Manchester United 5-0 Stoke City

It's not too often you win a game 5-0 and all the goals are crackers but that was the case yesterday. The day began with a Ronaldo screamer and ended with another. With Rooney ruled out through illness Tevez partnered Berbatov and Jonny Evans stepped in for Ferdinand.
It took just 3 minutes for United to open the scoring, Tevez was brought down and Ronaldo stepped up to take the free kick. I've got to be honest i wouldn't have minded someone else taking it as he hasn't really been up to scratch with his free kicks since he came back from his operation. But what a screamer it was, i have seen some pundits saying the goalie should have saved it. But i can't agree with that, it was right in front of us and we had a really good view of it. What you don't see that well on the TV is how late it moved in the air and at what speed, it was like a late out swinger at 90 MPH. Unfortunately as Fergie has said this seemed to relax United and they just coasted the rest of the half without really creating too much. We had all the possession but seemed content to pass it around. I was a bit disappointed with Berbatov in the first half to be honest he didn't really contribute much.
The second came in injury time, a great time to score obviously. Ronaldo ran down the left wing and squared the ball to the edge of the box for Carrick who fended of the challengers and hammered home a left foot shot that gave the goalie no chance. Stoke hardly had a chance in the game and it seemed as if they were going to rely on Delap's long throws. That wasn't a great idea as United fans started to boo, whistle wave their hands about aiming to put him off. Amazingly it worked to such an extent that he had given up the long throws before the 90 minutes were up. His very first one did create a bit of trouble as Van Der Sar flapped at it but after that there was no problem.
The second half began as the first half had ended with United attacking and scoring. This time Tevez crossed to Berbatov who controlled it and then volleyed past the goalie at his near post. After that it was wave after wave of United attacks. Welbeck and Gibson then came on for Tevez and Fletcher who had given another excellent performance. Slightly later Manucho came on and Welbeck played on the right hand side of the attack. That is another useful weapon for Welbeck being able to play on the right. I hope we are going to see more of him in the first team because he is definitely going to be a top player. And it was Welbeck who got the fourth with an absolute pearler of a shot. Playing a one two with Manucho just inside the Stoke half he then adavanced and took aim from around 25 yards out and hit a magnificent shot. All around this United had been creating chances with Ronaldo in particular trying to put it on a plate for Manucho. A surging run from Carrick saw ex red Shawcross bring him down just outside the area. Bad idea as up stepped Ronaldo again and this time he hit it low and into the corner of the net to make it 5.
A great day with Ronaldo starting to look like the player of the last two seasons again and a young local lad break into the side for his first premier league game and cap it with a brilliant game, the first of many me thinks.

Ferdinand still rues the Portsmouth FA cup defeat by Pompey last season.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/nov/16/premierleague-manchesterunited
To be honest i don't think it was such a bad thing i'm not sure we had a treble in us and it gave us a nice rest before that big night in Moscow.

Platini wants to ban transfers involving under 18's
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/leagues/premierleague/3463911/English-football-on-a-collision-course-with-Uefa-president-Michel-Platini-Football.html
It may be a good idea, it must help smaller clubs as they will get more money for their players at 18 than 17 or 16.

Will Hutton on the Euro
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/16/comment-will-hutton-euro

William Keegan on the economy
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/nov/16/william-keegan-economics-recession