When I started this blog, I made it a personal policy that I would only concern myself with all things Manchester United and not get involved with the goings on with other teams.

Sometimes however, the goings on with other teams DO affect Manchester United and sometimes I just feel obliged to stick the boot in for no other reason than for my own personal enjoyment.

Last Sunday, the clocks went back an hour but Liverpool fans must have felt like they had turned the clocks back 20 years.

Today, it was Halloween and Liverpool had their very own horror show, losing 3-1 to Fulham and getting two men sent off in the process.

This is typical Liverpool or, more specifically, typical Benitez who again treated the Premier League with contempt subbing both Torres and Benayoun (the best attacking players Liverpool have) with the match poised at 1-1.

Liverpool have a massive match against Lyon in midweek in the Champions League (hence the substitutions) and if they lose that, their season is dead and buried.

Last week, their Premier League season hung in the balance but a magnificent win against Manchester United gave them a sniff of a chance again. Today’s defeat against Fulham has nullified last week’s win. Their Premier League campaign is now over with a whimper.

Rafa’s position must be hanging by a thread right now.

The Liverpool supporters expect their team to be challenging for the Premier League and not just provide nuisance value every time they come up against Manchester United.

Anyway, it might have come a week late but it was nice to see Carragher receive the Red Card his defending deserved.

Manchester United have been handed a home tie against Tottenham in the Quarter Final of the Carling Cup.

With an all Premier League last eight, there were no easy games in the hat but a home tie will be pleasing for Fergie.

It’s going to be interesting to see how many reserves he puts out against a Tottenham side who have started the season very well.

Saturday, 31st October 2009 – KO: 17:30

No room for error in this one. Despite the fact that Chelsea are playing away to Bolton today we now have to work on the assumption that they will win. As we are two points behind them, any further dropped points could well see them open the type of gap that puts the title at the point where it is theirs to lose.

The good news for Manchester United is that our home record is very good and Blackburn have been poor away from home (they have lost all four of their away games so far this season).

The bad news is that we seem to have a bit of a defensive problem going into this game with Vidic and (you don’t say) Ferdinand both doubts.

Up front, there is a bit of a problem too, I would say.

Rooney has been well known for his fits and starts throughout his career. He scores for five consecutive games and then doesn’t come close for five.

Berbatov does everything well except score.

Michael Owen is supposedly the man who can’t be expected to play for 90 minutes without requiring some kind of knee-surgery at half-time.

As much as I love both Berby and Rooney, I think this is the game to drop one of them and give Michael Owen a starting berth. He is 29 years old (one year older than Berby). He is not some old fogey we have scouted from the local retirement homes. He has a good 3-4 top level years ahead of him.

The obvious choice is Berby but I think leaving Rooney out would be the better option. There’s something about Berby and Owen up-front that strikes a chord for me.

Blackburn’s record against us has not been particularly great in recent years although they have caused the occasional upset. Their main problem at the moment seems to be with the swine flu that has affected several of their players recently.

We should win this one and the odds (around 1.20 at best) suggest that it will be a convincing win.

It’s tricky to know what to do with this one because we are capable of winning this by a good couple of goals but with the defensive problems, you would not put it past Blackburn grabbing at least one goal of their own.

The price on United in the -1.5 Asian Handicap looks a bit skinny to me (around 1.70 at best) so I am going to have a small bet on Blackburn in a similar market.

The bet is 3 points Blackburn +2.0 @ 1.83 with Stan James.

A fairly comfortable win for United in the end which, with a bit more luck in front of goal could have been more convincing.

Fergie decided to go with Berbatov and Rooney up front and a quick glance at the scorers shows that it was justified although Owen did come on late on, had a glorious chance but pulled it about a foot wide of the post.

Although my bet was declared “Void” as Blackburn effectively drew on the Asian Handicap, I still wouldn’t have liked to have taken United in the -1.5 goal handicap here as again we huffed and puffed to get that second and Blackburn themselves had a perfectly legitimate goal ruled offside in the closing minutes which would have also made such a bet a loser.

Overall, a solid performance from United and both goals were terrific in their own way. Only a few people in the world could have scored the goal Berbatov scored and Rooney showed terrific technique to steer the ball into the net as it came across him at speed.

So, we still cling to Chelsea’s coat-tails and next Sunday’s clash against them at Stamford Bridge is set up nicely.

Did United fans Do This?

News is still coming out about the sickening damage inflicted upon the food kiosk at Oakwell on Tuesday night.

Apparently, Manchester United fans broke into the food kiosk, stole money and food and caused thousands of pounds worth of damage.

I am hoping that CCTV footage will identify the culprits and that these people will receive lifetime bans from football grounds.

I am also hoping that the “fans” will be shown not to be Manchester United supporters.

There is an unsavoury element that belongs to a club not too far from Barnsley who would think nothing of sticking on a Manchester United scarf for the evening and going along with the sole intention of causing this kind of mayhem.

United fans travel the world watching their team and, a few isolated incidents apart, there have been no reports of this kind of behaviour before.

It just strikes me as too much of a coincidence that this should happen when we go to Barnsley.

Quick question, just for a laugh for those who wonder why the top teams don’t take it quite as seriously as they might.

What is the prize money for winning the Carling Cup?

The Carling Cup

The winner recieves £100,000.

The runner-up receives £50,000.

Losing Semi-Finalists receive £25,000.

So, if a top team battles through to the semi-final, they can be secure in the knowledge that a couple of academy players will be paid for a week or two.

Tuesday, 27th October 2009 – KO: 19:45

A quick chance here to get back to winning ways after Sunday’s disappointing result.

As this is a Carling Cup tie, Fergie was never going to choose the same kind of team that lined up against Liverpool, that this game come just two days after that game will no doubt mean that few, if any, of the players who played 90 minutes on Sunday will appear here.

Which is all good news for a few of the Reserves who will no doubt be given a chance to shine here.

I was hoping Obertan would make an appearance in this one and it looks like that could be the case as Fergie has apparently said that he will be playing.

A few others who have been very impressive for the reserves and must surely be knocking on the door include Ritchie De Laet, Magnus Eikrem and Joshua King.

What all this means is that, as usual, the performance of the United team is made all the more difficult to predict, simply because there can be little way of knowing who exactly will play.

The midfield is likely to be the problem area. I doubt Fletcher will be used in this game even if he has recovered from the injury that kept him out on Sunday. Anderson should start however. If Obertan and Nani play on the right and left respectively then that can only really leave Eikrem to take the other midfield slot. Unless Welbeck is used on the right again with Obertan given a more central role.

Up front, this looks like a game for Owen and possibly Macheda.

In defence, Gary Neville might be used to bring some experience with perhaps Evans, Brown and Fabio taking the other three positions.

In goal, Foster or Kuszczak.

That’s my guess anyway and I think I should get an extra brownie point for every one I get right.

As for Barnsley, well, they are not having a great season in the Championship so far, having picked up just 14 points from 14 games and have been beaten at home four times already.

I have absolutely no idea what will happen here tonight, if the team Fergie puts out clicks then we could score a couple, if they don’t then we could struggle.

Barnsley are hardly prolific scorers themselves though and so might struggle to score even one goal.

What this means is that I think there might be some value to be had in going for the UNDER market here but I won’t be going overboard with the stakes.

The bet is 3 points UNDER 2.5 Goals @ 2.1 with Boylesports.

Well, I was very close with my team selection but I am sure Fergie does it on purpose – Rafael in centre midfield from made very little sense to me and there has been nothing to suggest he would ever be used in centre midfield as he is being groomed as a long term successor to Neville and he is ideally suited to that role.

I would have thought if Fergie wanted to give a Reserve player a chance on a bigger stage then Eikrem was the obvious choice but he didn’t even make the bench.

Instead Fergie opted for Obertan on the left, Rafael and Anderson in the centre with Welbeck on the right.

Of course, Fergie will just point to the scoreboard so all is well and justified in the end.

2-0 is actually the score I had in mind before the game but I must admit to feeling a bit wobbly about it when we scored from a very good header from Welbeck after just six minutes (the Barnsley defence will be kicking themselves over that one though).

Having been given a pretty painful kick up the backside, Barnsley got their act together a bit and had a very good spell towards the end of the second half as time and time again they delivered some great balls into the area which their front players couldn’t finish.

They seemed to have an awful lot of attempts on goal without really troubling Foster too much.

The game became a lot more of an even contest for a while until Michael Owen was played in by Anderson and worked a little bit of Owen magic to slot home as though it was the easiest thing in the world.

There were some more moments and at any point, the bet could have been scuppered but it ended up winning and United are through to the next round.

A couple of points worth picking up on with this one are:-

Obertan – he didn’t really get the chance to show what he can do in this one although we did see examples of the pace he possesses. He is rapid. One of the things that was mentioned when we signed him was that he lacks a bit of self-belief and perhaps this showed through at times. It is one thing to play in the reserve team where results aren’t necessarily the be all and end all of the competition but it is another thing to do your thing when a mistake really could mean something.

I think he’s still a bit of a raw diamond though and one for the future.

The other thing was the sending off of Gary Neville. I think the ref got it spot on. His studs were high but dropping and he seemed to raise them at the last second quite maliciously. It was a straight red and a player such as Gary Neville who needs all the favours he can get in order to have a run in the first team will know that the ban incurred from this red card is the last thing he needs.

Brought in for his experience and a cool head when the youngsters might be losing theirs, it was hardly a great example.

Not much else to say about this one. Barnsley were as toothless as their record this season suggested and United just had that extra bit of class all around the pitch.

A deserved win and we march on into the next round.

This post might just be sour grapes because we were beaten by Liverpool yesterday. If you want to level that at me then I won’t argue, you’re probably right.

I have mentioned in a recent post the fact that we have six massive games in around 18 days at the moment and please don’t think that this is anyway any kind of excuse for our poor showing yesterday but just take a look at these fixtures…

Firstly, Liverpool played at home to Lyon on Tuesday.

We played away to CSKA Moscow on Wednesday.

We then played each other on Sunday (at Liverpool).

We now have a Carling Cup game away to Barnsley on Tuesday.

Liverpool have a Carling Cup game away to Arsenal on Wednesday.

So, an extra day’s rest before and after the Sunday fixture with far less travelling in between.

Of course, these are three different competitions and it is just the way the cookie crumbles, it hasn’t been planned like this as some kind of sinister plot against Manchester United. We also know that the team Fergie puts out on Tuesday is unlikely to contain more than maybe two or three of the players who appeared against Liverpool but that is hardly the point.

The point is… well, the point is… I’m just not a very happy bunny today.

Sunday, 25th October 2009 – KO: 14:00

What a game we have in store for us this Sunday afternoon.

Liverpool v Manchester United is always one of the most eagerly anticipated clashes of the season but this one has all kinds of added spice.

I don’t care what anyone says, if Liverpool lose this match then their already slim hopes of winning the League this year will disappear completely.

Given their precarious position in their Champions League group, their entire season is hanging by a thread at this very moment. The fact that we are still only in October must be extremely depressing for the Liverpool supporters who, given their team’s great showing in the League last season, must have been hoping for another proper League Title challenge this season.

They just seem to be a club in turmoil at the moment which, club rivalries aside for just one moment, is not a pretty sight as Liverpool FC are one of the giants not only in English football but European and World football. Football is richer when Liverpool are playing the type of football that honours their great traditions.

That said, in my opinion, under-fire Rafa Benitez has not exactly been the breath of fresh air that some Liverpool fans claim him to be. Last season aside, he has consistently treated the Premier League with quite a large amount of disrespect.

He has had the team to win it but winning it has never been his aim. His aim has always been to finish in the top four so that Liverpool can get into the Champions League.

Over and over again, he has rested (I mean, “had to rest them because they were ‘injured’”!) his main players (Gerrard and Torres in recent seasons) in Premier League games when they have a Champions League game in the week following.

It seems quite ironic that this week they really have been injured and oh how they have missed them.

The reports are that Torres is likely to be fit for the visit of Manchester United but Gerrard must surely be a true doubt. Rafa gambled on his fitness in midweek and it back-fired.

The thing is, such is their importance to Liverpool that their presence on the pitch really does have a massive bearing on how I would approach this match from a betting perspective. If they don’t play, United’s chances of winning are probably increased by 50%.

Which brings us onto United.

With Rooney, we have our own big injury doubt but I just feel that he is going to be ready for this one.

Our own performances so far this season have drawn some criticism from some quarters but a quick look at the table shows us in second place and a win here would put us back on top.

We are strolling through our Champions League group with three wins from three games (two of them away).

Not bad for a team that is apparently struggling to hit top form.

The only team to have beaten us so far this season in all competitions remains (and to this day, I still cannot believe it!) Burnley.

So, based on this season’s form, United should be coming into this game with a lot of confidence whilst Liverpool should be coming into this game with their confidence at an all-time low.

However, there is still the small matter of a 4-1 Old Trafford drubbing to consider and a 2-1 win for Liverpool in this fixture last season.

Those memories (particularly the 4-1 result) are bound to be playing on the players’ minds. United will hopefully take the pain of that humiliation to motivate them to greater heights here whilst Liverpool supporters will be hoping that their team takes confidence from those results to prove that they can do it again here today.

Anyway, there are so many plots and sub-plots surrounding this game that I could ramble on all day long (I’m not doing bad as it is!) The basic fact is that what happened in the past doesn’t matter. This is the 2009/10 Season and we have a title to win. We need the three points to get back to the top of that table.

So, what will happen today? Well, as far as the match result goes, I really wouldn’t like to predict it. Liverpool are a wounded animal at the moment and they are always the most dangerous. Manchester United have been doing just enough to get the win against just about everybody they have played so far.

Both teams have shown some vulnerabilities in the defensive aspects of their game so far this season but both are capable of scoring a goal or two.

What I think we will see here is an exciting game with at least three goals in it but I am not going to go for the goals OVER market (although I am sorely tempted because it is odds against).

No, I’m going for something a bit different for me here because the stats back it up.

The bet is 4 Points OVER 10.5 Corners @ 1.90 with Bet365.

A couple of weeks ago, I was asking the question, “Have United become a big game team?”.

On this evidence, the answer would have to be, “No” because this was a big game and United didn’t turn up.

Fergie played all the big guns here today but it almost seemed that the bigger the name, the worse the game.

Giggs was ineffectual, Scholes barely played a pass worthy of the name and Rooney was strangely subdued. It’s probably unfair to mention those names because no one in a United shirt really showered themselves in glory here.

Our best player was probably Valencia who did just about as much as could have been asked of him and almost capped the performance with a goal (it his the crossbar).

Liverpool just seemed far more “up” for this one and deserved their victory.

We, however, were pretty awful and this was as unlike a Manchester United performance as I have seen so far this season. There was no tempo, the passing was poor and no one seemed able to take the game by the scruff of the neck and drag us onwards.

Fergie is getting all kinds of bad press this morning for criticising the referee and, given the fact that he probably needs to keep a low-profile because of his recent indiscretions towards a match official, he must be really upset with the referee to even have a pop.

Personally, I thought the referee was terrible.

He couldn’t get the yellow card out quickly enough when Evra tackled Torres after around 15 minutes but Lucas seemed to commit foul after foul (I counter around eight or nine) and didn’t even leave the pitch with a yellow card to his name.

Carrick was brought down by Carragher in the penalty area and that should have been a booking for Carragher and a penalty for United. Replays showed that Carragher got the faintest of touches on the ball but his foot went over the ball which is, in itself, dangerous play.

Had it happened anywhere else on the pitch, the ref would have blown his whistle, no doubt about it.

Later on Carragher rugby tackled Owen to the ground, he was the last defender, it was a professional foul, it should have been a red card. The ref produced a yellow.

There can be few complaints about Vidic’s second yellow and subsequent red card, however.

The referee probably felt that he had to make a few token decisions in United’s favour and Mascherano’s red card with the match as good as over was all a bit pointless really. I didn’t even think Mascherano’s “tackle” was even as bad as it perhaps appeared. He went in with his foot high in order to block any attempted clearance by Van Der Sar, he slid along the grass and by the time he was anywhere near Van Der Sar, he had tucked his legs well in in an attempt to NOT hurt Van Der Sar.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but I think O’Shea was a mistake in this game. I felt at several points in the match that O’Shea wasn’t having a great game and that the game was screaming out for the attacking qualities of Gary Neville who has been in fine form in recent appearances. He would have supported Valencia better down that right hand side (rather than simply getting in the way), he would have got forward and put in some better crosses (the corner bet might have stood a chance if we had whipped more balls in from wide areas too).

I think Anderson should have come on for Paul Scholes who just didn’t seem at the races here today. The number of times Scholes received the ball, stopped, turned round and played it back to one of his defenders was really bugging me. Especially when the defender then simply hoofed the ball forward (the number of times we played long balls forward was most unlike United in itself).

Now, I am no football expert but what is the point of Paul Scholes (expert passer of the ball) passing the ball back to a defender (who is obviously even further back than Scholes and not as good a passer of the ball) only for him to hoof it up the field?

We seemed to do this over and over again and over and over again, it fell to a Liverpool defender.

I know for a fact that Fergie hates this kind of play, not only because Route One football is uncultured and not befitting a side reknown for its passing and movement but largely because it rarely works. The vast majority of the time, the opposition wins possession of the ball.

However, the most we could have asked for from this game would have been a draw. For large sections, the two teams did cancel each other out and the difference in the end was Fernando Torres who created and took his chance superbly well whilst we barely carved out a chance worthy of the name and Van Der Sar was by far the busier of the two keepers.

Put the Onion in the Bag!

Now I have made little secret of where I stand on the subject of Dimitar Berbatov. I have always been a big fan of his and was delighted when we signed him just over a year ago.

He has had his share of criticism since his arrival however with many people saying he wasn’t worth £30 Million and that he is “lazy” (or “languid” which seems to be the word of choice amongst most pundits).

The fact that he hasn’t exactly been setting the record books alight with his goalscoring output hasn’t helped his case much either.

I can forgive all this though because I still believe that he has many great qualities about him that put him in that upper bracket of top footballers.

However, there is one aspect of him that even I am now starting to find extremely irritating and it is … what’s the word? Childishness? Sulkiness? Stroppiness?

Basically, it is the way he throws his arms about whenever a ball isn’t played exactly where he wants it to be played.

He will rarely do it when the ball is delivered from a player like Giggs or Scholes because he knows that to criticise either of those two legends would be Manchester United Career Suicide but he doesn’t hold back whenever it is someone else and that someone else is more often than not Nani.

I have mentioned this before but it is now becoming even more obvious that Berby does not rate Nani as a footballer one little bit. I would even go so far as to say that it is now becoming personal.

Watch the game from last night again. Over and over again, Nani would play a ball to Berby who would then complain that he wanted it to feet when Nani plays it into space and complain that he wanted it into space whenever he played it to his feet.

There was even one passage of play (around the 55 minute mark) where Nani played a pass to Berby that he wasn’t happy with. Berby went into one of his little sulky rants, flinging his arms about by his sides. In the meantime, Nani had just got on with things, won the ball back and then slipped a neat little ball through for Berby to chase. Berby didn’t see it because he was having a tantrum and had turned his back on Nani. This obviously led to another tantrum… presumably because Nani had played the ball when he wasn’t ready.

There was another passage of play when Berby had the ball at his feet and was running towards the CSKA area, he looked to his left, saw Nani (who was in a perfect position to receive a ball) but deliberately turned away and looked inside for someone else to pass to.

Quite frankly, if this behaviour was seen on an Under 12s football pitch, the kid would be substituted, taken to a quiet corner and told to sort his attitude out.

If there are two people who are perhaps more under the microscope than any others this season then it is probably Nani and Berbatov.

We all want to see Nani fulfill the potential we have been seeing for the last couple of years and we all want Berby to justify the hefty price tag.

We want to see Nani be stronger, take on defenders, stay on his feet, put in quality crosses and knock in the occasional goal himself.

We want to see Berbatov score more goals. The 20-25 goals per season he was getting at Spurs should be achievable.

To his immense credit, Nani is improving. He has become stronger, he doesn’t go down half as easily as he used to do and we are certainly spared the embarrassment of seeing a grown man rolling along the ground in agony as if shot by a sniper when replays show that he was barely touched.

He works hard when he loses the ball to get it back and when he gets the ball back, he has the courage to have another go, over and over again.

He crossing is still a bit hit and miss and if he could start to get decent balls in with more consistency then he would probably increase his efficacy as a player ten-fold. Sometimes he still has a tendency to put a ball in without actually looking up first (there was a glaring example of this last night and on that occasion, it wasn’t just Berbatov who was giving him the evil eye).

But he is still only 22 (23 next month) and is definitely going in the right direction for my money.

As for Berbatov, we all know his good points. His touch, his awareness, his strength when holding up the ball, his ability to play the unexpected flick or backheel that has defenders in disarray but what we want him to do more than anything else is score goals or at least get into positions to shoot.

Last night, he had four shots, two of which were off target.

It is almost as though Berby knows the pressure he is under himself this season and so is looking at every opportunity to lay the blame for his own failings on the player who is generally perceived as one of the weakest links in the team, although he might be in for a shock as to just where he himself would stand if it came to a straight choice between himself or Nani getting the axe.

Now, I know there’s a lot more to it than this (there’s the goalkeeper for a start) but a football goal measures about 8 feet high by 24 feet wide. That is a total area of 192 square feet.

That is what you are required to hit Berby and at £30 Million, you should be capable. Just concentrate on doing that and when you can do that on a regular basis then perhaps, just perhaps, you will have earned the right to criticise one of your fellow team-mates for failing to hit a pass so that it lands on a specific blade of grass.

However, once you’re doing your own job properly, you might find that you don’t quite feel the need to blame anyone else on the pitch.

Wednesday, 21st October 2009 – KO: 17:30

An unusual kick-off time for this one in order to cater for the Russian TV audience which somehow just won’t be the same for us Brits but there you go.

Onto the match…

As I have said on this site before, Fergie’s formula for success in the Champions League Group Stage has always been to win the home games and get what he can from the away games.

Whilst neither performance has been particularly convincing, we have won each of our opening two games by a solitary goal and we currently sit top of the group. The “bonus points” probably came from our away win against Besiktas.

A win here tonight would put us within touching distance of qualification from the group phase (we would probably need one more point from the remaining three games to be sure).

Personally, I think a draw is the more likely result here tonight and would probably be considered more than acceptable.

CSKA Moscow have a very good record at home and have won their last six European matches at the Luzhniki Stadium.

Apparently they like to play a 4-5-1 formation, hoping to hit teams on the counter, even when at home, which could be interesting because that is often the way we play European ties away from home.

I have been mulling over this one quite a bit for the last couple of days and whilst I cannot see a CSKA Moscow win here, I cannot quite decide whether we will win or draw. The value in such a situation would lie with opting for the draw here but I do still have a slight bias towards a United win.

Much could depend on how we start here tonight. We have scored a couple of very early goals in our recent games as we have come flying out of the traps but away from home in Europe against a counter-attacking side, Fergie might be more cautious in his approach.

CSKA Moscow need the points more than we do here tonight and it may be that it will be up to US to soak up a bit of pressure and hit THEM on the counter.

Given the two similar styles and formations, it would not surprise me if we cancelled each other out a lot in this one with perhaps a solitary goal for either side deciding the outcome.

I just have a strong feeling that this is not going to be a high scoring game.

The bet is 4 points UNDER 2.5 Goals @ 1.72 with Stan James.

I think this one went pretty much according to plan.

We were in control for the vast majority of the game although, of course, as you would expect when playing a decent team on their own ground, they did have their moments and even had the ball in the back of the net which was luckily (although correctly) ruled offside.

As the game wore on, particularly in the second half, it was as though the United players realised that they had seen just about the best that CSKA had to offer and decided to actually go for the three points rather than settle for the single point.

The wide men, Valencia and Nani, came inside a lot more to make a more spear-headed attack and offer some more support to the lone front-man, Berbatov.

As full time drew ever closer we kept on piling on the pressure until eventually the goal came from Valencia for his second United goal ever (and in successive games).

United won 1-0, the bet never really looked in danger and we are now officially one point away from certain qualification from the group stage.

A great day.