Return of the Ironman

He's back!  Paul Scholes' goal against Bolton




And Welbeck makes it two -



And Carrick scores a classy third, passed into net from 20 yards

A Dead, Sinking Story

Still not got my computer fixed, so still difficult to post too much, however, I've made an extra special effort today after noticing a bit of a "media campaign" against us in the last couple of days.  At least from The Observer/Guardian.  And possibly ITV.  

Call me a crazy conspiracist but ITV did seem to want us to lose yesterday, and it links in with the couple of articles I'll point to from The Observer, it seems as though everyone is predicting our demise, there was a certain amount of this last season as well, and this, combined with the spending, or "the rise" as journalists would put it, of Man City, leads to a narrative construction in the media which everything must be included in.  So ITV started the commentary with this idea, of the rise of one against the demise of the other, and the match would illustrate this, hence the disbelief at the sending off of Kompany - this, and our goals, wasn't in the script, how could this have happened?  Andy Townsend's insistence on questioning the sending off throughout the half was out of all proportion to the decision.  It was the hysterical reaction of a man whose whole world view  had just collapsed. 

Andy Townsend should have taken a leaf out of Rob Smyth's book, whose reaction to things which go against his world view is "fuck facts, I'm right."  His article from The Observer, which tells us why we're in inexorable decline ends:

United may beat City on Sunday and go on to do the Double; it does not matter. There can be no happy ending here.

Yes, we could win the double but we'd still be finished apparently.  Humorously, he said pretty much the same thing back in 2006, all the trophy's we've won since, meaningless, because in the world of Rob Smyth, we're finished.  His end prediction from that article -  "United fans think this season is going to be bad. It hasn't even started."

This narrative turn can also be illustrated with the figures I've seen quoted like a mantra the last few days about how our net transfer spend is the same as x,y or z's, it is only through the distorting mirror of the Glazers that this takes on its sinister mask.  Remove the Glazers and everyone would be like, "wow, look how well we've done while those all around spend millions, we're financially responsible, just like the new UEFA guidelines want us to be, although of course the money recieved from Ronaldo skews the figures but what the hell - we've still been pretty shrewd in the transfer market."

(There's a certain element of this negativity from fans as well, where everything is linked back to the narrative of the Glazers, no transfers?  its the Glazers; transfers?  it's the Glazers trying to appease people; price rises?  its the greedy Glazers; price freeze?  greedy Glazers appeasing fans to keep them buying.  And there is a crossover with the media narrative, because the takeover by the Glazers was meant to be it for us, they'd milk us dry and we'd go under)

The other article is here, by Paul Wilson, who with a lot of ifs and buts, makes much the same point as Rob Smyth, but his narrative is based on City's rise as much as our fall.

The point being that, and I know the old cliché about Sir Alex liking to create a siege mentality could apply here, our narrative versus their's but, I feel that the danger is that it becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, we begin to believe the narrative ourselves, and we start instituting our own decline.  Now, more than ever, it is time to Believe.