Liverpool 3-1 Manchester United

More away day blues, this one hurt a whole lot more than Tuesday though. For the thrird year in a row we went to Anfield and weren't up for the battle. At times we played ok but we never really got on top of them during the whole match. Of course you can't forget we were without both Vidic and Rio and i'm afraid it showed.
All three goals came from poor defensive play. Suarez made a great run but he was allowed to turn too easily in the box to start his run which led to our defenders being scared to touch him. The less said about the second goal the better and Van Der Sar didn't cover himself in glory for the third. As other have said Kuyt will never score an easier hatrick.
I have to admit i was happy enough when i saw the team and happy enough for us to be going into the game in a 4-4-2 formation. But Fergie got it badly wrong and i will have to hold my hands up and admit that we cannot get away with 4-4-2 away from home anymore. We have too many players not up for the fight at the moment. In games like these you have too earn the right to play your football by winning the physical battle and currently we never look capable of that. I always want to see Giggs and Scholes when we hit the big games, but yesterday was just too fast for them. We can't keep relying on them and more games like yesterday where Scholes is given no protection and he might not be signing a new contract for next season.
Liverpool managed to play better football than i expected them too but they didn't do anything special. Our demise was down to poor defending, catstophic mistakes and the inability to compete physically. When Keane left the club we all wondered who Fergie would get to replace his leadership qualities, but Fergie got round that by changing our system so we didn't need a Keane or a Robson in the middle of the park. How we could do with someone like that in the middle of the park now though. Carragher's foul on Nani yesterday was a disgrace and should have been a straight red, but his reaction, running to the referee and then collpasing on the crowd crying, was just plain embarrassing. Oh for the days when Robson and Whiteside used to win the physical battle against the dippers and then go on to win the game. You just couldn't imagine either of those two crying.
We could still end up with the title, look at Arsenal on Saturday, they didn't really start playing until the last quarter of an hour and though they did have some great chances and had decisions go against them Sunderland managed to create two great chances. I was going to say that the game at the Emirates is going to be big, but to be honest every game away from Old trafford is going to be a test for us.
Am i confident, not really, but i'm clinging to the hope that it's those perennial bottlers Arsenal chasing us and not Chelsea.

Fergie gave no press interviews after the game and the BBC didn't even get to talk to Phelan, probably just as well after the Carragher incident. Gill was incensed enoguh about the Nani tackle to have a go at the referees chief Mike Riley at half time. James Lawton writes of United's midfield reeking of decline and the scandal of Carragher's tackle on Nani. It's reeked of decline all season, the wonder is that no one has able to take advantage of it yet.

Daniel Taylor with his five things we learned colum has a dig at Nani and carrick and sees a bright future for Suarez. We'll have to see with Suarez, i didn't rate him in the world cup, Forlan was head and shoulders above him as a footballer. I suppose Rooney's arrival was part of the reason Forlan left, i know who i would sooner have in my team at the moment.
As for carrick he puts his finger on why he hasn't got the fans on his side, his lack of self belief and yet again yesterday his wobbly confidence in the big matches.
Greg Stobart writes that yesterdays abysmal showing shows the urgent need for midfield reconstruction, and claims that Fergie privately agrees that the squad is on its last legs. Mark Ogden compares the state of the current United squad with the demise of the Liverpool trophy machine 20 years ago, ouch. I can't argue with that too much, except to say we do have Welbeck and Cleverley to come back and we do have some talented youngsters in the youth team. But he is right to state that we can't go on relying on Scholes and Giggs and to question what Gibson and Bebe are doing in our squad.

There was lots of talk of a record breaking 19 titles and knocking Liverpool of their perch in the press on Friday and Saturday. Daniel Taylor wrote that for United fans and Liverpool alike 19 is the magic number. Whilst Mark Ogden wrote that if Dalglish happens to be in charge of the mickeys when the 19th title is delivered Fergie's smile would be as wide as the mouth of the Mersey.
It's still on of course but what delight they will take in yesterday's result, especially if our title charge had been derailed.

Kevin McCarra thought that United's rare defeat at Stamford bridge highlighted Ferguson's excellent use of the resources available to him and wonders what he could do with the warchest available to Mancini and Ancelotti. The point is he doesn't need that kind of money he just needs to be able to spend what he would normally be allowed to spend without the Glazer's in charge and the need to pay off the Glazer's debt that he is so comfortable with.
I'm not sure how comfortable he would be if City suddenly got shut of the ultra negative Mancini  and got a decent manager in and bought the couple of players in that would change City from a club challenging for a top four to challenging for the title as a club that has spent as much as they have should be.
He would find out the fans patience levels, i'm fairly sure of that. We have Welbeck and Cleverley to come back in the summer, but an experienced top quality creative midfielder would still not go amiss. And if Scholes did call it a day in the summer, it would become crucial for us to still be competing for
titles and future champions league titles.
So yes there can be no arguments that he has done a magnificent job in marshalling his resources, but how much of the job has the continuation of the careers of Giggs and Scholes to do with that. Because it can't have been in his long term plans for those two to still be playing and to still being so influential to our hoped for success. You can't help feeling he has got more than a little lucky with those two. Imagine our midfield without those two and the money it would have cost and may still cost to replace them. We have very exciting youngsters coming through, but we have no certainty that they will replace those two.

Whilst the consensus amongst most time served reds and press alike is that this has been the most workmanlike and least impressive United midfield we have seen in years, Fergie has been in the process of getting said midfield to resign on longe term contracts. After Anderson signed around christmas, a move that still loses me, he has now got Carrick and Fletcher to sign new extended contracts. For all those reds expecting the reds to finally splash some cash under our detested owners, methinks there is a clue to this summer's spending plans there.
I know Carrick is not every reds cup of tea, he isn't exactly mine, but he does do a job for the team that no other midfielder at the club does for the team. His defensive work may not be as eyecatching as others around Europe but he does a job for the team. My only problem is that he is nowhere near as effective in a 4-4-2 without a Scholes besides him.
As for Fletcher, he tailed off alarmingly during the latter part of last season, which i put down to having to play too many games. But after a full summer off, unlike most of our others who went to South Africa, he has not shown a glimpse of a return off the form that saw us miss him so badly in Rome against Barca. I have always been a fan of his, but i have to admit that his form this season doesn't really warrant a contract extension at this point in his career. Unless Fergie knows better, which of course he may well do, i would have been waiting to put a string of consistent performances in before entertaining a contract extension.

One good piece of news from the weekend was the return to action of Danny Welbek for Sunderland at the Emirates. He looked good and that would have been a superb goal but for an outstanding save from the home teams keeper. I'm absolutely certain that lack of injuries permitting, he will get more than his fair share of games in a red shirt next season.

I missed the beginning of Eric's interview on football focus but heard the two shopkeeper's responses to it, and people wonder why we loved Eric. I shall be catching up with it no doubt. I'm never sure how much of what he says he actually means but the man is never dull, not a comment ever heard labelled at Alan Shearer.

After Robert Fisk's latest colum piece in the Indy where he predicted that the end game to the Arab revolt would take place in Saudi Arabia, he reports the Saudi military mobilising to quell the under reported tensions within the country. A world, and the west in particular, holds it's breath. What would western governments anguished response be, if the Saudi's did enter Bahrain to put their revolt down. It would be hard for the US and less importantly the UK's politicians to defend, and we know that they will try to defend any Saudi crackdown.

David Cameron got a pretty damning press last week with his flip flops over the western response to events in Libya. It was pretty ludicrous and you wonder who was giving him this advise. They seemed to have forgot that George W. and his neo con chums don't frequent the white house any more. Saner poeple preside over US foreign policy nowadays.
Matthew Norman reminds David Cameron of the reality of this countries place in the world in his usual humorous way, but i wonder argue with any of his analysis for a second. It's hard to see any politician levelling with the British public about our reduced standing in the world with the Mail's and the Murdoch's of this world holding so much sway over them. It would take the real form of proportional representation to be adopted in Britain for that to happen.
As for the neocons, they have had their time and the politician who doesn't see that will eventually be yesterday's men.

Paul Goodman is the latest tory to warn David Cameron of the importance and danger that the referendum on the Alterntaive vote poses for his leadership of the conservative party. And in what was a terrible week for both sides of the coalition government John Curtice writes whilst the Lib dems disastrous result in the Barnsley by-election has took all the headlines, the tories drop in the share of the vote should be equally worrying for the a Cameroons.
For Clegg events seem to go from bad to worse, he was utterly unconvincing trying to explain away the Lib dem share of the vote in Barnsley and his party must know it. Those May local council elections are going to be a blood bath for them in the north of the country, and if he loses the AV referendum it is surely just when he is deposed and then how long it is before the coalition is disolved and we fight a new election. I suppose the doomsday scenario is then that the tories win an absolute majority, the way the tories have upset middle England as well as the parts of the country they just don't care about, i just can't see that happening.
Andrew Rawnsley still believes the lib dems can come through this if they hold their nerve.They will struggle to ever regain the progressive vote they once possessed back if they stick with this coalition to the end.

Deborah Orr agrees with Mervyn King that the banks are to blame for the current economic mess. The Telegraph interview with Mervyn King the governor of the bank of England reminded everybody who was to blame for the mess that economy is in. I would love to know reason behind the interview and the timing of it. Robert Peston argues that entente may be impossible between governors and banks, the real reason behind the interview no doubt.
The confessions of a non baby boomer from Keynsian Liberal, the kind of Liberal i would align myself with, and unfortunately the kind of Lib dem keeping their heads down  at the moment. A fascinating chart which shows the lie behind the claim that our debt is at a historic lie and shows why the coalition's economic policy is pure ideology.
Bernie Maddof, the financiers fall guy wonders why no one else is facing a spell behind bars.

Another article about the Killing and BBC4 and European thrillers which also namechecks that great 80's German drama Heimat. Now i would love BBC4 to repeat that, the first series in particular was outstanding.

Peter Wilby predicts that the skilled middle class will be the next victims of neo liberal economic ideology as a decline in middle class pay, job opportunities and job satisfaction has only just begun. I can see him being proven right. I still can't see how the events of 2008 could have led to the formation of the most neo liberal government we have possibly ever seen. I'm certain it will be the last, is the only silver lining on the political horizon. But who will lead us to the post Thatcherite world, that i cannot see.
Martin Kettle predicts that the party who will find the next big question will go on to win the next election, i get where he is coming from and agree partly, but i don not think the debate over the cuts will have been settled by the next election, especially as i don't think it is going to be in 2015.

Jeremy warner talks of the government bending the rules for Rupert Murdoch and predicts that the tories will regret giving the Aussie such a free hand with our media. Predictably News corporations media rivals have cried foul and have announced they are pondering their next move. The move got a mixed reception from media analysts. Polly Toynbee tells the lib dems there is still a way they can win this, but knows that it won't come from Vince Cable.