Dirty Dirty

Best comment of the day comes, surprisingly, from Sam Wallace in The Independent:

With 11 games left, time is running out for those who have pretences of catching the champions, and for those who can barely live with them there is always the name-calling route. Steven Taylor's half-time retort to Cristiano Ronaldo – "Yeah, but you're ugly" – was, on the grand scale of witty comebacks, more Vicky Pollard than Oscar Wilde. Yet, in its own inarticulate way, it summed up the helplessness that the rest of the League is experiencing in the face of United's onslaught.

We went a goal down, looked flustered for a bit, but in the end class told. And as for Steven Taylor and Steve Bennett, what on earth the former thought he was doing, and how the latter and his assistant managed to miss the incident bemuses me. Take this from The Mirror's report:

Mr Bennett had to deal with an ugly incident in injury time when Steven Taylor caught Cristiano Ronaldo with a flailing arm and then careered into Carrick on the sideline

Yes, he did have to deal with it, but he failed miserably to. Oliver Kay in The Times points out that Newcastle were guilty on a few occasions:

They [Newcastle] competed well for the most part, but there was a touch of desperation to their play. If it was not Steven Taylor, booked when he could have been punished more seriously for flying into Ronaldo and Carrick at the end of the first half, it was Martins, catching Vidic with an elbow, or Alan Smith, guilty of an ugly lunge on Ronaldo in the sixteenth minute.

And yet we end the game with 2 bookings on either side. We certainly have the referees on our side...
And Chris Hughton's response to the incident is perhaps even worse than the Arsene Wenger "I didn't see it" approach:

"Steven was a bit headstrong in his endeavour to pull Ronaldo back," the Newcastle coach, Chris Hughton, said of Taylor. Asked if he thought Ronaldo had been hit in the face, Hughton replied: "Anybody who has seen the incident will see Steven's made contact with the top of his [Ronaldo's] shoulder and his neck."

I was wondering what he was doing, and now I know, trying to pull him back... And, ah, he only made contact with the shoulder and neck, that's alright then, nothing wrong with punching someone in the neck is there...
Hopefully the scenario that The Mail report as nailed on will actually happen:

Steven Taylor, 23, has not heard the last of his pointless and vicious punch to the side of Cristiano Ronaldo's head, which was missed by referee Steve Bennett. Once the match official and the FA hierarchy have seen replays of the incident, the England Under 21 captain is likely to face a disciplinary hearing and suspension.

Most of the papers let of Van der Sar lightly for his mistake in the build up to the goal, this, from Henry Winter in The Telegraph being typical:

The Gallowgate, meanwhile, was busy taunting Van der Sar with chants of “dodgy keeper’’, slightly harsh on a professional whose 14 previous league games had produced clean sheets.

The Mirror provides the stats to show Van der Sar finishing his unbeaten run with the second best record in Europe and 6th best in the world.
Henry Winter's description of our first goal is also pretty good, including, if one looks closely enough and adds the words "shaggy haired", a fairly nice pun:

And so unfolded a classic Manchester United goal, brimming with first-time passing, clever movement and good technique. Rooney transferred the ball instantly to O’Shea on the right.

The Irishman played a one-two with Park Ji-sung and stroked the ball back to Rooney, who had entered the area.

Fabricio Coloccini stood behind him, the [shaggy haired] Argentinian barring the way but Rooney boasts the key to most locks. Controlling O’Shea’s pass with his right foot, Rooney let the ball roll across him and then he swivelled, completely eluding Coloccini. Rooney’s left foot did the rest, driving the ball goalwards, catching Steven Taylor en route past Steve Harper.

The Telegraph have the best round up of post-match-Sir-Alex-comment:

"The teams who play first and get a result will always say the pressure is on but it doesn't make much difference to us," Ferguson added.

"You've got to rely on and trust the players. You have to show patience and experience. It is nothing new to them. We have got an emphatic victory in the sense we came from 1-0 down and then controlled the second half. The experienced players are keeping them all right in that respect."

One other story today, The Independent have a few words from Adem Ljajic, who signed for us from Partizan Belgrade with Zoran Tosic, but isn't joining up till January:

"The quality in England is very high because you are training with such great players, but the main difference is it's much quicker," Ljajic said. "I really enjoyed it and training with such top players can only help me improve.

"Coming over to England allowed me to see how things worked, so I know what to expect when I come here permanently. And I hope that when I join in January I will be involved with the first team from the start."

Although speculation has surfaced about a possible bid for Nemanja Vidic from Milan this summer, it seems highly unlikely United would be willing to part with the prospective footballer of the year. Ljajic certainly hopes not, as he has already benefited from having Vidic around. "It has been great to see him," he said. "I have spent a lot of time with him whenever I have been over in Manchester and he has shown me around the city.

"It can be hard when you move to a new country and don't know anyone and are yet to learn the language, so it has been fantastic to have him here."