Still Following the Trawler

After a long and tortuously dull game at the Mestalla that saw little chances created by either side, far less by the away team, it was left to young Hernandez and (even younger Macheda) to come on and win us the game. Chicharito’s second meaningful contribution of the game, after hitting the post soon after coming on in the 77 th  minute, was to latch onto Kiko’s clever pass, cut inside the Valencia defence and bury it into the far corner. What a goal, but also, what a brilliant, innovative piece of management by Fergie. All the pressing issues regarding team selection occurred before the game. No Giggs, Scholes and, most notably, Rooney. How were United to cope while three of our most influential players were still back in Manchester ? Against the team top of La Liga? Even before the potentially desperate, final-roll-of-the-dice decisions were made to replace Anderson and Berbatov with Hernandez and Macheda respectively, SAF showed his typical blend of bravery and intelligence; s...

Good. Nani. 2 goals and 6 assists (including one of each yesterday). The whipping boy this time last season has shockingly become our most pivotal and creative player. Who would've thought. Owen. It was three goals in two games for him last week...play him and he will score. Simple as that. Rooney's impact. Yes, he is a striker, and as a striker all we pretty much need him to do is score goals. Yet as we all know and love about the boy, Rooney's game is full of many more influential dimensions. Yesterday for example, he played a diagonal pass into the path of Berbs, beating the entire bemused Bolton defence in the process, that was so perfect, Berbatov thought the only thing he could do to complete a move created with such beauty  was to shoot and subsequently score a goal of equal treasure. But the daft bastard didn't take into account a couple of rather vital pointers. 1) The angle and distance on the shot was so impossible, not even 'super Berbatov who scores ...

United blog  Between the Lines  talks about  Fergie's decision to go to Spain and watch Valencia vs. Athletico Madrid  rather than his own team's Carling Cup game at Scunthorpe. The pressure and constant presence of the media is finally getting to our Wazza,  according to Fergie . RoM has a nice little  compilation video of Bebe's debut  against Scunthorpe. The brilliant  Liverpool blog   on TheOffside.com gives a  fair and honest review  on last week's game at OT. The Telegraph preview Sunday's game at the Reebok .

    Good. A great run out for a few of the ‘so nearly forgotten’ boys. In particular Anderson – who played his first full match in bloody ages – and Owen, technically our 5 th  choice striker, who scored a brilliant brace. Park, who has already appeared in 5 games this season, is hardly a forgotten figure, but it’s always to see one of the most hard working players at United grab a goal. KitKat deserves a special mention here, who's solid, alert performance - especially early in the first half when the home team came out firing - won him Man of the Match. Smalling. Great goal by the young ‘un. Positioning and finish were simply delish. Good job son. Bebe. Unlike Smalling’s contribution, Bebe’s debut was hardly much to shout about…but at least it finally happened! Possibly Fergusons most scrutinized signing ever – when has a player ever been judged as much as this before even kicking a ball? –  has finally arrived. Let's just pray the hard work he's put into getting ...

With March’s anticlimactic encounter still fairly fresh in the memory, and bearing the Scouser’s continued levels of shitness in mind – continuing where it left off from last season, only to add the worsening ability of their one truly world class player to their sorry state – I thought we would undoubtedly win it. 5 points in 4 games read the Liverpool form guide going into the game; however my apparent confidence (some call it arrogance?) so nearly neglected our own apparent lack of quality. We had an absolute shitter against Rangers in the Champions League earlier in the week, and more importantly, our last league game, against Liverpool ’s bezzie mates down the road, was 100 times worse; producing one of the biggest shocks I have ever experienced from a United display in reason years. So although 5 in 4 reads worse than our 8 points in 4, those empty stats said very little about our current lack of confidence and depressing inability to hold on to a lead. Still, we started brigh...

A mate of mine recently started working in banking and to my surprise; one of the first things he learnt about was the leveraged buyout of our club. So standardly I asked him/forced him to feed me his knowledge. I’m not sure how many of you out there know the ins-and-outs of how we came to be in this mess, but I found his email ridiculously interesting and nicely cleared up a few things for me. Anyway, for those of you who literally sat there and watched it all unfold in 2005 – but weren't exactly sure why or how it was happening – hopefully this’ll clear up a couple of things… The Downfall of Man United, by Andrew Webb. So, the story of Man United goes a bit like this... Man Utd is a public company, which means that it is owned by the shareholders. Because it is listed on the stock exchange, anyone can buy shares in it. Malcolm Glazer owns some sort of Private Equity or Venture Capital Firm (i.e. he is not a man, he is a business). So one day Glazer approaches the Man Utd sharehol...

Alot has been made about Fergie's dramatic change in personnel from the League draw at Goodison Park on Saturday to the Champions League game against Rangers three days later. For those of you who missed it, here are the two line-ups: Everton                                                                                          Rangers Van der saar                                                                                    Kuszczak Neville                                 ...

A great loss at such an early stage of the season. Here's hoping for a swift and full recovery. Get well soon Tony!

Opening Champions League night against Rangers. From the moment the anthem plays, feelings of excitement and expectation overpowers Old Trafford. And the team selection confirms those emotions, as Ferguson  bravely drops all but one of our Goodison Park flop... a controversial yet in no way detrimental move . Rooney’s back, but is almost inevitably overpowered by the occasion. Chances come and go, with positive passages of attacking play and long periods of possession dominating our game. But there is zero end product. 0-0 is how it ended. Resilient Rangers prevail and a point for both teams in the first game in Group C is fair and just. But unfortunately the night was anything but fair and just. Unfortunately, the sound of the Champions League anthem and the presence of Wayne Rooney back on the field – as well as European debutants Smalling and Hernandez – could not disguise the true tragedy of the night. For the result pales into insignificance after the game’s – potentially our...

A mate of mine on Saturday night told me to cool off before writing up the match review. Judging by my instant reactionary post immediately after the game, it was too late! But really, I hadn’t even got started. I thought I would cool off. I thought I could falsely convince myself – using all those token clichés to excuse bad performances at the start of the season – that it wasn’t really that bad. But the disappointment and shock of being 3-1 up at 90 minutes to then drawing 3-3 at full-time is just too much. My post, had the seemingly inevitable 3-1 win stood, would have merely brushed aside this easy victory, probably referencing the vast improvement on last seasons debacle in the same fixture. I would have highlighted the awesome Nani – who’s incredible right-peg assisted our first and second goals – Scholes’ continually significant impact on this season – his vision and awareness releasing Berbatov for the ‘winner’ – and Berbs himself, who remained composed and resilient before b...