I was interested (and very pleased) to see that Tom Cleverley had secured himself a new four year deal with Manchester United the other day which will see him through until 2015.

Amongst other things, Sir Alex said of the deal, “It’s the United way to encourage our young players to make their mark in the first team and Tom has grabbed that chance with both hands.”

And young Tom certainly has.

Tom Cleverley has been one of those players who we have all heard a lot about for several years now but, just when you think he might be given the chance to break-through, something happened that thwarted it and, I think, many fans began to wonder if he’d ever get a proper chance to show what he can do in the midfield. Perhaps there were times when Tom himself wondered the same thing.

Well, he got his chance during our pre-season tour, shone and then was given the chance to show it in the Premier League.

Some gimp at Bolton has put a temporary halt on Tom’s progress for the time being and we can only hope that he recovers soon but something was crossing my mind about Tom Cleverley a few nights ago because, when it is an International break, I do tend to think about other things than the England team.

We started this season like a rocket but, it has to be said that those heights have not quite been reached in recent games and, I heard some pundits say that it showed how much we missed Rooney during those couple of games he was injured.

Maybe that’s so. We obviously do miss Rooney. I also think that the Young/Rooney thing has had a lot to do with it. Those two players do seem to bring out the best in each other in the United shirt.

However, something else occured to me. We’ve perhaps missed the dynamism of Tom Cleverley too.

Or was it just coincidence that with him in the team we had such a spectacular pre-season and start to the season proper?

It’s probably too early to tell but I, for one, cannot wait to see him back fit and in the team again.

Well done on the new contract Tom. You’ve earned it. Now come and set us alight again!

Rio Ferdinand complete 45 minutes for the Reserves this evening when they took on Oldham in the Manchester Senior Cup and has surely put himself back into contention for a start against Everton in ten days’ time.

It has come as a bit of a surprise this one as the news was that he was still a couple of weeks away from fitness but with Anderson suddenly appearing in a reserve fixture last week it seems to be the way at United at the moment – give absolutely nothing away!

On a related note, Owen Hargreaves fans will be interested to see that he has been included in United’s 25 man Premier League squad for the current season. With the transfer window closing yesterday, Premier League clubs had to send in their final squads for the current campaign and Hargo’s inclusion had been subject of some debate but he is there and that may mean that Fergie sees him playing some kind of role over the next few months.

It isn’t a guarantee though – it does appear that we were easily able to accomodate our players into the restrictions of the new ruling and many clubs appear to have actually put forward a squad list of less than 25 players – even with Hargo, we have only submitted 24.

In other news of the last few days, Tom Cleverley went out on loan to Wigan which, I must admit, I found strange. I really thought he would be brought through into the first team this season but Fergie has clearly decided that he has enough options in midfield at the moment and a loan to a Premier League side will be a good experience for Cleverley.

Let’s hope he does for Wigan what Mame Biram Diouf has done for Blackburn so far!

Madrid Bound Mesut Ozil

One of the longest drawn-out transfer sagas of the Summer finally reached its conclusion today as Mesut Ozil signed for Real Madrid and will undoubtedly join a cluster of stars sitting on the bench for some of the biggest games in La Liga this season.

Personally, I never felt that we would sign Ozil after Fergie decided to keep Tom Cleverley at United rather than send him on loan but that won’t stop legions of Manchester United fans from being disappointed at this development, especially as the fee is believed to be around £12million (a far cry from the £25-30million quoted during the Summer when the World Cup was on).

What would be nice to see now is for young Cleverley to be actually brought through into the first team. The game against Newcastle seemed to be the perfect game to give him a chance but he wasn’t even listed amongst the subs which was a strange one.