First of, i'm jealous of all those able to go, whether they went to the match or just went and watched it in a bar, iv'e been to two Amsterdam tournaments and had a great time there. Mind you they were friendlies, and the locals were reasonably chatty, yesterday would have been different.
As to the game, nice result, average performance but soured by the late injury to Valencia. Just when you think we are back to a fully fit squad, leaving long term absentee Vidic out of the equation, our most influential player of the last couple of months does his hamstring in a game that was probably already won. Of course thatnks to his run and pass to Hernandez that ended with the Mexican finishing off Rooney's return beautifuuly weighted through ball the home leg should be a formality.
Fergie was right to say that we didn't hit any heights in the game and right about our second half improvement. You couldn't help thinking the absence of Valencia had something to do with the lacklustre first half as the two best crosses of that half were provided by right back Jones. The main reason for the below performance can hopefully be put down to the returnee's as none of them hit any heights. It was great to see Cleverley back but he looks like he is going to need some games to get back to where he left off before the injury at Bolton. He looked to me like a reserve game or two might be in order, he was fairly quiet apart from one brilliant first time ball in the first half.
Young and Nani were both equally rusty, the Portugese winger especially, he was very poor in the first half and once again had Rooney tearing his newly acquired hair out with the quality and timing of his crosses. Rooney is going to miss Valencia, it's no accident that Rooney has been scoring goals for fun as Valencia has returned to top form.
Even though Young scored the opening goal he didn't exactly convince again. But with the injury to Valencia he will probably get a little run of games, so this could be a chance for him to try and regain that early season form that had us thinking that he would turn out to be an excellent injury. Carrick carried on his excellent form and the back four did reasonably well with De Gea making a couple of really good saves in the first half. It was nice to see Jones back, as well as Rafael has done recently, Jones is even better going forward. I still se him as a cerntral midfield player myself, but how many games he will get there now for the rest of the season, i'm not sure.
After City's comeback in Portugal it looks like we will be heading for the quarter finals that UEFA must wish was going to be the final in Romania. I have to admit that i would want us to win this trophy more than i ever thought i would after that dismal night in Basel and not just to stop City winning it. Saying that the league is still the priority and we are right in there with a great chance, interesting times ahead.
Ferdinand is confident United can cope with the loss of Valencia, he will be a loss, but this is what you have a big squad for, when one man gets injured, others can come up to the plate.
Andy Hunter argues that with Fergie claiming that England can forget a Scholes return, it won't be long before they will be taking a closer look at Tom Cleverley. I think and hope he's right, for the skae of United that is, it's touch over the top for a man playing his first 60 minutes for about 4 months though. Lets see him get through the rest of the season without any further injury mishaps before we get carried away.
The MEN analyse the performance of Ajax's Danish international Christian Eriksen, who United have been linked with in the past. I thought he looked a reasonable player, but a Manchester United quality, i wasn't convinced.
Faisal Islam asks why are the credit ratings agencies are taken so seriously, and answers that George Osborne has staked his whole economic redibilty on them. Credit agency clowns are making life diffcult for chancellor George Osborne writes Jeremy Warner, but discredited though the may be, they have still identified a weakness in the chancellor's economic strategy.
Simon Jenkins warns that austerity fails, yet we're too shy to think out of the box, whilst Martin Wolf argues that we are not learning the lessons of the inter war years, the stress on balanced budgets is leading into a uneccessarily recession, we need to relearn the lessons of John Maynard Keynes.
It looks like the Japanese are about to think out of the box with the under reported news that they are about to target higher inflation. I'm reading Kindelberger's The world in depression 1929-39, which is totally fascinating and he briefly mention's Japanese economic policy where he writes that they were implementing Keynesian policies without ever having read him and mentions that the Japanese coped as well as anyone during the 1930's depression, but this wasn't enough for the militarists who killed the theorist behind Japanese policies, Takahashi in 1936.
It's the first time i have read a book that doesn't come at this period of world history from a US perspective. It is a real eye opener, i have always felt the first world war was the end of an era, but what i take from this book is just how far reaching that really was. It wasn't just the beginning of the end for the British empire and European hegemony, but just as now a period when the global economic balance was shot to pieces. And then as now our politicians and economists were left all at sea in trying to repair the damage.
David Blancflower looks at events in Greece and talks of the return of the economic "death spiral". Faisal Islam wonders if we are reaching a European "Lehman moment" as Germany "insults" Greece, with the Greek political class suspect Germany and its allies of wanting the Greeks to default and exit the Eurozone.
Nick Shaxon reports India's head of its central bureau of investigation complaining about a lack of transparency from the leading tax havens and notices just who those leading tax havens are.
A blast from the nineties, decent group Lush
As to the game, nice result, average performance but soured by the late injury to Valencia. Just when you think we are back to a fully fit squad, leaving long term absentee Vidic out of the equation, our most influential player of the last couple of months does his hamstring in a game that was probably already won. Of course thatnks to his run and pass to Hernandez that ended with the Mexican finishing off Rooney's return beautifuuly weighted through ball the home leg should be a formality.
Fergie was right to say that we didn't hit any heights in the game and right about our second half improvement. You couldn't help thinking the absence of Valencia had something to do with the lacklustre first half as the two best crosses of that half were provided by right back Jones. The main reason for the below performance can hopefully be put down to the returnee's as none of them hit any heights. It was great to see Cleverley back but he looks like he is going to need some games to get back to where he left off before the injury at Bolton. He looked to me like a reserve game or two might be in order, he was fairly quiet apart from one brilliant first time ball in the first half.
Young and Nani were both equally rusty, the Portugese winger especially, he was very poor in the first half and once again had Rooney tearing his newly acquired hair out with the quality and timing of his crosses. Rooney is going to miss Valencia, it's no accident that Rooney has been scoring goals for fun as Valencia has returned to top form.
Even though Young scored the opening goal he didn't exactly convince again. But with the injury to Valencia he will probably get a little run of games, so this could be a chance for him to try and regain that early season form that had us thinking that he would turn out to be an excellent injury. Carrick carried on his excellent form and the back four did reasonably well with De Gea making a couple of really good saves in the first half. It was nice to see Jones back, as well as Rafael has done recently, Jones is even better going forward. I still se him as a cerntral midfield player myself, but how many games he will get there now for the rest of the season, i'm not sure.
After City's comeback in Portugal it looks like we will be heading for the quarter finals that UEFA must wish was going to be the final in Romania. I have to admit that i would want us to win this trophy more than i ever thought i would after that dismal night in Basel and not just to stop City winning it. Saying that the league is still the priority and we are right in there with a great chance, interesting times ahead.
Ferdinand is confident United can cope with the loss of Valencia, he will be a loss, but this is what you have a big squad for, when one man gets injured, others can come up to the plate.
Andy Hunter argues that with Fergie claiming that England can forget a Scholes return, it won't be long before they will be taking a closer look at Tom Cleverley. I think and hope he's right, for the skae of United that is, it's touch over the top for a man playing his first 60 minutes for about 4 months though. Lets see him get through the rest of the season without any further injury mishaps before we get carried away.
The MEN analyse the performance of Ajax's Danish international Christian Eriksen, who United have been linked with in the past. I thought he looked a reasonable player, but a Manchester United quality, i wasn't convinced.
Faisal Islam asks why are the credit ratings agencies are taken so seriously, and answers that George Osborne has staked his whole economic redibilty on them. Credit agency clowns are making life diffcult for chancellor George Osborne writes Jeremy Warner, but discredited though the may be, they have still identified a weakness in the chancellor's economic strategy.
Simon Jenkins warns that austerity fails, yet we're too shy to think out of the box, whilst Martin Wolf argues that we are not learning the lessons of the inter war years, the stress on balanced budgets is leading into a uneccessarily recession, we need to relearn the lessons of John Maynard Keynes.
It looks like the Japanese are about to think out of the box with the under reported news that they are about to target higher inflation. I'm reading Kindelberger's The world in depression 1929-39, which is totally fascinating and he briefly mention's Japanese economic policy where he writes that they were implementing Keynesian policies without ever having read him and mentions that the Japanese coped as well as anyone during the 1930's depression, but this wasn't enough for the militarists who killed the theorist behind Japanese policies, Takahashi in 1936.
It's the first time i have read a book that doesn't come at this period of world history from a US perspective. It is a real eye opener, i have always felt the first world war was the end of an era, but what i take from this book is just how far reaching that really was. It wasn't just the beginning of the end for the British empire and European hegemony, but just as now a period when the global economic balance was shot to pieces. And then as now our politicians and economists were left all at sea in trying to repair the damage.
David Blancflower looks at events in Greece and talks of the return of the economic "death spiral". Faisal Islam wonders if we are reaching a European "Lehman moment" as Germany "insults" Greece, with the Greek political class suspect Germany and its allies of wanting the Greeks to default and exit the Eurozone.
Nick Shaxon reports India's head of its central bureau of investigation complaining about a lack of transparency from the leading tax havens and notices just who those leading tax havens are.
A blast from the nineties, decent group Lush
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