Bolton Wanderers 2-2 Manchester United

Another disappointing away result and another missed opportunity, given Saturdays results. I was pretty confident before the game that we would pick up the points, unfortunately i think the players entered the game with the same complacent attitude. Right from the off, they seemed to take the home team a little too much for granted.
They started reasonably well and could have took the lead almost straight away if Berbatov had not taken the wrong option in the first couple of minutes shooting wildly wide as if it was just a matter of time before another chance came along. Then with just six minutes gone, United conceded yet another really soft goal from a set piece. Knight was able to get on the end of the corner too easily and then for me Evra should have stayed on his post, as if he had done, he would surly have stopped it on the line.
Well if the players had thought this was going to be a walkover they had now been swiftly disabused. We continue to look far from solid at the back, Vidic is the only member of the back four i have total confidence in at the moment. I suppose they are not getting as much protection as they have had in the past with us employing a 4-4-2 formation in every league game so far, but with the quantity of opposition we have played so far that doesn't rally wash with me.
The front two only flickered briefly yesterday with Berbatov not as big an influence as he has been and Rooney whilst not playing as badly as some have suggested, still nowhere near his best. Nani may have been hit and miss as Chris Waddle had said in his commentary but he has had a hand in most of the goals we have scored so far this season. And his equaliser was not far behind the quality of Berbatov's overhead effort against the scousers last week. Giggs and Fletcher had both had good moments, the Scot with a couple of superb runs with Giggs with getting on the end of one but failing to beat Jaaskalienen. As the first half came to an end United had managed to get a hold on the game and i fancied that United would go on to control the second half and clinch all three points.
It didn't happen, for some reason they never really managed to recapture that form of the last quarter of an hour of the first half. Losing Giggs first to injury after just ten minutes of the second half and then Rooney eight minutes later didn't help. I could see that our ability to control the game and the ability to excert the sustained pressure needed to take the game away from the home team wouldn't behelped by the addition of Park and Macheda. And indeed it didn't, still their second did come a bit out of the blue as Petrov's shot took a wicked deflection off Fletcher giving Van Der Sar no chance.
Fergie threw on Owen now in a desperate attempt to claw something back from the game. I can't pretend he is my idea of a United player, he was another substitution that wouldn't help us dominate possession, but he was thrown on to get a goal and that he did. Though Bolton may see it as a bit of a soft goal to have given away. The goal salvaged a point but we never really looked like going on to get the three points and i suppose we didn't really deserve to leave with the three points.
So still unbeaten but we still haven't won away from home and if we don't improve our away form we won't be making it 19 at the endof this season.

Giggs will miss the next two weeks, i suppose it could have been worse, being a hamstring injury

Kevin Keegan tells Rooney he can't blame the media for his lack of form. I actually agree with the gist of what he is saying there and the answer is if you want to live your life how " you " want to live your life don't sign the sponsorships and set youreslf up for the tabloid trap.

Berbatov admits the price tag got to him at times in his first two seasons at old trafford. But he feels more at home in his surroundings now. Unfortunately he didn't have a great game yesterday, he should have set Giggs up with our first attack of the game but shot wildly wide. It was a start that typified our approach to the game, not fully focused.

This a clip of the BBC documentary on professionalism in sport that Ryan Giggs participates in.

Whilst the reserves have no game for a month United have decided to loan Richie De Laet to Sheffield United for 30 days. He came on as a sub in their 1-0 defeat at Elland road in the Yorkshire derby but didn't cover himself in glory with a piece of indifferent defending for the home teams wining goal.

Old trafford will host the league division one and two play off finals in May as Wembley can't host them this year due to the European cup final being held there. This had been rumoured, i thought Old trafford would get the championship play off too, but that will stay at Wembley.

Jose Mourinho's gamble on taking on the "impossible" task of managing Real Madrid was greeted with admiration by his fellow managers writes Paul Hayward. But can Mourinho's defensive instincts prosper at the hanky waving Bernabeu.

Liverpool fans would sooner go into administration than see Hicks and Gillett refinance their debt to keep control of their football club. That would be my preferred option if that was the situation at my football club.

Vic Marks discusse the crisis in county cricket and explores a lot the problems that i have with county cricket, too much twenty20, the conflict between counties and the national side and the lack of a clear timetable of fixtures that fans can relate to.
Shane Warne thinks England have their best chance for decades to win an ashes series down under

Roy Hattersley is happy the party voted for Ed Miliband as the new labour party leader. Unsurprisingly he is happy the party voted for someone who actually belives in social democracy and someone who he hopes will drop the worst parts of the new labour contamination of behaving as an almost centre right party.
Petere Oborne argues that Ed Miliband should learn a lesson from Blair's time as leader and to forget about being gulity that he beat his brother to the great prize and that Ed Balls must be his choice as shadow chancellor. It should not be given to his brother as a consolation prize.
John Rentoul falls into the camp that thinks Labour has made a terrible mistake in choosing brother Ed as it's new leader. His thinking is that the labour party and its members voted for David Miliband but that the unions delivered it to his brother Ed and the tories and the media will continue to bait Ed Miliband that he wasn't the choice of his party.
Charlie Whelan boasts of his and the unions influence in the leadership elections.
This Guardian editorial argues that labour should think the unthinkable and elect its leader by one member one vote. That would make it a party it would be easier for me to vote for.
Matthew D'ancona goes further and predicts that the labour party has handed the next election away. He doesn't say whethere they have handed the election to the tories or to the coalition. His argument is that they have chosen their comfort ground on the left and handed the centre ground away. I'm not convinced of that argument yet. Who knows where the centre ground will lie in 2015 if the coalition lasts that long.
Andrew Grice warns the new leader that the coalition is no sitting duck

Retail banks could face a radical shake up according to the most radical options put forward by the banking commission led by Sir John Vickers.
Will Hutton thinks the commision set up by Vince Cable has got off to a good start and seems to have more confidence in it's ability to deliver than most other commentators have shown. He thinks the politics of the coalition goverment favour radical action from Vince Cable's creation. As he says it is a once in a century chance for reform of the way this country works. I suppose Cable could justify his place in participating in this coalition cabinet if he pulled of a radical reform of our financial system, and maybe it would take tory participation to see it through. I do wonder how the tory right and its media allies would react though.
Leading figures in the city have dismissed the proposals as a damp squib, well they can't both be right. They have been putting the case for the status quo, as if 2008 had never happened.
Hamish McRae argues that banking will be different in the next decade but that it will have to be done in concert globally, we can't just go it alone. I would argue that somebody has to be first, and for all Brown's other faults he was the first world leader to nationalise thebanks and prop the economy up, where he led, others followed. We probably wouldn't even be able to afford to do that again, surley it's not a question of if the banks are broke up but when.

Mick Hume talks about how the British establishment still clings on to the memory of the second world war. He describes the historical myths of 1940, but suggests our politicians cling on to the memory as they bemoan our fading status in the war. Which is surely for some figures on the tory right and new labour right the reason for wanting to upgrade Trident, it allows them to continue to sit at the top tables in world affairs.

Wallender author Henning Mankell argues the Swedish establisment' failiure to engage with the rise of it's far right was the wrong rsponse, they should have argued them back to the margins. I totally agree with that. The best way for a democracy to fight fascism and even left wing totalitarianism is to ridicule it in public. I couldn't believe the stick some on the left gave the BBC for allowing Nick Griffin onto question time. But that is exactly how they should be taken on, expose them of the liars, haters and fantasists that they so clearly are.

Yahoo profiles Michael Rother of Neu! whose albums are more popular than ever and after a decade in the 80's where he struggled to continue a career in the music industry. I would love to see them live, they are one of my favoutite Krautrock acts.

Bruce Springsteen is interviewed in the Guardian about the new documentary about the making of Darkness on the edge of town, the promise.

Stephen Colbert takes on congress.