Wednesday, 30th September 2009 – KO: 19:45

I remember when the Champions League draw was being made a month or so ago, the team from “Pot Four” that no one really wanted to draw was Wolfsburg.

It is actually quite strange how they found themselves in Pot Four alongside all those sides which are more than likely going to be the “whipping boys” of their respective Groups when Bayern Munich were in Pot One but there you go.

Wolfsburg are, of course, the current Bundesliga Champions but just a couple of seasons before that, they were on the brink of relegation. It is almost like the equivalent of, say, Wigan winning the Premier League this season.

Some achievement.

Their success last season was largely down to their strike partnership of Grafite and Edin Džeko who scored 54 goals between them in the Bundesliga and 71 goals between them in all competitions which is obviously quite remarkable.

Both of them should play in this game.

Okay, that’s the bad news out of the way.

The good news is that whilst they score plenty, they can concede a few and in this season’s League campaign, they have scored fifteen but conceded fourteen in the process (seven matches played so far).

The other good news is that we are Manchester United and this is Old Trafford and our record at Old Trafford in Europe has been exceptional in recent seasons.

We have had our scares so far this season but have just that solitary (bizarre!) defeat to Burnley spoiling an otherwise perfect record and we do seem to be a very hard team to beat… even when a team thinks they have us beat.

I’m not going to over-analyse this one further. It should be a very entertaining game and I do expect plenty of goal-mouth action.

The only thing I can see spoiling this bet is if we are overly cautious and go for the patient approach but this has tended to be a trait in our away European games rather than at home. If our strikers bring their scoring boots, we should score against Wolfsburg and if Wolfsburg’s strikers get a sniff, they could well score one or even two of their own.

I would be very surprised if this is a low-scoring game and so I’m going to bump up the ante with the bet here.

The bet is 8 Points OVER 2.5 goals @ 1.66 with BetFred.

Well I must admit that when I placed this bet, 0-0 at Half-Time was NOT what I had in mind.

It was a strange first half with Wolfsburg coming out all guns blazing for the first 20 minutes when you would normally expect it to be the other way round when we’re playing at home in Europe.

After that first 20 minutes or so, we did start to get to grips with Wolfsburg and started to impose ourselves a bit more.

All things considered though, it was probably Wolfsburg who enjoyed the better chances in the first half and for a defence that concedes a lot of goals, they did seem very tight and organised and they caught us off-side time and time again.

As the first half came to a close with the score at 0-0 I felt that the only thing that would rescue the bet was for Wolfsburg to score first in the second half.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait long when they took the lead after around 56 minutes from the head of the towering Dzeko.

It’s not the first time we have seen United spurred into action from being behind (and it surely won’t be the last) but you could sense immediately that they had finally upped it a gear and thanks to a huge deflection from a Ryan Giggs free-kick, we were level again just a few minutes later.

At 1-1, the game almost settled back into the same pattern as when the game was 0-0 but you just got the sense that United, having been given the wake-up call, were gunning for that second.

It duly came from a nice passing movement around the Wolfsburg box which was finished very calmly by Michael Carrick.

A huge sigh of relief came immediately after that goal. There was no doubt that United entered this game expecting to win but great credit must go to Wolfsburg who did not come here to lie down and they will surely be following us into the next stage of the competition.

A couple of other things are worth mentioning here.

Firstly, Dimitar Berbatov started on the bench with Michael Owen given the nod but with the latter having to come off after around 20 minutes due to a groin strain, Berby was given his chance to shine.

He took it magnificently and at last showed a bit more of the class that we paid £30 Million for. So much of the game revolved around Berby after his introduction and whilst he didn’t score (never looked like scoring to be honest) he did more than enough to suggest that he might finally be reproducing some of the form that made us sign him in the first place. I’ll probably write another article on this very soon.

The other player who stood out here tonight was Michael Carrick. He has been largely overlooked so far this season. Fletcher has been immense and it is hard to leave out Scholes and/or Anderson. Carrick was starting to look like the forgotten man and with Hargreaves on his way back, things were starting to look a bit bleak for Carrick.

However, not only did he show remarkable composure for the goal, he also produced some excellent passes and great tackles. His overall performance tonight was top class and he has surely pushed himself to the fore of Fergie’s thinking once again.

Valencia had a decent game but he is already starting to be quite predictable. He will get the ball at his feet, stop the ball, do a couple of jinks but always flick it to his right and attempt to cross from a more or less standing start from behind the opposing defender.

There were a couple of occasions when the ball was begging to be crossed in first time whilst he was on the run but he always chose to trap it and go through the routine above.

If he can learn to play the ball in that bit quicker and with accuracy when the moment demands it then we might just have a player on the right again.

Fergie has given defender Jonny Evans a big boost by acknowledging that the time could be quite near to when he is a first choice defender.

Evans made his big breakthrough last season when injuries, suspensions and whatnot (for want of a better word!) to the normal defensive partnership of Ferdinand and Vidic saw him make 31 appearances.

At first, I think we were all a little concerned because the Vidic/Ferdinand partnership is about as good a partnership as we have ever had but it soon became apparent that whether he was covering for Vidic or Ferdinand, the seam was barely noticable.

“Sometimes I don’t know whether I am doing the right thing leaving Jonny out because his performance level has been so high. At times I have been unfair to him. But he is still young. He has a great future here and time will come when I have to put him in“, said Fergie.

Despite all the speculation, I don’t think Vidic will be going anywhere soon. The hint is surely directed towards Rio Ferdinand who spends almost as much time on the treatment table as he does the pitch these days.

I knew he missed out on a fair few games due to injury last season (and this season has been no better for him so far) but I read something the other day that really made me realise the extent of the problem…

He has missed 30 of the last 52 matches for England and Manchester United due to injury and has started back-to-back competitive games only twice since April.

With a record like that, Evans is the first choice with Rio seemingly coming back (when he’s fit) to give him a break for a game or two!

It isn’t totally down to Rio Ferdinand’s injury problems that Evans might be given the nod ahead of him more often than not in the near future. Evans is classy, efficient and the chances of him ever trying the ridiculous chip Ferdinand attempted in such a high stakes game (Manchester City) at such a critical moment (90th Minute!) are nil.

Rio remains a class act and when fit, is as good a central defender as anyone but perhaps Fergie is just letting him know that he’s now at the point where big ideas such as the one he had against City the other week will cost him his place just as surely as any back/thigh/groin strain will.

That he’s also giving a young player a big vote of confidence at the same time is almost incidental.

According to reports, Nani frequently contacts Ronaldo for help and advice on how to improve his game.

Seems a bit odd when he has the wing-wizard himself, Ryan Giggs, at the same training ground every day but there you go.

Nani has started this season looking better than previous seasons and has been given plenty of playing minutes in order to strut his stuff. However, he remains a frustrating player to watch. He has all the flicks, tricks and ability on the ball but his final ball has been letting him down.

Nani strikes me as a player who, as a kid, was probably much better than the kids he would play against. He could probably beat defenders at will with a dribble, a bit of pace or a fancy bit of footworkl. As a result, he doesn’t seem to have ever learned to cross the ball into the box – why would he? The ball was probably always better at his feet than any of his young team-mates.

However, now he is in the big time, defenders are bigger, stronger, more savvy to the tricks that might have worked for him in years gone by.

Just a theory…

You may remember when Ronaldo first arrived at Manchester United. We were all enthralled by his wonderful dribbling skills and the thirty stepovers but we quickly became a bit bored of those things when we realised that there was little substance behind the eye-candy.

His final ball was, more often than not, extremely disappointing. Move after move would start promisingly, he would get himself into a good position and then… nothing.

This is where Nani now finds himself.

Quite what happened to Ronaldo after his first three seasons to turn him into the world beater of his second three season is hard to say as an outsider. He definitely got bigger and stronger. He obviously got a bit older and more experienced. His self-belief went through the roof.

Whatever you say about Ronaldo, you cannot say that he lacks confidence.

Nani appears to be suffering a crisis of confidence at the moment. He will be aware that this, his third season at United, is a big season for him. It could well be make or break time for him.

You might say that playing in such a pressurised situation is hardly going to help but this is what playing for Manchester United is all about. It is no place for shrinking violets. Every time you pull on that shirt, you are playing for your place in the team. If the bad performances start to outweigh the good performances then you’ll find yourself on the way out – whoever you are.

It seems also that some of Nani’s team-mates are also starting to lose a bit of faith in him which cannot be a good sign. Watch Dimitar Berbatov whenever he is playing with Nani, you can probably count the number of times he passes to him on the fingers of a one-fingered man. When Nani makes a mess of a cross or a pass, Berby looks absolutely disgusted.

It’s a shame because there is clearly a lot of quality to Nani but bringing the best out of him is not proving easy.

When Giggs plays a ball into the box, it is usually quality. When Nani plays a ball into the box, you hope more than expect that it will be a good one.

The main difference between Ronaldo and Nani appears to me that Ronaldo is able to fuel himself with belief from within. Nani appears to look outside for support.

A manager who subs him, opposition fans who sing “You’re not as good as Ronaldo” and team mates who treat him with near contempt doesn’t seem to be a fertile breeding ground for self-confidence to me.

At 22 years of age, there is still time for Nani to come good and if he can turn his fortunes around it will represent a major achievement by the lad.

I, for one, hope he does it.

United went to the top of the Premier League today after beating Stoke 2-0 at the Britannia Stadium whilst Chelsea were soundly beaten 3-1 at Wigan.

Although it is still very early in the season, a quick glance at the table even at this stage probably tells you everything you need to know about how close this is going to be between Chelsea and United (I still believe the winner will come from those two).

We have both played seven games, won six and lost one. We have both conceded six goals but we have scored seventeen to Chelsea’s sixteen. That’s about as close as it gets at this stage.

After our shock defeat to Burnley in just our second game, things didn’t look too good and with Chelsea tearing away to a run of six straight wins, they were starting to look back to their unbeatable best and a defeat at the hands of Wigan looked highly unlikely.

But there we have it.

I promised myself I would try not to mention Ronaldo this season but the thing that was asked after we announced the decision to sell him was: Where will the goals come from?

As mentioned above, we have scored seventeen goals in seven games but perhaps most pleasing is the fact that there have already been eight different scorers in those Premier League games.

Saturday, 26th September 2009 – KO: 15:00

A rare Saturday 3pm kick-off for United here as we travel to Stoke in the Premier League.

Having come up into the Premier League last season, Stoke were perhaps one of the favourites to be relegated but they surprised everyone by having a fantastic season and they even put several of the more “established” Premier League sides to shame.

The real foundation for their success was their home form as they won more than half of their home games and lost just four times (Chelsea and Manchester United being two of the defeats).

This season they have started in similar fashion and were only beaten by Chelsea at home after a late, late goal by Florent Malouda.

The signs are all there again that any team going to Stoke had better go expecting a battle if they’re to walk away with the three points.

Manchester United have gone from strength to strength so far this season. A lacklustre start to the season saw us make hard work of beating Birmingham and our next game saw us lose to Burnley. Since then, however, we have put together a string of six straight wins in all competitions scoring sixteen goals in the process.

The only game we have drawn so far this season was the very first – The Community Shield game against Chelsea – almost two months ago.

It could well be that we are due another draw and, given Stoke’s home record, it wouldn’t come as a complete surprise.

I certainly think the price about us winning the game is ridiculously low (around 1.40) and whilst a United win is obviously what I am hoping for, I cannot see it being as easy as those odds would suggest although we should be capable of beating Stoke, even at their place.

The good news is that apart from the existing injuries to the likes of Rafael and Van Der Sar, Fergie has a full strength squad to choose from here.

He has already said that Ben Foster will start in goal but it is going to be interesting to see what it does in most other positions, especially in midfield and up-front.

Fletcher should be a given but who plays alongside him? Scholes? Anderson? Carrick?

Up front, Michael Owen has done everything that could possibly have been asked of him during his limited time on the pitch so far this season, the same probably cannot be said for Berby who has had far more time to impress and only seems to be succeeding in giving his doubters more and more ammunition.

After his stunning start of the season continued with a stunning start to the Manchester Derby, Rooney faded quite dramatically against City last week and it will be interesting to see if this is the week Fergie decides to let him recharge his batteries ready for the big Champions League game we have next Wednesday.

I can see a United win here but the draw would not come as a massive shock either. A Stoke win WOULD be a shock.

If we do win, I can only see it being by the odd goal and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Stoke score at least one of their own.

The bet is going to be 3 points Stoke +1, +1.5 Asian Handicap @ 1.95 with VC Bet.

Not an awful lot to report on this one.

The bet looked good for a long, long time in this one but when Fergie brought on Giggs for the continuously frustrating Nani, it suddenly didn’t look so good anymore as two swings of his magic left foot led to two goals within 22 minutes of his introduction.

Stoke didn’t really threaten too much – mostly down to a great defensive display from Vidic who seemed to win almost everything in the air (Stoke’s strong point).

The win was an excellent result but even better news came from Wigan who beat Chelsea which mean that we went top of the League on goal difference.

Sir Alex Ferguson said in his press conference this morning that Owen Hargreaves is now back from his rehabilitation from surgery and will be stepping up training over the coming weeks.

Sir Alex feels that he could be ready to play in around four weeks.

Let’s hope he can come back and be as good a player again. A cliche, I know, but it would be like a new signing at a very important time of the season.

Wednesday, 23rd September 2009 – KO: 20:00

Of all the Competitions we have participated in over the years, the League Cup has always been a strange one for us.

Widely viewed from the outside and probably considered from the inside as the lowest of our priorities every season, it hasn’t stopped us from having a fair degree of success in the competition in recent years (three final appearances, two of them as winners in the last six seasons).

This is perhaps partly because Fergie always used to use this competition to give his reserves (then mostly “kids”) a bit of experience and match-time. These days, as the squad has become stronger and stronger, the team he puts out, even when not a recognised “first team” is still strong enough to give most teams in the competition a good run for their money.

What this has meant however is that trying to guess the team Fergie is likely to play is a job in itself (and perhaps provides some of the reason for our success, actually).

Some clues are usually provided by who didn’t play a big part in the most recent game before the Carling Cup fixture.

So, some names that spring immediately to mind are the likes of Kuszczak, Evans, Brown, Neville, Fabio, Gibson, Carrick, Nani, Scholes, Owen and Macheda.

Hardly what you would call a “weak” team but I’m still probably a mile off anyway!

As for Wolves. Well, luxuries such as tinkering wildly with the team are not within their scope at the moment and I think we’ll be seeing a more or less full-strength team put out for this one.

As far as I am aware, they have no real injury concerns going into this one.

They have started their Premier League campaign quite well with seven points from their opening six games and have won a game away from home and managed to keep City down to 1-0 at Eastlands.

All Fergie ever asks for in these cup competitions is a Home tie as he always believes that no matter the team he puts out, they should be winning at home.

The bookies are certainly giving nothing away on the United win here with United being priced at around 1.33.

Personally, I think that is a bit skinny. Wolves will give this one hell of a go and with a United defence that is bound to consist of four players who have hardly played with each other before (if ever) and a goalkeeper who has almost disappeared off the radar as far as first team (or even Reserve) appearances are concerned, there is certainly a chink in the armour there and the slightest wobble from any of them will only encourage Wolves even more.

United should win this but I don’t think it will be as comfortable as those odds suggest.

Wolves are not the most prolific team in the world in terms of goals but they haven’t been conceding many either. As for us, we don’t normally concede too many but what we do up front is still a bit hit and miss. We might score four or we might make hard work of even scoring one.

I am basing this bet on us keeping a clean sheet and winning 2-0 at most.

The bet is going to be 2 points UNDER 2.5 Goals @ 2.25 with VC Bet.

There’s not an awful lot to say about this game… the scoreline pretty much says it all.

I was close with the team though with only Scholes being the name I mentioned not playing. Welbeck started on the left side of midfield.

United came out strongly and looked quite dominant for much of the opening stages without really creating anything in front of goal. If anything, despite our territorial and possession superiority, it was probably Wolves who carved out the better chances.

All was going fairly well really but with such an attacking line-up (especially with Fabio on the left side of defence) there is always the chance of over-committing and this is what happened around the thirtieth minute as Wolves found themselves on a clear break. Fabio tried to get back at the attacking Wolves player but slipped at a crucial stage. Realising that the Wolves player was through on goal Fabio cynically brought the player down with a flailing arm as he hit the deck. As the last defender, the ref had no choice but to send him off.

So, we basically had an hour still to play with just ten men.

Fergie had no choice but to shuffle the pack a bit and Macheda was brought off with De Laet coming on to fill the left side of defence.

I think a note on De Laet is worthwhile here. He looks a very tidy player and most of what he did was clean and efficient and only an attempted shot he made right at the end of the game took the gloss off his performance. It really must go down as one of the worst shots in history and I think he sliced it so badly that it actually finished behind him!

Anyway…

An hour to play, down to ten men and if ever Fergie wanted an excuse to take a dive in this tournament, tonight was the night but there was none of it.

The ten men of United were still more than a match for the eleven of Wolves.

Wes Brown was immense in defence and we can only hope that for the rest of his United career he can stay clear of any major injury problems because he remains a top-notch defender.

The player who seemed to get more of the ball than any other was Nani and this was one his more frustrating performances in that he did everything brilliantly except the most important bits (i.e. the final ball, the shot, the corner etc).

However, I’m not going to dwell on this kind of stuff here. I’m going to skip forward to the goal.

It was, quite frankly, a work of art.

Carrick was in possession just outside the Wolves box and he pinged a ball at Welbeck who controlled it and slipped it to Owen. Owen knew exactly what kind of ball Welbeck would like to receive in return and played it to perfection. The angle was superb, the weight of pass was superb and Welbeck only really had to decide where to place the shot. He did that brilliantly and a slog of a match was practically settled in the blink of an eye and a one-two that dreams are made of.

Wolves huffed and puffed, made some decent chances but could never quite find a way through and we held on for a well-deserved win.

Other things to be noted here are that everything Kuszczak had to do he did very well.

The other thing to mention is the debut of Josh King. This is a player who has impressed me in the reserves and he had a couple of chances here tonight despite coming on so late. One of them just underlined his youth and inexperience as a ball into the box was the option rather than the shot but he is definitely one to keep an eye on.

Anyway, all in all, it’s job done here tonight. Wolves will probably be kicking themselves that they didn’t give that extra 10% and take a few risks when we went down to ten men but nothing can be taken away from Manchester United and we have our name in the hat for the fourth round – hopefully the draw will be kind to us.

It seems a long time ago now but just before we played Arsenal in the Premier League (the game just before the International Break) I mentioned that we had a massive set of fixtures ahead of us.

Arsenal were flying and unbeaten before we played them. We won. Tottenham were flying and unbeaten before we played them. We won. City were flying and unbeaten before we played them. We won.

Sandwiched in between that lot was the small matter of a Champions League match away to Besiktas. We won that too.

It has been an unbelievable sequence of tough fixtures and no way did I think we would come through them all with wins, but we did. Incredible. Fergie and his boys deserve enormous credit.

We’re all still catching our breath from that crazy kamikaze Manchester Derby but the next set of big fixtures is nearly upon us.

Our next game is on Wednesday night in the Carling Cup at home against Premier League opposition (Wolves). As defending champions, we will be expected to start our defence with a very good performance (i.e. a win).

Then we’re away at Stoke in the League. Maybe not the most glamorous fixture we have had of late but they are likely to provide as stern a test at their place than anything else we have faced away from home so far this season.

Then we have Wolfsburg in the Champions League. It is early days in the CL but Wolfsburg did enough in their opening game to show that they mean business in the group stages.

It almost seems unfair of us Manchester United supporters to ask for another three wins after the recent sequence of results but, as two of the above are home games and the other is against a side we should have too much quality for, anything less is likely to be met with complaints from somewhere.

Come on United!

Sunday, 20th September 2009 – KO: 13:30

The Manchester Derby is always a big occasion here in Manchester but I can’t remember one being as eagerly anticipated as this one and for the first time in years, we could well be playing against a title rival rather than the match being something of a sideshow.

I still think it’s very early days to be going too overboard with Manchester City though. At the end of the day, they have won four games, nothing more, nothing less.

Portsmouth, Blackburn, Wolves and Arsenal have been their opponents so far this season with the latter being by far the most impressive scalp. The other three, you have to say that they would have expected to beat.

However, they can only beat the teams put in front of them and in that respect, they have done better than us as our disaster against Burnley stands out like a sore thumb in our own results so far this season.

This has been a tricky couple of weeks for Fergie with Arsenal, Tottenham and an away tie at Besiktas to negotiate but he has played it immaculately and we now enter this game having won all those and almost everyone available to play (the nagging injury doubt of Rio Ferdinand and the suspension of Paul Scholes being the only problems).

The same cannot be said for City who have a significant injury list going into this game, particularly upfront with Adebayor suspended, Robinho injured and Tevez seemingly 50/50.

It looks likely that Bellamy will be starting up front on his own in a 4-5-1 type formation for City which makes me wonder what Fergie will do to counter that.

So far, we have had great success with the good old 4-4-2 and if he continues with that then whoever is picked in midfield is going to have to put in a shift and a half.

I don’t think there’s any danger of Fletcher not doing it but can Carrick and/or Anderson do it? Will Giggs be brought in for his experience and ability to handle the big occasion?

I think the main problem is the left of midfield. Anderson was tried there against Burnley and it just didn’t happen. Nani, despite looking a bit more solid this season, is probably still not the kind of player for this game so I can Park over on the left to give a midfield of Park, Fletcher, Anderson and Valencia.

Up front, Rooney is guaranteed. He is on fire at the moment and his little tantrum in our match against Besiktas has been blown out of all proportion by the press but I actually just think he was more annoyed with himself for not scoring a goal. He would have known he was going to be subbed at around the sixty minute mark and so he can’t have been annoyed at being subbed – it can only be because he was gutted that his incredible scoring start of the season came to a halt against opposition he would normally eat for breakfast.

But who plays alongside him? Berbatov, I would think with Owen coming on if things don’t go exactly to plan.

So, what will happen in the game? Well, often these super-hyped games fail to live up to expectation as both teams cancel each other out or just play so negatively that for the first thirty minutes, nothing much happens.

I find it hard to believe that a Manchester Derby is not going to produce fireworks but we have had a few damp squibs in this fixture in recent seasons.

However, I think this one will be a feisty encounter and with Fletcher at his destructive best, he’ll be winding a few City players up right from the off. The odds on there being a red-card are 3.5 with Paddy Power and that is actually quite tempting because of all the scenarios I can see here in this game, that is most definitely one of them.

The price for a Manchester United win here is just 1.61 which I just find a little bit skinny and unappealing but I cannot see a City win. A draw would not be out of the question though because for all the handbags that have gone on in the build up to this game, I think they would settle for a point apiece and not be a complete disaster for either side at this stage of the season and with the teams not playing out a draw since 2005, it could be that we’re due one.

I am stuck in that horrible place between two options here and there isn’t a third option in between them.

A 1-1 scoreline wouldn’t surprise me but that is Under 2.5 goals and a draw. A 2-1 win for United wouldn’t surprise me either but that is Over 2.5 goals and a United win. The Asian Handicap points to a United win by one goal.

Fine margins and in this situation it’s usually best simply to not bet at all but I am committed to providing a betting prediction for every match and if I am going to get it wrong, I would at least like to get it wrong with a decent upside for getting it right so I am going to go for a United win by at least two goals.

The bet is 3 points on Manchester United -1.5 Asian Handicap @ 2.52 with Bet365.

I have been thinking all afternoon how to start reviewing this crazy game and I think I will start with Fergie’s own assessment which summed it up perfectly:-

“I am unhappy, because (the defensive errors) spoiled a really emphatic victory. We could have won 6-0 or 7-0 today, and the fact we made those mistakes made it probably the best derby game of all time. You’re left pondering what you’d rather have; win 6-0 or win the greatest derby game of all time. I’d rather win 6-0!”

I went for a United win by at least two clear goals and, all things equal, I thought it was a good bet at a good price. Although the bet lost, I only really began to think it was lost when Bellamy scored his 90th minute equaliser, the difference in class between the two sides today was there for all to see as we battered City from start to finish.

The possession stats show 59.5/40.5% in United favour with a 64.1/35.9% Territorial Advantage in favour of United.

What I could not have envisaged and therefore legislate for when making my prediction was three defensive errors which, had they been made in my lad’s Under 12 League would have brought groans from the crowd. To see them made by some of the best, most experienced and tightest defenders in the world was beyond belief.

Rooney got us off to a dream start which seemed to shake Mark Hughes to his shoes when he used all his strength and no small amount of skill to twinkle-toe his way through the City defence to slot home after just two minutes of play.

We have been guilty of sitting back on a lead in the past – even one gained so early in a match but there was none of it today as we pressed on for more.

Tevez had been passed fit just a couple of hours before kick-off and it was probably written in the stars that he would have something to do with at least one of City’s goals here today and it was his tireless running and refusal to call any cause “lost” when he saw a ball which was played back towards the United goal, miles away from anybody and Fost had it covered – or did he?

Despite the ball running at an angle which was never going directly into his area and despite the fact that the ball was running slower and slower, he persisted on waiting for it to arrive in his box so that he could pick it up.

Only Tevez realised what was happening and decided to give chase (he had actually already done this in the very first minute, and Foster got away with it, you would have thought he’d have learned his lesson then).

At this point, Ben Foster simply ran out and kicked the ball downfield or at least out for a throw-in. Erm… no actually, that was what just about everyone watching the game were willing him to do. What Ben Foster actually did was to continue to wait for the ball to trickle into his area and then just as he realised Tevez was onto it, instead of booting it out, he actually tried to take Tevez on, made a hash of it and Tevez knocked the ball back for Gareth Barry to pass into a pretty much open net.

It was great endeavour from Tevez and a lovely finish from Barry but it never should have even been allowed to happen. It was, plain and simple, a stupid mistake from Ben Foster made all the more infuriating because City had done virtually nothing to suggest that they even deserved a goal prior to that.

Half-time came and, having seen what I had seen in the first half, I was confident that we could step it up a gear in the second half and score one or two more for a convincing win.

When we went ahead through a Darren Fletcher header after just four minutes of the second half, it was no less than we deserved as we had started the second half like a train.

Having restored the lead so early in the second half, it looked for all the world that we would go onto win by a comfortably margin as, again, we didn’t sit back but continued to attack.

But then came a header backwards from Evra which had me stunned into silence. Evra is normally ultra-reliable and makes few mistakes but this was just a very strange choice of “pass”. It went straight to Barry who then played it to Tevez who played it to Bellamy.

Even at this point, after what Arshavin did a couple of weeks ago, you would have thought someone would have closed him down but no one did and Bellamy unleashed a screamer into the far corner.

You can’t take anything away from Bellamy but again, it came from a mistake from United who seemed hell-bent on undoing all their hard work in the sloppiest way imaginable.

However, they kept on going at City and in the 80th minute, Fletcher made the breakthrough yet again with another headed goal.

Surely this was it now? No more nonsense, keep it tight for the last 10 minutes and maybe even nick another on the counter?

Well nearly. With the game just entering added time, Ferdinand was the player with the ball at his feet and all the time in the world. He stood there looking up about, weighing up his options. Simple pass to Vidic? Long ball up towards the City goal? Take it forward a bit and pass it to a midfielder perhaps? No. In his wisdom, the very best thing Ferdinand could come up with at such a crucial stage in the match was to attempt a fancy scoopy/flicky thing over Petrov’s head.

It was a bit cocky, a bit showboaty and a lot stupid as the ball never went anywhere close to clearing Petrov who accepted the pass gratefully, slipped in Bellamy who charged off down the wing to score. Again, you can’t take anything away from Bellamy, he still had a lot to do and did it brilliantly but he never should have been given the chance.

So, somehow, having led three times and by far the better team, it looked for all the world that we were going to have to settle for a point when we should have been looking at three points and a 4-5 goal increase in our goal difference column.

However, the game was still not over and the referee somehow found six minutes of added time (there should have only been four) which gave Giggs enough time to slot a fantastic pass into Owen who finished superbly to make it 4-3 to United.

Fortunately, there was no more time for us to shoot ourselves in the foot again – we had won the game.

We deserved the win and it should have been comfortable but there was an almighty sigh of relief from everyone concerned with United in the end.

Despite the gaffes, there was an awful lot of positives to take from this game.

Firstly, Rooney maintained his excellent scoring start to the season and looks almost certain to achieve his highest goal tally for a season since his arrival here five years ago. He did seem to go back into old habits of trying to be everywhere though and sometimes found himself out on the wing or left way back in the defence when we were on a counter.

Darren Fletcher appeared to be given more of a man-marking job on Stephen Ireland for this one and so wasn’t charging around disrupting everything but if that is the job he was given, he did it magnificently because I hardly knew Ireland was on the pitch. However, it didn’t stop him popping up with two crucial goals. Another top job from Fletcher.

I just can’t get my head around Dimitar Berbatov. I have never disguised the fact that I am a fan of his and when we signed him from Tottenham, I was a happy man (and I didn’t hear too many complaints from United fans at the time either) but for one reason or another, it simply isn’t happening for him. Perhaps it is a case of ‘you have to make it happen’? I don’t know but for all his good work, I think I have to agree that at this point, his contribution, especially in terms of goals, is not enough. He had a couple of great chances with headers today and Given saved them both. Is he unlucky? Fergie thinks so. Privately, he might be wondering if the weight of expectation has all been too much for Berby.

Next up is Michael Owen who came on for Berby after around 78 minutes and scored the winner. It was a very well taken goal and exactly the kind of thing he was brought in to do. Some people have questioned Fergie’s wisdom at bringing him in. Had he cost us £25 Million or something silly then I could have understood the argument but as a free transfer, it was a win-win deal for all concerned. In terms of minutes on the pitch and goals scored, I think he is our most prolific striker this season. He may have lost a yard of pace but he still has those strikers instincts, ice in his veins and a fantastic touch.

The main man today though has to be Ryan Giggs. I thought we might need his experience in midfield but where would he fit in? Fergie put him on the left of midfield, the position he made his own all those years ago but the position that few United supporters thought we would ever see Giggs play again in such a big game.

Certainly Fergie has been saying for the last few years that he can’t expect Giggs to be chasing up and down that left wing for 90 minutes. Giggs obviously doesn’t agree with that!

He was involved in almost every decent thing we did, particularly in the second half and his calm, composed ball to Owen for the winner probably would not have been chosen by a player ten years younger who had not already seen it all and done it all.

I just hope Nani was watching Giggs very carefully because if he was, he would have seen a master-class of how to play down the wing and how to deliver dangerous balls into the area.

Just to round up, I will make a comment on the minutes added at the end of the game. As I said above, there should have been four minutes but the ref ended up playing almost six minutes (30 seconds added for a substitution in added time and 55 seconds added because Bellamy celebrated his added time equaliser for that length of time).

If City had scored the winner then I am sure Fergie would have been fuming too.

However, I think you can really only complain when the time added is displayed as four minutes but the ref only actually plays three.

If he plays over the “official” added time then you just keep playing to the final whistle. The six minutes played was there for both teams. United took advantage of it to grab a winner, City didn’t.