Manchester City 0-1 Manchester United

A performance to match what the occasion demanded, the occasion being not just the derby but our league position which would have been getting seriously worrying if we'd have had another bad away day. Even the second half sending off of Ronaldo didn't really dent our supremacy.
It looks like Ferguson regards this as his strongest team at least until the return of Scholes. I was surprised that he picked Rafael at right back, but with no Wes Brown i would pick Rafael over Gary Neville myself . Fortunately he was up to the occasion and had a pretty good game.
United got on top almost straight away with the midfield combination of Carrick and Fletcher getting total control of the middle of the park. With Evra and Rafael overlapping to great effect things were looking good. Ronaldo headed over the bar from a corner, Berbatov saw a header brilliant header superbly saved by City's number one Hart. Earlier Hart had almost fumbled the ball straight to the feet of Fletcher but recovered just in time to nick it from the feet of the Scot. Evra was having one of his best games of the season and he nearly capped with a goal but hit it just too high. But for all our domination we almost slipped up as Van Der Sar made yet another bad fumble from a free kick that should have ended with Richards putting the ball in the net but saw him watch the ball hit the outside of the post. But United came back and just before half time at last converted one of the chances we had been creating. A bit of a melee ended with Park winning the ball and nudging the ball to Carrick who hit the ball acroos the goalie who managed to get a hand on it, but only pushing onto the right foot of the incoming Rooney who didn't waste this chance. This was his 100th goal and a there couldn't have been a better time to score it.
It was absolutely vital we had scored after being so dominant as City couldn't be as bad in the second half.
Sure enough City made changes at half time and came out and tried to have a go at United. But it didn't really amount to much and United started to wrestle control of the game back again. The seending off of Ronaldo was bizarre, i was waiting for him to power it into the back of the net. You can't argue with the red card i'm afraid, though you definitely could argue with his first yellow card where he had won the ball legitimately. The game changed here as United obviously had to get a bit more negative and Berbatov was sacrificed. But City still hardly created a thing until the last minute when Dunne had a chance cleared of the line which was followed by a magnificent effort from the halfway by Rooney which almost caught Hart out but he raced back to his area after going upfield for the preceeding corner to make an excellent save.
So a good day which was topped of later by Arseanl going to Chelski and taking the points.

Daniel Taylor on the divs fans
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2008/nov/30/premierleague-manchesterunited

The Indy on Ronaldo
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/ronaldos-bizarre-red-card-raises-eyebrows-1042834.html

Reality check for City
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/cristianoronaldo/3537233/Painful-reality-check-for-Manchester-City-as-Manchester-United-expose-gulf-in-class-Football.html

I went to see the youth team at Old Trafford in the 3rd round of the youth cup last Thursday and despite the defeat to Chelsea there were a lot of encouraging signs for us. The scorer of the first goal Ravel Morrison looks a real prospect. So when i read reports the day after and found out he was only 15 i was a bit gobsmacked. The scoreline was a bit of a travesty, but unfortunately the central defence was the weak point of the team. Gill's son looked out of his depth and made a couple of bad blunders. United scored first through Morrison and had other great chances that fell to Welbeck and another great run from Morrison that saw him beat defenders for fun but then overelaborate when he really should have scored. The just before half time Chelsea scored twice with virtually their first efforts on goal. United created more chances in the second period but couldn't convert and then another defensive blunder saw Chelsea notch a third goal. To the young lads credit they still kept going forward and Welbeck managed to score a second in the last minute, but it was too late. I wasn,t impressed by Chelsea, they were much like the first team, big, functional and not very pretty. Petrucci came on near the end, the lad we got from Roma that they weren't too happy about and he showed a few nice touches. There seem to be quite a few lads in with a chance from this bunch. The irony of the defeat was thinking how many young centre backs we have brought through over the last few seasons and that this was the weak spot in this team.

Scolari feels the pressure
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/leagues/premierleague/3537476/Luiz-Felipe-Scolari-knows-Chelsea-do-not-take-prisoners-Football.html

Strachan put in the frame to follow Ferguson
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/jeremywilson/blog/2008/12/01/why_gordon_strachan_could_be_the_man_to_succeed_sir_alex_ferguson_at_manchester_united



I have just finished the last series of Six feet under and was a bit disappointed to be honest. The first four series were excellent but i never really believed in the last series, it just didn't work for me.