Its Later Than You Think

Just read this from yesterday's Sun. It's not Man Utd related but it's too ridiculous to ignore: Ian Wright on Ashley Cole.

I know Ashley, and would like to see his marriage survive.

I am sure 'Brand Cheryl' will be advising her to ditch the bloke immediately. But I would like them to give it one last go with a marriage counsellor.

Some people will say he is a piece of s**t. Equally, there are two sides to every story.

There have been two totally unrelated women who have said how intimate he was with them.

Something was obviously missing from his relationship at home, so he has decided to go elsewhere.

Maybe Cheryl has been at fault as well, with her work in a band, on hit TV shows and flying all over the world.

It seems Ashley may have felt lonely and neglected and this might have been the reason why he has had to look further afield.

Perhaps, and I'm stereotyping, football isn't the best place to look for modern views on sexual politics, but is Ian Wright living in 1910 rather than 2010? "That Cheryl with her job, no wonder poor Ashley felt the need to cheat..." If I hadn't watched Live At Studio 5 I'd be hard pushed to believe this was a serious opinion.

Perhaps the key comes at the start of the bit I've quoted - Ian Wright knows Ashley Cole, and will say any shit to defend him.

RubBERBAnd

Here's the highlights from the game last night, didn't see the game, unavoidable distraction, but from the highlights it looks like we were well worth the 3-0, and the first two goals especially are well worth a watch, both feature Berba passing beautifully to Valencia to cross onto Rooney's head and into the back of the net:

And Sir Alex interviewed after the game, on Rio's absence, the Carling Cup Final, Rooney, Anderson's injury and Owen:

Critically Acclaimed

Another useless article to come in the aftermath of the Milan game, this from Kevin McCarra on The Guardian blog. It has it all: selective use of facts:

On the domestic scene they have five points fewer than at this juncture last season and that looks an appropriate measure of the shrinkage in quality.

But something like 18 extra goals than at this stage last season? Just as McCarra's measure isn't an appropriate measure of this season's loss of quality, so my stat serves as an inappropiate measure of our growth in quality....
Selective memory:

Antonio Valencia, for instance, has not taken Old Trafford by storm since his move from Wigan Athletic but the impact of a strong-running substitute with a good cross is apparent as a game becomes stretched when players tire. The Ecuadorian sent over the ball with which Rooney gave United a 2-1 lead on Tuesday.

Something like 10 games (?) ago he could have got away with this, but Valencia has now settled in the team and when he starts - not just impact substitutions - he's been excellent.
All round nonsense -

People would prefer to forget Luciano Moggi, the former director general of Juventus who is serving a five-year ban from the sport, but his opinions cannot always be rejected. Prior to the Champions League ties, he said, "We will see that calcio is not competitive on the international stage. We will be lucky if one side makes it through to the next round."

I fail to understand this quote's necessity. Why quote this guy who you say we wish to forget on a matter that pretty much everyone noted - belatedly - last year - Italian teams ain't what they used to be...
And strange gaps in the argument - he concentrates a lot of words on our defence before saying that Rooney is carrying us, while the only other midfield/attacking player he mentions is Valencia - who he praises, after a fashion - so where's the evidence that Rooney is carrying us? He should have used the easy route that Daniel Taylor uses in the same paper - when all else fails, slag off Nani:

Nani appears to have quickly reverted to type, having duped some observers recently into thinking he could be more beguiling than bewildering. Ferguson rates him as the best crosser of the ball at Old Trafford but his delivery is too erratic and it brings to mind Cristiano Ronaldo's early performances for the club, when players such as Gary Neville and Ruud van Nistelrooy would regularly be seen dragging their fingers down their face in frustration. The difference is that Nani, unlike Ronaldo, does not show any sustained improvement.

Yes, he didn't have his best game, but I remember at least one quality cross he put in which no one strove to get on the end of, and to suggest he has reverted to type after one bad game seems a trifle mean-spirited...

Daffy Duck

A further day to reflect on the AC Milan game and it seems some journalists have spent the extra time pointlessly attempting to squeeze our excellent victory into the established patterns of criticism. Here's some idiot in The Times (James Ducker - so tempting, the obvious rhyme...) who uses it to slag off Berba:

Amid all the tributes being paid to Wayne Rooney after another virtuoso performance on Tuesday evening against AC Milan took his goals tally for the season to 25, it was easy to forget that Dimitar Berbatov was even at San Siro.

Yes, it would have been pretty good if Ducker had...

Berbatov’s omission against Milan meant that he has started only eight of United’s 20 most high-profile matches since his arrival when, because of his age, 29, and the size of transfer fee, many suspected that he would be an almost permanent fixture in the first XI.

I love it when journalist come up with random criteria for "high profile games," almost as much as I love it when they put words into the mouths of "many," of course Sir Alex never considers rotation, everyone assumed Berba would play every bloody game... The ridiculous thing (first ridiculous thing...) about the article is that Ducker actually puts the bog standard non-slagging off reason in it:

United are geared to getting the best out of Rooney and that may be something Berbatov has to come to live with. The 4-3-3 formation Ferguson favours in the big games means operating with a lone spearhead in attack, and with the days of Rooney being pushed out wide long gone, that has invariably resulted in Berbatov dropping to the bench.

But look at this final flourish of ridiculousness:

One of Ferguson’s many reasons for not signing a striker in January was his fear that Berbatov, a player who needs to feel loved, would view the arrival of another forward as a sign that his days at United were numbered, but his repeated omissions are creating a dilemma of their own.

What? That's a new one on me, has Ducker been smoking something? Or dreamt a conversation with Sir Alex. And treating it like something that should be treated logically, rather than the laughable rubbish it is, if it is "one of many reasons," at which point is it worth mentioning.... yes, none... quite...

European Oils

A few thoughts on our glorious victory last night and the paper's reaction to it.
1) On playing Rafael - most of the papers make a big deal about this, his inexperience being cited as reason why he shouldn't have been up against Ronaldinho. Firstly Sir Alex puts it pretty well:

Ferguson admitted that Rafael had "made mistakes" in the game but vigorously defended his decision to play the teenager. "We have invested a great deal in him and we are not going to stop [trusting him] just because it is Milan," he said. "He has to learn that against Ronaldinho this is the real world and he has to develop his game. He made some mistakes but he won't make them again next season."

Secondly, did anyone in our defence (or anyone's defensive play) come up to scratch:

Did the inexperience of Rafael and Evans play into Milan’s hands? It is hard to say so, because Rio Ferdinand, still feeling his way back to fitness, and Patrice Evra looked equally vulnerable. Evra made an erratic start, losing possession to Pato in the first minute, mistiming a challenge on the same player and, from the resulting free kick swung in by Beckham, sending an ill-advised overhead kick to Ronaldinho, whose volley took a deflection off Carrick and ended up in the net.

But also I personally felt that Rafael grew into the game, Ronaldinho's influence waned, partly I'd argue as a result of Rafael's work, although Ronaldinho is criticised in certain quarters for tiring second half - I think it's as much that we (and Rafael in particular) gave him less space/time on the ball, and we held the ball better ourselves after the opening 20 minutes or so.

2) Some of the papers argue we were outclassed in the first half especially, and Milan looked good, first half especially, at times, but we made them look good with sloppy passing and defending and allowing them space in the first half - towards the end of the half we started keeping the ball better and our forward play improved, resulting in the goal, yet our defence still looked lacking in concentration. 2nd half we looked the better team all over, bar the final ten or so minutes as we began to make life difficult for ourselves by panicking at Milan's second, a problem we saw in a couple of games earlier in the season - an uncharacteristic lack of composure in defending narrow leads as time runs out (the Arsenal game at Old Trafford springs to mind). Which brings us to the third point:

3) This headline - "Great entertainment, but neither flawed Milan nor United will win Champions League" is what I was going to complain about - but then reading what Gabrielle Marcotti actually wrote I stopped:

Bottom line, these are two very fragile teams right now. The difference is that I can see how United can improve, I can't really see how Milan can get much better

Admittedly he ruins it a bit by getting confused in his sentence construction and after beginning it by saying we could improve he ends it by saying we can't, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt tho...
Anyway, the point is a fair one - all our problems are problems that are solvable or came from individual bad performances on the night - we played worse than we can, Milan performed at their best. We can win it. And thus those headline writers should be less misleading.

4) And one thing the papers do get right - Rooney is pretty good, lets hope they remember this next time he gets sent off...

Boredom Killed Another

Almost 2 months since I last posted here? Jesus. A combination of simply having too much on, as well as a growing irritation with the dross that is consistently dressed up as football journalism in the national press, led me to never find the time to post.
Why return now? Simply because I'm off work this week and I've got some time so I thought I'd dip a solitary toe into the stagnant pool of football writing and see how slimy it felt...
Have I missed much? Generally avoided the papers the last couple of months, occasional glimpses of the same old stories with the same old biases, has anything changed, are we still missing Ronaldo? Are referees still right on our side? Every team we play unlucky to lose? Thought so...
A gentle start to the week anyway, not even a Man Utd story, just a few words on this story about the possibility of using play-offs for the final Champions League place:

Currently the club which finishes fourth goes through but the new proposal would mean a play-off between the clubs finishing fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh. The intention is to inject more competition into a league in which qualification has for years remained in the hands of the same four clubs.

Which idea seems the opposite of the stated intention - more competition? extending the possibility of Champions League football downward is not making more competition, but admitting defeat, saying, "there is no chance of any competition so lets give them a chance by artificially making the playing field uneven..." And when all the talk is of trying to dissuade clubs from getting into huge debts with hopes of the riches of the higher echelons isn't this idea actively encouraging them to do just that - "you've no chance of fourth no matter how much you spend, but 7th? Go on, try it, spend, spend, spend - it's only seventh..."
If you want a play-off why not get the top 4 to play off for the title?
If you want competition do something else - it really is a little lame still if the most interesting end of season competition you can muster is for the final Champions League place...