Apparently, Wayne Rooney will discover today how many matches he will be banned for following his kick against a Montenegro player (Miodrag Dzudovic) in England’s last Euro 2012 qualifier a few days ago.

It was a kick out an opponent, it was quite deliberate and it was a deserved straight red card.

Straight reds usually carry a three match ban and that is widely expected to be the case here although, for some reason, there are people who think that he might get off with a two or even one match ban.

Personally, I think that in instances such as this, the player should receive no ban and here’s why…

The tournament is one of the biggest International footballing events in the world – perhaps second only to the World Cup (although I appreciate that people from other continents will probably disagree) and, at these events, we want to see the best players on show.

I think that there is a case for wiping the slate clean after a qualification campaign so that all players that are fit to play can play in the actual tournament.

Should Montenegro reach the Euro 2012 tournament proper then they may feel aggrieved should they have to play against England (and Rooney) at some stage but I generally believe that they received their advantage the other night when England went down to ten men and an important player was sent off the pitch. This gave them every chance to get themselves into the play-offs (or better) and they took it.

Rooney’s sending off could have cost England dearly… but it didn’t… but I feel that the punishment was there.

In case of confusion, I am not talking about bans in any other circumstances, I am just talking about bans going into a massive International tournament. If Rooney kicks a Liverpool player on Saturday then he will get and deserve a three match ban (and a round of applause from most Mancunians, but that’s by-the-by) and no one will argue against that.

Similarly, if he kicks anyone at Euro 2012 next summer then he will receive a three-match ban and if that means the end of his tournament then so be it.

I just feel that for showcase events, the footballing authorities should show a bit more common-sense with regard to these things. But this is their quandary.

UEFA know that having the best players at the tournament will make for a better tournament but they also know that they must not show any weakness at this point then it will set a dangerous precedent. In any case, this is England and it is common knowledge that we don’t get many favours from the footballing authorities. They’d probably like to ban England altogether but that’s another issue.

So… I expect Rooney to have the book thrown at him. He will have the full three match ban and that will mean that we will have to play the group stage without him and, should we get through that then Capello (or whoever is in charge next summer) may well stick with the team that got us through.

I’ll just say that I don’t believe Rooney should get off without punishment but perhaps the ban could come into effect for the World Cup qualifiers and he could be given a hefty fine – the proceeds of which could go to charity or something.

OK. Now I’m just being really silly.

Ashley Young continued his impressive scoring form as he scored England’s winner against Wales in our Euro 2012 qualifying match last night.

It wasn’t a great performance by England and Young’s goal was by far the best moment as he finished off Stewart Downing’s cross with great confidence. Not only was the finish excellent but the fact that he got himself into the right position to be on the end of the cross was good to see.

Wayne Rooney was one of our other representatives in the England side and it speaks volumes for how well Rooney is currently playing that it is something of a surprise to see him fail to get his own name on the teamsheet.

Chris Smalling’s meteoric rise continues as he played in the right-back role us United fans are becoming somewhat accustomed to seeing him in. It wasn’t his best performance but, to be fair, his England teammates didn’t use him half as much as his United teammates do and on several occasions he made overlapping runs which were completely ignored by the midfield which meant that he often had to check back and get back into a defensive position.

Still, Smalling remains an inspirational figure to any young player as he continues to break the rule that says that to make it to the very top in football, you must have been spotted by one of the big teams by the age of eight!

Well... it looked like his head at first glance. Anatomy & Physiology Classes for all, methinks.

As us Manchester United reflect on the fact that the worst possible scenario over the weekend has come to fruition, it all has an air of inevitability about it to me, especially after Chelsea were again the beneficiaries of the doubt when it came to the big decisions in their match against Tottenham.

However, this is not about Chelsea. We knew full well that we had to concentrate on our own task and win our own games and, if we did that, then it wouldn’t matter one jot if Chelsea were awarded a goal every time the ball came within a yard of their opponent’s net or not.

But, like the away match against Chelsea a couple of months ago and the away match against Liverpool a few days later, we failed to deliver in a Premier League away match against a big rival when it mattered most and we must now hope that we can make amends when our chance comes at Old Trafford next weekend. It would certainly be the worst possible time to lose our first home game of the season but as this weekend has shown, nothing can be discounted or taken for granted against Chelsea.

As for yesterday’s game… well… I was quite happy when I saw the positive starting line-up which was a sort of 4-4-2 with Rooney helping out in midfield but as the first half progressed, I became more and more bemused by the role Anderson was playing.

Arsenal were all over us for huge portions of the first half and we couldn’t even get the ball for long periods of play and it looked very much like were were playing with ten men and I put that down to Anderson who was neither here nor there as far as I could see.

He played one or two very good passes when he did eventually get the ball but apart from that, I could not see any point to him whatsoever. He seemed to be getting himself into acres of space which is all well and good when we have the ball but he seemed to be doing it when Arsenal had the ball (which was most of the time) too which left me wondering – who, exactly, does he expect to win the ball back from Arsenal?

Carrick often plays in this way but the difference between Anderson and Carrick is the fact that Carrick does it well. It is something which is often overlooked by Carrick’s critics but, if you watch Carrick closely, you will notice that he is always looking to get into a position that prevents a ball forward by the opposition. Anderson wasn’t doing this and just seemed to be standing as far away from play as possible which meant that Arsenal had free passage through the midfield.

I am aware that I am being extremely unkind to single him out here because other midfielders like Park (who fell asleep in the build-up to Arsenal’s goal), Nani and eventually, Valencia, didn’t have their most effective days either and because of this under-performing midfield, Rooney was drawn further and further back which all combined to ensure that Hernandez had one of his quietest games since joining us. There was simply very little support for him and virtually no service and on the occasions when he did seem to get into a good position, he found himself offside.

And then there’s the penalty decisions.

The first went against Arsenal as Vidic seemed to handle a cross destined for Van Persie’s head. All I can say about this one is that every tv commentator I have heard initially believed Vidic had headed the ball when the incident was viewed in real-time and myself and the people I was watching the game with were all initially congratulating Vidic on a great piece of defending. It was only when Van Persie ran away screaming at the linesman that Vidic had used a hand that the replays were brought out which showed that Vidic’s head was nowhere near the ball whilst his hand most certainly was.

It was slightly bizarre, however, because the ball didn’t appear to deviate in its flight which may have suggested that Vidic actually got nothing on the ball but the fact that a corner was awarded to Arsenal clearly shows that all concerned believed that he did.

For all of Vidic’s great points, it is these moments of madness which have many a United supporter shaking their head because it did look like he knew what he was doing with his hand and it could easily have led to a penalty and a red-card for Vidic which would have ensured that he would play no further part for the rest of the Premier League campaign. Crazy.

However, there were three other penalty appeals (two of which were ignored completely on Match of the Day last night).

The first was when an Arsenal player appeared to grip Evra’s arm between his chest and his own arm and tugged him to the ground. To be honest, I am sure that Evra possesses the physical strength to extricate himself from what would have hardly been a vice-like grip and did appear to be looking for it. It would have been a soft penalty.

The second was when Aaron Ramsey clearly handled the ball. The referee blew for a free kick and indicated a spot some two yards or so outside the area but it was nowhere near that far out. Ramsey started inside the box and jumped forward as he handled and so his finishing position was some distance from his starting position. TV replays showed that the contact was actually made when the ball was on the line – which is a penalty. Again, the benefit of the doubt should probably be given to the officials who are not blessed with stop-motion vision but it was another case of how tiny margins can have enormous consequences.

The third was a stonewall penalty though and I cannot believe that the referee didn’t see this one. There is absolutely no excuse.

A delightful ball played forward from Rooney should have seen the deadly Michael Owen through one on one with the keeper but Owen, who has made a career on opportunities such as those, fell to the ground and replays showed that Clichy clearly took Owen’s leg out from behind and there was nothing subtle about it.

This was the one incident that Match of the Day did show and, predictably, claimed that it evened things up after Vidic’s “handball” earlier in the game. Indeed, Sky Sports commentator and ex-Arsenal player Alan Smith seemed to claim after every United penalty appeal that they evened things up as each one went by! Perhaps we would have been awarded a point had we won the game 3-1 had he been in charge of proceedings?

All things considered though, I think Arsenal probably deserved their win. We simply did not perform well enough to merit a win whilst Arsenal played at least as well as us during our good patches and better than us during their good spells.

What is slightly concerning at this stage is how difficult we seem to be finding it to score from open play. We actually had more shots than Arsenal in this game and twice as many of ours were on target but Szczesny was rarely troubled, in all honesty.

Having said that for all Arsenal’s pretty passing and superior possession, Edwin was rarely troubled either except for, obviously, the goal.

What is worrying about this is that the title race has now come down to a basic shoot-out between ourselves and Chelsea and should the unthinkable happen next weekend and Chelsea take the three points, they will go ahead on goal difference and I wouldn’t back us to outscore them to take the title at this stage.

The good news is that we have enjoyed two very good wins over Chelsea in the Champions League recently and we are more than capable of delivering a third at Old Trafford next Sunday.

At this stage, I would rather be three points ahead with Chelsea to play at OT than three points behind with Chelsea to play at Stamford Bridge. We’re making life typically difficult for ourselves though and I just hope that next week the officials don’t make it any harder.

News is just coming in that Wayne Rooney has lost his appeal against the two-match ban which was imposed following the West Ham Swearygate scandal.

Most people seem to be in agreement that the original decision to ban Wayne Rooney was something of an own goal by the FA and sets the kind of precedent that could get extremely messy, very quickly as “industrial language” is, rightly or wrongly, considered part and parcel of football.

Having had the chance to reflect on the situation, it was hoped that the FA would take this opportunity to either reduce the ban or withdraw it completely but they have decided to stick with their original punishment and Rooney will now miss the League game against Fulham and the FA Cup semi-final against Manchester City.

I suppose we should be glad for small mercies as there was always a fear that the planks at the FA would have considered Rooney’s appeal “frivolous” and slapped him with a further one-match ban.

As an example of how players get punished for their indiscretions without the need for the FA to get overly involved, however, news reaches my ears that Coca-Cola have decided to end his £600,000 a year deal with them as a result of this incident.

Now that really must leave a bad taste in the mouth.

In Your Face

If any further proof was needed that the people in charge of football are completely out of tune with the game then news that the FA have hit Wayne Rooney with a two match ban for his post-hat-trick “celebrations” will surely suffice.

I was watching the match at home on Saturday and after seeing us go 2-0 down only for Rooney to produce a stunning hat-trick to take us into a 3-2 lead I can only say that at that moment in time, I was not in control of my emotions and I’m just a Regular Joe sitting at home watching my team play a game of football.

Quite what was running through Rooney’s mind at that moment in time is impossible to know. My guess is that even he wasn’t quite sure but whatever it was, it resulted in him screaming a string of naughty words at the camera.

Now, no one has suggested that this was acceptable behaviour. Many people have scored goals and hat-tricks in the past, even extremely important goals and hat-tricks but no one could quite remember a time when a player had let rip with a foul-mouthed tirade at a TV camera. It was clearly unnecessary, it was clearly inappropriate and it was clearly wrong.

Quite why Rooney did what he did has been speculated upon by various sections of the press but I’m not going to speculate further on that at this moment because it is all actually irrelevant. We should be basing punishment on the offence, not the person committing the offence (or his reasons) and I am not sure that this is what the FA have done here.

The slight problem is that this kind of thing is quite unprecedented and so it does appear to be yet another case of the FA making rules up as they go along.

The charge handed down by the FA is “use of offensive, insulting and/or abusive language”. Well, it was obviously offensive but, as Rooney said in his post-match apology, it wasn’t aimed at anyone in particular so it was hardly insulting or abusive. It does beg the question though: are all footballers now going to be charged for swearing on the field of play or just when a TV camera and/or mic picks it up? If offensive language has no part in football then Rooney’s case is not at all unprecedented – I’m sure we can all recall incidents involving players and managers where specialist lip-reading skills were not required.

Perhaps the broadcaster (Sky in this case) should also take some of the responsibility for exactly what it is that they broadcast into our homes and might think twice before thrusting a TV camera into an obviously pumped-up players’ face?

If all this sounds like I am trying to downplay what Rooney did, I’m not. It is clearly not something we would like to see on our TV screens in the middle of the afternoon whilst we might be watching with our kids (the very same kids who idolise and may well emulate players such as Wayne Rooney) and Rooney must take full responsibility for his own part in it.

However, I think that this should be in the form of a hefty fine because the offence was not a footballing offence. Manchester United gained no advantage from Rooney’s actions so why should Manchester United also be punished by their player being banned?

What is so maddingly annoying about this classic case of Numptiness from the FA is that, the little outburst aside, the world got to see the other side of Wayne Rooney on Saturday – Wayne Rooney the incredible footballer, Wayne Rooney the winner, Wayne Rooney the embodiment of sporting courage who pulled the special stuff out of the bag just when his team needed it the most.

In the case of an unprecedented non-footballing offence then I do believe that the FA should be letting everyone know that they take a dim view of the offence and that a hefty fine has been handed out to the player concerned but, in the interests of the game as a whole, bans for players should be kept to an absolute minimum and avoided completely wherever possible. We want to see the players play!

I have deliberately avoided saying anything more on the Rooney situation over the last couple of days because emotions have been running high and I wanted to see the outcome of the whole farcical situation before commenting further.

My own view was that Wayne Rooney had received an offer from another club (probably City) that had turned his head. Figures were doing the rounds of around £300k/week.

With Wayne currently on £90k/week and by all accounts, being offered £150k/week to stay with Manchester United, I can understand why such an offer, if true, would give him pause for thought, to say the least.

Because I had this belief in my head, when his statement came out that he was questioning the ambition of Manchester United, I’m afraid I went into full blown Rooney-hate. After all that Manchester United had given to him, I felt that he should at least be honest and say, “I’ve received a better offer and I’m off” and not attempt to blame it all on Manchester United with some ridiculous notion that Manchester United, one of the biggest and best clubs in the world “lacked ambition”.

Now that he has signed this new deal, I have had to have a rethink.

Was Rooney actually being truthful? A lot of fans think that his comments were a slur on his current team-mates and that he was, in effect, saying that they weren’t good enough – that big name recruits needed to be brought in or we wouldn’t win anything but, on reflection, this is not necessarily the case at all. A big club like Manchester United does need big players and it needs them all the time, now and in the future if it is to maintain its status.

If Wayne was thinking of going because he feared for the future then perhaps he was concerned that some of his team-mates might be similarly tempted? I.e. he wasn’t so just concerned about big names not arriving in the future but was also concerned that the great players we have might leave.

I know for a fact that most fans have been decidedly underwhelmed by our transfer activity over the last couple of summers. We have seen Tevez go, we have seen Ronaldo go and neither have been replaced by what you would call “marquee names”. If most United fans are honest, they shared Rooney’s concerns.

However, Fergie set it straight the other night with his statement about trusting in potential. Trusting in youth. As we trusted in a young Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo, Ryan Giggs, David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Gary Neville, Duncan Edwards etc etc etc in the past so we must now put some trust in the manager’s judgement with the signings he has made over the last couple of years.

My own belief is that several players have to prove themselves this season and if some don’t make the grade then there will be a spending spree next summer. Ferguson puts trust, faith and patience into youth but there is a limit and he has never been afraid to call time on a youngster’s United career and bring in a “ready made” player for big bucks when he has felt the time is right.

I think fans have to realise that Wayne Rooney is NOT a Manchester United fan. He is Everton through and through. When we signed Rooney from Everton, we got a glimpse into what motivates him. He left his boyhood love in order to win trophies. It is not about sentiment for Wayne. He is a winner.

If Manchester City were indeed responsible for his recent indecision then few can truly blame him. Manchester City are buying some of the biggest and best players in the world and showing enormous ambition to be up there with the very best in the world. You would have to be in some sort of chronic denial stage to suggest that they are not looking extremely threatening this season. They will always be a joke to the Red side of Manchester but deep down we know that they are to be taken seriously right now.

Had Rooney gone there in his pursuit of trophies then it would have been no different than when he came to us from Everton.

It pains me to say that because I view Rooney as the ultimate “Red Devil”. He belongs in that Red shirt as much as any kid from Manchester in my eyes. He has always worn it with pride and, until perhaps recently, has given his all every time he has pulled it on. Now that this contract mess has been sorted, I expect more of the same and I am absolutely certain that none of us will be disappointed.

It is going to take a while for some Manchester United fans to forgive him for what has happened over the last week or two but I hope that some will be able to give the lad a second chance. Everyone deserves a second chance.

At the end of the day, it looks like he was given a way out of Manchester United and, by all accounts, it was still better than he has been given by United (nothing has been confirmed but I hear rumours of £180k/week) but he has chosen to stay with us. The debt to be repaid is all his – we have given him nothing but our fullest support until the last couple of days – I hope the fans give him every fair chance to repay it.

As for what this means for Manchester United. Well, this means that Manchester United remain as ambitious as ever. We want the best players in the world at this club and are prepared to pay whatever is required to keep them. The history, the traditions and the mystique that is Manchester United remains as alluring as ever.

Reports of our demise have been greatly exaggerated.

Welcome to Manchester!

Wayne Rooney

It would be unfair to suggest that the path has been cleared of all obstacles for Wayne Rooney ever since he burst into the bigtime as a 16 year old because it has largely been down to his own skill, power, drive and will to succeed that these obstacles have been cleared.

Since joining Manchester United, he has largely found himself playing second fiddle to others – Ruud Van Nistelrooy when he first arrived and then Cristiano Ronaldo in more recent times. That is not to say that he is in any way inferior to those players but such is his attitude towards the team that he has often been asked to sacrifice much of his own game in order to accomodate those players. He has always done this without complaint and to the best of his ability and this is just one of the many reasons why he is such a favourite amongst the fans, his team-mates and his manager.

However, with the departure of Ronaldo, Rooney was finally given centre stage and encouraged by Fergie to get himself into goal-scoring positions and be more “selfish” with his play. The result was typically devastating as Rooney enjoyed his most prolific season as a professional, scoring 34 goals in all competitions. The post-Ronaldo question of “Who will score the goals?” had been answered.

As ever, though, a similar question is never far away and when Rooney picked up an injury in the dying seconds of our match against Bayern Munich in the Champions League, the United attack suddenly looked a bit threadbare.

Michael Owen has himself already picked up an injury earlier in the season, Berbatov was still finding it difficult to score on a regular basis and young Macheda was himself struggling with an injury problem.

When Rooney came back from the injury, it all looked a bit rushed and he never quite seemed “right” to most onlookers but such was our reliance on him that even an 80% fit Rooney was probably better than anyone else at full fitness. If it was a gamble by Fergie then it probably backfired and we haven’t seen the real Wayne Rooney since he hobbled off against Bayern for club or country.

Seeing the problems with attack, Fergie wasted no time in securing the services of a young Mexican called Javier Hernandez for around £7million. An unknown young player for a relatively small fee (for a striker) didn’t give many United supporters much cause for excitement and many wanted us to be splashing uber-millions on the likes of Villa, Torres, Benzema or even, dare I say it, Forlan.

The signing of Hernandez has since begun to look very much like a masterstroke from left-field by Fergie though and even during his brief appearances in our pre-season friendlies, he has managed to score three goals for us (and one goal against us!).

Something else has happened over the summer, too – Berbatov appears to have regained his confidence. Despite showing moments of brilliance during his previous two seasons at United, these have been largely overshadowed by, let’s face it, prolonged periods of crapness. Some were even tipping him to be on the way out this summer and, clearly recognising that his personal legacy is about to be tarnished by the word “flop” (Berbaflop, in some quarters) he has seemingly resolved to give it everything in his power to make up for lost time this season and the result has been pretty spectacular in pre-season as he himself has scored three goals including yesterday’s calm, composed lob against Chelsea to finally put the match to bed.

And then we have Michael Owen who had not kicked a ball since scoring in the Carling Cup Final which ultimately cost him the rest of his season. Whilst likely to only be a bit-part player this season, he has managed to score a goal himself in pre-season (and a brilliant one at that) and continues to remind everyone that while the electric pace might no longer be there, the instincts and the technique of a master marksman are still there in abundance.

Add to this young Macheda who just keeps knocking in the goals to remind everyone who might be forgetting just what a talent he is and we have a five-man strike-force of fantastic variety that I honestly can’t remember such a situation at United. The nearest thing I come to by way of comparison (and forgive me if I’m getting carried away here) is the treble-winning side of 98/99 with Yorke, Cole, Sheringham and Solskjaer.

What all this means is that competition for places is as strong as it has ever been and each player will have to take full advantage of whatever chances Fergie gives them to stake their claim. Chances on the field will also need to be taken and if Fergie perceives a player to be giving anything less than 100% at all times then he might well find himself collecting splinters for a spell.

With all these players seemingly looking fit, ready and in goal-scoring mood as we enter the new season, the only one who has not scored a goal is Rooney himself. In fact, during pre-season, the team has scored a massive 22 goals in seven games with thirteen different players hitting the back of the net (including the loan-bound Welbeck).

We’re clearly not totally reliant on another 30+ season from Rooney but it does beg the question: Are we reliant on Rooney at all?

The prospect of a fit Wayne Rooney not playing is unthinkable but having seen the partnership of Berbatov and Hernandez yesterday, Fergie might just have a slight dilemma on his hands here. It’s a nice dilemma, and one he has been used to having down the years, but it is a dilemma.

Whilst we didn’t see a goal from Rooney yesterday, we did see the other things that he brings to the table, not least of which was the brilliant “blind” pass into Valencia for the opening goal. Not many players in the world would have done that and this only adds to the dilemma.

What is beyond doubt, however, is that Rooney now has a challenge on his hands. It is normally considered that he is one of the first names on the team-sheet but I just wonder if this is going to be the nailed-on case for much of the coming season, especially if the likes of Berbatov and Hernandez can take their pre-season form into the season “proper”.

Another thing that is certain is that Rooney relishes a challenge and he will be as up for it as anyone. What we will see from Rooney if he raises his game to yet another level in response to the challenge is almost too scary to contemplate.

Bring it on!