Manchester United 2-2 West Brom

This was the most depressing performance and result of the season so far. To be two up after playing reasonably well and then fall to bits in the second half and at the end of the day probably getting the result we deserved was even more confirmation of what i had been worried about, our ongoing decline. I mentioned as i was coming out of the stadium that i was more and more reminded of 2005 and wondered if our squad had really declined already to the lowest point of the last decade. If we are not there yet we surely aren't far away.
The team selection was reasonable, after Rooney's midweek outburst, i fully expected to see him on the bench. So the pairing of Berbatov and Henandez up front was fair enough. With Giggs returning on the left and Nani on the right the team had a reasonable balance. I was glad Carrick started because with our lack of midfield depth we need him fit and we need to give him a run of games to see if he can get some kind of form back. As to Anderson's inclusion, well i suppose if, as the rumour goes, Ferguson's giving him another chance, this was one of the games to give him. Rafael came in for O'Shea at right back and Ferdinand made another back to back appearance.
We couldn't have asked for a better start as Carson could only parry Nani's stinging free kick and Hernandez followed up to show that he is indeed a proper predator putting us a goal up after just five minutes. The good start and West Brom's intention to try and force the game to United meant our forward line got more space than usual and with Berbatov in excellent form again United looked good for another. And after Berbatov and Carrick had gone close, a great move saw Berbatov and Nani combine to put the Portugese wide man through and he made no mistake with the finish.
For me the moment we lost control of the match was when Giggs went off, we then saw Fergie send on Gibson on into central midfield alongside Carrick with Anderson going wide left. That left us with two players across the midfield four who just aren't good enough for Manchester United and our control of the game slowly evaporated. Anderson as i have said before just continually gives the ball away and it was he who lost it and then commited the foul that left to the away team getting a scruffy first goal to put them back into the game and us home fans wondering if we had seen this story before this season.
To be fair we did have a couple of decent chances shortly after that, but when Van Der Sar came up with a howler than was reminiscent of Jim Lighton at his worst i actually feared that there was much chance of us getting beat than actually going on to win. The crowd were now screaming for Rooney to come on when the obvious move to me was to get Scholes on. He promptly bought both on, taking Anderson off and put Rooney wide left which i thought was fair enough the way Rooney has been playing and taking off Carrick for the ginger prince. That i couldn't agree with, i thought Carrick had played reasonably well, but it left us with no real protection in midfield for our defence that looked far from solid.
Gibson should have been took off, i know it would have been embarrassing and might have hurt his confidence, but his contribution to the game after he had come on was there for all to see. He literally has nothing to his game other than his shot. I have noticed before that he can't even defend very well, but when i saw Scholes making more effort to get back to try to protect the back four in the last ten minutes i was actually speechless. We never really looked like getting a winner and if the visitors had shown a bit more composure in the final third during that last ten minutes it could have been even worse.
I had resigned myself after they had equalised that we had probably blown it again, but what i noticed in that period that does not augur well for the rest of the season and indeed for the future was the body language of the players and  a real lack of fight we have come to expect from players in a United shirt. Too many of them just seemed to accept it wasn't going to be our day.
Besides the squad not having the quality we have been accustomed to and what is needed to compete for the trophies come the end of the season, even more worrying is what quality we do still have at the club are either badly out of form or want out, and which of them it is i wouldn't like to say. Rooney obviously falls into that camp, but just what has happened to Evra, yesterday wasn't his worst game but he has been a shell of the player that we have loved for the last four seasons. 
What everybody could see yesterday was that was the kind of form that will see us fighting out to finish in the top four not fighting to make it nineteen. Our transfer policy is beginning to come back to haunt us as was always going to be the case. If a poor season and United finshing outside the top four was the catalyst to getting the Glazer scum out of our club maybe its all for the best.

Well it didn't take long for us to find out what is so wrong at Manchester United football club as Rooney's " people let the press know he will not be singing a new contract. What a fucking mess this is, this is the first time a player has had Ferguson over a barrel, but Rooney or Stretford, take your pick, have well and truly managed it. I have got a raft of conflicting emotions over this and until we have some kind of idea what has brought Rooney to this i won't be rushing to judgement.
But if he is for real, in other words it is not contract negotiations, and he is definitely offski i would send him to the reserves and sell him in the transfer window. Of course with all the politics and financial implications that would entail i don't believe that this is what will happen. Mark Ogden and Ian Herbert both mention Rooney's despair over United's transfer dealings and the fact that he seems to share clued up United's fans view of our much cherished owners as well as not being happy with the way that his contract negotiations have gone. As for his relationship with Fergie, i can't blame Fergie on all the available facts that we know of. Rooney has been crap and didn't deserve to automatically walk into the side.
Richard Williams rightly wonders who will be hurt more by this course of action Rooney or Ferguson as he wonders how Fergie last remaining ambition of a third European triumph can now possibly happen. I would have thought and hoped his one remaining ambition was to make it nineteen.
If he does go, he could do us one last favour and tell the world what the players actually think about all this bullshit about no value in the market, as Mark Ogden said on his twitter page, don't worry we have stll got Bebe. One last thought, as the Indy says this development is very likely to sink the Glazers business plan under the waterline.

United deny Rooney will be sold in January, at the moment it's hard to know what is happening or what is going to happen. The one thing that is blindingly obvious is that United are in turmoil from the Glazer's to Ferguson to our best players and to a squad that is glaringly not good enough. Paul Hayward wonders whether we have seen the best of Rooney, i think that it's reasonable enough to wonder if we have, but unless he has an injury we don't know of, i don't think football has seen the best of Wayne Rooney. The point unfortunately for me is, have Manchester United seen the best of Wayne Rooney, and the odds on that seem to me to be 50 50. I wrote this before the latest news it aint 50 50 anymore.

Just to put the icing on the cake, Giggs withdrawl on Saturday was a recurrance of a hamstring injury and this time he may well be out for longer.

Richard Williams reviews Patrick Barclay's new biography of Ferguson, i still haven't read Michael Crick's which seems to be the best thought of biography of the man from Govan. The fact is the story hasn't finished yet, and his role in the current shambles of our decline under the disastrous ownership of the gimps is not known and true fully rounded appreciation or not as the case may be of his tenure at old trafford can't be made until those full facts are fully known.

Nick Harris on the odd couple who bought Liverpool and the dysfunctional relationship thereafter. He could have added and the fans that bent themselves over to get what they deserved.

India's series victory against the Aussies puts England above Australia in the rankings for the first time since the system was introduced into test cricket, for whatever that is worth.

Peter Oborne is disgusted by the "immoral" attack on the middle class launched by Osborne and Cameron. Meanwhile Andrew Rawnsley doesn't think the Lib dems understand just how much their volte face on tuition is going to tarnish their future. He says rightly, i would think that they will never be able to run as the outsiders against the system.

Will Hutton wonders if the coalition really understand what a mistake they will be making in ignoring the realities of the outside world where arerun of the thirties is an ever more realistic proposition. William Keegan reports on the latest unhappy meeting of the IMF and the risk to the world economy of Sino-US differences.
Iain Martin predicts that if the cuts are fully embarked on and growth fails to materialise, Cameron and Osborne will be facing their own endgame.
Jeremy Warner warns that declaring war on the bankers won't help us get out of the jam we are in. So we do have to let them just get away with their almost criminal pre credit crunch behaviour. Especially when they still keep putting two fingers up at the ploitical establishment.
Robert Peston reports on the banks attempts at trying to reform their relationship to small business. I would have thought they will have to do better than that. Rob Lyons reports on the mess that is the Irish economy.

With the world news reports full of the success of the rescue of the miners from Chile, The MEN goes back in time when coal was still king to report on the worst mining disaster in British history. The Pretoria pit disaster of 1910 that killed 345 men and boys. The piece of the report that struck me most was the figure of 90,000 pit deaths between 1850 and 1914.

Yet another book release to join the ranks of Factory records memorabillia as Tony Wilson's first wife Lindsey Reade releases a memoir. It could be an interesting read, i'll have to look out for some reviews. A new documentary about the life of Alan McGee gets the thums bup in this Indy piece.

With Captain America filming in Manchester Hollywood comes to town and likes what it sees. I suppose with Media city only months away Manchester profile worldwide will only get bigger. It would seem that Manchester council is going to be on the yes side of the AV referendum if this Manchester confidential report is anyhting to go by. After the congestion charge defeat that doesn't seem such a great thing if you wany a vote on favour of AV.

Cocorosie