Marseille 0-0 Manchester United

Time will tell whether this was a good result or not, but our away form doesn't seem to improve. I'm usually a super optimist approaching the big games, but as we approach maybe the defining two or three weeks of the season with forthcoming crucial games away from Old trafford, i'm being pushed hard to keep that optimism.
When i saw the team last night, i wouldn't say i feared the worst, but i think it was safe to say i knew we weren't going to go there and put on a show. Gibson in midfield and O'Shea at right back showed Fergie had an eye on the games to come next week, well at the least, leaving Scholes on the bench did. O'Shea is a useful squad player and doesn't let you down defensively, but he is no Rafael getting foward and he doesn't half give the ball away. As for the inclusion of Gibson, i'm presuming Scholes is being saved for the crunch games at Stamford bridge and Anfield and that if Anderson had been fit he would have been picked.
I wouldn't say Gibson was any worse than anyone else but as usual he didn't bring anything to the party, his passing being as off the boil as everybody else's. We actually started very brightly, in fact i thought my misgivings about the line up were going to be dispelled as United dominated possession and looked like they were going to have it in their armoury to break the home side's defence down. Whilst we dominated the ball Rooney and Berbatov were both looking good and heavily involved in the game. Unfortunately Nani had one of those nights where he fustrated, almost always choosing the wrong option and when he got it right there was nobody on the end of the ball.
Once again the shining light was another impressive performance from Chris Smalling standing in for Ferdinand, he wasn't faultless, his distribution could have been better, but defensively he was top notch again. He is without doubt our main back up centre half now, in fact regardless of how many more games he gets this season, i can see him starting a far bigger number of games next season. Scholes didn't come on for long but it's amazing how much difference he makes to the side as he passes and probes and doesn't give the ball away. It's pretty scandalous really that the only real replacement for Scholes creativity in the middle of the park is the even older Giggs.
I suspect that it will turn out to be a decent enough result as they don't seem anything to write home about. The only doubt being they had a couple of players missing, so we probably didn't see them at their best. I'd like to see us play 4-4-2 at home, but it's pretty unlikely, i suppose.

Chris Smalling revealed that the it felt like a loss to the players after the game they were so disappointed with the result. I'd like to think they were even more disappointed with the performance. Whilst Fergie would have liked the away goal he was disappointed with the quality of United's passing. To be honest that was about par for the course away from home this season.

There was fun and games, or not as the case may be, with the French police last night, but it hasn't been reported yet. United fans were apparently locked in some warehouse before the start of the game. I can't find any reports about it to link to.

Before the game Deschamps was asked his thoughts about United and described us as a top team but without the fantasy of previous United team's. Don't we know, it was a pretty fair summing up of us to be fair. I suppose it sounds churlish to moan about United's away form in Europe, but i was brought up to believe United were about style and entertainment as well as being trophy contenders. I'm afraid our European away form has been far from entertaining for quite a while now. And whilst some might say it doesn't matter if we are getting results and reaching the latter stages of the tournaments, it does to me.
And if we look back to last year, the poor away form cost us eventually. As soon as we played a half decent team in Bayern our inability to keep hold of the ball away from home was punished. If we went into the next round without Giggs and Scoles i would fear the worst.

Even though this hasn't been a vintage season for Patrice Evra it is still good news that he has confounded the rumours and put pen to paper to sign for a further three seasons. Hopefully with a summers rest he will come back strong next season. This should also allow Fabio to develop his game as well coming in to give Evra a rest from time to time.

There was much talk about the future of Obertan and Bebe after the dismal performance at the weekend against Crawley in the cup. Mark Ogden thinks that history doesn't bode well for them and points to the careers of the 2005 cop that struggled against Exeter. The only problem with that analogy is that this was the pre Glazer era. The other glimmer of hope for Bebe anyway, is to discard him so early would mean Fergie losing face, and having to answer to the press and who knows maybe even to the gimps how he could have sanctioned paying so much for somebody he admitted he had never seen and who has proved to be, sub standard and that's being kind.
Paul Parker gets to the crux of the matter in his Yahoo blog pointing out what we all know that this United string is not good enough.

The gimps have been in the news this week, first of all with the premier league confirming that the Glazer's do in fact own 100% of United. Excuse me whilst i remind myself of the shambles that was the ownership of Portsmouth FC and my lack of total trust in the competence of any of our football authorities, whether it be the FA or the Premier league.
The Telegraph reports that the gimps are thinking of handing out a message that they are still owners for the long term when handing out their quarterly accounts tomorrow. Does anybody seriously believe that.
Eric points out what we all know and fear, that United will struggle when Fergie decides to call it a day when asked about his dislike of the Glazer's.
The green and gold makes a rare appearance in the media as a report claims that shirt sales were down 10% due to the campaign which could hurt their negitiations to improve their contract with Nike in 2015.

Is this bizarre blackmail plot story anything to do with Rooney's poor form. It's hard to see, though he played better last night.

Anne Applebaum reports on the upheaval in the Arab world and compares it to the 1989 uprisings in eastern Europe. She argues that we may have the pictures of the revolution and turmoil but we don't have the full picture. In fact even the protesters will not have the full story, which will be far more muddled, complicated and probably less glorious that TV pictures paint. There is something in that, but it is still a revolution from below which i think she is trying to say won't be as much the case as we all presume. This has shook the western establisment and the right especially almost as much as the Arab world.
Robert Fisk writes that after four decades of terror, Gaddafi must surely be on his way out, but it will be a bloody affair. Tony Blair, new labour and the present labour leadership are not going to enjoy their inglorious role in supposedly rehabilitating this odious madman during the last decade being rehashed during the months ahead. Craig Murray has been told by diplomats he is still in touch with that Berlusconi is shitting it in case his murky relations with the Libyan elite come to light when the hopeful day of defeat of the Gaddafi family arrives.
But it wasn't the best time for Cameron to be touring the middle east surrounded by arms salesman with Cameron cheerleader for the export of the weapons we always knew would be used and now have evidence that they have been used against their own people in an attempt to oppress and in Libya mass murder their own population. Simon Jenkins argues we can push democracy or arms sales but not both. Cameron seems to think he can get away with both, he is going to be proved wrong. The one export industry that we are competitive in, is going to face a difficult future.
The Economist looks at the hypocrisy of British and European foreign policy in the middle east. If only Robin Cook were alive, because his new ethical foreign policywould have proved to have been right and the supposed super realists of the foreign office 100% wrong. John Pilger writes that the revolutions in the Arab world are as much against western tyranny as they are against their own corrupt leaders.
Paul Mason argues that this democratic revoltion is about to become an economic revolution as the developing world see its chance to change the balance of the world economy more to its favour. I'm absolutely certain that most people in the west have no idea how serious all this is, if they want living standards remotely comparable to those we have seen since the second world war they are going to have to reshape our economies away from big finance and small state neo liberal free markets, that is for sure. Otherwise we will end up with revolutions in the wstern world eventually.
Jon Snow on the moral challenge for every single one of us in the west who has profited from group of regimes falling like dominoes in the Arab world.
Larry Elliott warned some time ago that we could be faced with a return to the oil shocks of the seventies and now Jeremy Warner writes of the pandoras box that has been opened now that the oil price has gone above $100 a barrel. It's not looking pretty. Paul Mason looks at the effects of events on the future price of oil and how we may have to live with it.

I can't help thinking that Cameron and the coaltion are the last stand of the neo liberal era and are increasinly swimming against the tide of world events. But as Sunny Hundal wrote Cameron's plans sound as much of an attempt to appease his right wing as you would think he has no chance of getting this through parliament or the country.
Polly Toynbee thinks that the turmoil about to be unleashed during the upheaval unleashed by the tories plans for the NHS are just the beginning of the tory ideology run wild. Steve Richards writes that Cameron is like Blair on cocaine in his pursuit of the public services. Hopefully it will completely discredit them in the eyes of the electorate. 
Even if the country did drift to the right in the future, it will not be a Thatcherite conservatism, it will be an anti immigrant, anti Europe and protectionist right, even worse. I'm looking a few years ahead of course.

Peter Bradshaw reviews the new documentary on the 2008 credit crunch crisis Inside job.
Stephen King writes about the split on the MPC over whether to raise interest rates or hold fire. He isn't convinced by the monetary hawks.

An excellent compilation of United goals from the seventies, featuring the mid seventies team that was where I started watching United at Old trafford, Coppel, Hill, Daly and Pearson. They played some great football. They were a top goalkeeper away from being a team that could have stopped it ever getting to 26 years without a title.
We'll never see that kind of atmosphere at Old trafford again, just watch the crowds as well as the football.