"Training ground Arsenal"

Evra has a pop at Arsenal, claiming for all their nice football they never win anything and claiming they are a "crisis club". I'm not really a fan of laying into the opposition in the media just before you play them and describing them as crisis club is way over the top. The way this season is going our French left back may well be wrong about our rivals being Chelsea anyway. At home to Sunderland they gave a performance that made some of our shockers this season look like mere hiccups. And the second half against Everton wasn't much better, with a little more luck the blue scouse would have come away with all three points.
Evra does have a bit of form for indulging in this kind of thing, he has certainly had a pop at all the big clubs. I can't help loving that phrase " the training centre" though, that does have a ring of truth about it.
Wenger is outraged and implies Evra has shown a lack of respect, obviously he but he could admit that is his team talk taken care off, well it would be at United anyway. Fergie tries to soothe rufled feathers claiming that Arsenal have found a new tougher edge to their game and are ready to emulate the Vierra and Adams era. Nice try but West Brom and Newcastle didn't exactly find themselves getting roughed up did they.
United are desperate to get Ferdinad fit for monday nights game against the gooners. He is trying to speed his recovery with ice baths, not nice. Not a vote of confidence in Evans is it.
The 33 Chilean miners who survived their ordeal of being trapped underground will be the guests of honour at Old trafford on Monday night at the suggestion of Bobby Charlton.


In the week that Ashley got rid of Hughton Ferguson lauds the football clubs who understand tradition and stick with their managers. Next week against the rent boys he will become Manchester United's longest serving manager overtaking the great Sir Matt. He admits he would never have believed that he would be beating that record when he took over the club.

The fantasy FC United FA cup run came to juddering half earlier this week with a reality check as Brighton finally showed the gulf in class to run out 4-0 winners at Gigg lane. They did well to get it on and full marks to everyone involved in going ahead with the game in conditions where it would have been easy to call it off. 

Ben Amos has enjoyed his big nights this season but realises now we are out of the league cup and we are now into the knockout stages of the champions league that they have probably ended. He would be happy to go out on loan to further his career, he knows he needs games to improve as a player. He is showing a good attitude as well as giving impressive performances when called upon.

Tevez thinks that City fans should concentrate their focus on City winning trophies rather than baiting United. Wise words i suppose, but apart from the debt, how exactly are they baiting us, the ticker was still up and running last time i looked.

Well one Lib dem MP did something useful last week, as Don Foster tabled a private members bill for clubs seeking to rintroduce standing areas within their stadiums at all levels of the game. It's a bit like prohibition this isn't it, it's a law will just go on being ignored until it is eventually repealed, it may be a long time in coming, but i think it will happen.

More internal politics at Barcelona as Barca lose the unicef from the front of their shirts and take the £125 million on offer from Qatar to replace it. I'm not sure how popular this will make Rossell, whilst Laporta is now campaigning for a seperatist Catalonia, Rossell has been doing deals trying to help the Spanish 2018 world cup bid. Maybe they will swallow the politicking if it gets rid of the financial problems left over from the Laporta era. They have lost a bit of the not just another football club now though.

Geoff Boycott reckons that Chris Tremlett should be the man to replace Stuart Broad for the forthcoming test in Perth. His height is made for the waca wicket which whilst it may not be as pacy as it was still provides more bounce than most wickets in the world.
Meanwhile Duncan Fletcher has revised his opinion of the outcome of this series. If England carry on in the same ruthless manner he reckons they could rack up a 3-0 series victory. He see no chance of Australia coming back to square the series never mind regain the ashes. Their selectors are sending out all the wrong messages with the bowling changes from test to test.
Matthew Norman is glad to see the Botham and Ian Chappell are trying their best to make this a meaningful contest, a pity it's not out on the pitch though. Well for Australia it is. I have never quite known what to make of Ian Chappell, he was a good cricketer and an excellent captain and is one of the better Aussie comentators. Is he an out an out pommie hater though or is it just Botham.

Craig Murray is more than a little scceptical of the charges that have been laid against Wikileaks editor and spokesman Julian Assange and doesn't care who he upsets in explaing why. I don't think he needs to get into the sexual politics to prove his point, it's all more than a little fishy.
Christopher Hitchens attacks Assange as an unsrupulous megalomaniac with a political agenda. That's as maybe but does that justify the US establishment aping the totalitarian Chinese or Russian and trying to stitch up it's enemy. I can't believe Hitchens can actually go along with that, neocon apoligist or not.
Where will the latest bout of Wikileaks cyber warfare lead us after this week saw one major corporation after another bow down to the US government, asks John Naughton. Your obviously free to say what you want as long as it doesn't upset the US government and doesn't upset profits. This is another component of the current crisis of capitalism to me.
Anne Applebaum argues that whilst the leaks are embarrassing for the targets of the diplomatic cables as much as much as they are for the US government ultimately they will not bring down any governments. I can't help thinking that that is just a little too complascent, it may not bring down the US government but the ramifications are still to reverberate fully and who knows what the consequences might be.

Paul Krugman lays into the Obama administration and asks if he understands who his frinds really are. As Krugman has alluded to before, Obama is no Liberal, he is a continuation of the Clintonomics centre. These are the people who he has surrounded himself with and who are currently on the road to nowhere.
Fellow Liberal Tomasky thinks that the tax deal actually won useful concessions and wasn't the disaster the critics such as Krugman suggest. Democary in America, the economist column goes along with Tomasky but does wonder what long term good it does the US or Obama's administration. I love that last paragraph that basically says the GOP is living in a economic fantasy land.
Greg Eastbrook takes a centrist Clintonomics line arguing that tax cuts and giveaways will not solve the long term woes of the USA.

Iain Martin looks at the coalition's travails and notices that many tories are enjoying the growing discomfort of their Lib dem partners. And those around Cameron who have enjoyed working with the Lib dems and want to make the coalition permanent are losing ground within the party. Michael White has also noticed the restlessness of the tory right and looks at the grudges buiding up within the party at their leadership.
Bennedict Brogan takes a look at the long term vision of the Cameroons and their hopes of making the coalition permanent. He aslo sees a looming crisis in the conservative as a debate opens up on just what it means to be a 21st century tory.

Andrew Grice and Nigel Morris ask just what price has been paid for the victory in the tuition fees vote. Well it's been a total and utter disaster for the lib dems and i would argue the begiining of the end for Nick Clegg's leadership of the lib dems. Will it mark the beginning of Clegg's and Laws eventual defection to the tories, who knows. I'll predict a revival of the left wing of the party, but what state the party will be in to inherit, who knows. I don't see it splitting in two, but i see a handful of orange bookers defecting to the tories led by Laws.
Martin Kettle perdicts that for the coalition things will never be the same again. This was the end of the beginning to quote Churchill, Clegg is severley damaged goods as is the Lib dem brand and the tories warm relationship with the party is cooling at a rate of knots. Contrary to Clegg's asertion the Lib dems do need the votes of left wingers, and for the obvious reason, that it is a centre left party.
Eduard Reyes reports on the ongoing turmoil going on within the inner reaches of the party as the grassroots are up in arms at where their leadership and parliamentary party is taking them.

Just to complicate and even poison the waters even more there are serious voices being heard who think that the policy may not find its way through the house of Lords without being savaged. And even more bizarre, other voices predict the policy won't even work within its own remit. Some predict that all universities will end charging the whole £9000 fee which would make a mockery of the whole act.
Bagehot looks at the vote, the riots and the politics of the aftermouth and sees danger for the coalition and especially the tories in a narrative where they are seen as out of touch.