Manchester United 0-1 Southampton

And so it goes on, yet another utterly wretched performance, bizarre tactics and substitutions that seem to take no account of the actual state of the game.
To be fair the opposition were no better, you could make a case that we deserved absolutely nothing, we hardly tested their goalie all afternoon, but then again neither did they. They only really seemed to believe they could get something during those last ten minutes  and even then it was only ever going to happen from a set play they were so poor from open play. So having said that, what on Earth does that say about us.
Why he reverted to three at the back with two holding midfielders at home to a team badly out of form, god only knows, football genius it isn't, got that Woody! Fellaini, Schweinsteiger and Herrera slightly further forward provided absolutely nothing. Rooney with a big powerful centre half against him reverted to type as he could barely do anything right. Martial just seems to want to run headless chicken style with the ball at the moment, I like him but he's got to get his head up and involve other players, play one two's. He's showing worrying signs of going down the Memphis Depay route playing solely for himself.
I don't like United fans booing, but I have to admit what on Earth is the alternative when served up such an absolute joke of a performance. Though whilst Van Gaal deserves all the stick, the players are getting off pretty lightly really. The reception Mata got as he replaced the hapless Fellaini at half time summed that up for me. For those of us who never thought he was a United player, we have been proved right a fair few times over I would have thought. An yet here was been received as our saviour, an Eric, a Ronaldo or a Scholes he definitely is not. I told those around me, that though I was glad Bogbrush had gone off, his replacement would change nothing. Did he?
Januzaj got stick for giving a needless free kick away that led to the goal, I have to admit I was past caring by the point and I haven't seen the highlights, so I don't really know what the score is on that. But it seems a bit unfair to be blaming him, he's not been involved since August, I'll start judging him when he gets a few 90 minutes under his belt.
So here I type this on the Monday morning and Van Gaal is still the manager of Manchester United, the club is a mess from top to bottom!

Benjamin Clementine – At Least For Now: I'll b honest I really couldn't get into this on th first couple of listens and I'm still not really sure just what I think of it. Musically it's clever and whilst I don't think it was worthy of the Mercury, I can se why they awarded it. But his vocals are a bit too affectd for my taste.

Christian Scott - Stretch Music: This was miles more my scene, fusion, jazz/rock whatever it's a cracking listen.

Deerhunter – Fading Frontier: Another very listenable album from the US indie outfit headed by Bradford Cox, it's not up there with their very best, but they are one of the better indie groups around.

John Grant - Grey Tickles, Black Pressure: Another decent solo album from the former Czars man, though I don't think the two follow up's to his debut album have got anywhere near the level of the excellence of that. There are great individual songs, but maybe two or three songs too many thin things out a bit.

Josh Ritter - Sermon On The Rocks: A pretty good album from the US singer songwriter, the following tracks being one of the highlights.

Sexwitch – Sexwitch: Bats for Lashes Natasha Khan's latest incarnation accompanied by the band Toy is not bad, but nothing special as far as I'm concerned, it's nowhere near as good as Bats for Lashes first album anyhoo or any of Toy's own work.

Todd Rundgren - Something, Anything: I have never heard any of his solo stuff, I've always been put off by his association with Meat Loaf. What a mistake that was, if this is anything to go by, a double album of some genius. I haven't really got much patience fr double albums anymore, but how many are packed full of great and diverse songs as this blinder has on it. More albums shall be listened to!

Liverpool 0-1 Manchester United

Pretty crap game, maybe an even worse performance but for yesterday and yesterday only, who cares, three points as we score from our one and only shot on goal. It keeps us in the chase for that all important fourth spot, whether that's a good thing or not, who knows.
The first half was a total embarrassment, we made them look half decent which at this moment in time, they obviously aren't. As for us, Wednesday's attacking performance seemed like an age ago as we failed to crate anything of note at all.
The central midfield position that we thought may have been partially solved during the summer was particularly poor. There was just no quality coming from that part of our team at all. Fellaini playing as the deep lying holding player is just so off the scale bizarre it defies belief. Schneiderlin has been pretty disappointing and Herrera playing further forward didn't affect the game at all.
As to the attack, Martial had an in and out game, Lingard, surprisingly to me, had a bit of a shocker, Rooney got the goal but otherwise had no service with which to judge him. Thank fuck for De Gea, the only player on our team who could hold his head high, having another fine game. He wasn't tested that much, but when he was, he was up to the task.
United were better during the second half, but largely on Van Gaal's terms, ie we kept the ball better. As usual we hardly did anything with it, the goal coming from a corner, and to be honest was a really soft goal to give away as Rooney found himself completely unmarked after Fellaini's header came back of the bar, nice finish though.
Still 1-0 at Anfield is always a time to enjoy a beer or three!

Newcastle United 3-3 Manchester United

I was working last night so only caught the second half so I cant rally give a match review. What I can say is though we dropped two points after leading twice, I'd sooner have watched last nights match all day long than what passed for entertainment on Saturday.
Going off Van Gaal's reactions on the bench he must have hated having to have watched such an attacking game. His reaction to Lingard's miss, said it all for me. Yes it was a bad miss, but everybody misses chances like that, the thing is to create enough of them so that you score enough to win more games than you lose. We know that just isn't his philosophy at all. It was laughable that he then brought him off to be replaced by Memphis thereby leaving us far more vulnerable to attacks from our right, where the last minute equaliser came from. He didn't really think that through did he!
Rooney has been basking in long forgotten praise from press and pundits alike last night and this morning. I'll hang fire on that if you don't mind, four goals in three games, two of them penalties against a division one team and two teams struggling relegation. That's sounds a bit premature to be telling us the old Rooney's back. Saying that, the second goal was very much the old Wayne Rooney, a superb shot.
It seems every time we do get a half decent attacking performance from United we found out what a fair few of us have always suspected, defensively we are not improved at all under Van Gaal. It's all down to the defensive midfield cover and the possession tactics. We have missed Shaw badly, he looked the real deal. But going forward, we need at least world class or at least potential world class centre back and a quality right back.
Anyway I ain't grumbling too much about last night, at last it was entertaining, as for Sunday.....

Manchester United 1-0 Sheffield United

It's got to this, it's 0-0 we're in the injury time of a third round FA cup tie and United get a penalty. My reaction is to be gutted, and to actually want the taker to miss. My reaction to the goal is to stay seated, to not clap and just shake my head. It has come to this.
Given the opposition, this was possibly yet a new low point of the reign of Louis Van Gaal. Yes it took us 70 minutes to have a shot on goal against a division 1 side and that's a statistic that says volumes. But it was the line up and then the attitude of the players, the lack of quality, just about everything really.
Two sitting defensive midfield players at home against a third tier outfit, and one of them was Fellaini for fuck sake. Just what on Earth is that all about. To compound the crime, Sheffield United offered absolutely nothing going forward. When you think of the really poor sides we have struggled against at Old trafford this season, you start to think the Moyes era wasn't so bad after all. I mean Moyes was patently not up to the job, but we did play attacking football at times. There's just nothing remotely exciting about football under Van Gaal, I'd go as far as to say I literally hate watching United at the moment. I got to about 20 minutes into the game before I knew it was going a long afternoon, against an opposition that a decent side would beat into their sleep. I could See that the players looked as if they had gone on strike again and it was going to be mind numbing. It was around that time that I realised that the only way we would get any excitement during this match was if Sheffield United took the lead.
I could go through individual players but I'll pick a couple out, Herrera and Mata, both had stinkers. But to be fair to Mata, he was trying, it just never happened for him. But Herrera, oh dear and he's got so many reds who love him. I'm not sure how you can go on loving after that, a spineless cowardly performance, they both deserved to be subbed during the second half.
As ever, who knows what will happen during the next couple of games. Newcastle are a mess and Liverpool are badly injury hit, so we could take something from both games, would you put money on it though? I know one thing, if the players don't put it in at Anfield they can all just fuck off. The club just gives off a big fucking stink at the moment, it's rotten to the core.

Manchester United 2-1 Swansea City

After the last game I had thought we maybe turned a corner, and hence was actually looking forward to this game with a hint of expectation. Those first 45 minutes knocked that out right out of my system. It was as dire as anything this season. And for once I'm not going to blame the manager. As far as I could tell the shackles were still off, they were still allowed to express themselves, dribble, etc. It was just a case of the players not being good enough as they failed to break down a Swansea side whilst happy in possession showed no attacking threat most of the afternoon. We did create a couple of chances, but it was as heavy going as it has been most of the season.
The second half saw us start at a faster tempo and Ashley Young in particular started to get some joy on the right hand side. And that was the source of the goal as he hit a long looping cross that Martial finished superbly with his head. The Young Frenchman then upped his game and for a while we had a threat from both flanks until Young we dropped further back.
Swansea slowly got back in the game and managed to start to look as they may have a goal threat in them after all. United missed a great chance to make it 2-0 and were made to pay as a looping header from Sigurdsson evaded the outstretched arms of Van Gaal to nestle in the corner of our net. A draw at home to as poor a Swansea outfit as we have seen since they hit the big time would have not been good enough, from any perspective. Thankfully a great run and a great finish from Rooney which was his only memorable contribution all afternoon restored our lead and we hoped we may go on to a comfortable win.
I suppose that was wishful thinking as we endured a nail biting final five minutes as they threw everything at us and our defence looked as dodgy as in reality it actually is whatever the stats say. The header from the goalie seemed goal bound from our view, instead it was inches wide and the whistle blew to relief from every red. The afternoon had showed what we already really knew, even when you take the philosophy out of the equation, it's a very mediocre squad, and there isn't much on the bench to change things if isn't going our way. Maybe it isn't fair to single players out when only Young and Martial had done much in the game, but Mata given a more creative role just doesn't cut the mustard for me. And as for Darmian, what on Earth did we see in him, there is no way on Earth on Rafael. Whilst Rafael had a mistake in him, there's no denying, if an attacker runs at Darmian, it curtains, full stop. Anyway are we capable of a cup run starting next week, who the fuck knows, we'll have to improve on Saturday's performance though!