Manchester United 3-0 West Ham United

Not the most enjoyable ninety minutes of football i've ever seen, but three points and job done. Fergie made a few changes with Vidic finally returning to the starting line up and Anderson coming in from the cold of Siberia. Foster replaced Van Der Sar instaed of Kuszczak for some reason and aquited himsel reasonably well. There weren't quite as many changes as i had envisoned that there might be, so it will be interesting to see Sunday's team for the final against Villa. Going off last night, it looks likely to me, that he is going to pick quite a stong side.
It was nice to see Vidic back, especially as it looks like Rio, as i feared, is not going to be able to play back to back games as he pulled out of last night's match with another recurrence of his back problems. If Vidic really doesn't want to go, a big if granted, maybe United should start to think about paying him what he wants. The difference with him at the heart of the defence was marked, even if the opposition weren't that great a test. As for Anderson, if that injury is serious it could be the last time we see him a red shirt at old trafford.
United never really got going in the first half and the match itself wasn't much of a spectacle. Fortunately United produced their best move of the half seven minutes from the interval as Berbatov sent a superb cross field ball to Valencia whose first time vollied cross found Rooney in the middle who made no mistake with his head to give us the lead. It's always nice to score shortly before the break to deflate the opposition. West Ham hadn't played badly but they aren't that much of a team these days.
The second half was slightly better and the second goal ten minutes into the game killed off West Ham for good. Park could have killed it almost staright away as he hit the woodwork from a Valencia, who else, cross. I would love to know how many of our goals have been created by Valencia. He didn't have his greatest game last night yet he still provided the final ball for two of our goals. And for the fourth time in a row the goal came form Rooney's head. It's amazing how much more complete a footballer is when he is good in the air, as we saw with Ronaldo.
Owen and Diouf came on for Rooney and Berbatov with twelve minutes to go and almost immediately a super Schoeles pass put Owen through and he made no mistake to put us three goals ahead. Scholes himself, could and should have made it four, but to be honest our display didn't warrant that scoreline. But we won and on the night that was what mattered.

James Ducker thinks a fit Vidic will be crucial to United bid to lift silverware come May, can't argue with that.
http://timesonline.typepad.com/thegame/2010/02/fitagain-nemanja-vidic-the-key-to-manchester-uniteds-success.html

Ferdinand will definitely miss Sundays league cup final against Villa and has had to pull out of England's friendly against Egypt. It's not looking good for the rest of his career. We have ssen his form when he isn't starting regularly. In fact though he improved markedly last week against Milan in the second half that first half display wasn't that much better than Evans, and that is saying something. As i said above if Vidic does want to stay but want's a hefty wage rise maybe we should start to think about giving it him.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/m/man_utd/8533291.stm
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/england-and-manchester-united-hit-by-ferdinand-injury-scare-1908940.html

Darren Fletcher talks to the Sun about how close he came to leaving United in 2008, looking at our midfield resources at present, scary.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/2864929/Darren-Fletcher-I-came-close-to-Man-Utd-exit.html#ixzz0gLsJAMxx

A UEFA report has shown that half of Europen football's debt belongs to the English premier league, Portsmouth's debts are not included.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/english-football-debts-dwarf-rest-of-europe-1909212.html

David Conn applauds the report and argues the premier league are swimming against the tide.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/david-conn-inside-sport-blog/2010/feb/23/premier-league-debt-wages-uefa

Andersred latest blog piece reports how things could be run
http://andersred.blogspot.com/2010/02/tale-of-two-rulebooks.html

Tendulkar scores first ODI double hundred, that must have been something to see.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/feb/24/sachin-tendulkar-india-world-record

Stephanie Flanders reports on her BBC blog that the pace of the economies recovery is more important than the size of the debt. Which is what the Keynesian letter to the finacial times argued. And yet her previous blog argued that the economists were arguing over nothing, the bank of England doesn't seem to agree with her.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/stephanieflanders/2010/02/weighing_the_risks.html

Economic recovery is anaemic here and just as worringly in Europe, maybe QE should be restarted says David Wighton in the times
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article7038528.ece

Fomer grand central man Andy Turner's Aim