I jokingly referred to the 5-0 defeat we suffered at the hands of Newcastle all those years ago in my pre-match write-up but this one was, in many ways, a very similar game.

The match was not as one-sided as the scoreline would suggest (don’t get me wrong, Newcastle were better and thoroughly deserved their win) but so much of what we tried to do failed by small margins whilst Newcastle could hardly do no wrong.

Their first two goals in this game were as stunning as anything scored in that 5-0 win (and there were some beauties in that game, too) and were good enough to win any game.

Demba Ba is looking like the signing of the century as Alan Pardew got him on a free-transfer (I believe most clubs were wary of taking a chance on him because of his injury record) but I don’t think you’d be able to sign him for less than £30million at the moment and his opener is already a contender for goal of the month, if not the whole season.

Their second, scored from a superb free-kick by Cabaye was as good as any free-kick you’ll see and it was no fluke – I seem to remember him scoring an almost identical free-kick in another of Newcastle’s games earlier in the season.

Their third… well… the least said about that the better. Phil Jones made an absolute mess as he tried to head back to Lindegaard (despite the ball being about two feet off the ground) but the keeper had already positioned himself to scoop up the ball so Jones’ header merely bobbled into our own net.

For our own part, Berbatov saw a header deflected onto the post early on and then another Rooney shot from point-blank-range late on was cleared off the line and I cannot really remember much more from us than that.

What was noticable about this one was how much harder Newcastle were working, especially in the midfield areas, as they harried and hassled us into making mistakes with our passing and just generally made us look like we were doing everything at half-speed. Worryingly, Newcastle just generally looked “hungrier” than we did and that’s not something you’d have been able to say many times over the last ten years or so.

There must be a reason for it but I was also surprised that Rafael wasn’t given then right-back slot in order to allow Valencia (who has been excellent in recent games) the right-wing but Fergie opted to put Valencia in the right-back slot and Nani and Park on the wings.

All in all, whilst Fergie is urging everyone not to panic, this was a pretty disastrous result and coming on the back of the Blackburn defeat, it cannot really be described as a “blip” – especially when taken into context with our early Champions League exit – trying to pretend that all is rosy at Manchester United smacks of ostrich-like behaviour.

However, if anyone can pull this round, Fergie can. He’s done it before and I have every confidence that he’ll do it again.

Once again, Fergie had no choice but to ring the changes for this one as Phil Jones either failed to recover from the facial injury received in the last game or he was just rested as a matter of course but Michael Carrick, who has been in peak form of late in the middle of the park was brought back into central defence – and continued to show that he’s not too shabby in there either.

To be fair, United largely dominated this match and our defence had very little to do so it was a good time to have defensive problems, I suppose.

Park put us 1-0 ahead after just around eight minutes and a cricket score looked likely but the score remained that way until almost half time when Wigan had a player sent off and Berbatov got the first of three goals just moments later.

In the second half, Berba grabbed himself another with an excellent turn and shot (the kind of thing we all saw him doing for Spurs all the time a few years ago), the excellent Valencia scored a screamer into the bottom corner and Berbatov was able to seal his hat-trick and make it a 5-0 romp with a late penalty.

In fairness, Wigan should not have found themselves down to ten men – the sending off was extremely harsh (I’m sure Wigan could appeal the decision successfully). It also should not have been a penalty towards the end of the game – Park was clearly tripped outside the box but that probably balanced out an earlier penalty appeal when I thought Hernandez was clearly tripped around the twenty minute mark only for the ref to wave it away.

However, we were streets ahead of Wigan today and I do think that we would have won the game even without the decisions going our way. We were supposed to be the team with the defensive crisis but Wigan appeared very open at the back at times and with players like Rooney, Hernandez, Berbatov, Macheda, Nani, Park, Valencia and Giggs ploughing into them, it was always going to be just a matter of time before we got the breakthroughs.

The good news was to get even better after this one as Manchester City were held to a highly unusual (for them) 0-0 draw against West Brom which meant that we finished the day level on points and even that goal difference which at one point looked unassailable (and growing) is now down to just five – not bad considering the injury list we have been carrying almost from the first day of the season.

Incidentally, the injury list took another addition during this game as Jonny Evans limped off with a leg injury which is likely to see him sidelined for a couple of weeks or so and it looks vital that we get Rio and/or Jones back in time for the next game or we’re going to be playing with a defensive line-up of midfielders again.

For now though, the good times are back with us. Everyone is scoring goals. Everyone is reaching peak form (I thought Evra, who has been quick to “talk the talk” a lot of late, was finally seen “walking the walk” in this game and he was excellent) and we still had the chance to give young Zeke Fryers a run-out for the second half here – and again, he had a solid game.

Fergie said before the games kicked off today that City were favourites and he’s been saying for the last week or two that he’d be happy if we’re thereabouts come the New Year.

Mind games? Probably. They seem to be working though and City who probably felt that they would be over the hill and far away by now are suddenly feeling the pressure of leading from the front, it seems and Fergie will continue to turn the screw from here til May.

Well, I got this one wrong but on occasions such as this, I don’t mind too much.

Fergie did make a few changes but not really what I’d expected. Rio was rested so Jones pulled back into the centre-back position with Giggs taking Jones’ place in the midfield. Lindegaard came in for De Gea. Basically, the changes weren’t particularly drastic and I think it showed in yet another very impressive performance, particularly in the first half where Fulham barely got a sniff of the ball and found themselves 3-0 down by the time the half-time whistle blew.

In the second half, Fulham finally came alive and put us under some pressure but couldn’t grab a goal despite a few close efforts and eventually, they ran out of steam which allowed us to grab another couple late on to make the scoreline so emphatic.

However, yet again, victory came at a cost. Phil Jones went off in the first half after getting a knock in the face – the seriousness of which has yet to be revealed but some reports are suggesting it could be a fractured cheekbone which could mean 4-6 weeks on the sidelines. If that is the case then it shows what a tough nut he is because he did actually play on for a while (and made a great tackle in his own box to deny Fulham a decent chance after the clash) but it was clear he was still suffering the effects and had to make way for Ashley Young to come on.

This meant that Smalling went into the centre, Valencia took the right-back slot and Young went to the right of midfield.

However, Young himself got involved in a collision which meant that he had to limp off and make way for Park and early reports suggest he will be out for 2-3 weeks.

I don’t quite know what we’ve done to deserve all of this bad luck with injuries but it is now getting beyond ridiculous and during this period where fixtures come thick and fast, we can scarcely afford to have so many players out injured. However, whilst these words might come back to bite me, I think we have been a little fortunate with the fixture list in that we seem to be playing a lot of teams that are towards the foot of the table and our next two matches are against Wigan and Blackburn – two teams currently in the relegation zone.

In any case, we keep up the pressure on City at the top and have even started to make a little bit of inroads into the goal difference and this probably bodes well for when the pendulum of luck swings our way.

Fergie did something that has become increasingly rare for this one and kept the same line-up that played so well against Wolves in our last match and any doubts that that might have been a one-off were quickly erased as we tore into QPR from the off and went ahead through Wayne Rooney after just around 54 seconds.

With it being vital that we took the three points here, it could have become “one of those games” had we not taken the early lead as the pressure on us would have mounted but that early gift allowed us to relax a little although it could be argued that we may have relaxed a little too much as the first half ended 1-0 to us when it really could and probably should have been more like 3-0.

Fortunately, Carrick, clearly playing with a lot more confidence of late, went on a ridiculous run from the halfway line just ten minutes into the second half and slotted home neatly. Carrick has come in for a bit of stick down the years for being too negative and I did say in my last review that I expected him to provide the defensive cover so that Jones could get forward but there was nothing negative about his run and shot here and it was great to see. If anything, he was probably helped by his reputation for being a bit negative and goal-shy (this was his first since February 2010) as everyone expected him to pass towards Rooney who had taken a decent position in the area and this did seem to wrong-foot Cerny a bit who had started to move towards Rooney, leaving the gap to his right which Carrick found.

That’s not to say that Jones didn’t bomb forward on occasion and one time in the first half, he was played clean through by Rooney with only the keeper to beat but a mixture of a good save from Cerny and perhaps Jones showing why he isn’t a centre-forward saw his efforts thwarted.

Welbeck did manage to put the ball in the net but it was ruled offside although replays showed that he was probably level and the goal could well have stood.

Valencia has looked back to his best in recent games and he was fantastic again in this match and was only denied the goal his all-round performance deserved by another super-save from Cerny.

Jonny Evans, who has never scored for United, really should have broken his duck with a free-header directly in front of goal with Cerny totally out of position but he could only manage to hit the crossbar from a few yards out.

Rio Ferdinand had one of his best games for quite some time with a commanding performance in the centre of defence and, if he can keep it up, then we might not miss Vidic quite as much as we all fear.

Another bit of good news was the return of Chicharito who came on for Welbeck after an hour. I didn’t realise that he had recovered from his recent injury but clearly he is and will likely take Welbeck’s place when we take on Fulham on Wednesday evening.

Again, like against Wolves, I think we do have to keep things in perspective about the quality of opponent we were dealing with here and the number of chances we failed to put away but this was quite possibly our best all-round performance of the season.

Ever since it was confirmed that we were out of the Champions League and into the Europa League, I have been trying to decide what it all means and I have been watching the reaction of other teams in the competition and doing a bit of research into the competition. Most of this was because that idiot Platini decided to take exception to the way he (mis)interpreted Fergie’s words that Europa League football is our “punishment” for not progressing further in the Champions League.

Fergie was basically saying that the preparations and approach will now all have to be changed because we will now have to play on a Thursday as opposed to a Tuesday or Wednesday which affects our preparations for a Saturday/Sunday fixture before and after.

Failing to qualify for the next stage of the Champions League was undesirable for more than the obvious reasons.

Platini seemed to take umbrage with this because he seems to believe that the Europa League is a tournament which is highly regarded and this despite all the evidence on the contrary. For a start, if that were so, why not have the matches on Tuesday and Wednesday along with the Champions League? Answer: because it can’t compete. If that were so, why does the winner of the Champions League win around 9 million Euro whilst the winner of the Europa receives only 3 million Euro? And that is just the prize money, the difference in television and gate receipts are harder to calculate but it is fair to say that we’re probably talking of around two thirds the difference again – I know many people won’t even be bothering to turn up for the Europa League matches – especially after the club announced that it won’t be made part of the ACS scheme (a great move by the club, by the way, and could actually result in higher attendances, if not more revenue).

The problem with the Europa League is that it is a tournament for failures.

The teams in it have either failed to qualify for the Champions League or they have been given their chance in the Europa League … by failing in the Champions League.

It just smacks of being a tournament where the winner is the best of a second-rate bunch.

Yes, I know… this is obviously unfair comment. Finishing fifth in the English Premier League is clearly a position hundreds of teams in England and Wales would dream of but let’s keep this in context. Hundreds of teams in England and Wales don’t have wage bills like teams like Manchester United, Manchester City, Tottenham etc have. Nor do they have the pre-season expectations.

I saw Tottenham go out of the competition last night where it would seem that they did just enough to make it look like they gave it a good go but ultimately failed to progress. Harry Redknapp then said that whilst they might have done better in the earlier stages of their group phase, they might not have done so well as they have been doing in the Premier League had they done so – his priorities were clear. As he now knows that Manchester United and Manchester City are now in the tournament (the two teams that have handed his team a hiding in the Premier League), it was almost an admission that he knew his team wouldn’t be winning the Europa League and so he decided to bow out now, save himself and his players a load of agro and concentrate on the more lucrative Premier League and Champions League qualification.

I doubt very much that many Tottenham fans were lamenting their team’s exit from the Europa League in the same way that United and City fans were lamenting just over a week ago when we went out of the Champions League. And therein lies the difference.

It just isn’t the same. It never will be. The Europa League is a second-rate tournament and it should remain that way. Teams that are eliminated from the Champions League shouldn’t be entered into it. It feels like the relegation that it is. It should be a scrap between the also-rans with the promise of Champions League football for the winner. At least they will enter the misnomered Champions League as some sort of Champions.

Later this morning, we will discover who we will play in the last sixteen of this competition but it just feels like a party which we weren’t invited to but have gate-crashed at an advanced stage. The other party-goers don’t want us there, we don’t want to be there but we’re going to be drawn a hiding to nothing regardless.

Personally I hope that Fergie gives this tournament the respect it deserves. It will be great experience for Pogba, Keane, Morrison et al.

Indeed, if Fergie decided to play those players, I would be watching it all avidly and supporting them all the way.

I’d just rather see our “first teamers” challenge for something that means more now, though… like the English Premier League.

It would probably be an over-statement to suggest that this win made up for the midweek disappointment but it was a great start.

After our early season scoring spree which came at the expense of looking vulnerable at the back in every game until we eventually got found out in the 6-1 mauling by City, we have looked a lot tighter in defence but this came at the expense of goals at the other end.

A balance needed to be found and I think we found it in this match. Clean sheets are great but give me a 3-1 or a 4-1 any day of the week.

The team looked nicely balanced for this one, especially in midfield and I think that what we saw today could well be our best set-up. Nani took the left, Valencia took the right and Carrick and Jones took the centre.

Nani hasn’t been hitting the heights of early season recently but he looked back to his best in this one, grabbed himself two goals and looked a constant threat all afternoon. Valencia played really positively and looked a lot more like his old self. However, the midfield pairing of Carrick and Jones is still relatively untried but it does make a lot of sense.

Carrick comes in for some stick from many United fans and I think that his confidence has perhaps been hit at times during his United career but when in this kind of form, he can produce some fantastic passes and is arguably our best defensive midfielder.

Jones is supposed to be a defender but his attacking instincts are there for all to see and we might just have found that reliable, all-action box-to-box midfielder we haven’t really had since Keane (hey, some people have been comparing him to Duncan Edwards – I think I’m ok to compare him to Keane!). I just think the two balanced each other out very well in this match but, with all due respect to Wolves, perhaps tougher opposition will provide the acid test.

Defensively, it was as expected with Rio and Evans taking the centre and it has to be hoped that Rio can now put a string of appearances together without succumbing to injury because that could well be our partnership for the season now Vidic is unavailable. Smalling and Evra took the full-back positions and did what they had to do (which was mostly just get the ball to Valencia and, perhaps more so, Nani as soon as possible).

Up-front, Fergie went with Rooney and Welbeck and clearly, this is one area of the pitch that still has to be decided upon but with so many of our strikers injured at the moment, Fergie’s decision was probably made for him here.

There will obviously be changes as the season progresses but I just hope that from here on in, the changes will be fewer – perhaps two or at most three per game and that this general line-up is what we see more of.

In any case, if this heralds the start of another goal-spree for Nani and Rooney then the future of the season looks a lot more promising than it did last Wednesday night. Let’s hope we can keep it up.

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse for us, Sir Alex has confirmed that the injury Vidic picked up during our Champions League match against Basle is as bad as it first appeared – he’s ruptured his cruciate ligament, will need an operation and that’s his season over.

It’s another massive blow for us as we do look a lot more solid with Vida in the defence – and stats suggest that this is the case too. He has played in ten games this season and we conceded just three goals in those games. In the thirteen games which he didn’t play, we conceded nineteen goals.

With Rio not getting any younger (and becoming more and more injury prone himself) it is going to be interesting to see what Fergie does about the defence from here on in.

In terms of experience, Rio and Evans is the best option but the Smalling/Jones partnership is seen by many as being the future so perhaps it is as good a time as any to give those two a run in there?

The slight problem, of course, is that Fergie has employed both Jones and Smalling in the full-back position on occasion and, in the case of Jones, he is even being used as a midfielder at times.

Personally, I think that a lot of our problems this season are down to too much tinkering on Fergie’s part. Sometimes, due to injuries, his hand has been forced but that hasn’t always been the case – sometimes he just seems to do it for the sake of it.

I think now is the time for a big decision and, once made, stick with it and see if we cannot turn this massive set-back into a positive.

Well, it doesn’t seem like five minutes since I was sitting here writing about our masterplan for winning this group with a couple of games to spare which would render this one all but irrelevant but we’ve hit a couple of bogeys in this competitions since then and suddenly a result from this, our last game of the group stage, becomes crucial.

A draw tonight will see us through. A win tonight could see us win the group – but not if Benfica win against Otelul at home. Basically, it is looking very much like we’ll be playing to finish second in the group which really isn’t great for a team that is as experienced as us in Europe after being given what looked like a “dream group” at the start.

I saw the interview a couple of weeks ago where Fergie stormed out after a journalist suggested that the English clubs had “struggled” in Europe this season and I could see both points of view. The English teams have struggled by our standards so far this season but I could also see why Fergie was disgusted by the comment because there is an insinuation that English clubs only have to turn up and take their three points without the 90 minutes battle on the pitch in between.

Of course there is a “struggle” in that respect and if people expect to go into a Champions League game (the cream of Europe, let it not be forgotten) and have an “easy” game then they are underestimating and being completely disrespectful of the achievements of the teams that have qualified for the competition. No one gets into the Champions League by being a useless side and none are pushovers.

I made the point in a recent post that perhaps some of the players couldn’t get their juices flowing for these “lowly” group games anymore but my view has changed somewhat of late and I do wonder if it is the fans who don’t get going of late. These are massive, massive footballing occasions. Perhaps not Champions League semi-finals but there are plenty of teams that dream of getting into the Champions League whilst us Man Utd fans perhaps take it all for granted these days.

We turn up, we qualify and then we play against the glamour clubs in the latter stages – that’s the way it has been for several years now but I think we take it for granted that the players don’t actually need our support to do so anymore.

Of course, this is an away tie and Basel’s crowd will be outnumbering our own by a considerable amount anyway – we had our chance at OT and we blew it. We now do have to hope that the players give their all where perhaps we have not but should the worst happen, I hope that fans will not totally exonerate themselves from blame.

Ok. Rant over.

In this game, we have a bit of a striker dilemma which I actually believe will help us. Chicharito is injured, Berba is injured, Owen is injured. That leaves Rooney and Welbeck and I hope that Fergie just goes with Wayne right in front of goal – where he should be all the time as far as I am concerned.

Forget Rooney the midfielder, Rooney in behind, Rooney out on the wings, Rooney starting from defence – just stick him up front – right in that 20 yard square area directly in front of goal – that is how he had his record-breaking scoring run a couple of seasons ago and is the way to go as far as I am concerned.

Played there, Rooney will score the goals required – it is then up to what has become once again a pretty miserly defence to keep Basel out at the other end.

So, I’m not going to go overboard on our scoring this evening but I’m going to rely on us keeping Basel out and doing what need to be done at the other end.

I think this bet will win.

The bet is UNDER 2.5 goals @ 2.00 with Victor Chandler.

Upside Down 'S'

Eagle-eyed observers (I must admit, I cannot count myself as one of these, I completely failed to notice it myself) have noticed that the ‘S’ in the Sir Alex Ferguson Stand sign was actually positioned upside down (see image) and will have to be flipped over.

Obviously, this was probably the fault of some local Manchester City supporting worker who are well known for their shoddy standard of workmanship.

However, what is worrying about this is that the sign was probably the one and only thing that has taken place within Old Trafford in the last twenty-five years that Fergie knew nothing about and was not done under his watchful eye… and look what happened!

This obviously doesn’t bode well for when the big man eventually steps down.

Actually, another thing occurred to me about this sign the other day. It has been placed on the North Stand. Probably the reason for this is because the North Stand is the biggest stand and so it was seen as the biggest possible tribute that they could have paid to Sir Alex.

However, it is generally agreed that whoever takes over after Sir Alex steps down will have one big pair of shoes to fill in the same way that previous managers often felt that they were working under the shadow of the great Sir Matt Busby. Indeed, Frank O’Farrell (the man who immediately followed Sir Matt) has often said that he “felt Sir Matt’s presence everywhere”.

Now, whoever takes over Sir Alex will be sat in the dugout every other Saturday with Sir Alex Ferguson’s name right in front of him in twenty foot high lettering!

Hopefully, it will inspire rather than intimidate but time will tell!

To be quite honest, there’s not an awful lot to report about this rather dull game and the day will be remembered as the day the club sprung a massive surprise by renaming the North Stand to the Sir Alex Ferguson Stand. That we scraped past Sunderland thanks to a Wes Brown own goal (good to know he’s still doing the business for us, by the way!) was almost incidental.

Yes, today was all about Sir Alex Ferguson and he did say after the game that he thought that the players were playing with added anxiety because they really wanted to win for him.

There was one funny moment in the second half when the linesman gave a penalty against us only for the referee to go over to him, have a word, and the decision was overturned to a free-kick for us. To be fair, replays showed that it wasn’t a penalty but there were a couple of hands flying around as the ball flew over the penalty area but it did have an air of the referee saying to his linesman, “United are supposed to win today, this is Fergie’s 25th Anniversary, we can’t spoil the party”.

We did improve in the second half and only some excellent saves from Westwood, the Sunderland keeper, kept us down to just the one goal but Sunderland rarely threatened and Fergie will no doubt have been pleased at yet another clean sheet – our fourth in a row since the City debacle.

The day belonged to Fergie though and he was clearly as shocked as anyone when he saw the covers removed to show the North Stand renamed. It was also announced that a Philip Jackson (the guy who sculpted the Sir Matt and Holy Trinity statues outside Old Trafford) statue of Sir Alex has been commissioned to sculpt a statue of Sir Alex and I can’t wait to see that – the one of Sir Matt is quite breathtaking.

Anyway, for now, we go into another International break and it’s two weeks until we play our next match – away to Swansea which could be a toughie – Swansea are doing well at home.