Still Following the Trawler

Good. Berbatov has scored more hattricks this season than Rooney has goals! Yesterday we undoubtedly saw the best of Berbatov. In fact, we truly saw a brilliant, all round, professional footballing performance - one that, if I might be so bold, you would commonly associate with a little Argentinian knocking the ball about in Catalonia. Against Birmingham, we saw a player acting as a poacher (his first goal), magician (second), grafter (Giggs' goal) and out-and-out striker (the hattrick). A truly flawless display from an often flawed genius. Our third goal. To merely mention it in passing as I did in the previous point is utterly disrespectful to its quality. The link up play between Berbatov and Rooney, the quality of Rooney's pass and the finish from 57 year old Giggs was just stunning. Say what you like about United's lack of quality this season - I know I have - but a goal like that displays nothing less than a coherant, united side full of desir...

Going into Tuesday's game, I decided to cast my mind back to last season's fixture. Why? Because I'm sadistic like that! For those who don't remember it, I don't blame you. Dull, uneventful and wasteful were probably the best words to describe the 1-1 draw at St Andrews . However as a representation of our season, it was probably as significant a game as any. We consistently struggled last term -  rather than going for  the more conventional, sporadic 'drop-in-form' - and in the away game against Birmingham in January, which came six days after our embarrassing FA Cup home defeat at the hands of League One Leeds United, we demonstrated exactly why we were unable to win an unprecedented fourth title on the trot. All the words I have used to describe our season in 2009/10 - dull, wasteful and struggle - applied to that game. And if it wasn't for our third top scorer, O.G, equalising with half an hour of play left, we would have recorded what would have bee...

I know it's a tad late, but here are my player ratings plus some more general, poignant thoughts from the Birmingham game   on my Football Talent Spotter blog . My Man of the Match was Evra, with Rafael and red-carded Fletcher not too far behind. Thoughts...? LINK: The Cockney Red - Football Talent Spotter.

I had a feeling the match wouldn’t turn out well from the offset; lets just say my choice of location to watch the encounter at the St.Andrew's could have been planned out slightly better. As I sat in the pub awaiting kick-off, I was once again reminded of how unwelcome the locals made it for us Cockney Red’s (said in capitals because it is an official title). The unsavoury characters around me, otherwise known as Arsenal fans, were still buzzing (pissed) on an undeserved sense of achievement having luckily stolen a point from Everton’s brave travellers just before our game kicked off. So as usual, every time United lost possession, misplaced a pass, or the camera simply honed in on Sir Alex chewing gum, I expected the typical jibe’s of ‘aaaaaahh yoo fackin cants’. But, as the first half an hour of football progressed, those chants were not in attendance. I’m certainly not ruling out the obvious fact that they probably couldn’t even see straight, however, having placed my red...

If Saturday's opening to the 2009-10 season was anything to go by, we are in for a predictable season: Chelsea getting lucky, Arsenal suprising everyone and Tevez starting on the bench. Going into our game therefore, a rather undemanding home fixture against the leagues new boys, you would happily assume a comfortable thrashing was in-store. However, as our side's shuffling over the summer finally sinks in and starts to take affect, the demands of free-flowing football that are set on our (usually) prolific, entertaining team, must be reduced and re-thought; as yesterday, in our first competetive game since the departure of the golden boy (cos he's well tanned, innit), we clearly missed Ronaldo's creativity as much as we force ourselves to rule this out as merely a tired start to the season (which hopefully it will prove to be). We beat Birmingham 1-0 with a well worked Rooney goal (a tap-in after he knocked in his rebounded header), yet with the posession we had and ge...