United will be hoping to continue their fine pre-season form with a win against City this afternoon in the Community Shield whilst United fans will just be hoping that we actually turn up and play this time, unlike the last time we met at Wembley in last season’s FA Cup Semi-Final.

Guessing either team for this one is a tough task and it will be interesting to see if Fergie retains the confidence in the younger players that he showed in our USA Tour matches. I would guess that one of either Smalling or Jones might line up with Vidic in central defence but we might just see a more experienced line-up this afternoon.

My own guess is De Gea, Rafael, Smalling, Vidic, Evra, Nani, Carrick, Giggs, Young, Rooney and Berbatov.

It’s obviously far too early to make confident predictions as to what will happen here and I intend to just watch and enjoy the game without putting too much emphasis on the result.

However, I think  a small bet on a low scoring affair might be in order.

The bet is 2 points Under 2.5 Goals @ 1.70 with Bet365.

Despite one little experiment, the team Fergie went with here bore a closer resemblance to that which we might actually see during the season here with Lindegaard in goal, Evra on the left, Rio and Vidic in central defence and a bit of an eyebrow-raiser with Phil Jones on the right of defence.

The midfield had Young on the left, Park on the right and Carrick and Anderson in the middle. Up front was Berbatov and Rooney.

The match started off looking like it could be an evenly matched contest with both sides showing some good attacking intent and our old friend Mr Beckham had a great strike saved after just around seven minutes. Incidentally, a note on Beckham is probably warranted at this juncture because, despite bobbing on a bit these days, his passing ability remains incredible and some of the long balls he was pinging around in this game plus the fact that he played the full ninety minutes here made me realise that he could still do a job for United – even if only on a very short term loan type arrangement (such as he had with AC Milan the other season) and even if only for occasional fixtures (much like, dare I say it, the now departed Scholes?).

It won’t happen though – which is a shame for all concerned, I think.

Anyway, back to the game…

Much of the opening twenty minutes or so was spent sparring with both teams creating chances but the defences were holding firm but United made the breakthrough in the twentieth minute with a little passage of passes between Rooney and Berbatov which left the All-Stars’ defence bewildered – especially when Rooney pulled the ball back for Anderson to bury the ball in the bottom left corner of the net and, after becoming a bit of a joke with his lack of goals, Anderson finally seems to have turned the corner now and his goal was taken with calm aplomb. Say it quietly but it wouldn’t surprise me to see Anderson score five or so goals in the coming season, if he gets 25-30 games.

Shortly after this goal, Beckham had another long-range fizzer saved by Lindegaard and our other old friend, Thierry Henry was making a bit of a nuisance of himself but he’s no longer the player he was during his Arsenal peak, I’m afraid. It did look like the All-Stars would get themselves back into the match before half-time though and Lindegaard was called into action several more times before the half-time whistle but there was a sting in the tail of this half as United scored just before the whistle thanks to an excellent bit of solo work for Ji Sung Park.

Apparently, the 30 year old Korean is currently in negotiations to keep him at Old Trafford for another two years beyond his current deal (which runs out next summer) and I do hope that they’re able to sort something out with him because he has proven his worth ten times over during his time here and he’s been excellent during this tour and, in this match in particular, he was probably one of the best players on the pitch – popping up on the wing, in the middle, in defence and up-front – he was everywhere and was almost like having a twelfth man at times.

As the teams got ready to come out for the second half, both managers made changes. Amos for Lindegaard was out big change at half-time but the All-Stars made four changes to outfield players with Kyle Beckerman being the most eye-catching of the second-half subs.

Six minutes after half-time, Rooney played Berbatov through who attempted to chip it over the keeper – he succeeded in that but only hit the crossbar which meant that he had to gather the rebound on his chest before volleying in to make it 3-0. That was his first of the tour and the smile was back on his face!

On around the hour mark, Fergie decided to make some wholesale changes as Rooney, Ferdinand, Berbatov, Young, Park and Carrick being replaced by Welbeck, Smalling, Owen, Nani, Macheda and Cleverly.

Again, Welbeck did well and really does seem to have come on leaps and bounds over the last 12-18 months. Cleverly remains something of an enigma and Macheda still looks very raw to me.

Welbeck got his reward after around eight minutes of being on the pitch when he scored our fourth and final goal. It was an massively deflected shot which gave the keeper no chance but the positivity shown by Welbeck to create the space and then take the shot on was deserving of the goal.

Anyway, the rest of the game was really just going through the motions. United’s defence was the equal of whatever the All-Stars threw at them and the same could be said the other way around but we probably had our weakest attacking line-up on the field by the time the match ended. Besides, you can’t ask for too much more than 4-0 – that’s a convincing victory in anyone’s book.

And so the tour comes to an end as far as the USA teams are concerned but we still have one more game to play on the tour… a little matter of Barcelona on Saturday night!

Manchester United continue with their Tour of the USA tonight with a match against the MLS All-Stars, which, of course, is a team made up of some of the “big names” in the MLS.

We played an All-Star Eleven this time last year and won that one 5-2 but tonight’s game could be a tougher test than that one and with stars such as David Beckham and Thierry Henry likely to feature, there really is some quality talent in the ranks this year.

The match kicks off at around 2am here in the UK (9pm local time) and will be shown live on MUTV. I haven’t decided if I’m going to stay up and watch it or record it for tomorrow but I’ll be reporting on the game at some point tomorrow.

Should be interesting.

Very difficult to know exactly what to make of this one as Fergie started with a line-up we surely won’t be seeing too often again in the coming season – it was one of the youngest United elevens we’d seen for a long time.

De Gea got his debut in goal and was accompanied in defence by Smalling, Jones (also making his debut), Fabio and Evra which, were it not for Evra, must be one of the average youngest ever defensive units fielded by Manchester United!

The midfield was interesting, however with Welbeck, Cleverly, Carrick and Obertan (for another largely youthful section) and then Diouf and Berbatov up front.

The first half started out lively enough, despite the sweltering heat with United sometimes creating some decent openings which weren’t used to full advantage but Chicago Fire played their part extremely well but it was still something of a shock when they took the lead after thirteen minutes through a deftly-headed goal from a defender (Gibbs) from a free-kick – apparently his first goal in twelve months with the club which gave De Gea no chance.

Following this little wake up call, United huffed and puffed a bit but still couldn’t make the breakthrough but even by this stage the players had worked up the kind of sweat that usually takes a good seventy minutes to work up here in England and it was obvious that any player carrying a few summer pounds would be working them off and then some in this game. It was going to be a very good work-out, if nothing else.

By the time the half-time whistle came, the score remained at 1-0 to the Fire (could have been 2-0 but for a great De Gea save just before half-time) but we’d had a few half-chances which weren’t taken but it was time for Fergie to start making the substitutions. However, there had been four players in the first half who are perhaps playing to stake a claim for when the season starts proper and these were Cleverly, Welbeck, Obertan and Diouf and I must say that of the four, Welbeck stood out by a mile. Diouf wasn’t given an awful lot to feed on but Obertan was fairly impressive in what he did but he still shows a lack of composure at critical times for me. The one who would probably want to play this game again was Cleverly because I didn’t think he did his case any favours with his display in this game which is a shame because he has something about him but he didn’t really show it here, playing some poor passes at times which, for a team which is supposedly lacking in midfield talent, is surely crying out for one of the younger players to come through and take the bull by the horns. On this evidence, Cleverly still isn’t the man to fill the void but I do hope he gets another chance during this pre-season tour.

I suppose I should have lumped Phil Jones into that group but he really does look like the business to me. He perhaps could have been a bit more alert to the danger for the goal (he was on the wrong side of the attacker when the ball was headed home) but apart from that, there wasn’t anything to fault him about and he’s surely going to join the ranks of excellent defenders that Fergie has signed over the last twenty-five years.

One slightly worrying thing I saw from Berbatov in this half was that he seemed to be back to his moany old self. During last summer’s pre-season tour, he was playing with a smile on his face, scoring goals and generally looking happy with life, football and the universe but in this match he was giving it out to everyone for not playing the exact ball he required again. He played much better at the start of last season due to this new-found demeanour but it doesn’t bode too well if he’s getting upset at this stage of pre-season. I’d like to see him get back to where he was last summer. Of course, he showed his qualities in this match – his magnet-like ability to retain possession of the ball was in full force but, as often happens, it rarely came to anything and I’m afraid that I can see Berba playing third or even fourth fiddle in the coming season.

Anyway, as the second half got underway Fergie made the expected changes with five players being taken off (Fabio, Cleverly, Berbatov, Carrick, Diouf making way for Evans, Anderson, Giggs, Rooney and Park) to give the side a much more experienced feel to it. Perhaps, interestingly, Fergie wanted to see a little bit more of Welbeck and Obertan.

Within two minutes of the restart, Smalling found himself up front and scored a cracking goal – unfortunately, he was slightly offside and the goal was disallowed (it was extremely marginal) but it really was a cracking finish which any striker would have been proud of.

We got away with it after around fifty-two minutes as Chicago Fire missed an absolute sitter which really should have been buried to make it 2-0 and so, despite making umpteen changes of their own at half time (if I remember correctly, it was nine!), Chicago Fire were still proving a decent match for United and as the clock ticked away, they were the ones making the better chances.

At this point, Fergie made more changes with Obertan, Welbeck and Evra going off for Nani, Macheda and Ferdinand. Evans switched to left-back with Jones and Ferdinand in the centre of defence.

But still the breakthrough for United seemed a long way away as the minutes ticked on to the hour mark whilst Chicago Fire were creating some very decent chances which we were somewhat lucky to get away with unscathed and this was becoming a bit worrying as the clock hit sixty-five minutes.

But then Rio Ferdinand produced a great bit of skill to create a bit of space for himself before launching an inch-perfect long pass for Rooney who deftly lobbed over the advancing keeper for the ball to drop into the net. 1-1 was the score but given our lack of chances so far, another Chicago Fire draw wasn’t out of the question at this stage.

However, there was a sense that the players on the pitch at this stage were finally warming to the task as the experience was beginning to tell compared to the much-subbed opposition.

Nani, Rooney, Giggs and Park in particular were beginning to shape themselves into a decent attacking/midfield force.

However, we had to wait for yet more Fergie changes as Jones and Smalling made way for Rafael and Vidic before the real breakthrough came about because a mere 47 seconds had elapsed before Rafael made one of his trademark surging runs into the box before knocking the ball through the eye of a needle (between the keepers legs to be precise) to put us 2-1 ahead after a great move in which the Brazilian proved instrumental.

It looked for a little while that this might be it as both teams were cancelling each other out at this stage but Nani had other ideas. He got a bit of luck with a ricochet but finished superbly to make it 3-1 to United after about 81 minutes to complete a total smash and grab for United.

And this was the way it ended. 3-1 to United.

Again, if I have to be critical, I have to point to our defence which at times look very dodgy and our midfield which really should be dominating against this kind of opposition, but they didn’t.

And so we move through this pre-season with three matches and three wins but we owe much to our strength in depth and the American’s lack of strength in depth.

But still, three games, three wins, 14 goals scored with only two in the opposite direction in some testing conditions… it’s looking good so far but I feel that the next game against the MLS Allstars might actually prove a real test and Fergie will need to make some kind of stance with his first choice eleven for that one.

Another late night lies ahead for UK-based Manchester United fans tonight as we press on with the US Tour 2011 with our third match of the tour against Chicago Fire. It’s not as late as the last one and should kick-off at around 12 midnight here in the UK. You can watch the match live on MUTV.

Incidentally, I don’t know how many have noticed but MUTV have been free-to-air for the build-ups to the matches this summer which, for any of you who haven’t subscribed to MUTV, gives a taste of what the channel is like before going back to encrypted when the match kicks off. The channel is 406 on Sky so check it out if you haven’t done so already.

Anyway, as with all of these MLS based teams, I can write what I really know about them on the back of the matchbox which holds the matches I’ll be wedging between my eyelids tonight but from what I can gather, the club is aptly named as temperatures soared to 100 degrees when the players touched down in Chicago so it could well be a stamina-sapping furnace out there when we take them on today as it will be 4pm local time when the match kicks off.

Looking at their league table, they’re in the same league as our first opponents of this tour, New England Revolution, but currently sit one place below them and second-bottom of the league, largely due to the fact that they draw so many games – they have drawn twelve of their twenty matches played, winning just two.

However, if our goalscoring form continues as it has during this pre-season then I think they’ll be hard pushed to get another draw tonight.

Of special interest to United fans tonight is the fact that David de Gea looks set to start and one or two of the other younger players who have so far been rested could well make an appearance so it could be a less experienced and less conventional United line-up – the teams Fergie has put out so far have been fairly close to what we might expect to actually see when the season starts proper but I suspect there’ll be some big changes tonight.

It promises to be another entertaining game though and I’ll be reporting on the outcome and the performance tomorrow.

Well, I intended to watch this match yesterday morning and post on it yesterday afternoon but, with the school holidays kicking in, I forgot just how demanding kids freed for the summer can be so I had to wait until they’d gone to bed before I could watch it! However, I couldn’t resist looking at the score and when I saw the scoreline, I couldn’t believe my eyes. We  must have played a blinder!?

Well… to be honest… not quite. I do have to keep reminding myself that this is only pre-season and it is about fitness and trying things out more than the performances or even the scorelines but I thought we actually looked quite sloppy and disjointed in this match and Seattle must have left the pitch not only wondering why they had conceded seven but wondering more how they had completely failed to score even one because, make no mistake about it, they could have had five or six of their own.

Some of our defending was sloppy and poor but, thankfully, our strikers were totally on the ball. For Seattle’s part, their defence was often sloppy but, crucially, their strikers weren’t up to much and on the few occasions where they hit the target, our keepers were exceptional.

And I think this is what can be taken from the game – we started with Lindegaard (who was extremely good again) and then Ben Amos came on in the second half who was also excellent (although a dodgy minute towards the end when he played a sloppy pass to Ferdinand (which ended with Ferdinand getting injured through over-stretching) didn’t do him too many favours) but that would probably be nitpicking.

What this all means is that we do appear to have three top young keepers fighting for the place of Van Der Sar and I’m afraid I can’t see much room for Kuszczak – all three look more composed than him to be perfectly honest.

I suspect Amos remains third choice but Lindegaard has done himself no harm in the opening couple of games of this pre-season and De Gea will have to go some to displace him as things stand – the good news for him is that he will probably get his chance to shine when we play our next pre-season game this weekend.

As for everyone else on show here tonight… well, it has to be said that the half-time score was 1-0 to United following a Michael Owen goal after he was criminally left in acres of space to nod home a fantastic cross on the run/fall from Evra (who had, in turn, been played in by an impressive ball from the continually impressive Young) and then Seattle made umpteen changes at half time as they obviously have the important MLS campaign to consider and this made the second half slightly different.

It was at half time that Wayne Rooney came on and he scored a well-taken hat-trick but after around 50 minutes the scoreline was 3-0 to United after both Diouf and Rooney had scored which, of course, made Seattle stretch a bit for a goal back, leading to openings for us.

All the United goals (Owen, Diouf, Rooney x 3, Obertan and Park) were very well taken and this was basically the difference between the two sides. Had Seattle possessed our quality of attacker then I am convinced they would have scored a fair few of their own as our defence got by by the skin of their teeth at times.

The midfield remains something of a problem but I thought Park was excellent with his workrate and I’m sure Rooney loves playing alongside him as the two have the same work ethic and definitely seem to have a great understanding and respect for each other (this was illustrated beautifully for Park’s goal when Rooney saw him coming in and allowed the ball to run through to him, knowing he would tuck it away – even though Rooney was on a hat-trick at that point).

Anderson is being given plenty of opportunity to show that he is the man we need in the centre of the park but he remains a mixed bag for me.

Carrick came on in the second half and, I think, added some composure but it was Giggs who started and, despite his greatness and experience, I still find something slightly worrying about this, despite his re-invention over the last few years, he still doesn’t strike me as one of the world’s greatest midfielders, I still think we need someone of proven top quality in the position.

But, as I say, I have to remind myself that this is pre-season and it’s only our second game of the tour and so far we have scored eleven goals and have conceded just one. The difference in class is palpable when it comes to United vs America but it has to be remembered that the last game of this tour is against Barcelona and that could be interesting.

Jeez… am I the biggest moaner of all time? We’ve just won 7-0 and I’m picking fault!

United play the second match of their USA Tour 2011 tonight against Seattle Sounders but with a local kick-off time of 7pm, it means that it will be 3am in the morning to watch it on MUTV here in the UK so I think this will be one for the old Sky Plus ready for viewing at a more reasonable time tomorrow.

Since we played our first match against New England Revolution, several more players have joined the squad including new signings Phil Jones and David de Gea and one or two of the other youngsters who took part in the European Under 21 Championships including Smalling, Cleverley and Welbeck but the boss has apparently confirmed that none of these will play tonight but may well feature in the next game against Chicago Fire in three days’ time.

With Berbatov also ruled out with injury, it is looking very much like we will start with the same kind of team that started against Revolution although I would expect Vidic to make an appearance in this one.

It should be a slightly tougher test than our last game as Seattle Sounders are currently second in the Western Division of the MLS (one point being LA Galaxy).

Ashley Young made his Manchester United debut in the early hours of this morning as Manchester United kicked off their USA Tour with a 3-1 win against New England Revolution.

The match was a decent test for United as the Revolution came into this match midway through their domestic season whilst, obviously, Manchester United haven’t kicked a ball for almost two months but United started brightly with some crisp passing movements in the opening minutes which made it look like we’d never been away.

However, the opening strike-force of Rooney and Berbatov did look like they were possibly lacking a bit of match time as the few chances that came their way went begging and half-time came with the scores locked at 0-0.

Fergie made several changes during half-time but few changes he will make this season will have the same impact as he withdrew Rooney and Berbatov and replaced them with Owen and Macheda.

Within five minutes of the restart Owen slotted home in typical fashion to show that he’s still one of the coolest customers in the business when through on goal.  Mention has to go here to the midfield of Anderson and Carrick who between them played a couple of excellent one-touch passes which completely tore the Revolution defence in two to enable Owen his clear run through on goal.

Just a few minutes later, Carrick again played the telling pass into the path of the lively Macheda who finished well with his left foot to make it 2-0.

Proceedings were dampened somewhat within minutes of that goal however when Ferdinand was adjudged to have brought down a Revolution player just outside the area which replays suggested was a bit harsh. Anyway, Revolution got themselves a goal back from the resulting free kick in fortunate fashion as the ball took a wicked deflection to leave Lindegaard diving the wrong way and stranded.

It was a shame for the young keeper who played well enough throughout the game to have maintained a clean sheet but it wasn’t to be.

The two goal cushion was restored on sixty minutes though as Macheda grabbed his second with the best goal of the lot as he finished superbly with his left foot again but this time from an acute angle.

Macheda was now on a hat-trick just fifteen minutes after coming on and he had the chances to get it during the closing thirty minutes but had to content himself with the brace this time – he looked as hungry as I have seen him in a United shirt in this game though and, following his ill-fated loan spell at Sampdoria last season, looks as though he realises just what an opportunity he has here at United and is eager to make the very most of it. Had he been a bit more alert to through balls played into him in this one then he could well have had four or five goals in this game and that is something that will hopefully come as he gets more towards full match-sharpness.

The second half saw more substitutions as Giggs, Obertan, Park and the returning Diouf all got a run out as the match looked to be fizzling out to a 3-1 final score but a delightful goal was in store with Park showing all the qualities that make him such a favourite.

Picking the ball up deep into his own half, he played a fantastic curling long pass into the path of Obertan who tried something fancy, made a mess of it but got a second bite of the cherry. By this time, Park had gone on one of his lung-busting runs into the box to pick up a return pass from Obertan, a lovely little one-two with Giggs put Park in on goal and he calmly chipped the ball over the keeper for our fourth goal.

And 4-1 is how it stayed in what had overall been a very entertaining match. I think it’s fair to say that tougher tests than New England Revolution await United this season but for the first pre-season match, it was a decent test which we passed with flying colours with some great goals and a purposefulness to our play.

Macheda probably deserves to be singled out for his two goals but there were several very good performances on the pitch and everyone involved looked impressive.

We’ve now got a week to wait until our next match which is against Seattle Sounders but then the matches come thick and fast and with a few of our big guns and a couple of new signings still to make an appearance, the best is surely still to come.

As always, the Community Shield will be billed as a “friendly” match but there’s not likely to be very much friendship shown on the pitch this afternoon. These two sides will almost certainly be contesting the title again this season and neither will want the other to get one over on them at any stage of the season – starting now.

Just how seriously the two managers will be taking this one is likely to be shown in their starting line-ups and I expect nothing less than full strength from both to start with although predicting what this is in the case of Manchester United is as tricky as ever.

United took part in an open training session at Old Trafford and just about everyone apart from the long-term injured took part including Evra and Carrick (who suffered an ankle injury against the Irish XI during the week and was expected to be out for a fortnight as a result).

Chelsea have been uncharacteristically quiet in the transfer market this summer and so there are unlikely to be many surprises about who turns out for them so expect the usual suspects although it might see a return to action for Essien who, given his injury problems last season, could be like a new signing for them.

As for the match itself, I expect the usual feisty encounter but I do actually think there’ll be goals in this one today. Chelsea were scoring for fun towards the end of last season and we have plenty of attacking options and plenty of goalscorers. It is quite ironic that the player who hasn’t been banging them in for club or country for quite a while is actually Wayne Rooney! This is the type of match that should bring out the best in him though.

As usual, not the kind of match to get too heavily involved with from a betting point of view but I think a small bet on the OVER market might be worthwhile.

The bet is going to be 2 points OVER 2.5 goals @ 2.29 with Canbet.

Review to follow…

Despite a few odd positional decisions by Sir Alex (Evans playing at left-back, for example) the United team that took the field for this one looked much more like United than most of the line-ups used on the USA Tour.

Vidic was back in defence, Valencia was on the right, Carrick was in the centre of midfield and Rooney and Owen were paired up front. All great to see.

Valencia, in particular, was very impressive and showed just what we have been missing in some of the other pre-season games with his constant running at the Irish defence and superb crosses into the box.

As for the match itself, it is difficult to know where to start. The first goal came from a mixture of indecisive defending and horrendous bad luck as Park blocked an attempted clearance and saw the ball rebound straight into the net. As someone once said, “They all count”.

The second goal came from a brilliant piece of play from Michael Owen. At first, it looked like it had been an own goal but replays showed that Owen had deftly lobbed the ball over the keeper despite being under intense pressure from a couple of defenders. It was the kind of strike that shows that Michael Owen still has the striker’s instinct flowing through his veins as strongly as ever.

And that is how the first half ended. 2-0 to United. Rooney had huffed and puffed without much success and probably deserved a bit more in the way of free kicks than the referee gave him. Despite some decent passing and possession football from the Irish players at times, they weren’t really able to make very much of it and Vidic, in particular, probably can’t remember an easier 45 minutes in a United shirt.

As the second half was about to commence, it was announced that Owen and Rooney were being replaced by Berbatov and Hernandez. Hernandez can do no wrong at the moment and every United fan is trying to keep their feet on the ground about him and not hype him up too much for fear of putting too much pressure on the lad’s shoulders.

The problem is, Chicharito just won’t play along and within seconds of coming on, he had put the ball in the net to give United a 3-0 lead.

At this stage, it was all looking a bit ominous for the Irish side and more goals looked inevitable.

It took little under fifteen minutes for the next as Valencia went on a bit of a run, using his right foot at every touch, before bringing it onto his left and firing into the bottom corner. Yes. Valencia scored a goal with his left foot!

A few minutes later, Park scored his second and United’s fifth with a lovely curling effort into the far corner and then Evans (who had been getting forward constantly throughout the match) headed home well to make it six.

Mulcahy spoiled it all when grabbing a goal back for the Irish side following something of a mistake by Smalling who over-committed himself in a wide position which left him hopelessly out of position.

A few minutes later, Hernandez was brought down in the penalty area and the referee awarded a penalty which was duly converted by Nani with typical audacity.

And so it ended 7-1 to United.

Whatever anyone says about the quality of the opposition here, there were tons of positives to take from this game. One of the worries pre-season has been “What will we do if Rooney gets injured? Where will the goals come from?” Well, seven goals here from six different scorers and not a Rooney goal in sight would suggest that we have more than enough goals scattered around the squad for that to be less of a concern than some would make it out to be.

The return of Valencia and Vidic was also great to see. Valencia, in particular, looks every bit a United player now and was the clear Man-of-the-Match for this one.

Owen showed he’s still got it so long as his legs hold out, Chicharito can’t stop scoring and I don’t think Smalling was beaten in the air once all night.

The one bad point of the evening was when Carrick had to come off due to some kind of ankle injury. I am not sure at this stage how serious it is (it didn’t look particularly serious – he walked off the pitch) but given that this was his first bit of football for months, it wasn’t an ideal comeback for him.

All in all though, a great night’s work by the lads. Sunday’s match against Chelsea should be enough to blow away a few more cobwebs and then it will be full steam ahead for Newcastle!