Manchester United 0-0 Rangers

Well that was truly dismal, as i have read others say on various messageboards this morning, there would be no need to call for a boycott if we played like that every week. Rangers were every bit as bad as i had expected, which just goes to make it worse. A half decent championship side would have seen that there three points in that game for them in the last ten minutes, we were struggling that badly, but they were more than happy with the point. To be honest i don't think they had a goal in them.
But we never looked like we had a goal in us all night either. I have said for the last two seasons that any midfield we put out that doesn't contain Scholes or Giggs worries me. Without one of those two there is no real quality, nobody capable of the bit of magic that is sometimes needed to open the opposition up. And last night' team overall had very little craft in it. On Saturday i said even though i don't rate him i would have played Gibson against Everton. Last night reminded me why i don't rate him. I suppose some people will say that at least he was shooting and that he came close a couple of times. But that is my whole problem with him. That is the only aspect of his game that is almost up to scratch. Defensively, i don't think he is good enough and creatively he definitely isn't. I felt a bit sorry for Fletcher, he was trying drive the game forward, but the quality around him wasn't good enough.
Park was non existant and as i and others have said what is the point of playing him in games when you need to break the opposition down. He is a good squad player and can do a defensive tactical job in the big games but in games like this he offers very little. Every time i saw him on the ball last night i couldn't help wondering what on earth Fergie was thinking off in letting Cleverley go on loan to Wigan for the whole season. I am a Valencia fan but even he wasn't on his game last night before his horrendous injury that made a bad night even worse.
So we had two wide men creating little with two full backs who didn't do much, and it is a big help to the wide men for the full backs to get forward to try and give them support, so there was another problem with the team selected. To be fair to Wes even in the 2008 season he didn't get forward that much and i don't really expect him to contribute much going forward. That is a position that really needs Rafael to come forward and make it his own or we get that scouting system on the look out for a new Denis Irwin or Gary Neville. Evra's performance on Saturday was a worry because if his form dipped we would have no real classy outlet at full back. I'm as unsure of how good a player Fabio is going to become as i am his brother. He tried to get forward last night but didn't produce much quality. I suppose to be fair to him, i shouldn't be singling the youngster out when so many older players were so lacklustre.
I felt sorry for Hernandez that he was making his full home debut last night. I said before the start he might struggle to get any decent service with that midfield and that was what happened. Rooney had an ineffective game and whether it's to do with his private life or not hasn't hit the ground running this season yet. It's a big call, but if Fergie is to go 4-3-3 at the weekend i would have Berbatov in the middle and put Rooney out wideon the left with Nani on the right. Whether he will like that or not i don't know, but the Bulgarian is the man in form and maybe Rooney needs to get a run of game under his belt to find his.
As to how the 90 minutes went we started poorly and ended poorly. The one piece of quality football coming from Giggs when he came on with a superb defence busting pass that found Fletcher in space in the box but found the Scot wanting too much time. The Valencia injury was terrible and i have read Fergie compare it to Alan Smith's injury this morning. Seeing as though Smith was never the same player when he came back from that broken leg, that is a very depressing statement.

Fergie reveals that Valencia's season is over, unfortunately no great surprise after seeing the referee and players reactions last night. Needless to say that is abit of a disaster. He also admits leaving out Berbatov may have been a blunder, hopefully that means he will play on Sunday. Henry Winter gives us his match report and focuses on Rangers performance more than United, he gives them too much credit and United not enough criticism. The game reminded me of the dreadful performance we gave against Leeds in the cup last season and once again showed our back up central midfield just isn't good enough.

David Conn focuses on the Glazers austerity run Tampa Bay Buccaneers. We got a glimpse of that future last night i'm afraid. And though i don't see crowds going down that alarmingly go down they surely would if old trafford saw that week in, week out.

Nobby Stiles revealed yesterday that he is to sell hid world cup winners medal and other football memorabillia to provide money for his family as he wouldn't be able to divide it up fairly amongst them. It sounds like the decent thing to do.

Mary Riddell belives slasher Osborne's brutal cuts will play into the hands of the unions, we will see, she may be being too optimistic. John Lanchester thinks it's business as usual as the bankers do a victory dance over the elected heads of goverment of the world.
Gideon Richman thinks that of the two anniversaries that will be commemorated this month 9/15 will prove to be a more important historical date than 9/11 as the date US power really started to decline. Robert Fisk looks at the unhappy consequences of 9/11, wondering if we have all gone mad. Matthew Norman thinks the Reublican party may have as the rise and rise of the tea party continues. Dean Baker tells us why it matters what sort of crisis we are in and his lays into the economics profession.

Vince Cable gets a letter telling him why Murdoch's attempt to buy up the rest of BSyB would be bad for the country, Claire Enders also tells him he should look at Richard Desmonds takeover of channel 5. Meanwhile Cable's party are nervous ahead of their party conference, i'm not surprised. I might actually watch some of it for the first time for ages.
The Guardian looks at the role of Charles Kennedy in the lib dem party at the moment, is he playing a long game? If that means rescuing the party from this orange book, new labourish takeover, i truly hope so.

The French press are up in arms at president Sarkozy's use of the French security services to find the culprit who leaked dmaging information to Le Monde

Paul Mason' BBC blog is always a very fascinating read and his latest over the coalition's strategic defence review doesn't disappoint. The earlier one on the future of mobile phones, apps and the future of the internet was a must read too.