Still Following the Trawler

For tonight's match preview I thought I'd give you a spot of variety (and an enhanced level of quality!). So I've asked a good mate of mine - quality writer, huge United fan and was  easily the best footballer at our school - to write up a piece for me. So here's James' look ahead to this evening's vital game at OT... So in a week where we’ve seen a new hero born at Old Trafford, the full debut of our most controversial and talked about signing , speculation over Coleen’s cup size and us buying Nobby Stiles' World Cup and European Cup winners medals, it's back to the Premier League for the visit of Tottenham Hotspur.  Carrying on from last season Spurs are flying high, just 2 points behind us in the table in 5th and in possession of one of the best midfields in the league. This represents our first match against a potential title challenger this season (who thought we’d be saying that 2 years ago when we poached Dimitar Berbatov from them), and although...

So yeh, apparently I've got Twitter.  Although I've always liked to think of my mighty 26 followers as part of an 'exclusive' group rather than an 'unpopular' one, I've been told that you can in fact add room for few more. So if you fancy following me - partly to hear more of the same (in bite-size nuggets rather than  in essay form) and partly to make me look as cool as Ashton Kutcher - then for the love of God follow me! www.twitter.com/thecockneyred Tah, The Cockney Red

Good. The second half . I can't remember the last time I saw a first half of football so bad, followed by a second half so good. 5 goals in 34 minutes resulted in a bonerific game of catch-up by the away side...until you know who settled things late on for the second game running. I suppose, given their intensified effort levels, Wolves were unlucky not to earn the reply, but really we dominated and played by the far the most threatening attacking football. Smalling . The boy's growing in confidence and stature. With Rio's role at the club not nearly as pivotal as it once was (some suggest that off-field distractions are to blame. And by some, I mean me), what we need is quality and consistency at the back. He was paired alongside fellow young'un Evans (weird to consider him still a youngster given his experience) and in doing so, maybe we saw the appearance of a United central defensive partnership for the future. Replace yesterday's right-back, Brown, with the Da...

...Call him Little Pea, he shits on Wayne Rooney, viva Hernandez! 543 m inutes. 6  g oals. 90.5 m inutes per goal.

What a difference a week makes. On Monday 18th October, United reveal that Rooney won’t be signing an extension to his contract that runs out in 18 months. On Tuesday 19th, at a press conference that should be focussed on our Champions League game the day after, Ferguson talks to the worlds press about Rooney wanting to leave the club. ‘Shocked’, ‘bemused’ and ‘disappointed’; his words represent the thoughts of every football fan across the country. On the 20th, he final says his piece. In a statement, Rooney hammered home his desire to leave, stating the clubs lack of ambition and that ‘[David Gill] did not give me any of the assurances I was seeking about the future squad’. On Friday 22nd October, Rooney signs a new five year deal, doubling his current contract to £180,000 a week, and keeping him at United until 2015. And two days later, we play Stoke at the Britannia Stadium. On the pitch there was absolutely no sign of Rooney or the fiasco that was the days preceding the game. ...

image courtesy of BBC.co.uk I've already given my view on the episode now dubbed  'the Fiasco' before he had an epiphany (in the form of £160,000 a week) and realised that everything he said - about the club lacking ambition and being unable to bring in the big players any more - was apparently all completely untrue. Brilliant, Wazza. Brilliant. So, after a weekend of plunging myself into every form of online, print and blogger content relating to the deal and its controversial conclusion,  I thought I'd share some of the best and most interesting pieces I came across... Republik of Mancunia: RoM Reaction To Rooney Fiasco Rossobianchi: #44 - Saga The Telegraph - Mark Ogden: Manchester United's Sir Alex Ferguson Blasts Agents Following Wayne Rooney Contract Row The Telegraph - Steve Wilson (blog): Are Manchester United Fans As Ready To Forgive Wayne Rooney As Sir Alex Ferguson? The Guardian - Paul Hayward: Wayne Rooney's Disrespect To Fans And Team-mates Will N...

Note : And this is a severely important note...I've been working on this all morning and was finishing literally as I got a text come through telling me the c*nt has only gone and signed a new deal! It's taken me ages to perfect, so I wasn't just gonna scrap it was I!? So I'm so sorry for the lateness, complete lack of relevance and no doubt complete hypocracy spewing from my emotional heart...but it is genuinly from the heart and how I fee. So here it is... Ok, I think its time. I’ve been putting this off for as long as I can: at first because of sheer disbelief, but then to allow the news to blossom and transpire from rumour into reality. It seems as though that is exactly what has happened. But my disbelief is still intact. When your best player is sold, it’s gutting. When your best player wants to be sold, it’s even worse. But when your best player publicly exclaims his discontent towards the way the club is run and their ambitions for the future, conseque...

**Rooney - days after revealing that he no longer wants to play for United - has just agreed terms on a 5 year deal to stay on at the club.** It seems they fooled us all along...

( Note : Rooney reaction to follow ) image courtesy of BBC Sport . Good.   (brought to you with an overwhelming sense of well-needed, red-tinted reassurance): Nani. Ronaldo who? … Rooney WHO? With the skill, innovation, confidence and overall form Nani is showing of late, perhaps we have little need to worry? Maybe we should just let Ferguson and his 46 trophies just get on with things then. Macheda. Not quite as influential as the man of the match (see above), but I don’t think the 19 year was ever going to be as a lone striker. Still, he provided some more than decent glimpses – the first touch and spin that are already synonymous with Fed – to suggest he is a legend in the making (…ok, a tad strong, but like many others last night, I was really searching hard for some f**king inspiration). The Defence. Three Champions League games and zero goals conceded. Not bad - in fact, AMAZING! - especially when you consider 20 year old Smalling has started two of those; each one with a ...

...or '10 reasons why our season is over'. 1. The ever reliable Pat – one of last seasons most reliable players – is having a shocker, with Saturday’s own goal the icing on the shit filled cake that is his season. When he's off form, you take out the most determined, energetic and attack-minded player in that back four. And without him, we lose one of the most potent routes to attack that we posses. 2.  The OVER reliable Van der sar – one of our most reliable players. Period – dropped a howler that apparently hasn’t been seen since the days he was bossing the streets of Voorhout as an abnormally tall kid. When the one player you never expect to mess up does, you know things aren’t going good. 3.  Giggs is out with a hamstring injury . Again.  4.  When Giggs went off, we were completely exposed and lacked any options on the wings. With no natural wingers to replace Giggsy, now is when will see the impact of Valencia ’s injury. 5.  The ‘Rooney’s off’ rumours...

Morning wonderful blogersphere! It's been a while, thanks to the debacle that was mid-week international football. But before we finally get back to normality , I thought I'd ping through a little piece to let ya'll know that, after a few people have tried to awkwardky contact me through my comments section,  I've FINALLY set up an email address. So for any requests, questions or queries  (ideally on how you can make me some money..?), holler at me on thecockneyred@gmail.com . Tah! Now lets hope Rooney proves just how not injured he is tomorrow against the Baggies.

I thought I'd share with ya'll a little letter I wrote to Mr. Morgan in response to a decent piece he wrote in last week's Sport on Sunday in the Mail on Sunday, titled: ‘Football must put a cap on its money madness’ . I intended on it being a swift 'I agree because...' sort of piece, with my ulterior motive being that he would put my comment up in next week’s column, thus getting my name (and blog) out to around 4million people. But, as with all my own posts on this site, I completely went off on one! So here it is. Comments of agreement/disagreement/complete bemusement welcome as always… Dear Mr. Morgan, Surprisingly for a United fan (...a Cockney one at that), I enjoyed your column last Sunday and honestly, I completely agreed with everything you had to say. A salary/transfer cap has got to be the only way. The days of superior traditional-footballing methods (on the field: tactical prowess and a strong rapport; off the field: a good eye on the transfer market) g...

I hate the Sun . No-one who likes football, football writing and proper football opinion likes the Sun . Their consistent brand of crude, inaccurate reporting and unfunny writing style is annoying and completely boring, and the lame headlines to introduce their sensational stories are pathetic. That said, after stumbling upon their review of Sunderland game  in yesterday's poetically titled 'Super Super Goals' supplement - before you ask, no I didn't buy it, it just somehow found itself on my kitchen table! - their review of the match and the questions they posed were, unlike the majority of the shit inside the paper, entirely accurate. (...fitting perhaps that the only report I read of our worst performance so far this season was in the Sun ...)  The four questions they raised under one of those lame headlines, 'It Stinks Fergie' (partly a hilaaaarious reference to the sewage pipe that burst in the away dressing room ), were: Why stick Berbatov on the bench? Wh...

Dominic Monaghan's films have grossed nearly $2.5billion. Dominic Monoghan is mates with Eminem and Rhiannon. Dominic Monaghan has pulled Megan Fox...Dominic Monaghan is cool. So if he tells us there's only one Wayne Rooney, who are we to argue??

'When Red Ed Met the Red Devils' Boss'

Did anyone else catch this at the end of Wednesday's match?? F**kin brilliant! 'Chico! Well done on the goal. Fucking brilliant!'