FA youth cup semi United 4-0 Chelsea

I thought United had been the better team in the first leg and had wondered how they had managed to come off the pitch, the losing team. I'm glad to see they more than put things right in the second leg on Wednesday night putting Chelsea to the sword 4-0. Despite the William Keane's hatrick most of the plaudits once again went to the midfield trio of Morrison, Tunnicliffe and Pogba.
I suppose the question is which will get a crack in the first team and who will be sent out on loan, if indeed any of the trio are sent out to gain first team experience. They must have a great chance to etch their names alongside that long list of great players to have won the FA youth cup with Manchester United. I'm not sure why the Chelsea games had to be all ticket but i hope the two legged final against Sheffield United are pay on the gate. The future looks in pretty good shape, on the pitch at least. At least some commentators seem to be onto the fact that these could be the future of Manchester United and is the real reason is quite content to leave the midfield well alone and will be one area where the Glazer's will not be badgered for funds to replenish the squad.

The Mail reckon that Berbatov is a doubt for tomorrow, which is a worry for United. I'll say it is, i think that Rooney will be on the bench tomorrow with the semi finals and Arsenal away on Fergie's mind and that the last thing he would have wanted was to have to play Rooney against his former club tomorrow.

MUST launch an e-mail appeal,  asking the Glazer's to cut ticket prices at Old trafford just like they have in Florida with their other " franchise " the Tampa bay bucanners. It seems like a decent move, just when everything seemed to be going smoothly for them, they will have to contend with unwanted publicity and unwanted press coverage.

Fergie admits the draw wasn't what United were looking for, but he was happy enough with the teams response to the semi final defeat. Michael Carrick  reminds everybody that United are in control of their own destiny, just i case people forget what an excellent position the team are in.
I suppose the thing that nags at some of us is the way the wheels came off last year, where the squad didn't handle the pressure of the title run as well as we have in the past. And the fact that we are still in Europe means the squad is going to be tested to the maximum again. Still if you had given me this scenario at the beginning of the season i would have bitten your hand off.
O'Shea remembers United throwing away a 3-1 lead at Goodison at the start of the season and promises that United won't slip up again. That was a bad day, how often do we conceed late goals, never mind two, but it was a pointer to the away form which was to follow. 

Jim White previews Sunday nights BBC screening of a new drama about the Busby babes. I don't know how good it will be, this type of thing isn't usually my cup of tea, sporting drama's don't really work for me. But if White is right and the film extols the role that Jimmy Murphy played in the aftermath of the crash then it will have a big thumbs up from me. His role in the history of the club has been criminally under written and the way he was treated by the club in his later years was pretty apalling really.
I thin we all heard the Munich chants, taunts and gestures last week, though some may have wished they had kept they had kept their gobs shut. It will be interesting the next time we play City at Wembley that's for sure.

James Lawton writes that love him or loathe him, the latest chapter of the Mourinho saga shows him to be in a class of his own. The problem with this article is we are only half way through the four meeting between Real and Barca. If Barca were to vanquish Real over the two legs of the champions league final leaving Barca in another Champions league final and champions of Spain elect, where would that leave the special ones reputation.
I'm not saying that Mourinho's Real Madrid can't or won't triumph in that semi, i think that will be a pretty tight affair, just, it's far too soon to be lauding him as a success in Spain. And if Barca do manage to knock them out, Di Stefano and co will not be backwards in coming forwards to say i told you so.

With just a week to go before royal madness hits the country, Steve Richards writes of our Republican conspiracy of silence. At least the silence won't be the whisper of the last big royal wedding, this is a different generation. The Bagehot column of the Economist wants to set the royal family free and calls for a compassionate republicanism.

Peter Oborne detects the Labour oppostion settling back into a more Euro sceptic stance as Ed Balls calls the anti Euro shots. Is that Ed Balls who looked to the Clintonian US economic model whilst Brown's right hand man during the last government. The administration that saw the repeal of the Glass-Steagal act and set the course for the credit crunch every bit as much as it's incompetent successors.
Europe may be one great disaster zone at the moment, but isn't the German economic model what even Osborne sees as the way to go, not the Anglo saxon free market economic city loving model. How does standing aside from a disaster on the Eurozone, our biggest market don't forget, going to be in any way shape or form good for our economy or for British jobs.
As this fellow Torygraph article points out the hoped for manufacuring revival isnt happening, as if the Thatcherite assault on the manufacturing base can be turned around in a couple of years. Let's face it if the city isn't tackled and brought down to size, and can you see that happening any time soon, under either tories or labour, it may well never happen.

David Blanchflower, one of Balls main cheerleaders, claims it's official we're not all in this together. The Economists Buttonwood notebook looks at the US credit downgrade and ends the piece by stating the obvious, the world economy is just in the process of rearranging the debt incurred by the credit crunch of 2008. And until the problem of how that debt is dealt we will jus stumble from one crisis to another. And that is what's happening in Europe at the monent, the Peripheral countries people are being asked to take the hit for the bankers of Germany, France and Britain. Which is what i don't hear being addressed from euro sceptics from such as Oborne or even Balls. Although Balls may just be opportunistic in opposition, who knows.
Richard Wolff declares S & P's judgement on US debt substandard and poor and argues there are only two respones threat to downgrade US credit rating, laughter and a yawn.

Alistair Campbell writes that Coulson's deparure was dambuster part 1 and that News international adnission of liability could well be dambuster part 2