Man Utd Fans Blog

United were robbed by an incompetent linesman and a spineless referee last time they played Newcastle United in late November. Howard Webb tonight made mistakes which should stop any mard arsed Newcastle players or fans posting any pictures of him in a superimposed United kit on twitter (ala Ryan Babble, another proud and dignified moment in Liverpool’s recent history) but that aside, United tonight were appalling and the mistakes the referee made tonight were only marginal to the impact of the game. Tonight was so bad as I’m not as much angry about it, but depressed. United started well with plenty of possesion, but never looked dangerous. Demba Ba hooked Newcastle into the lead, against the run of play, just after half an hour. I couldn’t see United scoring despite having the majority of possesion, such was the lack of potency from Berbatov and Rooney. When Yohan Cabaye scored with a heavily win assisted free kick, which Lindergaard got his fingertips too, it was obvious that barring another fabled comeback from the reds, United were going to lose to a clearly hyped up Newcastle side for the first time since September 2001.

Trying to be positive, I didn’t think Lindergaard did much wrong although I’m surprised he didn’t put a shout out to Phil Jones to leave the ball, which lead to Newcastle’s third goal. United fans were in great voice throughout the first half, high up in the stands at St James Park, giving great encouragement to the team. They naturally never got any credit off the SKY sports commentators, but this supposedly legendary toon army atmosphere, peddled by lazy journalist’s and commentator’s was almost none existant, I know from past experience that the geordies don’t wake up ’til they score, then the noise is pretty impressive, I can also say the noise when virtually every other team score is impressive. Other thing is that despite the fact that United have been stop start all season, we’re still, somehow, only three points behind a City team that has, barring the odd slip up, been destroying all comers. There’s still time and oportunity to rescue this season if Fergie is prepared to take a plunge into the transfer market. It’s all well and good people saying that new players shouldn’t be signed just for the sake of it, on a kneejerk etc. United desperately need some fresh impetus and if Sir Alex Ferguson’s prepared to gamble £7 million of the clubs money on a player that he’d never even personally seen (Bebe, summer 2010), then I can’t believe that he’s not aware of a player circulating in Europe who could give United’s midfield a serious boost. The harsh truth is that this United squad are not going to win the title with City looking increasingly strong, there’s got to be an addition. This Sunday’s FA Cup match at the yet to be sold out Beswick gasworks stadium, is gonna be interesting

Consensus amongst Reds on the quiet was that there would be disappointment if United didn’t make a decent dent into City’s superior goal difference today. Last season, United put seven goals past a better Blackburn side that took to the pitch for this match. Before today’s match, Blackburn had won two league games all season although they had gone to Anfield on Boxing Day and surprised everybody by getting a draw there, everybody, Blackburn Rovers fans included, were expecting a comfortable win for United. After a busy but flat footed start from United, Blackburn’s first attack yielded a penalty when Dimitar Berbatov pulled Christopher Samba over, just inside the United area, on sixteen minutes, to help referee Mike Dean, make probably the only correct decision he made all day. Mike Dean had a stinker of a game, denying United a blatant penalty about five minutes later, when Evra was tripped up in the Blackburn box on an overlapping run and constantly allowing Blackburn goalkeeper, Mark Bunn, to waste time on goal kicks after Blackburn had scored. The fact that Blackburn were wasting time in the first half is a good guide to the mentality of this backward club.

After Yakubu Aiyegbeni scored the first half penalty, some abysmal defending from Michael Carrick and Phil Jones lead him to score again on 51 minutes to put Blackburn 2-0 up. Within a minute Dimitar Berbatov had scored to bring United back in the game and after playing with some urgency and fluidity, United equalised ten minutes later in the Stretford end with a side footed shot from Berbatov. We all expected a siege on the Blackburn goal which would result in a United winner but whilst United had most of the possesion, there was no urgency or increased intensity in United’s play. What nobody had bargained on was David De Gea, on 80 minutes, making his most expensive error yet when he flapped on a harmless looking corner from Morten Gamst Pedersen. Grant Hanley headed Blackburn back into the lead, nobody in Old Trafford could believe it. David De Gea has made a couple of mistakes this season, the most obvious being at the Hawthorns on the opening day of the season and Basle’s first goal a few weeks ago when he tried volleying a clearance that he could have easily caught. He had six put past him by Man City, whilst none of those goals were his fault, he has looked suspect on crosses and corners all season. Early on it can be put down to bedding in and such forth but when it cost United points against a team who before the game, were bottom of the table and with a very impressive looking Anders Lindegaard sat on the bench, then it could be time to change the pecking order of United’s goalkeepers no matter how much money’s been spent on De Gea.

United’s bench today had Ezekiel Fryers, Paul Pogba and Mame Biram Diouf sat there whilst a fully fit Wayne Rooney, Ryan Giggs, Christ, even Darren Gibson were in the stands, rested as this debacle unfolded. I sincerely wish Sir Alex Ferguson a happy 70th birthday today but birthday or no bleeding birthday, he felt obliged to apologise to United fans after the recent disgrace against Crystal Palace, today was far, far worse.

Blackburn is a place that I struggle to find any redemption for. There’s no good cuisine of repute from there (unless you count double deckered corned beef butties), no good beer of any description, it’s a town full of very narrow family trees, more of a branch than a tree and even more narrow minds. In the early to mid 1990s, backed by steel magnate Jack Walker’s benevolence, they were throwing money around with the same gay abandon that Chelsea started doing in 2003 and Manchester City emulated in 2008. They effectively bought the Premier League title in 1995 with one of the most boring, methodical and mediocre teams I’ve ever seen triumph. In buying the title, even then, Blackburn weren’t trail blazers. Everton were the first club to buy the title when, backed by local benefactor, Sir John Moores, the owner of Littlewoods, they won the title in 1963, just after the abolition of the maximum wage. Despite being founder members of the football league in 1888, I doubt anybody outside the North West of England gave Blackburn even a fleeting thought until John Lennon mentioned the town in passing, on The Beatles seminal Sgt Pepper LP in 1967 on the final track “A Day in the Life”. Following their promotion to the Premier League, via the play off back door in 1992, Blackburn Rovers fans had a cocksure posture with their frequent chants of “Loadsa-loadsa money” (to the same and more apropiate chant of what a load of rubbish). Nowadays, that chant is curiously absent from their repertoire with the club’s new owners looking like they’re going to do to their club what they do to the chickens that they originally made their money from. From the swagger and backbone of the Walkersteel millions, Blackburn Rovers fans now have all the aura and confidence of a turkey on Christmas Eve. Today Blackburn, like Wigan, couldn’t sell their allocation of tickets for a match which in their case, is less than thirty miles away from their one donkey town. Whilst they deserved to win today, hopefully this is the last we’ll see of this highly placed lower league club, barring a cup draw, for a long long time.

Next weekend is the third round cup match against City. For once, City fans might be up for a fight with them bound to be having superior number and such forth. This time, they might actually wear gloves before picking up fresh horse manure and launching them at the passing United fans, unlike April 2010 when they did exactly the same thing with their bare hands. Fellow Reds, if you (understandbly) don’t fancy getting caught up in all this, grow a moustache, get blonde streaks in your hair and they’ll think you’re one of them. Lads, I recommend you do the same.

Happy New Year

Boxing day in Wigan is traditionally a fancy dress day. This explains why 200/300 of their travelling 1500 army came dressed as bananas yesterday, there were other more free thinking ones who came dressed as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Lennie the Lion. The rest of the Wigan fans just sat there, so much so that I was beginning to wonder if they’d borrowed some cast offs from Madame Tussauds in Blackpool to pad out the pathetically low turnout of away fans on a bank holiday for a match that is sixteen miles from their hometown. Wigan, like Leeds, is a rugby league town that just happens to have a football team attached to it. Leeds have found their true and correct place in the second flight and hopefully will stay there ad infinitum, I have a feeling that Wigan are gonna be joining them there this summer, having stayed in the Premier League with admirable resilience, since 2005. Wigan are beginning to remind me of Wimbledon, who had an abnormally long stay in the top flight before being relegated, moving fifty odd miles away to Milton Keynes and completly losing their identity in the process. Like Wimbledon, Wigan’s support in regards to numbers is lamentable, when a club can’t sell out their ground for the visit of United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool, then to my eyes, they have no business being in the top division. I could sit here all night taking the piss out of Wigan, but it’s a bit like kicking a puppy. At least the fans who came to Old Trafford yesterday dressed as bananas did try and create an atmosphere. They were, in the second half suddenly celebrating an imaginary goal, I was begining to think that they’d been on Ken Kesey’s favourite medication, then they tried riling a pretty bored K Stand by singing City’s Mancini song, to the tune of Volare and about City’s recent 6-1 win at Old Trafford. United fans ignored them in a way an adult would ignore a child jumping up and down saying look at me. United fans, myself included here, were looking forward to going back to the pub to carry on with the festive drinking session that always occurs on Boxing Day and which had been rudely interrupted by, unusually for United, a 3PM kick off.

Since Wigan Athletic were admitted to the football league in 1978, they have played United thirteen times in all competitions and lost every single fixture comfortably except for a league match in March 2006 at the (then called) JJB stadium when United were very lucky to win 2-1 after a pretty gutsy Wigan performance. With that record, anything other than a United win yesterday would’ve been a shock. Saying that, you can never take anything for granted on Boxing Day, like the F.A Cup, it’s football’s great leveller and the day has traditionally thrown up freak results over the years. Yesterday alone threw up three surprise results at Anfield, Stamford Bridge and the Hawthorns in West Bromwich. On the same day that Ryan Giggs equalled ex Wigan director, Bobby Charlton’s record of 756 starts for United, any worries of a surprise result were taken care of within eight minutes when Ji Sung Park scored from a cross after an overlapping run from Patrice Evra. Ten minutes later, such was the confidence of both the United fans and team that when Wigan’s answer to Spit the dog, Antolin Alcaraz, tripped Javier Hernandez in the box for what was to my eyes, a blatant penalty, the appeal was waved away by referee Phil Dowd and nobody got too upset about it. Twenty minutes later, Conor Sammon was sent off for elbowing Michael Carrick. At the time, I thought Phil Dowd had called it right but having seen the replay, I think the sending off was harsh. Michael Carrick said in the post match interview on Match of the Day that he thought that Sammon was unlucky to be sent off but when Carrick had touched the side of his face after the collision, the way people do to see if there is any blood, that gesture alone probably swayed the referee more than anything else. Dimitar Berbatov scored four minutes before half time to dispel any frivolous fears of a Wigan comeback, he scored again on 58 minutes with a beauty and completed his hat trick twenty minutes later with a very nonchelant penalty after Antolin Alcaraz was harshly adjudged to have tripped Ji Sung Park in the penalty area. Antonio Valencia scored a with a low drive into the bottom right hand corner of the Wigan net three minutes prior with a goal that reminded me of Roberto Carlos.

At 11.15 Monday night, I got a text off a friend of a friend in Brighton, telling me there was three tickets available for the match at Craven Cottage on Wednesday at £50.oo apiece. I accepted at once and having made plans to go down to Fulham, I got a pretty underwhelming text off the same kid, telling me the tickets had actually been sold last night before he’d texted me, but he didn’t know this at the time. I could’ve gone down on spec, like I’d done for the game at QPR, but there’s a massive difference between going to London at the weekend without a ticket and all the hassle and mither of going there on a Wednesday night ticketless (going straight from work, Wednesbury at rush hour, getting home at 3am and up for work three hours later, etc).

This is the first United match this season that I’ve either not watched in the flesh or live on the television, SKY sports had decided tonight to show the goalless draw between Wigan & Liverpool live, I believe so as to get one of their quota of crap matches out of the way, satisfy a contactual obligation with the Premier League and maintain a veneer of equality. Having failed to get any kind stream on the internet showing the match, I kept in touch with the match via the very old fashioned method of listening to the commentary on Talksport for the first half. By half time United were 3-0 up with Danny Wellbeck, Nani and Ryan Giggs scoring. Giggs scored his first league goal of the season and also by doing that, scored for the 22nd consecutive season. Just think about that for a minute….

Some people will nowadays describe a good performance against Stoke as awesome (hello Berties), the word’s become overused and thus, cheapened but whatever criteria you need for awesome, Ryan Giggs (to use another cliche) ticks all the boxes.

Listening to the match on the radio is definetly more stressful than watching it on the telly or in the ground as you can obviously only use your imagination to picture what’s going on. In my formative years of being a United fan, in the 1980s, there wasn’t the saturation television coverage of football that we get now, we’d get something like five/six games a season live on television, seven or eight in a good year. Myself and fellow reds of my age were at the mercy of Piccadilly radio’s United correspondant , Tom Tyrell. A man so biased that he makes Paddy Crerand sound like Bob Wilson, he’s the only man I’ve ever come across who could induce heart failure in an eleven year old boy. With United running rampant by half time, there was none of the heart stopping moments that radio commentary gives you and by sixty minutes, I’d managed to find a stop/start stream of the match and United were in cruise control. On 88 minutes, Rooney let fly with a scorcher of shot, the kind a striker plays when his team’s winning 3-0. It was, to then, easily the best goal of the night and it was a nice way to wrap up a comfortable win. Dimitar Berbatov though had other ideas when a couple of minutes later, he backheeled a Valencia cross in the bottom left hand corner of the Fulham net to score a goal very similar to the famous one Denis Law scored for City in front of the Scoreboard End of Old Trafford in 1974.

The only other thing I can remember from tonight of significance was when Phil Jones was clobbered by Clint Dempsey’s elbow in the second minute. Having seen the replay, I genuinely think it was an accident. Clint Dempsey is an honest lad, he looked pretty gutted to have done what he’d done. Jones, hard bastard that he is, played on for twenty minutes but was obviously not right, I’m just hoping it won’t cause his absence from the United team for too long. With the physios room at the moment at Old Trafford resembling the M62 rush hour, he’ll be badly missed if he’s out too long.

Before the match at Wigans DW stadium tonight, Liverpool FC were at their typical mawkish best. We’ve now got a club who prides itself on doing things the right way, the Liverpool way going out on the pre match warm up with t-shirts expressing solidarity for a player who’s been found guilty of racially abusing another player from another team during a match in October. If players from Millwall or West Ham had done the same thing, there would have been an outcry (rightly so) but because them self righteous, slum dwelling wankers, from Liverpool 4 do it, it’s an admirable show of we’re in it together. Somebody pass me the sick bag….

Happy Christmas

A rarity in that United haven’t had a match in eight days, today was a potentially tricky match against a QPR side who’ve given City a hard game recently and they’ve also beaten Chelsea in a game that has since been remembered better for the allegation of racial abuse levelled against England captain John Terry, something that the FA are no doubt investigating thoroughly, bearing in mind the amount of time they’re taking to conclude.

I first went to Loftus Road as a young adult in January 1991 and paid £6.00 on the gate to stand on the terrace, in what is now known as the school end. Despite the small allocation of tickets granted to United in today’s game, I went down “on spec” and managed to get two tickets at face value for £60.00 each, for myself and our kid. In twenty years, the face value of a ticket at Loftus road has gone up tenfold, my net wages haven’t. What hasn’t changed in the slightest in the last twenty years is the layout at Loftus road. The stadium is by top league standards, tiny. Even allowing for the compact nature of Loftus road, the view of the pitch, from wherever you are in the ground is spot on and due to the way the roof’s configured, amenable to an excellent atmosphere. The atmosphere today from the United end was raucous and lively.

When the match kicked off, United went on the attack and within 52 seconds, Rooney had scored. The goal had not only caught the QPR defence cold, it had caught the United fans cold too. There was a split second delay in the United fans reaction to the goal, nobody had believed that United had actually scored until they’d seen the United players leaping in celebration. The header that Rooney had guided into the QPR net seemed to have been a pretty weak one but it outfoxed the  goalkeeper, Radek Cerny. Whilst that might have been a soft goal for Cerny to concede, he more than made amends for it later, with two saves in particular, the first one on 31 minutes from Antonio Valencia one of the best saves I’ve ever seen. United should’ve been out of sight by then but the linesman made a wrong offside call on a Danny Wellbeck goal on 23 minutes and an open net miss from Jonny Evans four minutes later. To my eyes, it was the only thing Evans got wrong today in what else was, an excellent performance from him. On 60 minutes, Michael Carrick scored for the first time since January 2010 when he capitalised on a Joey Barton mistake and ran through unchallenged, to slot the ball past Cerny, in the bottom left hand corner of the net in front of disbelieving and ecstatic United fans. We were stood there open mouthed at how he was able to run through the QPR midfield without a single attempt of a tackle on him. Knowing Neil Warnock the way I do, I’d love to know what he said to his players in the home changing room after the match, especially after that goal. All in all, a great result and comfortable performance from a stadium where United have sometimes struggled in the past. The only gripe I have from what was an excellent performance was United’s profligate finishing/final ball in a match where United could’ve made a good dent in City’s superior goal difference and the fact that I didn’t put two pairs of socks on as my bleedin’ feet were freezing, as I stood watching the match.

United fans, as per usual were in great voice away from home. Rooney’s goal in the first minute put the reds in a great humour too. New chants of “Thursday nights in Amsterdam”, “Channel 5 is wonderful, it’s full of…” & “Warnock for England” were added to the festive staple of “Twelve days of Cantona”, “Giggs will tear you apart” and “Jingle bells…”.

From leaving White City tube station on the Central line, for the five minute walk up South Africa Road to Loftus Road, there was a real excitement from the QPR fans for the match today. QPR fans are by London standards, a load of teddy bears. There’s no moody paranoia on South Africa Road as there would be if you were walking down Kings Road to Chelsea, Seven Sisters Road to Tottingham or the Old Kent Road to Millwall. Bryan Robson was walking down South Africa Road alongside Sam Allardyce and he was constantly asked for autographs and photographs whilst Allardyce was ignored. Robbo was geniality personified with everybody’s request. Outside the Springbok Pub, I asked an alternative ticket trader that I’m acquainted with, how it was going on the brief. Worryingly for me, he said he had none and it was nigh on impossible getting one for the United end. Hovering around the incoming United fans coaches shouting any spare tickets, yielded a big fat foxtrot alpha and half an hour before kick off, I’m making contingency plans to watch the match in a pub in Shepherds Bush. My luck changed at 11.45 when a UWS seller who’d just plotted up, guided me to a feller with a  spare who wanted face value. If I see that UWS seller at Old Trafford anytime soon, he’s getting a pint off me.

This is just the oposition United needed after recent setbacks. Wolves are a typical Mick McCarthy team, plenty of bottle, fight, heart but also like every Mick McCarthy team I can remember, both as a player and as a manager, shit. That United only scored four is down to some sloppy finishing from the reds and some great saves from Wolves keeper, Wayne Hennessy. This was as comfortable a performance as was possible for United under the circumstances. On 17 minutes, Nani scored a goal that was almost a carbon copy of the goal he scored against Liverpool in front of the Stretford End in March 2008. Ten minutes later, Rooney scored his first goal in open play since his goal in first half injury time, against Chelsea in September. With three senior United strikers out injured at the moment, this was a great time to pick up his scoring form.

With United cruising nicely against the toothless Wolves up to half time, it was a little surprise in the 47th minute when Steven Fletcher headed high into the United net in the old Scoreboard end. With this being Wolves though, there was no onslaught or pressure forthcoming in search of an equaliser, I believe both the players and the fans of Wolves were equally as gobsmacked as the United fans that they’d scored. Just in case there was any worry of a Wolves comeback, the outstanding Nani made the game safe nine minutes later and Rooney got another five minutes later. United were comfortable enough to bring on Ezekiel Fryers on 67 minutes for Patrice Evra and Federico Macheda on 75 minutes for Danny Wellbeck.

The other thing I noticed in this game was Nani making a “reverse pass” to Danny Wellbeck on 65 minutes. I saw Giggs do the same pass on Wenesday, proving that you can teach an old dog new tricks. This is a pass which is David Silva’s speciality, I first saw him do it in the Old Trafford derby last February and it created chaos amongst United’s defence, he did the same thing to more devastating effect in October. The look on defenders’ faces, who are running out trying to play opposing forwards offside, only to be confronted with this pass is a picture.

The atmosphere today was a massive improvement on recent games. United fans rallied well to encourage the team from the off. The Stretford End and the K Stand really found their voices to provide a warm, sometimes hot atmosphere on a freezing day. The Wolves fans, were noisy for their big day out to Old Trafford. They sang the hurtful and cutting *Fuuurzdi noyts, shannul foiv (English translation below) and **du blik kun-troy buoyzz, (translated below), listening to this lot sing, it’s hard to comprehend or believe that this part of the world gifted us the singer that is Robert Plant. I will give the Wolves fans one thing, they had a refreshing attitude to supporting their team, instead of singing the tedious self celebrating we support our local team that I normally hear from opposing fans at Old Trafford, they actually adopted the novel idea of actually supporting their team. Points docked though for doing the piss poor look at us, aren’t we wacky Poznan dance.

There are certain clubs who have such history and substance that the footballing romantic/sentimentalist in me believes belong in the top division, Blackpool are one, Notts County another, Wolves also belong in that company. Despite not having won a trophy since winning the League cup in 1980, when Andy “the feminist” Gray captalised on a rare and comical howler from Nottingham Forest goalkeeper Peter Shilton to score into an empty net against the reigning European champions. Alongside Matt Busby, Stan Cullis, Wolves manager from 1948 to 1964, was a pioneer in European football. After Wolves won the title in 1954, Cullis arranged friendlies against teams like Real Madrid, Borrusia Dortmund and the “magical Magyars” of Honved from Hungary. These games gave president Ebbe Schwartz, from the newly formed UEFA, the idea of European Cup. Wolves have made a contribution to the football we watch today that no amount of money can buy. They were the “glamour” club of the 50s, a club which a young George Best in Cregagh, Belfast was a fan of.

* Thursday nights, Channel Five

** The black country boys

There’s been a lot of blame apportioned to David De Gea for United going out the European cup tonight in Switzerland. He was certainly at fault for his dealing of the cross that lead to Basle’s first goal but the only people blaming De Gea for United getting knocked out, are them looking for a scapegoat. There’s several reasons for Uniteds failure in this years competition, the casual almost arrogant complacency United adopted in the corresponding game at Old Trafford when leading 2-0 in late September, the defensive tactics employed in the Stadio De Luz in the first game against an initially terrified Benfica side and the suicidal defending when taking the lead against Benfica in the match at Old Trafford two weeks ago.

United dominated tonights match in possesion and in chances created but as was the case against Newcastle at Old Trafford ten days ago, were very wasteful of the chances created. United started very aggresively, like a team chasing a deficit instead of a team only needing a draw to progress. If there’s one thing above all else I love about United, it’s the attack is the best form of defence attitude, historic to the identity of the club. When Marco Streller put Basle 1-0 up on nine minutes, it was completely against the run of play. There was no shout from skipper Vidic when a cross came in the United box which meant that he and Chris Smalling attempted to head away the same ball and Vidic clobbered Smalling with a forearm smash for good measure. The following cross that came in from Shaqiri would have probably been dealt with by Smalling had he not been lying on the deck, banjoed. Instead, David De Gea seemed to forget that goalkeepers are allowed to handle the ball and try a volleyed clearance which was promptly volleyed past him by a pleasantly surprised Marco Streller. A bad miss by Rooney on thirty minutes was compounded thirteen minutes later when Vidic twisted his knee whilst in collision with Marco Streller, just prior to half time. During the tussle, Streller’s body weight falls on Vidic’s knee as they both fall over. From my experience of watching and playing football, I believe Streller could have moved away from Vidic a lot easier than he did. To lose a player of Vidic’s importance to a ligament injury so soon after a similar injury to Hernandez could be the worst thing about tonight for United. I’m just hoping the injury isn’t as bad as it looked on first sight. At half time, Roy Keane, who was constantly serenaded by the travelling United fans said he had all confidence that United would score in the second half, as usual, he would be proved right. He was nearly vindicated on the hour when a Giggs cross forced Steinhofer into hitting the underside of his own cross bar. On 84 minutes, the ball goes out to Shaqiri on the right, on my first impression I thought he was just keeping possesion and wasting a little bit of time, but he whips in a cross past a surprised Rio Ferdinand. The ball goes past substitute Jonny Evans and Chris Smalling, who was supposed to be guarding the far post where an unmarked Alexander Frei heads from three foot and four yards into the unguarded United net. Phil Jones had played sixty senior matches over just over two years without scoring a goal and then like a bus, two come at once. His goal tonight came from a goalmouth scramble which I’ve seen many of over the years on Hough End, ultimately, it was too little, too late.

When the draw was made for the group stages, every United fan I knew was happy about the draw, just like we all were in 2005 when we looked like we’d been handed a very favourable draw, only to end up bottom of the group. As unlucky as United were tonight, they’ve only got themselves to blame for being knocked out. Although I’d obviously rather United were still in the European cup, I’m not too upset about them playing in the Europa league for the rest of the season (hopefully), for the first time since 1995. With the present Barcelona and Real Madrid teams being what they are, United didn’t have a prayer of winning the European cup anyway. For once, I found myself in agreement with Gareth Southgate tonight when he said United were a side in transition. As transitional as they are, the thought of United, on present form coming up against a team like Barca or Madrid is a frightening one.  Could anybody really see any of the Spanish giants ballsing up a 2-0 lead at home the way United did against Basle ? Thursday night football will be a pain in the arse but one good thing to come out of it will be that there will be at least one away trip to an unusual place instead of the usual humdrum to Milan, Lyon or Munich. If Sir Alex Ferguson treats the competition with any gravity, United could this season be the first British side to have won all three European competitions.

Twenty years ago, the Monty Pyton song from “The Life of Brian”, Always look on the bright side of life was all the rage at Old Trafford, hopefully my fellow reds will remember that tonight and for the forseeable future. If we get too upset about Europe then look towards the Edge lane end of the 62, the nearest they’ve got to a Euro away ’til September next year is Swansea.

…We’ll keep the red flag flying high, ’cause Man United will never die…

Uniteds recent fixtures have had a look of an aviary, Having started the sequence a couple of weeks ago against Swansea, United have played the magpies of Newcastle, the eagles of Lisbon and on Wednesday just passed, they played like ducks against the eagles of Croydon. Today, United played against the Villains of Witton at Villa Park, in my view, in one of the top five best stadia in this country.

The slow and gradual improvement in Uniteds form, which really started during the Benfica match ten days ago carried on today. United played with a poise and purpose and had a pretty impotent Villa side on the back foot from kick off. Any other result than United win would have been a travesty, but such is Uniteds way that with game being at 1-0 from 20 minutes, they were always vulnerable to conceding a soft eqauliser. Phil Jones scored his first ever senior goal with a calm volley from 6/8 yards. After what I´ve seen of him this season, I think there´s plenty more to come. Watching the match on ESPN, I heard commentator Jon Champion say, just prior to kick off, that the Villa park pitch surface was like a carpet. If it was, it must´ve been a pretty cheap and nasty one. On six minutes Javier Hernandez twisted his ankle, damaging his ligaments as he was about to make a run in the box. Nearly an hour later in the game, Jermaine Jenas also collapsed on the pitch with nobody near him and twisted his ankle too. I´d love to be a fly on the wall in the Villa Park groundsmans office on Monday morning. An injury to Hernandez would never be welcome, but this one has come at a pretty lousy time, with Owen and Berbatov also injured. It´s been announced that it will probably be four weeks before Hernandez recovers. Looking at Uniteds fixtures over the next four weeks, with no disrespect to Wolves, Wigan, Blackburn, Fulham and QPR, they are games that United should be able to win without Hernandez. If he´s back in time for Uniteds visit to Newcastle United at the Sports Direct arena (sic) on January the 4th, I´d be happy.

The whole trip to Villa Park is generally agreeable, United haven´t lost there since a league cup match in October 1999, there´s plenty of welcoming pubs to get a drink pre and post match, it´s in a perfect location, a five minute drive from Spaghetti Junction and once on there, you´re generally home in no time. The stadium´s got great facilities, there´s no such thing as a bad view and the away fans are located in what was once the Witton lane stand, renamed in 1994  by Villa chairman Doug Ellis, with great humility, the Doug Ellis stand. I have mixed feelings about the locals at Villa Park. Individually, brummies are belting people. They´re friendly, helpful and amiable. I don´t recall ever meeting a brummie that I´ve disliked. As a collective however, they´ve got to be the biggest shower of half witted dickheads I´ve ever come across at a football ground. Their attempts at banter and wind up are lamentable, with usual drivel of “you don´t come from Manchester” and “We support our local team”,  straight out of the Noel Gallagher guidebook to originality. Half time whistle blows and your team ain´t playing well, losing 1-0 to the league champions in situ, what do Villa fans do ? Boo the team off the pitch. In my time of watching football, I have never seen a team or player respond positively to being booed by their own fans. United fans are not perfect but that´s something we don´t do. United fans were as per usual on the road, in great voice and obviously couldn´t be bothered engaging with the Villa fans, so started celebrating Andy Cole and Bryan Robson in song before unleashing a rousing and festive “12 days of Cantona”.

At the end of the match, the TV  channel, ESPN plays a game that SKY sports have perfected over the years, hunt the squawker, where the camera zooms in somebody in the crowd who´s crying, supposedly because their team has lost. Today, they focused on a boy who must have been about six/seven years old. The first time I remember seeing this phonomenon was watching a match at Anfield in 1996 when Liverpool beat Newcastle with a goal in the last minute which did Newcastle´s title hopes terminal damage. After the match, there was about four or five Newcastle fans crying their eyes out in the Anfield road end and the cameras filmed them doing it. Oh how we all laughed in Manchester at all them mard arsed geordies squawking whilst at the same time loving the irony of a Liverpool win which had made United, title favourites (this was a couple of weeks before Keegans infamous “Love it” tirade). What may have once been funny, even mildly poignant is now gratuitous. I can´t believe that anybody really wants to watch somebody crying on the telly after a football match, is it supposed to be demonstrative of passion or fervour ? It´s bad enough watching adults doing it but I never want to see a child crying on national television over the loss of a football match. Can anybody give me any good reason for seeing it ?

Walking away from Old Trafford tonight, there was just a feeling of disbelief and anger. When all’s said and done, it’s only the League cup United have been knocked out of and when the team gets shuffled around for these games, like they always do, it’s a fair bet that a team like Palace can come to Old Trafford and get a win. It ain’t the defeat that’s annoyed me, although I’d obviously rather United would’ve won, it was the manner of the defeat which is bad. United looked clueless from the kick off, played like a team who’ve just been introduced to each other and worst of all, played without any visible urgency or heart. All teams have bad days but when I see a team of mostly fringe players perform so poorly and with such lack of desire, then I wonder how they were given professional contracts in the first place. Special mention here goes to Jonny Evans and Darren Gibson, two players that I wouldn’t have representing Man United in a game of pool, never mind on the pitch. I heard Berbatov getting a lot of criticism and anybody who knows me, knows I’m not his biggest fan, but for me tonight, Macheda and his piss poor reading of the game exposed Berbatov badly. Then there’s Paul Pogba, a man who’s apparently refused a new contract at Old Trafford, after what I saw tonight all I can say is thank f$ck for that. I’m not gonna go there with Diouf, only to say, come back Bebe, all is forgiven.

Crystal Palace didn’t exactly play brilliantly but they certainly played like a team that wanted to win. The match was preceeded by a minutes applause in memory of Gary Speed who died so young and tragically at the weekend. As the game’s settled, I never thought of any threat from Palace but United never got into their stride. Out of the blue on 65 minutes, Darren Ambrose scored one of the best goals I’ve ever seen an opposing player score at Old Trafford. Ben Amos, a goalkeeper whom I don’t believe has any future at Old Trafford was blameless for the goal. From 35 yards Ambrose just let fly with a belter that I don’t think the angel of the north would’ve caught. When Macheda won and scored a penalty three minutes later, for a shirt pull, I was expecting United to put it to bed pretty soon. Once United equalised there was nothing of any potency, I don’t recall their keeper having to make a save. Palace’s winner, eight minutes into extra time was offside but I can say that with the benfit of an action replay, it was very tight. I can’t really blame the linesman for that call, I blame a spineless United side for getting in that position in the first place and for not having the balls to go chasing the game after that Palace goal.

In December 1989, the last time Crystal Palace beat United at Old Trafford, it was the nadir of Alex Fergusons reign at Old Trafford. Never were the shouts of Fergie out more audible than that cold December afternoon. Three weeks later, a unknown kid called Mark Robins scored the winner at Nottingham Forest in an F.A. Cup match that (a) United were widely expected to lose and (b) saved Fergies job. There were no cries of Fergie out tonight and I’m also pleased to say that the team weren’t booed off the pitch because we’re United fans. I believe that most fans of other clubs would’ve done that tonight. Most of them players who turned out tonight would do well to remember that and also remember/learn that Mark Robins scored several significant goals in his short career at Old Trafford, but was gone within eighteen months. From what I saw in the game tonight, half of them lads on the pitch should consider themselves lucky if they’re still at Old Trafford in February.

A whole gamut of contradictory emotions were experienced at Old Trafford today where United were desperately unlucky to draw 1-1 with a resolute Newcastle side. This was the best Newcastle side I’ve seen since the 1995/1996 side, which bottled a championship winning points lead. At the beginning of the season, you would’ve got good odds on Newcastle losing only one league game by this stage of the season especially when they gave away, in my opinion their best player, Joey Barton, on a free transfer to Queens Park Rangers. As improved a team as Newcastle are, how they didn’t lose this game today is a mystery. Profilgate finishing by United (Fabio the most memorable one but by no means alone), An outstanding goalkeeping performance from goalkeeper Tim Krul and a couple of diabolical decisions given by both linesmen regarding the Penalty which gave Newcastle the equaliser and the late goal scored by Hernandez which was ruled offside. When Newcastle fans sang at the match official, Mike Jones, You’re not fit to referee on 79 minutes over the dismissal of Jonas Gutierrez, it was the one thing they said/sang today that I agreed with. Fellow reds, when you hear opposition fans bleating on about how United always get decisions given in favour at Old Trafford, try and remember the refereeing performance of this clown, Mike Jones, today. This is the referee who was stood down from top flight matches for incorrectly but hilariously, allowing a goal to stand in a game between Sunderland and Liverpool at the Stadium of Light a couple of years ago which involved Liverpool keeper, Pepe Reina, being distracted by a blown up beach ball.

An entertaining but relatively cagey first half had United edging possesion, A beautiful flick by Giggs bringing a fingertip save from Krul and Hernandez missing a good chance just before the half time whistle. Newcastle would break forward when possible with Obertan playing with plenty of heart but still looking out of his depth in the Premier league. In the second half, the match really took off. On 49 minutes United scored with a goal from Hernandez which to use the tecnical term, could be described as jammy. A minute later, a brilliant run by Brazilian full back Fabio should have seen United go two up but he leant back to shoot and it went flying over the bar. Rooney missed with a free header on 53 minutes and Ashley Young should’ve scored two minutes later. It’s no exaggeration to say that United should’ve been three goals up before referee Mike Jones intervened to  give Newcastle a penalty, the result of a fantastic and clean tackle from Rio Ferdinand on 61 minutes. After that decision, I had a sick gut feeling that it was gonna be one of them days. I lost count of the good chances United blew in the closing stages of the game with free headers and good shooting oportunities going high & wide. Brilliant saves were forced from Krul, hitting the woodwork twice, desperate goaline clearances and the coup-de-grace from the referee/linesman in the last minute of injury time, disallowing a perfectly legal Hernadez goal.

The Geordies or the Toon army, are the darling of a media who lionise the loyalty of these long suffering fans, whom have not seen their team lift a trophy since they lifted the Inter Cities fairs cup in 1969 (A predecessor of the UEFA cup/Europa league). With great modesty, Newcastle fans sing self gloryfying songs about how loyal they are which is their prerogative, I’d like to know how many of them chanting that ditty today, were regular attendees to St James Park in season 1990/1991 when their average attendance was 16,835, who were in the crowd of 10,009 for a match in season 1991/1992. Up to the 24th of October, the Sports Direct arena, had on average this season, 6228 empty seats per match. At that time, out of desperation, Newcastle United announced that they were cutting the price of tickets in half to fill the empty seats, this for a team who at that time, were unbeaten. That’s some demonstration of loyalty. Before the game, there was a pack of 12/15 young brave Newcastle fans shouting “toon army” and walking down the concourse making all kinds of aggressive come on gestures to no one in particular whilst there must have been 75/100 coppers nearby. Walking out of the ground after the game, I saw the same firm looking terrified and huddled desperately near a line of policemen on Sir Matt Busby Way (Warwick Road). Having come out of the old L stand of Old Trafford singing, to the tune of John Browns body, ”Who the fcuk are Man United”, they were obviously taken aback by the passing United fans hostility to this chant. Having seen this, all I can say is that not even the thickest Leeds fan I’ve come across over the years (by Christ, I’ve come across a few) would’ve been as stupid as to do that.

There’s a whole host of irony that todays match has thrown up, the biggest one being is that Uniteds performance was by some distance, the best United have played since the halcyon days of the seasons begining. It was also the best atmosphere from the Old Trafford crowd that I’ve heard this season. Whilst today was definetly two dropped points, I think that United will, very soon click back into gear and start playing as we know they can.