Manchester United 0-0 Chelsea

Well that was a let down, Chelsea came to stifle and tactically they succeeded. But they were aided and abetted by a poor United showing and a pretty cautious approach from Moyes on his Old trafford debut. He seemed as happy with the point as Morinho, the substitutions were pretty conservative and he never looked to change our shape. For the neutral it must have been a real let down.
I was disappointed with the team selected, or should i say, disappointed that he picked Rooney, which was surely political as much as for footballing reasons. The fans response to him was unbelievable really, i'm not one for booing your own players, but to cheer somebody who has tried to leave the club twice now, i don't understand.
This mornings press have him down as one of the better players on the night, which tells you all you need to know about the quality of the match. He had a decent game and he put a shift in defensively, but was it special, was it the kind of performance to get excited about. In naming him, Welbeck was relegated to the left hand side and Rooney behind Van Persie, unlike last week Welbeck basically stayed on the left, all but for a brief spell in the second half when he missed the best chance of the match. To me for all Rooney's football intelligence, we missed Welbeck's pace and movement. Chelsea's back four weren't tested to the extent they should have been.
Of course with Chelsea's tactics of packing the midfield, United needed the wide men to produce, and with Welbeck on the left, that put the onus on Valencia. Sad to say he has become a shell of the player that terrorized Ashley Cole a couple of seasons back. Changing numbers hasn't done anything for his confidence. I don't know how long we can keep playing him in a bid to refind his mojo, he has the air of a man who has seen better days. It said everything when Ashley Young came on and looked far more dangerous, that's Young, the man who never goes past his man on the outside.
In fact the right hand side altogether was a big let down last night, for the second game in a row, Phil Jones had a bit of a stinker. Well, going forward at least, he was fairly solid at the back, but his crossing in the first half was woeful. I wondered whether Fabio would get the call last night, if Jones plays on Sunday and is as poor then the Da Silva twin must surely get the call. On the other side Evra had his second successive excellent game. All this talk of Baines has really shook him up, he is almost back to his very best form. I don't really think there's any point in spending the kind of money being spoken about for Baines, when we've got Evra in that kind of form and Fabio to back him up, especially given Baines age.
Looking at the team last night, and looking at our squad, I stll think it would be nuts to let Januzaj go out on loan. There wasn't enough creativity in that side last night as their hasn't been for a while now, and yet we have a kid there, with it in bagfuls.
A frustrating night all in all, to my mind Chelsea were there for the taking last night, for all that tactically they succeeded, they didn't produce much in the way of good football. But they will be happy with the point, happier than we should be about it, though i fear we were just as happy as them.

Signing, what singing!

It seems as if it's not just us mere fans, non plussed by United's transfer strategy this summer as Mike Phelan describes the joint £28 million bid for Fellaini and Baines as cheeky. He also wonders whether Woodward is as au fait at the art of spending money, as he was at bringing it in.
It's been a mess, that is for sure, i don't blame the club for going after Fabregas, if that's who they identified as the main recruitment for the central midfield vacancy we all know exists. What has been astonishing has been the ham fisted way they went about it. Even before the weekend, they were talking as if the deal could be resurrected. I presume Sunday evening's annihilation of Levante by Barca, masterminded mainly by Fabregas has finally put that to bed. What an embarrassment to La Liga that was by the way.
I'm of the school that would sooner we didn't buy anybody, if nobody of the requisite level is available. Some of the names the reds who would buy for buying's sake come up with, scare the life out of me. We all moan at Anderson and to a lesser extent Cleverley, so what is the point of buying another player who you can guarantee, wouldn't set the premier league alight never mind the rest of Europe.
As it happens, i think we will eventually snap up Fellaini, Everton have to sell at least one player every summer, which they haven't done yet. It seems United want to pay the minimum price which would suggest it will probably be nearer to transfer deadline day than next week. I can't say that was the summer transfer i was looking for, but if Moyes is right about his ability to be effective at the highest level as a holding central midfielder, it would strengthen us, and that's all you can ask for in a new player.

I was disappointed at the reports that whilst Januzaj is close to signing a new five year contract, he was told that United would like him to go on loan. And disappointed on a few levels, to me he's good enough now, look at Young and Valencia's form last season, if he keeps improving as he has been doing, he would be a far better bet against some of the lower lights than either of those two. And i don't care about keeping your squad happy, this guy is going to be a big part of our future, hopefully, I'd sooner keep him happy than those two.
I wasn't as pissed off with Pogba's departure as others, i didn't like his attitude much, his form for the reserves was piss poor for the most part. But Januzaj has said that Fergie had told him that he was going to be part of the first team squad this season, it doesn't look great that now we're apparently telling him he isn't. Especially as I've said, when he must know he's got far more in his locker than certain first team squad members we could all mention.
I watched him again on Monday playing for the under 21's in the disappointing 4-2 defeat to the dippers and once again he was fantastic. Yet another thing to like about his game, was the way that during the second half as United chased the game he took the responsibility as he team mates increasingly fed him the ball, even Cole and Lingard were searching him out. His football was majestic, he does things with a ball that defenders just can't anticipate. When he does make the move up, he won't disappoint. Since Ronaldo left, we haven't seen much fantasy football at United, we will see some when he breaks through, that's for sure.

Music

Avishai Cohen -  Triveni II: A pretty good mostly bop but sometimes modern jazz from the Israeli trumpet players band.

Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's harvest: The scottish electronic outfir aren't the most prolific, but they make up for that with the quality of their work. This another excellent down tempo piece of techno.

Laura Marling - Once i was an eagle: Her first two albums grew on me slowly, and this follows the same script. At first it sounds sort of decent singer/songwriter material, but grows into something far more interesting.

Mikal Cronin - MCII: Most of my favourite new indie at the moment seems to originate in California, and you can add this guy to the list. This is his third album, but the first i've heard, it's an excellent piece of garage guitar rock, it rocks and it's catchy.

Neon Neon - Praxis makes perfect: Is there any project that Gruff Rhys is involved in that doesn't have the stamp of quality. As with their first album, this is influenced by 80's synth pop and it's just as good.

The Fall - Re-Mit: The last two or three Fall albums have been excellent, whilst it definitely has it's moments and is a thoroughly good album, it's not quite up to that level. It starts excellently, but the best songs are at the beginning of the album, it tails off a touch towards the end.

The Orb Featuring Lee Scratch Perry - More tales from the observatory: A pairing made in heaven, the ambient electronica of the Orb mixed with the dub meister Perry. It works pretty well, starting with the excellent Fussball. Critics thought it was a downgrade from their previous collaboration, i 'll have to get around to hearing that if that's the case.

Swansea City 1-4 Manchester United

Well I wasn't really expecting that, Swansea has been a hard place to go for all the teams at the top since they came up to the premiership, so to go there and score four goals was some performance. And let's face it we haven't really seen anything in pre-season that would have led you to expect that we could go down there and put in such a convincing performance.
We started slowly, in fact we were starved of the ball for the first five minutes. But they are a pretty decent side, they were at home and it was the first game of the season, so it wasn't totally unexpected. What was noticeable to me, was that as soon as we did get a sniff of the ball, we started to create chances or threaten their goal. During that first twenty minutes or so, before the opening goal we created three or four pretty good openings. Which surprised me a little as it's usually a tight game down there, with really good chances few and far between.
It wasn't that big a surprise when we took the lead as we had been growing into the game, but what a goal it was. Giggs has took some stick for his performance, he wasn't at his best for sure, but he still makes things happen even then. It was Giggs who spotted Van Persie in the box, the ball left the Dutchman with plenty to do, and oh boy, did he do it, with a brilliant right foot volley.
Minutes later it was two as Van Persie caused panic in the middle of the box, the ball landed at Valencia's feet and he crossed it first time to give Welbeck an easy tap in. A great moment for Danny, he's got that monkey off his back straight away and can now go on to give the kind of performances those of us who have always rated him, know he can deliver. In fact i thought he'd had a pretty good game before that, alternating with Giggs, on the left and behind Van Persie. He was always finding space, making himself available and rarely gave the ball away. For the rest of the half United took complete control and comfortably saw the half out.
Swansea re-organised themselves at half time and brought a new centre forward on and got themselves back into the game without really looking as if they would get the goal they needed. Rooney came on for Giggs around the hour mark, I'd have preferred Kagawa, but the politics of keeping Rooney at the club trumped that i suppose. Rooney played reasonably enough, but some of the reporting has been way over the top. I'm not having it that the third goal goes down as an assist, he played the obvious ball and then made a good run, sure, but Welbeck's run was equally important in providing the space needed for Van Persie to smash the ball home gloriously to make it 3-0. In truth it was just a glorious solo goal from Van Persie and we shouldn't be talking about assists at all for it.
They did manage to get a late consolation goal as Welbeck tried to be a bit too clever and lost the ball just outside his own box, which i'm definitely not going to lay into him about. But even if i had, he more tham made amends, with a glorious second and United's fourth, right at the death. Rooney fed him and he produced a glorious chip that pleasingly landed in the back of the net. It was a goal his performance deserved.
I shouldn't have any grumbles after that scoreline, but if i did, it would be the decision to bring Rooney on ahead of Kagawa and i was a little disappointed Januzaj didn't make the bench, hopefully the young Belgian's time will come.
Roll on next Monday night, I can't wait.

Charity shield ahead

Given this mornings statement emanating from Spain it would seem the Fabregas saga has gone the way that a fair few of us cynics thought it might. I'm not a massive fan of Fabregas, though he would have improved the squad, no doubt, but he's not what we need in my opinion. We need a deeper more defensive minded central midfield option, either to play alongside Carrick, or cover him, or even to replace him eventually.
That said, the new post Fergie Glasnost era of Woodward has got off to a start of epic fuckwittery proportions. First Thiago and now Fabregas couldn't be enticed to the club. Despite labelling ourselves as the biggest club in the world, truth be told, we are "one of" the biggest clubs in the world. In a city renowned for a climate designed not to excite any footballer of a Mediterranean or South American extraction, going after the two said was always going to be a long shot. It's always a gamble for any English team, never mind Manchester team to go after that type of player. Even the oligarch money of Chelski or oil based money of City have problems attracting the very best players in the world.
I've no problem with us competing for the best, it's the way you go about it, and as is now obvious to the whole watching football world, it's been about as inept as you could imagine. I'll shake my head and hope we are going to learn from this, but i have a nasty feeling we won't. After the mirth Gary Cook gave United fans, I've got a feeling it's payback time.

I have said during the summer that a defensive midfield option and a left back were what i wanted to see. And reports are gaining traction that as well as Fellaini, Baines is back on the menu. So some would say that i should be happy. But i won't be if those are the two signings we make. They would improve us as a squad, i like Baines, Fellaini less so, but it's not much of a statement of intent for a so called biggest club in the world, is it, to go back to your new manager's old club to show the rest of Europe you mean business.
If those are our only two summer signings under Moyes, i fully expect Rooney to be told he's going nowhere, for sponsorship reasons alone, the Glazer's probably can't afford to lose him. We'll probably see Nani and Anderson at the club for another season as well.
I really wanted to see the end of all three of them, the younger players coming through, need players that have never really done it consistently enough for United, or in Rooney's case want to be at the club, to move on to let them get the playing time they need to develop their game. If Nani and Rooney stay, i struggle to see how Januzaj, Lingard and maybe even Powell will get that time.


Music

Ethan Johns -If not now then when: Usually a producer and session man for acts such as Ryan Adams and others, Johns assumes the spotlight on this solo album, pretty successfully. I suppose it's not a million miles from the early country rock of early Ryan Adams, there aint much filler on it.

Iron and wine - Ghost on ghost: I suppose you'd class Iron and wine as Americana, but i always band them together with Calexico, i love Calexico but on his day Iron and wine is as good an act as the mid western outfit. This is definitely an on his day moment, classy album.

Kyle Eastwood -The view from here: His last album was a cracking album, a hard one to follow. This isn't as immediately excellent as its predecessor, but when it gets under your skin it's another cracking listen.

Queens of the stone age - Like clockwork: There is no better hard rock group in the world than Josh Homme's band for me, so Mojo's critic suggested it was their best album since songs for the deaf, i had to listen to it as soon as. I'm not sure whether it is or not still, It is definitely different, it's slower, with a final track that's almost a ballad. Of course it still rocks, amps up to eleven, it's a superb album, but i thought it's two predecessors were.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra - II: This is the second album from the US west coast based outfit, and if the first is anywhere near as good as this I've got to get around to listening to it. There are a lot of retro, psychedelic garage 60's influenced bands around at the moment, I'm not complaining, i love that genre, these are one of the best. You do wonder how long a career they and others will be able to survive on this sound, though.

Veronica falls -Waiting for something to happen: This UK indie outfits debut album a couple of years back was pretty good, so this was eagerly awaited. I think it's a pretty decent follow up, it has to the same, at times 80's to early 90's indie pop tunes that are perfect for a hot summer's day.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Mosquito: When I think of the best indie bands of the last decade or so, this lot don't really figure in it. And yet they probably should, they have got their own unique sound, the guitarist and drummer combine superbly. Maybe it's the fact they have never really managed to emulate that brilliant debut album. They've made no duds though, and their latest album is certainly something to proud of, it delivers the goods.