New England

It's been a while... And my return is also the return of us playing football, if only pre-season friendlies, better than nothing, and it signals that the season start is getting nearer.
Anyway, here's the highlights of our game against New England Revolution from last night.



It was a 4-1 win to us, only seen the highlights myself, but it looks like some nice stuff was played. And if you've only got time to watch one goal, watch this one -



It's from Park and it's a lovely composed finish, but it's the build-up play that's extra special, started by Obertan, who passes to Park, one touch to Giggs, a great no-look pass straight back into the path of Park, who beats the goalie magnificently.
Not that the other goals were too shabby either - Owen's finish was sweet and a couple of great passes in the build-up to Macheda's first.
Also - post-match interview with Ashley Young, who, by all accounts had a good debut -



And Macheda post-match interview on his bad last season and how good it is to be back at "the best club in the world."

Alcoholiday

This will be the last paper round-up for at least a week, as I'm off on my holidays.  Normal service will be resumed, at some point next week.  Hopefully things will have happened by the time I get back, I'm expecting to come back to signings galore...

Not much about today.  The Manchester Evening News has a bit of a summary as Sir Alex and the players return to work:

The Reds surely cannot tackle the challenges of the new season without the introduction of a flair playmaker to fill the Paul Scholes breach.

The natives won’t feel comfortable until that purchase has been made.Arsenal’s Samir Nasri and Inter Milan’s Wesley Sneijder continue to see-saw in the affection of the Reds support and their availability is equally as unstable.

The Mirror speculate that we could still sign Sanchez if Barcelona get Fabregas, money problems: 

The Champions League winners are at full stretch financially and that offer will not be increased, and could even be withdrawn, if they land Gunners skipper Fabregas in the next few days.

Ferguson and supremo David Gill are playing a canny waiting game. It is now three weeks since Gill met Udinese and the Sanchez camp to make their pitch.

One last story, also from The Mirror, that Stoke have "joined the race for Wes Brown and John O'Shea." 

Dinosaur on the ark

There's an opinion piece in The Daily Mirror Saturday from Brian Reade which criticises Twitter for tweeting too much, wrongly, and too seriously about transfer rumours.  I was going to set up this post as new media vs old media, but on reflection I think it's something worse than that.

There's certainly a sense of the old and of nostalgia about the opening of the piece where he looks back "twelve summers ago" and ends:

Summer has always seen footballing rumours spread like bush fires, and in recent years the internet has flung petrol on the flames. But today, with Twitter, they’re moving at the speed of light.

Interestingly his opening anectode involves "two pensioners," ambling along, perhaps to highlight the difference between the old ways and the new, but whereas Brian Reade looks nostalgically back at the ambling pensioners against the lightening speed of Twitter, the rest of the world has moved on and prefers the speed of access and the unleashed freedom of information which social media encourages.

Brian Reade's central point is that people take silly rumours too seriously on Twitter.  Everything should be taken with a pinch of salt and we should move on and concentrate on other sports over the summer instead of worrying too much about transfers.  Does he have a point?

Being on Twitter a lot, I'm not sure he does.  I think he's picturing the average Twitter user as some sort of dupe who believes everything he's fed.  I don't think he gives us enough credit.  From what I've seen on Twitter most people take most rumours with a healthy dose of salt.  It's pretty much a game of speculation, who can give the most convincing arguments for touted transfers, who can make the most outlandish claim seems plausible.

My major problem with the piece is that it ignores completely the fact that newspapers are filled with enough transfer rubbish everyday over the summer without having to criticise Twitter for it.  The Daily Mirror is the worst culprit for publishing every stupid rumour.  What's the worst thing - quickfire 140 character moan about

a rumoured transfer, or writing a full article for a newspaper stretching the stupid rumour to breaking point to fit a word count?  How someone writing for The Daily Mirror can criticise Twitter for believing anything is beyond me.  Why don't The Mirror stop writing about transfer rumours and concentrate on other sports all summer?  This isn't even an old/new media thing, seeing as most of the Twitter rumours link back to/ originate in the established papers.

And it's not an old/new media thing, it's seems more a writer biting the hand that feeds.  A patronising little piece on how stupid and gullible football fans are.  "We feed you this shit and you fall for it hook, line and sinker, idiots!" is what it seems like to me.  A sports writing criticising the very people who he's meant to be writing for.  Even if we look at it from a different perspective, journalist as being informative, teaching us things, even here it's wrong, because, as pointed out earlier, The Daily Mirror is the worst culprit for printing bullshit transfer stories with arch-seriousness.  When reading their stories I'm often thinking, "how gullible are these writers?"  But of course they're not, it's just a game, the game of transfer rumours, where every piece has to be written as if the rumour is fact, as if it might happen - because otherwise there would be no justification for publishing it and they'd have to fill even more of the paper with lurid exposés of Ryan Giggs' private life.

The fact that The Guardian Newspaper group are changing to focus more and more on their digital editions demonstrates that the future is about being online, not in print, and that "old media" needs to embrace the "new."  The New, The Social, is about dialogue, not about slagging off your readers - and it is about slagging off readers, Twitter doesn't operate in a vacuum and Twitter users are the consumers of news, of papers, both on and offline.  Twitter and social media is no longer just a scapegoat for the established media, it is not even just the future.  It's the present, it's the here and now, and it isn't going anywhere.  And the sooner people like Brian Reade realise that the better.

Dirty Black Summer

Today's a bit quiet so The Daily Star come up with an ingenious solution - start speculating about next summer's transfer window - they note Sir Alex and Kenny Dalglish are fans of Spurs Kyle Walker, note his achievements last season, before saying:

So there will be a queue of clubs eyeing his situation if Walker fails to break into Harry Redknapp’s Spurs team this season.

And that really is the story.  As if there weren't enough rumours about this summer...

The Independent on Sunday have a prosaic look at the summer's transfer activity so far, comparing our's and City's:

The moment Manchester City qualified for the Champions League was the moment the Tottenham manager, Harry Redknapp, knew he could no longer compete. "I know some people in the right positions at Manchester City and they have players signed already that will blow your brains out," he remarked. That was two months ago.

Gaël Clichy is a fine if slightly error-prone left back but he is not the kind of signing that would make Redknapp's chairman, Daniel Levy, reach for a revolver and a bottle of whisky. But there is something remarkable about Clichy's transfer from Arsenal. At £7m he will be the cheapest footballer to sign for City since the oil money from Abu Dhabi started flowing in. Meanwhile, five miles away, Manchester United have embarked on what, in real terms, is their most expansive summer in the transfer market for a decade.

There's a possible (maybe I'm over-sensitive) dig as they compare our current spending with the summer spend that bought us Veron.  Though as Veron's best performances came in Europe, and that's where we fell short last season, maybe the comparison is unwittingly apt. Here's their summary of the overall situation:

In the sombre afterglow of the rout at Wembley in this year's Champions' League final, Ferguson declared himself "ready to meet the challenge of Barcelona", the team but for whom United might have equalled Liverpool's English record of five European Cups. The arrival of Wesley Sneijder, the focal point of the Internazionale side that did beat Barcelona, in the 2010 semi-finals, would be a statement of that intent, as are the unsubstantiated reports that United are prepared to pay the kind of wages that eased Yaya Touré's journey from Barcelona to City. However, the Dutchman has been talking about the city of Milan in the kind of language that might have been scripted by the Italian tourist board. Arsenal's Samir Nasri appears far more approachable.

A couple of stories linking our players with moves to Sunderland - The Mail on Sunday go for Wes Brown, The Daily Star for John O'Shea, and say that Everton are favourites for Brown.  These transfers are turning into sagas... maybe one day something will happen...

Some sabre-rattling quotes from Evra:

 “We have won the Premier League 19 times but it does not lose its excitement.

“That is the curse of Manchester United. It is never enough to win the trophies.

“That’s why United are a big club and we want to stay on the top.

“And next season we are going to have the same hunger to win every game. If you don’t have the hunger, you will get the hairdryer from Ferguson!”

Finally The Mail On Sunday have the inside scoop on Sir Alex's thoughts, claiming, in an article that has no quotes or quoted (or even mentioned) sources:

Sir Alex Ferguson has admitted he was prepared to break a club record to take Alexis Sanchez to Manchester United.

And he's moving onto concentrating on Sneijder or Modric.  A story that would be more believable it even pretended to be sourced.

Insight

There's a Twitter account I see retweeted quite often (I'm not sure of the name, it might be more than one account, I'm just lumping them together) which seems to always be saying what's going to happen with transfers in great detail - "so and so will sign for them, announcement at 2pm" and then nothing happens.  Most of the time it's obvious nothing's going to happen because the transfer touted is so ridiculous.  So I'm left wondering whether this Twitter account is a subtle satire on the papers' treatment of transfer windows - just keep printing rubbish, ignore the things you get wrong and trumpet very loudly the odd thing you get right - if you print enough rubbish something's bound to stick.  If it is satire, it's genius.

Today is one of those days when everything explodes in a big bang of frenzied lying.  No one can get there stories straight.

Nasri is the name on everyone's lips, and as I'm doing a paper review of things that were printed last night there's every chance that the rubbish I'm talking about will have been replaced with different rubbish by the time you read this.  The Sun get far too excited by everything, shouting loudly, "City in AMAZING swoop for Sam" Which you might think meant something had happened. It hasn't.  The amazing swoop boils down to:

"City are planning the first big move for Nasri"

Yes, nothing has actually happened.  And if they did put a bid in, would that actually be amazing?  Really?  Or pretty bog-standard, considering how many names have already been linked with City.

Here's the same story in the slightly less sensational language of The Independent:

Though Sir Alex Ferguson is back at his desk, United's progress on the Nasri front is not likely to advance until next week and there were no signs last night that City are intent on setting the pace for a player who Arsenal will fight to keep.

No discussions took place at a significant level between City and Nasri yesterday and none are currently scheduled, though it is unclear whether exploratory discussions between intermediaries have been undertaken.

Truly AMAZING I'm sure you'll agree.

The Daily Star just ignore City and claim: 

Starsport understands United officials held talks with associates of Samir Nasri last week and are confident of a deal

A bit duller, maybe amazing...

The Mirror join in the same rubbish talk, but with a different player, proclaiming O'Shea is on his way to Arsenal:

The Republic of Ireland international is not interested in joining Sunderland, who expressed interest a fortnight ago and also want United's Darron Gibson.

But O'Shea has been made aware of Arsenal's interest and sources close to the player say he will consider a move to London.

Here's the more likely version from The Guardian:

The Manchester United defender John O'Shea is expected to sign forSunderland early next week. Sir Alex Ferguson agreed to sell the Irishman, as well as Wes Brown and Darron Gibson, to the Wearside club last month. O'Shea is the first of the three players to accept a deal.

The Mirror just made something up?  Shocked... oh...

They do it again, claiming Nani "thought about leaving Man United"  The actual quote:

“It’s true that the rumours about interest from Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus and Bayern Munich forced me to think,” said Nani.

“But I am at the best club in the world right now. In the future, things are never certain.

“To play in Spain would be a very good experience, but I prefer the Premier League."

They really are the worst paper for football gossip (or the best, if you like reading absolute trash, but at least it's something...), and that's saying something.

We've apparently upset Fiorentina by signing a young keeper:

Fiorentina's sporting director Pantaleo Corvino is unhappy with Manchester United for convincing their Italy Under-17 goalkeeper Pierluigi Gollini to leave the club for Old Trafford.

Corvino, reacting after Gollini revealed he had accepted an offer to join United's academy, said more of his young players were targeted by English clubs but had chosen to remain with Fiorentina

Storm in a teacup.

Finally, The Daily Mail has some quotes from Evra who, surprisingly perhaps, thinks our new signings are quite-good-actually:

‘I think they are great signings,’ said Evra, speaking on a club trophy promotional tour in China. 

‘We will give them all a nice welcome. I think they’ll be important and I’m very confident about the future.

‘After we lost the Champions League final I said that we had lost just a game. 

‘But I’m confident about the future, especially with our great new signings, and I think we are going to win it next year. 

‘We hope to retain the title but also to win the Champions League.’

Insightful.

Position of Power

Mad late on this, but the problems with Blogger yesterday mean this is the first chance I've got to post on this.  Would have been part of yesterday's paper-round-up, but while I've written off the rest of that, this story still deserves a mention.
It's David Gill suggesting that we're unfairly treated by the FA:

"I do genuinely believe there have been some poorish decisions that, in my opinion, wouldn't necessarily have hit other clubs," Gill said.

I've said it before, and I'll no doubt say it again, that FA policy - their stated policy- is to treat us harsher than others.  Here's where I've said it before, and the relevant quote -

Sources at the FA have confirmed, however, that Ferguson was warned following his punishment for criticising referee Alan Wiley in October 2009 that “greater profile carries greater responsibility” – a clear reference to the Scot’s belief that United are victims of heavier punishment than others.

Perhaps they'd watched Spiderman 3 before this, but either way it's on record - the FA treat us differently.
What surprises me in this story is that the major talking point is Gill's comments, when to me, the shocking thing in this article (which stems from quotes from a book by Steve Bartram on last season), is the casual way John O'Shea talks about Rooney holding the club to ransom:

John O'Shea recounts in the book how the players reacted to a team-mate questioning whether the other players were good enough to challenge for trophies.
"It transpired it was just an interesting technique of getting a new deal," O'Shea said. "I think Wayne, if he could turn back the clock, might do things a bit differently, but both parties were happy in the end.
"He came [into the Carrington dressing room after signing his new deal] and apologised to everyone. He said he'd done what he had to do, basically, and he was sorry if he had offended anybody. Obviously there were a few comments that will stay in the dressing room. They were quite smart and funny, but all friendly."

Whether the quote from John O'Shea is tongue-in-cheek, which it seems to be, the telling bit seems  to be the way Rooney just shrugs his shoulders, "just what I had to do..." hold the club to ransom - "just what I had to do" - wring a few more pieces of silver from us, "just what I had to do..." And I'd all but forgiven him as well...
Yet it seems we're all so immune to this type of thing from footballers that the thing rates nothing but a passing mention in an article that concentrates on telling us what we all already know, that the FA treat us differently.  I guess the fact that Rooney is such a mercenary falls into the same category of the bleeding-obvious...
Shame.