Captain Easychord

I'll start with this from Paul Wilson on The Guardian Blog, which is a pretty good summary of the reaction to our penalty against Spurs and is hopefully the last time I ever have to mention it:

While Howard Webb is to be commended for his honesty in admitting he got last week's penalty call at Old Trafford wrong, one cannot help but feel he would have been better keeping his mouth shut.

Leaving aside a slight personal grievance (reporters have to make up their minds about these things too and even with the benefit of a couple of replays I still reckoned it was a penalty), referees have the task of making an instant decision, and they should stick with it. Spurs fans annoyed with Webb's interpretation of events at the time were hardly pacified by a mea culpa issued a few days later, and if referees continue to allow television to correct their honest mistakes their authority will eventually be eroded to the extent where disputes end up in court.

On a similar subject I couldn't believe that MOTD decided to spend some of their post match analysis on decisions going our way against Boro. This can only be as a result of the talk after the Spurs game, because even while they were looking at the "evidence" they could barely muster any argument to suggest that Boro were hard doen to. It was as if before the game they'd decided that they'd have a section looking at how decisions are always given our way, and couldn't just leave it when it turned out they were completely wrong.
The funniest moment of the MOTD match coverage was after Alves had tripped over his own feet and it went to a crowd shot with the commentator saying something like "these fans will support him no matter what", the camera showed a young lad clearly mouthing the words, "you fucking piece of shit", brilliant.
Paul Wilson's match report sums up the game very well, after some praise for Giggs:

Giggs certainly had willing workers either side, in Wayne Rooney and Ji-Sung Park, as he floated like a butterfly in midfield, though despite his manager's assertion that United knew they would be in for a battle, it was the failure of the home side to engage in anything remotely like combat that made Giggs's afternoon such a comfortable one. Full-blooded relegation scraps ought to be no place for old men, but Middlesbrough don't do full-blooded or scraps. Just ­relegation, on this evidence.

Gareth Southgate's team are atypical strugglers, which is precisely why they struggle. They are not stodgy or ­physical opponents, never in your face, and though they can sometimes lift themselves to beat a team of Liverpool's calibre, as they did a couple of months ago, rarely do they show much aggression or fight. When a local boxer appeared on the pitch to take part in the half-time crossbar challenge there was practically a queue of Boro supporters ready to offer the opinion that he would do better to pull on a red shirt for the second half.

Not that I'm going to downplay our performance, we saw off some early Boro energy and by the second half had turned the game into a stroll, but Boro really were rubbish.

After going two-up United brought Tevez on and spent the rest of the game toying with Boro, turning the second half into a sort of warming down exercise ahead of their Champions League semi-final second leg and just occasionally ­attempting to see if they could pass the ball into their opponents' net.

Daniel Taylor on The Guardian Blog, manages to sum up both sides of the coin - our good play, Boro's rubbishness - very well:

Of all the "facts" that Rafael Benítez systematically detailed in that impassioned diatribe about Sir Alex Ferguson back in January, there is one that can already be exposed as fiction. It was that Manchester United, this team of serial winners and hardened, driven professionals, might be "scared" of the challenge emanating from Anfield.

It was a curious choice of words. Watchful? Yes. Wary? Undoubtedly. But scared? Ferguson has assembled a group of players who are immune to those kind of emotions. It is one the qualities that make them so formidable: their ability to keep their heads when others are feeling the strain and the way they eliminate any sense of stage-fright when the heat of the contest is rising dangerously close to intolerable.

Middlesbrough had tried to make this a "cabaret atmosphere", hoping their fans could inspire a team that is treading water three points below the jagged line of relegation, but when you have silenced the Curva Sud at San Siro and braved the Ali Sami Yen in Istanbul then trusted old pros such as Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes were hardly going to be fazed. Federico Macheda made a few of the mistakes you would expect from a 17-year-old but, that apart, Ferguson's men put on their seen-it-all-before faces, spread their feathers and set about moving six points clear at the top of the Premier League.

Unlike certain other teams I could mention (Liverpool) we managed to go to an away fixture at a team fighting for its lives and control the game, as Daniel Taylor puts it further down the report, we made "training-ground cones out of Middlesbrough's defenders".
Michael Walker in The Independent points out that for all the talk of Boro's fight it was our players doing the work which laid the foundation for the easiness of the victory (and I shouldn't have to but I'll highlight Berbatov's name here):

Statisticians can point to Boro's 25 goals from 35 matches – the lowest in the Premier League – as the definitive reason for Boro's woes, but the absence of hard work needs to be discussed and addressed when the inevitable inquest comes.

The club's videotape man should also put together a sequence of Rooney, Federico Macheda and even Dimitar Berbatov tracking back to fight for possession – and for their colleagues. On two occasions Macheda and Carlos Tevez journeyed back 60 yards.

Sir Alex makes much the same point, that we imposed ourselves on what could have been a difficult game:

"I thought it was a very good performance," Ferguson said. "They all worked their socks off. It looked a difficult game, the position Middlesbrough are in. But once we got hold of the ball, we got it together." As for his 11th title and the club's 18th: "It's as big step forward, with only four games to go."

There's some difference of opinion over Macheda's performance, The Independent reckon he did well:

Federico Macheda, still only 17, worked hard and produced some good movement as well as collecting a yellow card in his 55-minute stint before making way for Tevez

While The Sunday Times:

there were no heroics from Federico Macheda, who looked just a boy rather than a boy wonder when asked to start rather than come off the bench.

Which I think is a bit harsh. He did alright I thought. At times I thought he was trying a bit too hard, trying little flicks when something simple might have been better, and his booking was a result of overenthusiasm in the tackle (though he was still unlucky with it, he seemed to have pulled out by the time he got to the Boro player), but his movement was good and he showed the confidence to try things, he certainly didn't look out of place.
Sir Alex had a few words on Tevez, and Kaka...

Despite Carlos Tevez saying that he may leave in the summer, Ferguson is banking on the forward remaining at the club, maintaining he does not have a contingency plan if the Argentine does not agree a permanent deal.

Ferguson said: "I don't have any player to bring in and we're still hoping to conclude negotiations." Tevez, who started the 1-0 win over Arsenal in the Champions League semi-final, has grown frustrated at being overlooked for key matches, but Rooney wants him at Old Trafford next season. "I love playing with him and hopefully he will stay. In my opinion you need four strikers."

Meanwhile, Ferguson has mocked the suggestion that he might attempt to sign Kaka from AC Milan. He said: "How much did Manchester City bid for him? £100 million? Do you think we'd spend £100 million on a player?"

The same article has Rooney saying he'd like to stay for his entire career:

"I am happy here and I'd sign a new contract anytime. I want to stay at this club for the rest of my career. I will sign an extension any time the club want me to."

And The Mirror have a quote from Ronaldo:

In his strongest public statement about his future at Manchester United, Ronaldo said: “I’m no longer thinking of Madrid. That dream is dead.
"The only thing I dream about now is Manchester United and winning the Champions League again in Rome.”

Which is nice...
The Daily Star report that Real want Evra, but in a bizarre departure for these speculative articles they basically admit he won't go:

Having failed in their persistent pursuit of Cristiano Ronaldo, Real are eyeing Evra as a replacement for former Old Trafford favourite Gabriel Heinze.

And if they fail to land him, the Spanish giants will then switch their sights to Arsenal’s Gael Clichy.

That may be Madrid’s better option, as Evra is under contract to United for another three years and a deal would be difficult anyway, given the strained relationship between Old Trafford and the Bernabeu over Ronaldo.

Moving onto the Champions League, Henry Winter highlights the difference in leadership between us and Arsenal:

On Tuesday, as his flinty eyes look around an Emirates dressing room, Ferguson will note the number of leaders hanging their match-day suits in those beautiful lockers. Even youngsters such as Federico Macheda have taken responsibility when needed this season.

The captain’s arm-band would fit snugly on the arm of Edwin van der Sar, Nemanja Vidic, Rio Ferdinand (if fit), Ryan Giggs (if picked) or even Rooney, the Bash Street Kid recently hinting at school prefect status. Gary Neville, the club captain, is hors de combat but a strong voice in the dressing room while Michael Carrick increasingly appears officer material. Few squads boast as many leaders.

The contrast with the Emirates home-team quarters is one made by concerned Arsenal fans brought up being thrilled by the captaincy of warriors such as Tony Adams and Patrick Vieira or, for an older generation, Frank McLintock.

Cesc Fabregas, a brilliant footballing talent, likes arguing the toss but his presence in the centre circle before kick-off deciding ends stems from his dressing-room popularity. Arsenal’s most important player? Yes. Natural leader? No.

And there's some quotes from Sir Alex on Rooney:

"When we signed Wayne, it was a bargain at the time. We knew what we were getting. We had identified him a long time before that. We tried to get him at 14 and then again when he was 16.

"Eventually we had to pay that money for him. I said to him if he had joined us earlier he could have had the £26million for himself!

"Rooney keeps on showing things that are special because he has that wonderful appetite for the game. He wants to play all the time. It doesn't matter where you ask him to play.

"He keeps saying he's a better centre-half. But he is capable of playing anywhere in the forward positions. His performance level as a wide player has been eye-catching. He's never said 'I'm a centre-forward. I want to be in the box scoring goals'.

"He is now scoring goals in a different way and is doing it for the team. We have got a lot of candidates for the Footballer of the Year award but no one could argue with Wayne getting it."

The Sunday Times looks at the reason we're favourites to go through and why we're likely to score an away goal:

A conundrum facing Arsenal derives from United’s mastery of a state-of-the-art ploy. Andy Roxburgh, Uefa’s technical director, spoke recently in these columns about the direction the tactics of top teams are taking. “A trend is towards the ‘collective counter’,” he said. “It’s counterattacking which begins not in the traditional way — at the back, when the opposition are committed and lose possession — but in midfield, when the ball is stolen and a group of players use fast combination passes to get through a defensive block. The key is the ‘transition moment’, how quickly from winning the ball you can hit the opposition.”

Roxburgh named United as prime exponents and Ferguson, interviewed in Uefa’s The Technician magazine, reflected on the development. “A lot of counterattacking is different today, unlike the old classic Italian style of the 1960s when the ball was played long to an individual attacker who might get a one versus one in a big space. Now players flood forward from midfield and full-back positions, making it four or five supporting the fast break. This group counterattacking has been a big change in the game.”

Having been at the centre of attempts to resist United’s raids at Old Trafford, Mikael Silvestre said “it felt like the Alamo”. Ferguson’s midfield trio of Anderson, Darren Fletcher and Michael Carrick won the ball early and got it forward quickly before springing upfield to support Carlos Tevez, Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo.

John O’Shea and Patrice Evra were just as fast on the flanks, leaving Arsenal swamped by phalanxes numbering up to eight marauding players. Arsenal’s need to chase a goal on Tuesday will leave United playing just as they like it, on the break. The task for Arsène Wenger’s men is to be expansive without opening up for a moment against opponents who only need a chink, akin to patting one’s head while rubbing one’s stomach — on a tightrope 100ft up.

United are 24 games unbeaten in the Champions League, a record run Arsenal must try to end. United have scored on each of the three occasions they have played at the Emirates and it is seven seasons since Arsenal achieved a home result against Ferguson’s side good enough to send them through on Tuesday.

And Sir Alex reckons Chelsea will await us:

Should United progress, Ferguson knows who will be waiting in the Italian capital: “Chelsea. Definitely Chelsea. I think they’ll go through. The loss of Rafael Marquez and Carles Puyol is a bad one for Barcelona,” he says.