The Fine & Subtle Art of Deception

Porto game ahead. Nerves jangling already. What do the papers have to say?
The Mirror has a just-plain-wrong article by David McDonnell:

Fergie clearly had Ronaldo uppermost in his mind when he called upon United's big-game players to prove their worth at Porto.

The United boss said: "At this stage of the season, with every game so big, you expect your key players to go into overdrive. Of course we've got the players who can win the game for us.Match-winners who can rise to the big occasion, that's really important."

Compare that with this:

“Attacking players are all the same, they prefer to be attacking,” Ferguson noted.

“They want to be on the ball all the time. But part of the job is to be part of the team.

“When you lose possession you have to think about the team.” But the United boss insisted that every player, not just Ronaldo, needed to reach their peak.

Ferguson said: “Cristiano is part of our team. There is no point choosing one individual. They have all got to step up to the plate.”

Where Sir Alex specifically mentions Ronaldo, and then points out that the whole team is responsible. So to simply leave out Sir Alex's naming of Ronaldo, to imply that Sir Alex is criticising him, is just plain deceitful. He then compounds it with this:

Ronaldo, 24, was at fault for Porto's opener in last week's 2-2 draw at Old Trafford

Yes, Ronaldo lost the ball, but Jonny Evans regained the ball and then lost it again. The team takes responsibility, as Sir Alex points out, so why must newspapers single out Ronaldo? The rest of the article is the usual rubbish constantly trotted out about Ronaldo.
The Mail's Ian Ladyman has a similar go at Ronaldo. He is obviously an easy target, but it comes to something when so many previews of the game can do nothing but trot out the usual cliches about Ronaldo, rather than tell us anything of interest about the actual prospects ahead.
Martin Samuel, for instance, who isn't talking about the Porto game admittedly, has written something that is thought-provoking. It basically will us to fail, but at least it is interesting and looks at things from different angles to the usual:

The reason it is hard to damn the Glazers on all fronts just yet is because they have presided over fantastic sporting success as custodians of Manchester United. They have let the football people run the football, kept their heads down, their mouths shut and paid up when asked, often in circumstances when others would not (when buying Michael Carrick and Owen Hargreaves, for instance).

The Glazers are negatively compared to United’s plc board because English football has this bizarrely nostalgic idea that there was a golden age of club ownership, but the plc would not have sanctioned expensive bids for two English squad players operating in basically the same position, as Malcolm Glazer did.

Quite probably, it would have sold Cristiano Ronaldo last summer, given an £80m offer, and hid behind responsibility to shareholders and the player’s desire to leave. (Yes, the plc board always fended off interest from Italy in the young Ryan Giggs, but to accept the money at that stage would have meant selling the player against his will and probably losing Ferguson in the process. Whatever was on offer, there was no option but to resist).

What is also forgotten is that private ownership is best in an industry governed by factors as variable as refereeing decisions, injuries and fatigue. For instance, the year that Manchester United exited the Champions League at the group stage against Benfica, the Glazers simply got on a plane and returned to America without uttering a word. No panic, no crisis, and the title was back at Old Trafford within 18 months.

Had United been a plc at that time, a statement would have been made, perhaps a profit warning. Certainly there would have been a fall in share price (as there would have been in the current economic climate, making the sale of Ronaldo inevitable, rather than possible).

And back to Porto, The Daily Star has a good round-up of Sir Alex pre-match quotes:

“Rio is back and his experience and quality always makes a difference when he is in the team.

“I think we reached the watershed of our defensive problems on Saturday at Sunderland. The back four did very well.

“But now we have Rio’s partnership with Nemanja Vidic back in place and that was the cornerstone of some of our great defensive performances this season.”

He added: “We have had a lot of good European nights but Juventus [in 99] is probably the one that stands out.

“After a draw at home we won away, which we hope is the same again.

“It was a night when a lot of the big players played well. There are plenty of performances we would like to replicate and I trust these players to do it.

“They deserve that because of their performances over the last two or three years in big away games in Europe.

“Porto were the better side in the first leg but maybe it will be a different story here.”

Both Kevin McCarra and David Pleat on The Guardian blog highlight the importance of Carrick and the importance of keeping things tight, with Porto having the talent (and system) to punish us otherwise.
Elsewhere the PFA nominations are in and we dominate. The Guardian Blog has Norman Whiteside and Ian Rush "arguing" about whether Ryan Giggs should win it. Ian Rush is one letter away (an R) from getting it spot on about Steven Gerrard:

Gerrard's drive has kept Liverpool nipping at Manchester United's heels.

And finally, it's not just us who have problems with TV stations (although I'm sure this story won't be pored over quite so much as some...), Everton,

banned BBC TV cameras from their FA Cup semi-final press day on Tuesday in protest at how Marouane Fellaini’s physical approach was portrayed on Match of
the Day 2 when an apparent use of the elbow was highlighted during in the 3-3 draw
at Aston Villa.