Arsenal 1-3 Manchester United

I can't pretend i saw that coming, a demolition every bit as resounding as our champions league semi final victory. I was feeling slightly more confident after we seemingly hit form in our second half against City. But then i saw the line up with no Vidic to replace the suspended Ferdinand and Park in for Giggs and no Valencia. I'd be lying if i didn't admit i would have settled for a draw.
But after the first ten minutes i had to revise my opinions. We still seemed brittle at the back but going forward the evidence was there that the form we saw in the second half against City was continuing as Rooney was looking superb and Nani was once again looking the part. The midfield trio were taking it in turns to get forward and were making a pretty good fist of controlling the middle of the park
Arshavin was seeing plenty of the ball but his use of it was poor to say the least. If he had not wasted so many of his opportunites and they had gone a goal up who knows how the game would have panned out. But he didn't and when United finally got the goal they looked like they had in them, that was that. I don't know whether the first goal was credited to Nani or classed as an own goal. But what a sublime piece of skill from our rejuvenated winger as he took three men out as if they weren't there before the cross which Almunia could only divert into the back of his own net. The second goal just minutes later just completely killed the home team off. Swap Rooney for Ronaldo and it was almost a carbon copy of the third goal in last season's semi with Rooney running almost sixty yards to get on the end of Nani's inside pass to drive the ball past Almunia to make it two nil. I t could have been even more embarrassing for the home side as Rooney set up another chance for Nani that could have made it three.
I thought Arsenal would come out determined to at least make a fight of it in the second period. But they were just as bad and United continued to completely run the game. The midfield three were superb and Arsenal couldn't get into it at all. Fabregas didn't have a sniff all afternoon, how many defeats like this will it take before he decides the Emirates is not a long term home for him. When another counter attack led to Park scoring the third you were left wondering how many we were going to get. But United eassed it down after that and Arsenal did finally have a little period of looking like they might get a goal. Even then though, they had to get a piece of luck as a Vermaelen shot that Van Der Sar had covered took a deflection to make it 3-1. United were still creating chances though and how Rooney missed in the last minute, i don't know. The fact that he could laugh about it told the story of the rest of the game.

Alan Hansen believes that Arsenal had this coming and that their title chances are as good as over.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/leagues/premierleague/arsenal/7122339/Alan-Hansen-Arsenals-ragged-defending-was-ripe-for-the-picking-by-Manchester-United.html

The Times on Wayne Rooney the man
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/manchester_united/article7009572.ece

Ferguson happy with maturing Nani
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/8490425.stm

The Times reckons that there is nothing solid about Keith Harris's talk of a United takeover. It is just in an exploratory stage.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/manchester_united/article7009568.ece

Duncan drasdo of MUST responds to David Gill's laughable defence of the Glazer's
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/m/man_utd/8490005.stm

An Observer panel discuss the future of football governance and Greg Dyke gets to the crux of things in his second paragraph.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jan/31/premier-league-debts-panel

David Conn on the current state of football finances and where we could and should be heading.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/jan/31/premier-league-clubs-debts

Paul Hayward on the Ferguson Wenger rivalry and 5 things we now know about football debt http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/jan/31/sir-alex-ferguson-arsene-wenger-rivalry

Patrick Barclay wants Terry stripped of the England captaincy and it handed over to Rooney. I hope not
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/columnists/patrick_barclay/article7010394.ece

David Davis takes apart Tony Balir's performance at the Chilcott inquiry
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/31/david-davis-iraq-inquiry-blair

Nick Cohen on the disaster that is our privatised rail network, another piece of free market nonesense.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/31/nick-cohen-network-rail

The Times reports on a crisis of confidence in the western free market version of capitalism at Davos.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article7010380.ece

Robert Skidelsky thinks the worries of inflation are just plain wrong.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/01/inflation-recession-quantitative-easing

China is flexing it's muscle over Taiwan according to Martin Jacques
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/jan/31/china-taiwan-united-states-arms

There is getting pissed and getting pissed as Rip Torn is charged with trying to rob a bank.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/rip-torn-actor-hollywood-hellraiser-and-bank-robber-1885175.html
He was brilliant in the Larry Sanders show. Why can't you buy that great show on DVD?

A very early clip of the classic Byrds