Fergie supports foreign quotas

Fergie supports limit on foreign players
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/m/man_utd/7080436.stm
I don't think there is any chance it will happen, too many people have a financial stake in maintaining the status quo. It's not so much about the national team as far as i am concerned, it's more about giving home grown youngsters the incentive to play football when they are young. The way some teams are going homegrown players will become rarer and rarer, and the likes of arsenal playing with an all foreign team will become the norm. I have always liked to see a few Mancunians in the team when we play the likes of Liverpool and City, because they know what it means to the fans.

Gary Neville still not quite ready, apparently another niggling calf strain, but Saha might figure tomorrow,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2007/11/06/ufnmanutd106.xml

21 years today, Fergie, force of nature
http://sport.independent.co.uk/football/comment/article3132449.ece
I suppose we will realise how spoilt we have been when he finishes

Governor defends bank over northern rock
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2206071,00.html
Banks in trouble
http://business.guardian.co.uk/markets/story/0,,2205998,00.html
Echoes of the potato famine, putting trade before feeding the people. This time in Swaziland
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2205948,00.html
Tax havens and the multinationals
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2205843,00.html

Has American foreign policy ever been more inept
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/simon_tisdall/2007/11/duff_diplomacy.html

The troubles may have come to an end, but sectarianism will take far far longer to end. Loyalist ex terrorists are selling ecstasy pills called loyalist blues, what do they sell on the falls road, nationalist tricolors
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2205735,00.html

Arsenal 2-2 Manchester United

A last minute goal against us again at the emirates, at least this time we came away with a point instead of nothing. It was a decent game, although not as good as everybody tried to make out afterwards, the entertaining second half making up for a tactical war of attrition in the first half. Even though in the main, our tactics which we seem to have employed for the last three to four seasons to stop Arsenal playing their usual passing game against us, worked, i am not particularly enamoured of them. It just goes against the grain for me, to see United, trying to stop the opposition playing, and trying to sneak one at the other end, as if we were Chelsea or Liverpool. I recognise that with the players available yesterday, that this was possibly the best use of our resources. But this is how we play against all the top teams now, regardless of how we are playing or the opposition are playing. I would love us to really believe in ourselves and go out there and play our normal game and impose it on the opposition. I believe that we are a better team and definitely have better individual players than Arsenal, especially when Van Persie is not playing, so i don't really understand our obsession with stopping them playing, at the expense of us playing our own attacking free flowing football. It is here to stay by the looks of it, so i will try not to mention it again this season, no promises though.
The first ten minutes saw Arsenal start the better, although not creating anything . they seemed to be finding their passing game better than United, but i thought once United got through they managed to strangle Arsenal from creating anything in the final third. This was in the main due to Hargreaves and Anderson snuffing out anything, before it got to our penalty area. This tactical style meant that whilst we were snuffing out virtually all Arsenals attacking threat we were not having as much possession, and were relying on an individual piece of magic from one of our front three, with Giggs occasionally getting forward to support them. So whilst Arsenal were having more possession United looked and were far more dangerous in the final third when we did get up there. I have to say i wasn't that impressed with Arsenal's defence, and i would have loved to have seen two in form wingers running at them. At which point it has to be said, Ronaldo had another quiet game. You can't argue with the substitutions that were made in the last twenty minutes, but if Ronaldo had been took off, he could have had no complaints. Rooney on the other hand was superb again, they seem to have swapped form from last season, when it was Rooney playing in fits and starts, this season it seems to be Ronaldo who can find no consistency in his game. Fortunately, even when not at his best he still manages to find the back of the net regularly, not a bad habit to have.
The game seemed to be petering out to goalless stalemate at half time when a mix of good play and good fortune saw rooney find the back of the net via gallas's arm, after good play from Brown down the right. After being critical of his attacking prowess in recent weeks, it has got to be admitted we have actually scored quite a few goals form his crosses in recent weeks. Obviously it will be great to have Gary Neville back, but considering i don't consider him a natural right back Wes Brown has done a more than useful job for us at right back. And it has to be noted that the last minute equaliser came down the right hand flank after he had gone off. I think the beginning of the second half, and the equaliser was the catalyst for the games improvement as a spectacle. I believe if they hadn't got off to that flying start, united would have slowly strangled the game tactically again, and gone on to win one or two nil. But the goal gave Arsenal some self belief, and for the next quarter of an hour they had their best spell of the game, as United seeming a bit shell shocked to have conceded, struggled to get the game plan back together again. Then all of a sudden with about twenty minutes to go United seemed to me anyway to get the upper hand, and then with the substitutions, freshened things up bringing the forgotten man Saha on. And he soon showed us what he is capable of, when he is actually on a football field, when he fed a super ball through for Evra who had made a brilliant run and then crossed the ball past the goalie for Ronaldo to pass it into empty net. So with eight minutes to go, United were now 2-1 up, and were playing as well as they had done in the match. I couldn't see us letting this slip, and for the remainder of normal time Arsenal didn't look like they had a goal in them. So where that equaliser came from i don't know, United just seemed to switch off. And even that came after an almighty goalmouth struggle, when i thought we had managed to clear the danger, only to realise the linesman had given the goal as it had crossed the line.
So one point instead of three and Arsenal celebrating as though they had won. Fair enough we all know equalising in the last minute feels like winning, and conceding feels like losing, but i thought Arsenals celebrations were way over the top. One last thing as well as Hargreaves and Anderson played still we missed Paul Scholes badly, we just don't keep the ball as well without him.

Ferguson's fire burns bright

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/manchester_united/article2800660.ece
It did yesterday, he was really giving it some on the touchline, Keano has obviously decided to model himself on Clough not Ferguson.

Let's hope premier league managers are taking note
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2007/11/04/sfnbar104.xml
The only thing is, we have been a bit vulnerable in the air at the back recently too.

Targets can seriously damage your health
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,2204757,00.html
I couldn't agree more, since the death of ideology or rather since the triumph of the free market. This seems to be politicians answer to everything. We can run such a service better than you, set some targets, reach them whatever they are, and say everything is better, even when things are obviously just the same.
And they wonder people don't believe the statistics that they are being fed.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,2204756,00.html

Britain thrash New Zealand
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2007/11/04/sorugl104.xml
I wasn't surprised they won, but can't believe they won by such a margin, and managed to nil them as well.

Why are Tax havens even legal is what i would like to know. It is absolutely obvious they are full of funny money. I think the so called war on drugs is a ludicrous waste of money, but the fact that money launderers can hide their flit their ill gotten gains through these places make even more of a mockery of it as far as i am concerned. That's without the likes of Murdoch telling us to go to war through his papers. Whilst he and his organisation's pay no tax to the countries that conduct these wars, and whom the majority of their populations didn't agree with the invasion in the first place or staying there, now have to finance it. What was it Baldwin said of the press barons of his day, exercising power without responsibility
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,,2204734,00.html

We are suppose to worry about the Iranians building a bomb, this lot already has one
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2801658.ece

Wages obscene

sports minister brands John Terry's wages obscene
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/article2786375.ece
he is right of course, although it's not really fair picking one player out to be honest, however much of a tosser he is.

Met found guilty over De Menzes shooting
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article3119228.ece
and rightly so, but will anyone actually take responsibility for such a shambolic operation. I know you have to have some sympathy for them as at the time, it was a chaotic situation in London, but you had to follow the trial in the papers to know this was a mistake that should never have happened.

UAE Sheik to stand trial
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2202437,00.html
i know he wasn't a Saudi prince, but we all know that is the type of life that some of them lead. Not the gay aspect of the story, more the jet set lifestyle, champagne, rich hotels and call girls on the side, not exactly Wahhabi.

Having read a fair few books about Spanish and Italian history over the last couple of years, the difference the church has played in the politics and history of the Latin countries and i would probably include France in that, compared to the part played by the church in northern europe, or should i say religion is pretty striking. The catholic church was violently reactionary in Spain during the last century, Italy was used as a bulwark by the Americans along with the mafia to counter the communists and socialists after the second world war, and Vichy France was a continuum of the anti Dreyfus catholic military establishment. In other words the church has always been conservative and on the side of reaction.
Yet in the north of Europe, it has been in the main apolitical or slightly left of centre. Think of the nonconformists who started out as the bulwark of the Liberal party but then mainly transferred allegiance to the Labour party in the UK. Germany , the low countries and Scandinavia have all benefited from having churches that in the main have stayed out of the political arena. This is a tremendous article that shows that the Vatican never seems to learn in Spain.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ac_grayling/2007/11/rome_playing_politics.html
Thankfully the Spanish left is up for the challenge, and reason will always eventually triumph over tradition and superstition.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/spain/article/0,,2202877,00.html

The Chinese aim for space
http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,2202402,00.html
The era of American hegemony is going to come to an end over the next twenty years or so. As much as we all slag them off, we may wish it back again in the future, although not the neocon version of it. Actually the era of the neocons has almost certainly shortened their period of dominance, ironic really, the whole point of their ideology was to continue it for as long as they could. George W. Bush will surely go down in American history as one of the worst presidents they have ever had.