Lyon 1-1 Manchester United

That vital late goal from the right boot of Tevez gives us a great chance to progress into the quarter finals, so it must go down as a good result. But i have got to say i was disappointed by another indifferent away performance in Europe. Not that this was ever going to be an easy game, i would have took a score draw before kick off gratefully. It was the same old story away from home in Europe when we play 4-5-1, and away from home in Europe it is 4-5-1 not 4-3-3. We had the majority of possession and generally took the sting out of the opposition but at the expense of us being able to express ourselves going forward. I wouldn't totally blame the formation though, none of the midfield played particularly well, and Rooney had to feed off scraps. That said Rooney did have one great chance in the first half, the only time we really put a Manchester United quality move together in the match. That is where we miss a real out and out goalscorer like Ruud, i think he would have buried that.
The player everybody was singling out as the coming star of French football didn't disappoint. Benzema was a handful for Ferdinand and Vidic all night. I thought they had done a pretty good job on him, but he showed the true signs of top class quality creating his goal out of absolutely nothing. It was ironic that they scored just as United had looked like they had stated to get a grip on the game.
The first half saw both sides start with the same formation, each side seemingly trying to stifle their opponents. And for the most part it worked, the two best moments in open play were Rooney's effort that was well saved by Lyon's goalie Coupet, and their best move of the match which ended with Benzema hitting a stinging shot just over the bar. Yet again in a big game Ronaldo wasn't shining, and unfortunately neither Giggs or Scholes were compensating for him.
I have to say Hargreaves is puzzling me at the moment as well, it's pretty obvious to me recently we play far better when he is on the bench. I thought he was going to turn out to be the best signing of the summer, the man who would give our forwards that bit of extra security in front of the back four, as they attacked. But i have got to admit i had overrated his first touch and passing ability, either that or he has lost his touch. When he plays he seems to disrupt our fluent passing and movement and i would have replaced him with Carrick earlier than Fergie did last night. And when we knew we couldn't afford to give needless free kicks away just outside the penalty box, he lunged into an awful tackle that gave Juninho a reasonable chance that he lifted just over the bar towards the end of the first half.
I was disappointed by our reaction when they scored, we seemed to panic, and the first touch and passing suffered. We were trying to force the game too much too early, for all the experience that Fergie keeps telling us that these players accumulate each passing European season, away from home i am not sure i see it myself.
Reverting to 4-4-2 was when we really started to get on top, though i was glad they had took off Benzema. If i was a Lyon fan i would have wanted him to stay on, to see if they could snatch that vital second goal on the break as we threw more and more men forward in search of the away goal. From their point of view surely, that was worth the risk. Tevez and Nani came on for Giggs and Scholes in the 65th minute, and although it was Tevez who got the goal, it was Nani who really helped to change the game for us. He seems to have come into his best form of the season at just the right stage of the season for us, and was a lot more influential from open play in the 25 minutes he was on, than Ronaldo was in the 90 minutes. There was no showboating and stepovers from him, just beat your man enough to get a cross in, and his crosses were excellent. We can only hope that Ronaldo is trying too hard in these big games away from home in Europe, he seems to revert to his old failings of trying to beat too many men and not making the right decisions when to pass the ball.
That away goal was just the result of all the pressure really, it was a great cross by Nani, but the Lyon defence had a great chance to clear it before it fell to the grateful right boot of Tevez who made no mistake. The bigger squad definitely did it's job last night, though we are still lacking an alternative up front. So a pleasing result, but still some worries about our tactics and our performance on the road in Europe.

Giggs aims for a future in coaching
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/7255828.stm

Mourinho to Barca, that would be interesting. The Catalans had better get used to seeing a different style of football than they are used to. I would presume Ronaldinho will definitely be out of the door, and maybe fat fwank will join his buddy at the nou camp.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/european/cruyff-leaves-barccedila-door-open-for-mourinho-784845.html


More trouble for the Government over northern rock
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/audio/2008/feb/21/northern.rock.podcast

Anatole Kaletsky wites in the times, persuasively to me, on the failings of prime minister Brown over the northern rock affair
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/anatole_kaletsky/article3406260.ece

John Rentoul says northern rock affair is a mess that Cameron would have dealt with exactly the same, maybe so. But Brown and Blair would have done exactly the same as Major and Lamont over the ERM, so i suppose they would say they are getting their just desserts.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/john-rentoul/john-rentoul-its-official-even-if-it-is-unfair-northern-rock-has-been-a-huge-disaster-for-the-government-784902.html
And as for being unfair well who enacted and encouraged the legislation that led these banks to think that they could get away with these bad practices. Of course they are partly to blame, has he not noticed, as every other political commentator seems to have, that Vince Cable has been warning that something along these lines was bound to happen. Once a Blairite, always a Balirite.

Amsterdam to build underground
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/21/netherlands
Living or even socialising underground doesn't sound very appealing to me.

An article in the guardian about Malian star Toumani Diabate Kore player extraordinaire
http://music.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2258437,00.html
It's weird how a place seemingly sparsely populated and seemingly isolated produces so many great musicians