Half Blind

I was hoping that James Lawton would be writing the match report of our game today, and he is, only I'm slightly disappointed. It's the usual garbled nonsense, but it's frankly a bit dull. Take a look at this:

if you doubt that football's diving problem really does warrant retrospective video inspection, you should take a look at the Rooney re-runs. The United forward entered his dive trajectory fractionally before he collided with the Arsenal goalkeeper. Of course he did. He is a pro. The opportunity came on a silver platter.

Wenger said the penalty award was "Old Traffordish", which made you wonder quite what category in which to place the Eduardo affair. Outrageously dishonest might cover it but before he left the scene of one of his most biting disappointments the Arsenal manager had widened the debate still further – and not to the satisfaction of anyone who likes to believe that football hasn't become a wasteland of sporting values.

What does it all mean? I've read it through and I really can't fathom it. Is he having a go at Rooney? Wenger? I don't really know. It all makes very little sense. At least his opinion on the match is clearer, even if it's wrong:

Sir Alex Ferguson said United just about deserved the win, but he was going easy on a team as cautious, at times even passive, as his selection had suggested they might be. Rooney found himself largely on his own, and when Dimitar Berbatov came on he wasted a chance that might have provoked some of the impressive inter-play that was on display at Wigan last weekend.

Arsenal, even without Cesc Fabregas, had an impressive coherence and when Arshavin swept them into the lead it was hard to believe they would surrender so easily such a brilliantly achieved advantage.

Predictable, but even so, "brilliantly achieved advantage," really? If I'm not mistaken that was their only first half shot on target. Brilliant indeed.
The Guardian's match report isn't too bad, still on the praising Arsenal tip but at least recognising our success:

United scooped the points, in part, because it is in their nature, after three consecutive Premier League titles, to rally at a moment of crisis. ...
the type of footballers picked in their 4-3-3 structure gave them a more cautious air than Arsenal. Ferguson flatly declined, for nearly the whole game, to give Rooney a partner in attack because his priority was to ensure that his team was never outnumbered in midfield. That altered only in the last five minutes, when Dimitar Berbatov was introduced so that United could hit on the break as the visitors took risks.Aesthetics received little consideration, but Ferguson's battleplan, assisted by freakish events here and there, prevailed.

The Times' James Ducker at least admits he craved an Arsenal win, after a fashion:

By expressing dismay at the volume of deliberate fouls for which he felt that some of United’s players — and, by inference, Darren Fletcher in particular — escaped censure, Wenger inadvertently gave the impression that his team had been bullied, the victim of some grave injustice.

The truth, though, was that such claims served only to distract from the real injustice — that Arsenal could and should have won a tumultuous match after producing a fine performance marred only, albeit irreparably, by two lame errors of judgment.

Henry Winter in The Telegraph, loses points for claiming, "Arsenal dominated for an hour," but otherwise gives us praise and limits the "injustice" to Arsenal should have got a point, which I can just about agree with, it was a very even game, which, as I pointed out yesterday, the stats show. Here's what he says:

For all United's second-half revival orchestrated by Darren Fletcher and Wayne Rooney, Arsenal deserved a point from a classic match, as flawed as it was compelling. Now this was "emotional''. La Liga showcases more technique but the Premier League boasts more pyrotechnics. ... helped by United's alarming failure to retain possession, Arsenal saw good performances in all departments. ...
Reprieved, United stormed into Arsenal, the dynamic Fletcher and Rooney leading the charge.

Alan Hansen is typically awful. Quote one bit of a sentence: "Arsenal pummelled United for 45 minutes," and managed one shot on target and (this from memory) 3 or 4 shots total. Which doesn't sound like much of a pummelling really does it...
In an otherwise rubbish Graham Poll column there is one good point, on the Wenger sending off and subsequent apology he's to receive:

If fourth official Lee Probert reported Wenger for merely kicking a water bottle following a correctly disallowed equaliser for offside then I'd agree he was wrong as this act was surely born of frustration and disappointment rather than dissent.

However, given what had occurred earlier in the game, I expect Probert had been forced to warn the Arsenal manager about his comments and conduct on several occasions and had reached a point of no return.

The worst match report of the day goes to Matt Lawton in The Mail, who slags us off throughout, quotes Arsene Wenger's "anti-football" comment about us as fact and doesn't describe our penalty award at all, merely makes a snide comment about us "getting our own way" at home and quotes Arsene's "Old Traffordish comment. I'm actually wondering whether he works for Arsenal or is Arsene in disguise.

I'm not going to go into or quote from Arsene Wenger's rather silly "anti-football" comments, the way the papers have slavishly picked up on them isn't in the least surprising, and Arsene succeeds pretty well in distracting attention from yet another Arsenal player performing a disgraceful dive. He (and his journalists/sycophants) should probably also remember the way Arsenal tried to kick Evra all over Old Trafford last season. The only thing I will quote is from Daniel Taylor who talks some sense:

On this occasion, however, the Frenchman may have opened himself to allegations of diversion tactics at a time when Eduardo and, to a lesser extent, Eboué have embarrassed the club. Robin van Persie also gave away six free-kicks even if, unlike Fletcher, he was booked.

Jim White in The Telegraph has a nice article praising Rooney, particularly like his explanation of the own goal:

Ferguson, however, has not won 11 Premier League titles by failing to spot a system error. For the second half he shifted Giggs up the pitch and told Rooney to attack the acreage of space behind him. Suddenly, United’s No 10 was everywhere, applying pressure on every opponent, his passes acute, his stamina inexhaustible. Fabio Capello, eager to take possession of the player for the next 10 days of England duty, compared him over the weekend to Raul. But you cannot imagine the Real Madrid talisman running 50 yards to execute a covering tackle as Rooney did on Abou Diaby. Sensing his growing authority, his colleagues rose to the occasion with him. Giggs found a sweet pass at last, which invited Rooney to charge at the keeper and win the equalising penalty. Then the Welshman swung in a free-kick which Diaby, by now so disturbed by Rooney’s very presence, headed into his own goal.

Richard Williams on The Guardian blog reckons we need a playmaker

Ferguson's mastery of the transfer market ensures that his successful investments outnumber his failures, but they seem to be concentrated in certain areas. He likes acquiring strikers, second strikers, wingers and deep-lying midfield players. Apart from the two veterans of the 1992 Youth Cup-winning team, his current first-team midfield roster, excluding wingers, amounts to Michael Carrick, Darren Fletcher, Anderson, the inexperienced Darron Gibson and the unlucky Owen Hargreaves: none of them is either suited or ready to be a replacement for Paul Scholes as the player who dismantles a defence with a single pass and pops up to score 15 goals a season. Like Giggs, Scholes no longer has the legs for the job in the biggest matches.

Perhaps the unhappy and expensive experience with Juan Sebastián Verón undermined Ferguson's faith in playmakers. United's most impressive performances since that time have been achieved with a line-up in which aggressive midfield players such as Fletcher and Anderson create the platform on which out-and-out forwards can perform. The flowering of the partnership of Rooney, Ronaldo and Louis Saha during the French forward's injury-free autumn of 2006 was a typical, if short-lived, expression of that approach.

Which seems to me to be overstating the problem. Carrick can pick a match winning pass, and our midfield does need to score more, but Gibson certainly has a shot on him, and Anderson is hopefully going to get better at shooting to add to the drive he already possesses.