple as that.

Whether it's dropping deep to send laser-precisioned passes into the flight path of Aaron Lennon or floating flankwards to deliver a drop-dead gorgeous cross for Heskey.

Unfortunately, neither could do justice to Rooney's vision, Heskey's nodded miss so bad it was a hoot.

Wayne Rooney's attitude comes through in this post match quote, from The Guardian:

"We should have scored more goals in the first half when we had the chance," Rooney said. "It was sad to lose so many players but I'll have no problem playing up front on my own against Ukraine."

And Capello makes another joke about his craziness, from The Independent:

Rooney played very, very well. He's like a joker in the pack – a crazy joker!"

Rooney is also the centre of a few opinion pieces. Alan Shearer sticks his neck out and says Rooney will be central to England's 2010 World Cup chances:

"'Wayne Rooney is a pivotal player for England, there's no doubt about that.

"He's a special talent who has been criticised in the past for not scoring as many goals as he should, but he brings a lot more to the table than that.

"It is clear that he brings more than goals to England - he brings work rate, he brings commitment, he brings assists. Over the next few years Capello will continue to build his team around Rooney if he keeps playing in this way.''

Sir Bobby Robson looks at Rooney in relation to Paul Gascoigne:

there is a lot of lessons he can learn from what Gascoigne did not achieve - and I'm talking in purely football terms, not the off-field problems of recent years. ...
Gascoigne could get overexcited before big matches, lose his discipline and therefore make bad decisions and judgments on the pitch.

I was far happier picking the likes of Bryan Robson, Ray Wilkins or Glenn Hoddle when I knew cool heads were needed against the best opposition in the world. ...

I was in Gelsenkirchen in 2006 when Rooney was sent off against Portugal for a stamp. I was convinced England were on their way to winning that game until the dismissal.

Rooney cannot afford to let that happen again when the next World Cup comes around.

His behaviour still needs to improve. Maybe he has suffered because of the lack of other quality strikers to compete for his place.

Whereas I could leave Gazza out and put in Robson and Hoddle, no England manager would leave out a fit Rooney and pick Jermain Defoe, Dean Ashton or Carlton Cole instead.

Mark Lawrenson reveals a bust up between Rooney and Sir Alex Ferguson:

Mark Lawrenson, the former Liverpool player who is now a BBC television pundit, said yesterday: 'Everybody knows that he had a massive row with Fergie after the Liverpool game and was then left out. It's an ongoing problem.'

So no agenda there then... Having the media over flowing with ex-Liverpool players is one thing, having them actively seeking to stir things up against Man Utd is surely a step too far.
Piers Morgan has a piece on Man Utd and uses The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire to try and argue that we've had it - all based on us losing two games of football and Liverpool winning a similar number, but apparently our Fall will only come about if Torres and Gerrard stay fit. Exactly like the Fall of the Roman Empire then... I've summed it up, no need to quote.
Similarly this piece in The Times follows the two lost games is a crisis logic, with one sentence standing out nevertheless, on our win over Inter:

Few other sides would have critics quibbling about a night on which Italy’s champions were vanquished without a goal conceded.

Few other sides would lose two games of football and then be compared to the Roman Empire...
Henry Winter has a more critical look at the Premiership race:

A skilled, seasoned heavyweight at coming out fighting when on the ropes, Ferguson is invariably most voluble in adversity, drawing attention away from his players, throwing down the card marked defiance. Ferguson knows that individual mistakes can rip up any script, a refereeing howler here, a defensive slip there.

He also appreciates that United must take maximum points from April tests against Aston Villa, Sunderland, Portsmouth and Tottenham Hotspur because May shimmers with danger, notably City and Arsenal at home and Wigan Athletic away.

The News of The World decides to turn attention to Ronaldo, with Steve Dunn saying Sir Alex must sell Ronaldo. I won't quote it, it being the usual arguments dressed up in a shiny new coat. They also report that Real Madrid are still after Ronaldo:

A Spanish source told Sport of the World: "There is a cleverly conceived plan in place for Cristiano to join Real.

"The reports that he is unhappy with the treatment he gets in England is part of it and will be used as a lever for him to get his dream move to Madrid.

"Of course, it will have to be achieved with United's approval but part of the strategy is to keep chipping away at their resistance until they give in."

[Suppresses yawn]

A story I've just noticed in The Telegraph - Rooney might be going to be a dad, with this caveat:

A spokesman for the Rooneys refused to confirm or deny the reports, saying: "These pregnancy rumours have been too numerous to comment on and we gave up doing so a long time ago."

Dirty Epic

Not much around today.
More on Rooney (whom The Sun are "humorously" labelling as "Wayne Looney" today), Capello defends him, from The Daily Star:

“We need players with this kind of fire and the spirit of England,” he said. “I remember a fighting spirit from long ago. I like this attitude in players.” He describes Rooney as one of the best in the world and the Manchester United forward remains a key to everything the Italian coach is planning.

“When the team is playing slowly it is Rooney that shakes them up,” he said. “He is red blooded, full of passion and I want this.”

Asked about his "crazy man" comment, he continues:

“I have spoken to Wayne and he knows I was joking,” added Capello.

“Sometimes his reaction is not so good, as we saw against Fulham, but you can’t always control

emotions. When I played I was the same and it depends on the moment, the result and the opponent.

“There has to be a balance in behaviour and that’s all it is. With the national team he has always been perfect and I want his aggression.

“It would be no good if he lost this desire in him and we lost his kind of spirit.

“I have a good relationship with Rooney and I am happy with him. I try to work with him on all aspects of the game in a short time I am with him.

“He is so important to this team and his relationship with Manchester United is not my problem. He will be OK in every moment with us.

“He has been scoring goals, I like this man and he is crucial to the future.”

Oliver Kay in The Times also defends Rooney in a long article, I'll just quote the most pertinant line:

Rooney feels that his qualities are too often overlooked and his faults magnified. He has a point. Whatever the term “world class” means, he ... fits it.

The Telegraph have comments from Alex Stepney on Sir Alex's retirement:

"Sir Alex's exit will present a much bigger situation for the club than Matt's departure. It will be a global event, but managers from all over the globe will want the job.

"The only way to ensure a totally smooth transition would be for Sir Alex to move upstairs in some capacity, but that never works.

"Sir Matt tried that and it failed, but then he didn't leave behind the kind of structure and depth that Sir Alex has created."

Stepney said he had yet to be convinced that Ferguson would leave next year. He said: "We'll see what happens, but from my point of view, I hope he goes on until they carry him out in a box!"

As well as some quotes from Gary Neville on life after football:

"Part of me says I'd like to stay involved in the game, but another says I should do something else.

"It would nice to be able to take on a different challenge. I'd like to think I could do something else other than football, but the reality is that's what I've done since I was 16.

"I am doing my coaching badges, but whether anyone will want me as a coach or a manager I don't know.

"I don't know, even now so close to the end of my career, what will happen. But leaving Manchester United, in football terms, is like falling off the end of a cliff.

"I just hope there's something that I find exciting and can enjoy, and in which I retain the ambition to achieve something."

Ronaldo responds to Henrik Larsson's "diving" comments from the other day, in The Mail:

'It doesn't bother me what Larsson says, because I know I don't dive, and that is all that matters,' he said.

'I may get kicked, but I don't dive. It seems everyone wants to have a go at me over that, but I don't care. I know I always do things fairly.'

A non Man Utd story (though Tevez gets mentioned in the article) from The Times which I include cos I thought it was funny (though just a little homophobic...) - Maradona on Pele:

When Maradona was asked at a press conference before Argentina’s World Cup qualifying match against Venezuela to respond to Pelé’s claim that he was a negative influence on children, he said: “What do you want me to say? He lost his virginity to a man.” ...
In his autobiography, I am Diego, Maradona picked Pelé as the best player in the world, but he damned his rival with faint praise. “As a player he had it all but he didn’t make the most of it to raise the status of football,” Maradona wrote. “I’d have liked to see him put himself forward as president of an association to defend players’ rights — like I did. I’d like to have seen him look after Garrincha and not let him die in misery. I’d like to see him fight the rich and powerful that are damaging football.”

And one last story from The Sun, designed, I imagine, solely so the headline writer could use "Dimitar Boobatov", it seems to have little other point:

DIRTY Bulgar Dimitar Berbatov has been turned into Dimitart Boobatov after a PORN STAR painted him with her breasts.

The Manchester United hitman is expected to take delivery of the saucy canvas this week.

That opening line seems completely racist - and I don't even think I'm being over-sensitive on this one. It certainly seems an odd way to describe Berbatov. Perhaps the link is meant to be between "dirty" and "porn" but it really doesn't come off.

Retirement Days

Let's start with the money again.
It's reported that there's growing unease in the US about the final payment on AIG's sponsorship deal. From The Independent:

one of the direct effects of the crunch, United's main sponsor AIG being bailed out and funded by the US government, is threatening to deprive the club of the final £14m installment of their sponsorship deal, with several members of the US House of Representatives now insisting that it is inappropriate for payments to continue.

"They (AIG) are no longer an independent private company. They now belong to the US government and I think that AIG should drop the sponsorship deal with Manchester United," said congressional Democrat Ed Pastor, representative for Arizona, amid the fall-out from the controversial plans to use bail-out funds to pay executive bonuses. "It is unacceptable for US taxpayer money to go to support an English soccer club," Ann Kirkpatrick, another Democrat Representative added.

While that sounds fairly serious, and here I again note my lack economic knowledge, the paper goes on:

AIG have told United that they will receive the final contribution before the sponsorship deals expires at the end of next season and there would presumably be financial penalties to pay if the contract were terminated early.

Surely a contract is a contract no matter how bitter the pill may be to swallow? Unless there's some sort of argument that AIG is no longer the same entity it was when it agreed the deal. Like I say - this sort of thing is all over my head.
All the papers have speculation about who might step in to replace AIG when the deal runs out, The Independent has a full list:

The Indian conglomerate Tata, which owns Tetley, Corus, Jaguar and Land Rover, and American nutrition supplement company NBTY have emerged as possible replacements for AIG, with Saudi Telecom and Sahara already having been linked with lucrative agreements with United. Last month, the chief executive of Malaysian budget airline AirAsia also said his company was pondering whether to become United's new shirt sponsor.

While The Mail report that we are "in advanced talks with Saudi Telecom to replace troubled insurance firm AIG as the club's shirt sponsor."
Continuing with the subject of shirts, The Sun has picked up on a story about how Van der Sar's shirt colour affects our results:

The champions have been alerted to the fact they have a far better record when the Dutch keeper wears yellow as opposed to blue.

Van der Sar has worn blue in United’s last two Premier League games, which have seen them beaten 4-1 by Liverpool and 2-0 by Fulham. ...

Research by a contributor to United fanzine Red News has brought the information to the club’s attention.

It reveals Van der Sar has worn yellow in the league 17 times this season.

In those games, United have conceded just four — with a goal difference of plus 21 — winning 12, losing one and drawing four, gaining 40 points from a possible 51.

However, the figures take on a different hue when Van der Sar wears blue.

In 10 games, United have conceded 13 for a goal difference of plus seven, winning six, losing three and drawing one — 19 points from 30.

Ben Foster also wore yellow when he performed heroics as United won the Carling Cup on spot-kicks against Spurs.

Interesting stats, I guess anything's worth trying...

Beckham comes out in support of Rooney's "temper", from The Times:

“I’ve got no concerns with Wayne whatsoever,” Beckham said yesterday. “It comes hand in hand. You don’t get the player he is without the temperament, without his attitude in games.

“That is the way he is, he’s passionate about the game, passionate about winning, and when things are not going his way he’s like every other player who wants to win. He shows his frustration — sometimes it’s too much, but if you take that away from a player, it changes him.

“With Wayne you don’t get the exceptional talent and player you have without that side of his game. If you take away that side, he becomes a different player, a different animal. You don’t want to take that out of him. Sometimes it flows over. He’s done it a few times with myself, but it happens. He knows it’s not right, I know it’s not right, but it happens.”

The other story around is Darren Ferguson saying Sir Alex could retire at the end of next season:

'His health is fine and he's building a new team,' said Darren. 'If they win the Barclays Premier League this year then they catch Liverpool in terms of titles won.

'I can see him doing this year and next - and then that might be it for him.'

Which The Mirror misleadingly headlines "Manchester United Boss Sir Alex Ferguson in quit threat".

Under the Influence

"Crazy" Rooney is the talk of the papers today. The thing none of the headlines make clear though is that it was all said light-heartedly, The Mirror saying, 'Capello's "crazy man" joke had the England players and Rooney falling about'. And from The Daily Star:

Capello cleverly picked out Rooney during England training on Tuesday, joked he was a ‘Crazy Man’ for his red card against Fulham and asked him why he punched the corner flag as he stormed down the Craven Cottage tunnel.

It was a reminder to the hot- headed Manchester United striker that he needs to watch his step.

Won't spend too much time on this, I'll just point out this from The Guardian, where 2 things don't really go together:

Yet it is Rooney's occasional flashpoints on the pitch that have truly occupied the Italian's mind. The forward is saddled with a poor disciplinary record since emerging on to the international arena with his temperament invariably reflective of his frustrations on the pitch.
...
his disciplinary record since Capello took up the reins has significantly improved. His only caution in eight games came in the friendly win against the United States last summer – there had been three yellows and a red in the previous eight

So his record has improved, and yet it still "truly" occupies Capello?
The other story from the England camp is some quotes from Ben Foster on his position at Man Utd, from The Guardian:

"It's a bit of a fine line for me," admitted the uncapped Foster. "I'm at Manchester United and I want to be there for as long as I can be but there comes a moment when I do want to be playing also. I've got no desire to move away but, on the other hand, I've got ambitions. I want to do things in my career. I'm not happy just to sit around and be the No2 goalkeeper, so I'll see what happens. It's a balancing act, really, but you have to be playing to go to a World Cup finals. You can't expect to go to the biggest competition in the world having not been playing regular football.

"It's frustrating not playing regularly but you probably get only one chance at being at United and you've got to give it your all. And it's a difficult one, too, when you've got Edwin in front of you doing so well. It's quite hard to knock on the manager's door and say: 'Give me a chance please, boss' when he's kept 14 consecutive clean sheets. I'm 25 and I've still got a long time to go in my career so, hopefully, it will just be a case of sitting tight and biding my time. I will start again next season and see what goes from there. But, with the World Cup coming up next year, there'll be a lot of English players who want to be picked in the squad and involved. We will just have to come to that when it's the case. I'm going to start next season, give it my all and see what happens."

I think the point that should be made is that he's only 25 and so the onus doesn't have to solely on the 2010 world cup.
Henrik Larsson calls Ronaldo a diver and blatantly admits he'll try and influence the referee at the start of the game. Is this really allowed? From The Mail:

'I intend speaking with the referee before the match to warn him about Ronaldo diving.

'We must be careful, as a team, not to get caught out by that, but so must the referee. I will be having a word with him and telling him to keep an eye out for it.'

Teenage Kicks

Great free kick by Magnus Eikrem from the reserve game against Boro last night -



Reserves - Boro 0-1 Man Utd. - video powered by Metacafe

Like Rockefellers' First Two Albums, But After That...

We'll start with this article from The Guardian's blog on our debt and the recession and stuff. Economics isn't one of my strong points (to put it mildly) so it's all Greek to me, I'll just quote this bit:

United's spokesman, Phil Townsend, pointed out that United still have money remaining after servicing the debts to assemble their squad, including August's £30m signing of Dimitar Berbatov: "With our turnover, we can meet the obligations on our loans and debts, and still buy world‑class footballers and provide first-class facilities at Old Trafford and Carrington," Townsend said.

Moving swiftly on, The Mail reports this astonishing story:

Phil Dowd, the referee at the centre of the furore surrounding Cristiano Ronaldo, received the full support of his colleagues yesterday

About the only thing of interest in the report is this:

During the session Dowd, who sent off two United players in a game for the second time in his career, is believed to have accepted there were errors in his display.

Wonder if he noticed the foot up in the build up to Fulham's second goal this time round...
Also in The Mail is a report whose headline tells us that Berbatov could actually play for Bulgaria at the weekend, before revealing that:

a return has been described as 'highly unlikely' by Bulgaria's medical staff

In similar exciting style The Daily Star reveal that Ronaldo had an injury scare when training with Portugal, before telling us that

Portugal insisted it was merely a precaution and that Ronaldo is not seriously injured.

More on Rooney's "temper" on The Guardian Blog, a not bad article of its type, looking at other players who were ... temperamental, most telling sentence:

The body language and attitudes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney during Manchester United's back-to-back defeats by Liverpool and Fulham illustrate just how much they seem to have taken to heart that old Vince Lombardi canard, "Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser."

Ferdinand says Vidic should be player of the year, sort of:

"I think he should definitely be up there this year for player of the year, he's a top player.

"The attacking players normally get the accolades and the adulation so it would be nice for a defender to win it. JT won it a few years ago but not many centre-halves have won it over the years.

"I think he will be up there. He has been our most consistent player this season along with Ryan Giggs and Edwin van der Sar. Those three have been our standout players in terms of consistency."

And Evra slags of the French fans while praising Man Utd fans:

"I have been very disappointed by the behaviour of the fans," the 27-year-old told reporters.

"When we play at the Stade de France, I have the impression we are playing away"

"When (Carlos) Tevez came back from Marseille, he told me he had had the feeling he was playing in Buenos Aires," added Evra.

"There were flags paying tribute to Maradona but at the Stade de France I did not see any flags for (Franck) Ribery or (Thierry) Henry.

"I don't understand. The fans should be behind us. When you play at the Stade de France, you often hear boos after only five minutes, it has to stop.

"Maybe they don't like football."

Evra, who joined United from Monaco in January 2006, said this would not happen at Old Trafford, where the champions were beaten 4-1 by arch-rivals Liverpool in the Premier League title race 10 days ago.

"When we lost, there was applause, not boos," he said.

High On Insanity

Today there's a pleasant surprise, with an article in The Telegraph by Kevin Garside which actually talks sense. Yes, really. He looks back at 1996 when we lost successive away games, and then:

United lost their next two matches at home to Fenerbahce in the Champions League and Chelsea in the Premiership, and closed out November with a 2-0 defeat at Leicester City. The year was 1996. Ten years after arriving at Old Trafford, three years after ending the 26-year championship famine Sir Alex Ferguson had run his course; his team were spent.

For those in Liverpool and beyond whose long-term memory extends no further than the last 10 days oblivion proved illusory. United won the title the following May. The apocalyptic vision presently playing out on Merseyside is understandable, but like the testimony of children, unreliable for its dependence on fantasy rather than Rafa Benitez's facts. ...

successive defeats are seen not as an irregular episode but a definitive and irreversible momentum swing. ...

Liverpool can win their remaining nine fixtures and still fall short, not that many in Rafa's wonderland are giving that notion much thought.

Common sense at last.
Sadly, it doesn't extend to any of the other papers, who are still in the fantasy world. Let's have a look at what Ian Wright, in The Sun, thinks of the Premiership title race:

MANCHESTER UNITED are one point ahead of Liverpool with a game in hand. But the title is Liverpool’s to lose due to the incredible momentum they have built.

???? No it isn't. Even with the momentum ("incredible" as it is that they've won 3 games in a row) it's not their's to lose. Juxtaposing this sentence with the fact that we're one point ahead with a game in hand - it is in every sense our's to lose - well, I'm wondering whether The Sun's Charlie Wyett (who Ian Wright was "speaking to") did this just to make Ian Wright look stupid. It works anyway. I won't go into his analysis of the rest of the season which amounts to nothing more than, "I have a feeling that Liverpool will win all their games, and I have a feeling that Man Utd will draw three games - a gut feeling you might say", whatever...
Graham Poll returns with a nice little piece on Ronaldo and Phil Dowd, full of the usual insightful comment:

When Cristiano Ronaldo is in top form he can be an absolute pleasure to referee, dazzling with his ability on the ball and possessing real charm off it.

It’s another joy to stand just a few metres away when he hits a free-kick in that unique style, straight into the top corner.

However, that Ronaldo has been missing for much of this season and, as a result, a lot of referees would not be disappointed to see the back of the petulant, sulking individual who was fortunate to receive only a yellow card at Craven Cottage on Saturday.

Which sounds to me like an admission that referees treat Ronaldo worse than other players (which is especially interesting given that Poll's basic argument is that Ronaldo shouldn't be treated differently to anyone else). He goes on:

His frustrations were clear when they culminated in a crude, lunging challenge on Danny Murphy which saw him cautioned.
Not content with that escape, he continued to react to opponents and match officials in an unacceptable manner, especially when he refused initially to advance towards Phil Dowd.

No ghost writer is credited in The Mail, so whether or not it is actually Graham Poll writing this, I don't know, but, regardless, I'm going to pick him up here. Take a look at the definition of the word "culminate":

to reach the highest point, summit, or highest development;
to end or arrive at a final stage.

So, he suggests that Ronaldo's behaviour reached it's highest point or even ended with the lunge at Murphy, but then goes on that his behaviour continued. Can't have it both ways. This isn't just pettiness on my part, because he then goes on to put an incident that happened before the lunge after the lunge: he refused to advance towards Dowd in the first half (I thought it was quite a funny incident). The use of the word "culminate" thus becomes even more inexplicable - he's making up things after the lunge to make it worse - in Poll's narrative this should have been the culmination. So while it may appear petty to pick up on these points, it is important to point them out because this should be considered the base level of bias - the choice of words. There's another example of this later on in another connection. Poll finishes with:

Players can’t win them all. Blaming referees for ‘forcing out’ Ronaldo is disingenuous. I don’t recall Gianfranco Zola or Thierry Henry speaking such nonsense.

When a player is renowned for going to ground too easily and too often it is difficult to get each and every foul correct.

When that player then reacts with moral indignation and incredulity at the referee’s
detection rate, is it any wonder that the referee can lose patience?

Of course, the referees love refereeing the best players in the world and want as many as possible in the Premier League - including Ronaldo - but there can be no special cases.

First off - Henry never complained? Is he serious? Second, Dowd wasn't just ignoring fouls on Ronaldo, he was ignoring fouls all over the pitch - the foul that caused Berbatov's injury went unpunished for instance. I put this down to his wanting to keep the game flowing, but it was certainly a misplaced idea, he should have taken a leaf out of the referee for the first leg against Inter's book, and kept giving the fouls and then booked players for persistent fouling. Keep the game flowing by stopping players fouling rather than ignoring the fouls.
James Lawton in The Independent continues the Ronaldo knocking with a nasty little article. I won't bother going through it, just piece together all the usual criticisms of Ronaldo and add a pinch of moral indignation and you'll get the picture.
The Mail report on "fears" that Ronaldo may quit England for "Spain, where referees are less tolerant of challenges", and includes comments from Paddy Crerand:

'We have a situation in England at the moment where we have the worst referees God ever created,' said 70-year-old Crerand, who is employed by United's official television channel MUTV as a presenter.

'The Scholes sending- off decision, you couldn't argue with that.

'But the Rooney dismissal was a farce. United are losing, he wants to get on with the game, he picks the ball up and hurls it about 40 yards straight to team-mate Jonny Evans.

'I know the referee's in that vicinity but it landed straight at Evans's feet. And the referee sent him off.

'I think referees want to do something to be noticed and get their photo in the papers. The sending-off of Rooney got him noticed. They talk about respect in the game but referees have got to earn it.'

Rooney and Scholes are both suspended for one game. As I noted above, the importance of choice of words is also evident here with most of the reports headlining the story with "Rooney escapes further punishment". "Escapes", which makes it sound like he was guilty and is lucky not to have been punished further, rather than there being no exceptional circumstances to warrant further punishment and him serving the standard ban. The Times take this a stage further by saying that Rooney and Sir Alex escape punishment. They also have to refer to Benitez's whining about Man Utd referee's, not noticing that we ended the game with 9 men, probably meaning that Rafa was talking nonsense about the "preferential" treatment we get...
We have the reason that our game against Villa won't be moved forward to give us time to prepare for the Porto game. The Guardian report that:

Sky had offered to bring forward the Villa game to 12.45pm the previous day so United would not have to play two crucial games in the space of barely 50 hours, exactly the kind of gruelling schedule that Ferguson would usually be desperate to avoid.

However, Sir Alex has decided that the extra day to recover from international trips is more important so the game remains on Sunday. The Daily Star gives an example of why this is necessary:

Tevez will play for Argentina in La Paz, 11,800ft above sea level, a week tomorrow. If Tevez returns to Manchester on the Friday suffering from altitude sickness, as well as travel weariness, United could have a serious striker shortage for a match they simply must win to reignite their title ambitions.

Ballin' Outta Control

More of the same today. The most telling and accurate description of the game comes from Fulham's goalkeeper, quoted in The Daily Telegraph:

“We were a little lucky with one or two decisions but I think we deserved to win."

There you have it summed up. Yes they probably did just about deserve to win, they dominated the first half and defended well second half. But, yes they were lucky with some decisions, and on other days some of our chances second half would have been converted and we'd have won the game. Roy Hodgson also sees the game in a similar light, from the same report:

"It's moments again," said Hodgson. "I talk about the moment of the corner kick two weeks ago, which we defend badly and they score. Alex [Ferguson] will be thinking about [Scholes' handball]. Say he hadn't handled, the ball had just gone into the net, and they'd played on with 11 men. It could have been a totally different story."

Fine lines...
And now, to the reporters, who seem to have no idea what a fine line is. Worst offender today has to be the, usually reliable, Daniel Taylor in The Guardian. Take this:

The truth was that Fulham outpassed, outscored and, for long spells, outplayed their opponents. Their performance in the opening 45 minutes was the best, according to Hodgson, they have played under him and, almost unnoticed, the club have reached 40 points with eight games to spare. At this rate Hodgson should be on any shortlist for manager of the season.

They certainly deserved better than for their opponents to resort to the classic cop-out of trying to blame Dowd

Okay, let's have a look at what Sir Alex actually said:

“I was disappointed with the first half, I must admit,” he said. “We didn’t get started at all and that’s cost us the game. They were lively and they got stuck in, and we expected that. They lost 4-0 to us a few weeks ago so we expected a response from them. We didn’t meet that challenge. I think we can thank Edwin van der Sar for keeping us in it. "

And Ryan Giggs:

“We’re obviously disappointed with the result. After losing last weekend, we wanted to come here and put on a good performance. We didn’t do that in the first half – our passing was sloppy and our movement wasn’t good enough. We just couldn’t get it going, the tempo wasn’t good.”

Would someone like to show me where the "classic cop-out of trying to blame Dowd" is in these remarks? It seems more like they're, quite rightly, blaming our dreadful first half performance rather than blaming the referee. The use of, Fulham "for long spells, outplayed" us, is also disingenuous, implying this lasted throughout the game. They outplayed us for one long spell, normally referred to as the first half, not long spells.
His analysis of the Rooney sending off:

United's manager also complained about Rooney's second yellow card, when the forward picked up the ball and hurled it roughly in the direction, but actually a fair distance beyond, where United had a free-kick. "Did he throw the ball in anger? Yes, because he wanted the game to be hurried up," came Ferguson's defence. "Did he throw the ball at the ref? No, the ball went to where the free-kick was taken."

Notwithstanding the fact that this was not true (the ball went past everyone and was not even close to a United player), the most important question was this: was Rooney asking for trouble? Dowd had already flashed six yellow cards and one red as well as warning Ronaldo he was one more misplaced word away from being sent off. Rooney's was a fit of pique, coming only two minutes after Zoltan Gera had hooked in the second goal, and he is fortunate that the FA is unlikely to take any action over the way he left the pitch, punching the corner flag as he went. Rooney is 23 now, not 18. He has been around long enough not to put himself in these situations.

Actually, it is true. MOTD had, in their analysis, an "x" where the foul was commited, Rooney's throw landed on the "x" (quite a feat of accuracy considering his "anger"), the fact that the ball went passed everyone is beside the point, he threw it to the right place, it's just no one was stood in the right place. I'd maybe like to see some criticism of Dowd for being so petty as to want the free kick taking again, considering the situation - he was just wasting time for Fulham - it wasn't like the free kick was taken yards further forward, it was a couple of yards to the side. And no, the question isn't "was Rooney asking for trouble?" It's, was it a show of dissent? No, I don't think it was, and even if it was, given he'd warned Ronaldo without showing a card, why couldn't he have done the same to Rooney? Again, taking into consideration the circumstances, 2 down with minutes to play. As I said, reporters seem to have a hard time with fine lines...
I won't quote his criticisms of Ronaldo; he basically describes his complaining as "tiresome". I'm not sure it's as tiresome as referees constantly letting opponents get away with fouling him, or reporters constantly harping on about it...
The Independent wave away any pretence at neutrality with this:

Having confronted Dowd upon his dismissal, then thumped the corner flag on his way off, he should face more than a one-match ban. If he does not, it is confirmation that the Football Association is retreating from its crackdown on dissent.

Unfortunately for them, The Mirror report that:

FA sources indicated the suspension is likely to be the end of the matter.

I'll believe it when I see it. The Mirror also claim that Sir Alex could face action over his (really mild I thought, considering) criticism of Dowd. This sounds more likely...
The Mail report that Berbatov's "Chipped fingernail" is a little more serious than that:

'We are talking about a muscle tear, which means his foot will be immovable for two weeks. It is most likely that he aggravated his old ankle injury.'

In an attempt to slag off Rooney, Patrick Barclay in The Times destroys his own argument:

Here is a list of players I cannot recall having seen hurl a ball in a referee’s direction, argue, spit and punch a flag before storming off (or gratuitously shove Iker Casillas into an advertising board, or do any of the other things Rooney did in Madrid): Bobby Moore, Bobby Charlton, Pelé, Ronaldo, Franz Beckenbauer, Michel Platini, Marco van Basten, Marcel Desailly, Fabio Cannavaro. You could even add Maradona because, after being sent off in 1982, he learnt his lesson and won the World Cup for Argentina four years later. ...

At a time when the concept of respect is topical — and surely the FA will accept that its fiasco of a campaign requires reinventing when even United, our game’s flagship, all but fly the skull and crossbones — you recall the most recent World Cup and Zinédine Zidane’s head-butt and wonder if standards generally have sunk.

The first paragraph cites great players in an attempt to suggest that Rooney, to be great, shouldn't behave in the manner he does. The second cites Zidane (surely one of the greatest ever) as someone who couldn't control his temper (the standards slipping argument fails here as well, given the inclusion of players contemporary with Zidane in his first list). Nonsense. Need I mention Cantona?

The Hater's Wish

It occurred to me today, reading the reports, that one of the few times we get any praise is when we lose. When we win, it's always that we were lucky or the other team didn't turn up or the referee handed us the game, but when we lose, well, take this from The News of the World:

the real significance is that United did not respond to the Liverpool humiliation with any of the qualities we associate with them. Tireless endeavour, sublime talent, relentless tempo — and class.

It's a rather simple tactic, to further condemn our performance, compare it to how we normally play. It's a fundamentally dishonest tactic because when we do play well we get little credit, and the same criticisms of Rooney and Ronaldo surface no matter if we win or lose.
First half, no bones about it, we were rubbish. No excuses. Second half we played well and the chances we created we could have won the game. Credit to Fulham though, they stuck to their task well. So I'm not going to sit here and bring up stats and criticise reports for saying we weren't any good. There is enough to criticise anyway...
Take the Rooney sending off, all the reports, pretty much without exception say that he "threw the ball away" - The Telegraph, for example:

he chucked the ball away in disgust, leaving Dowd no option but to send him off

He literally threw the ball towards, not away. Why does every paper claim this then? It was, I assume, the manner, rather the direction, of the throw that got him sent off. And this "no option", - of course their was an option, as quite a few papers also point out, he could have sent off Ronaldo for dissent, but instead chose to give him a final warning (the difference being that all the reports wanted Ronaldo sent off so, for them, Dowd was in the wrong on that one).
Onto Ronaldo and, similar to the MOTD highlights I complained about earlier, most reports ignore the context of his "petulance". For instance The Sunday Times:

Cristiano Ronaldo could easily have earned the same penalty as Rooney and Scholes, who will miss United’s next fixture, versus Aston Villa, for a foot-off-the-ground lunge on Murphy for which he was yellow carded but might have seen red, and a prissy show of dissent minutes later, for which the referee merely warned him.

The Telegraph, at least in this respect, is the exception, with even some praise of Ronaldo coming through:

Ronaldo, though, was so frustrated after being the victim of one assault on his Achilles that he lunged in almost knee high at Murphy. If he had connected he would have been off; Dowd settled for the yellow.

Yet Ronaldo's wildness at least energised him and United. He forced one brilliant save from Schwarzer from a header before the Australian made an amazing double stop to keep out Park and Rooney.

The Telegraph conforms to the usual standard in their treatment of Berbatov however:

United were so under the cosh that the dismal Berbatov had to be sacrificed at half-time.

None of the papers seem to recognise that he went off injured. I'm not going to argue against the notion that he had a bad game, but it doesn't alter the fact that he went off injured at half time and wasn't "sacrificed". The Mail On Sunday the same:

Dimitar Berbatov was a listless, ineffectual lone target man, and at half-time, when no one in a United shirt escaped Ferguson's wrath, Rooney was instructed to replace the Bulgarian.

The most staggeringly wrong though is The News of the World:

Certainly not good old Dimi the grafter, who eventually made way at half-time, maybe staying in the dressing room with a chipped fingernail.

Twisted ankle I believe...
Newspapers, why so inaccurate?
Sir Alex didn't try and hide the fact that we were rubbish:

"If you lose games in March and April, it will cost you," admitted Ferguson. "We still have a slender lead but not a lot. The disappointment for me is that we didn't get a response after the Liverpool game."

The idea that a hair dryer must have been blowing on the banks of the Thames was given credence when Ferguson suggested "there was some talking done at half-time" after United had been outclassed before the break by a team they had hammered here 4-0 just a fortnight ago.

But Ferguson was unhappy with both the sendings-off by referee Phil Dowd.

Scholes handled on the line, allowing Danny Murphy to give Fulham the first-half lead from the spot, but Ferguson felt the official could have spared his veteran. "But that's Phil Dowd for you," he complained.

"The ball was thrown to where the free-kick was being taken. Did it hit the referee? No," said Ferguson. "But there's no point talking about the referee. We didn't play well enough in the first half and that's why we lost."

One last thing, Will Buckley, on The Guardian blog, has a humorous piece on how to get round Sir Alex not talking to certain organizations.

Banned From TV

Match of the Day highlights -

Fulham v Manchester United

The usual rubbish. There's a complete decontextualisation of Ronaldo's behaviour, not showing any of the decisions that led up to his first half "petulance"; they don't show the foul on Berbatov that led to his injury, again a foul not given. I give Phil Dowd the benefit of the doubt that he was just trying to let the game flow, but he still ignored numerous fouls on our players. Same second half where Ronaldo's challenge for his booking is shown but the foul on him that preceded that isn't, again trying to make Ronaldo look bad by ignoring the sins against him. There is an interesting bit of commentary in the build up to Fulham's second where he points out that there's a foot up and so we should have had a free kick. Of course we have no replay of that - it's forgotten as soon as Fulham score. The commentary on the Rooney sending off as well, "the way he furiously flung the ball back at the referee", or, as it looked like to me, "flung the ball to where the referee pettily wanted it taken from in the context of being 2 down with time running out and wanting to get on with the game."
The studio discussion isn't on the above video, Ex Liverpool players slag us off. They do have a bit where they demonstrate that Rooney threw the ball to the exact spot that Dowd wanted the free kick taken from. The ex Liverpool players don't seem to appreciate that though.