Manchester United 0-0 Reading

Not the start we had hoped for, it has to be said. I won't say that i saw this coming, but i don't think we have looked that great in the pre-season matches that i have seen. And what an irony that it looks like we have lost the one man who had been looking really good pre-season. The news this morning is that Rooney has a hairline fracture of the foot and will be out for at least two months. I suppose the only consolation is, it is better to have this injury at the start of the season than the end of it. It is a good job that the Tevez deal finally went through, it looks like he will be needed sooner than Fergie had envisaged. Unless Saha shrugs off whatever is ailing him at the moment. Credit to Reading, for having a game plan, and sticking to it, but i don't think United ever really got to grips with the game. I might be being unfair, but i felt we started slowly, our passing wasn't as sharp and incisive as you would have hoped, and Ronaldo never really tried to take his man on.
Ronaldo doesn't seem quite right to me at the moment, i don't know if he is carrying a knock, but we haven't really seen him take his man on, or fly down the wing pre-season and that continued into yesterdays match. Against teams that come to defend, and get everybody behind the ball, you need your best players to do something special, but that didn't really happen yesterday. True losing Rooney at half time was a big loss, but seeing John O'shea playing centre half was a bit bewildering to say the least. There must have been better options than that. We did create decent chances in the second half, and on another day we would have probably got the goal. I was more worried about the peformance, than the result, though it was two points lost that we could have done without.
Maybe we got spoilt by last season, but yesterdays performance just felt a little bit flat. We will have to lift it up a notch or three on Wednesday, because our record over the last few seasons at Fratton park hasn't been the best.

PETERLOO

I have always wondered why there is no statue or proper memorial to commemorate one of the most important events in Manchester and Britain's history. It pretty scandalous that most people have heard of Waterloo but never heard of Peterloo an event that helped to give us the freedoms we take for granted today.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/britain/article/0,,2147433,00.html

Why it has been Manchester's dirty secret i don't know, i would have thought it was something to shout from the rooftops about. I hope we get something truly memorable that will totally upstage all those royalist efforts.
Apparently they have a peterloo display at the peoples history museum in town, that must be a new addition they didn't have it when i went, mind you that is a few years ago now.
http://www.iknow-northwest.co.uk/tourist_information/manchester/manchester_city/womens_history.htm