United announce Kagawa signing

I'm not sure why you'd announce a signing before you have got the player to sign on the dotted lines and have shook hands on it to be honest. If he was involved in a car accident between now and the actual signing would United really go through with the deal. Same goes for Chelsea with Hazard and the Hulk signings. I suppose in the case of United, the Glazer's are desperate to allay the impression that we are skint and can't compete, especially a few days before the end of the season ticket renewal date. Maybe even more so, if take up has been slow as Fergie's ridiculous video has led the rumour mongers to believe.
As to the player himself, time will tell, but the signs are good, he may not be a central midfield dynamo, but he brings a little more creativity and hopefully will bring more goals to take a little more of the goal scoring burden away from Rooney's shoulder's. I don't really see him fitting into a 4-4-2 as i have said before, so it will be interesting to watch how our tactics evolve next season. I hope Cleverley can get over his injury problems next term as i can see him and Kagawa combinging well. I hope that our transfer dealings don't stop at Kagawa and the hoped for signing of Powell, but i wouldn't be too downcast if that is it for the summer.
As much as i, along with almost every red with a pair of eyes has beomoaned the lack of recruitment in central idfield over the last 3 years, if you pushed me for where a further priority signing, it would have to be a new left back. It isn't looking likely at the moment though, if Everton are really asking £20 million for Baines, it won't be happening. As for United's supposed interest in Valencia's left back Alba, if Barca are in for him, forget it, he won't be choosing us over the Catalans.

Maybe we will find we have got one over Chelsea if Hazard turns out not the be the new Ronaldo, some have made him out to be. He was pretty underwhelming on Saturday in that mind numbing friendly on Saturday for Belguim. To be fair to the guy, he was played totally out of position up front on his own, so it's far too easily to say. In today's papers he has claimed that it was Abramovitch that persuaded him to opt for Stamford bridge, what does that say about him. A Russian oligarch famous throughout football for knowing the first thing about the sport impressed him more than Alex Ferguson, one of the greatest managers ever.
The only other talking point of that game for me was i was hoping Danny Welbeck would get some time with Rooney behind him, but it wasn't to be. Welbeck took his goal superbly, how anybody could pick Carroll ahead of him is totally beyond me, but i just have a feeling that Carroll will start against France.

Will Hutton on form in the Observer, the facts are clear, this cruel austerity experiment has failed, world leaders are paralysed by their dogma. Meanwhile G7 wrold finace leaders are to meet in a sign of heigthened global alarm at the crisis. Ambrose Evans- Pritchard reports of worries of a global slump as growth of the world money supply drops. Ha-Joon Chang goes back in time and argues that history shows that austerity has never worked, slashing budgets has always led to recession. The time has come to choose what sort of society we really want.
Paul Krugman who has been touring Britain promoting his latest book, tells Decca Aitkenhead, he is tired of being Cassandra, he'd like to win for once.
George Soros argues that Europe's future is not up to the Bundesbank.

Sorry for being so predictable

Late spring clean for United?

Stuart Mathieson sees a summer clear out of United's squad, with a shake up of the playing staff. We have already released Owen and Kuszczak, Berbatov seems almost certain to join them, though how much United will get for him seems a moot point.
I don't think anybody expects Paul Pogba to be still at the club come pre-season training, though who knows for sure, the way that saga has dragged on. I won't lose much sleep if he swicthes to Juve myself, he could still turn out to be the player some see him developing into, but as far as i'm concerned he has already shown he hasn't got the character that we want to see in a Manchester United player.

The sun argue that Facebook share flop is bad new for the Glazer's proposed far east IPO share floatation as companies who over value their company, as the Glazer's patently had at £2 million and that was before the present market uncertainty, will struggle.
Forget fantasy football, the Star seem have to have started a summer fantasy transfer competition, as if we are going to be able to lay out £30 million for Modric. I'm fairly sure if we had been successful in our pursuit of Hazard, Nani would have been on his way out to balance the books. United have been getting their excuses into the papers whilst Chelski have been splashing the cash. To be fair to United, if those the figures that have been quoted are correct, United do have a case. I rate Modric as a decent player, but i don't have him down as top notch, i wouldn't want us blowing £30 million on him. As for the others, silly money again.

Losing councillors by the thousands, now the Indy reports the lib dems are losing members, as one fifth of the parties activists quit across the country. Just as bad, remaining members are refusing go out and campaign for the party, presumably in disgust at the rightward drift the party has took before and whilst joining the tories in coalition.
Polly Toynbee tells the Lib dems left wing, it's now or never, it's time to wield the knife. She can be guilty of misreading the political mood, but if a split in the Lib dem ranks is to happen, now seems to be the time it would happen. I'm not sure whether that would be in the best interests of the party though, obviously it would be in the best interests of the country. If Cable and the left of the party stick it out, when the seemingly inevitable wipe out happens at the next election, the left will surely take the party back with the David Laws and his ilk crossing the floor to the natural base, the tory party.  The Torygraph are also reporting contacts at senior level between Li dems and the Labour party, maybe something is going to happen.
Toynbee is right that there will never be a better time to engineer the parties exit from the coaltion. An economic ploicy that is destroying the economy, a prime minister throwing Warsi to the dogs but keeping the equally incompetent Hunt in place as a human shield, never mind judgement what about morals. Even worse maybe it's politically incompetent, i think it was Iain Martin who tweeted last night that this was O' Level politics.
 

United lose injury league and it doesn't get better

We didn't really need a league table to show us that United had the worst injury record in the premier league last season or that City had the best. It does make you laugh when you remember blues moaning about losing Kompany and Toure for a few games, and even more so when you remember they weren't even injuries.
Given the news that Will Keane has done a cruciate playing for England under 19's, virtually the same injury as Vidic and will be out for about the same amount of time, the season 2011-12 and the European championship can't finish quickly enough.
In fact when you remember the injury plagued season we had the year before, you really have to start worrying that there is something wrong at United. Bad luck can always happen one season with injuries but two starts to look suspicious, if we get a third in row next year, things surely must be looked at. Ironically i hardly remember Keane having any injuries all season. It goes without saying what a big blow it is for the player and indeed for United, next season, one way or the othe, next season was going to be a big year for the next United srtiker to come through the ranks.

The media seem to be pretty sure that the Kagawa signing is just a formality with the Japanese international more concerened to play in the premier league for Manchester United, the most famous team in Japan, than interest in stratospheric wages and £millions for his agent.
Jamie Jackson describes why the signing typifies United's Manchester United's new age of austerity, where does the new come from. If the gimps are pininng their hopes on UEFA's new fair play rules, Chelski's recent splash into the market doesn't augur well. Mind you if it's true that Abramovitch is going to spend £38 million on Porto's Hulk the transfer market has nuts, he's never worth that.
Andy Mitten spells out the transfer market reality for Manchester United, we can't compete as long as all those commercial deals just go to paying off the debt for the gimps.

Alongside the news that Scholes has officially put pen to paper to sign on for one more season, was the announcement that Ben Amos has signed a three year contract for the club. It's interesting that he has signed for three years, i can only presume that as long as De Gea continues to improve as the club's first choice goalie, United either expect Lindegaard to want to leave in search in search of first team football or hope to cash in on a proven premier league standard goalkeeper. I couldn't really argue with that as Amos hasn't let us down when he has been asked to do a job and would be a big, big improvement on Kuszczak as our second choice goalie.

I've got say i'm suprised by the amount of reds who are pretty blase about Nani's comments during a Portugese TV interview, in fact not just blase, there are a fair few who would welcome his departure. I can't go along with that, i'm not his biggest fan, he is maddeningly inconsistent, but when he is at the top of his game, he is one of the best fowards in the world. As much as like Valencia, when Nani is on form he is probably a class above his south American teammate. Add to that the fact that Nani can play all along the front line and he is an assett to any football club.
I have read reds argue that they wouldn't mind him going, but would like to see who was bought into replace him. Isn't that the whole point, we haven't got the money to replace him with like for like quality with our resources at the moment. Unless our scouts have unearthed a Ronaldo, that the rest of Europe's scouts have missed, we 'll be in the bargain basement again. 

I wonder whether Solskjaer regrets his little dalliance with Villa now that Rodgers have left Swansea for Loonypool, Swansea city looks to me just the right sort of challenge for him if we were take his chances in the premier league. A club with modest ambitions, a decent playing staff who have been taught to play football in the correct manner.

The Eurozone continues to frighten the markets and seems to finally to be staring to scare the pants of the European establishment as Bloomberg report Merkel's isolation deepens as ECB president Mari Draghi warning that the Euro is being shown to be unsustainable. I have said before that history will not treat her kindly, if she keeps on fiddling whilst Rome burns it could be worse than that.
French IMF chief Christine Lagarde didn't use the wisest words last week with her criticism of the Greek people, what future will that organisation have left if the Eurozone implodes and cracks the current neo-liberal economic world order to smithereens. The Economist report that Europe's biggest fear, a bank run that they can't stop, it could be just around the corner.

In the week that saw a British media blitz for New York Times columnist and nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman, the Torygraph's Jeremy Warner, an enthusiastic supporter of Osborne's early decision to focus on cuts ahead of growth, claims Britain can't afford to fall for the false charms of the false economic messiah. Montagu Norman lives

Proof that the private sector works, and how it works, for the 1% of course, that's how it works. No wonder the tories on the public accounts committee wouldn't allow the whistleblower to go on the record in public, not that new labour have anything to brag about over this.

A former IT salesman describes how the way the IT world operates isn't a million miles away from the way the way big finance works and why we should be worried.

Music
Calibro 35 - Ogni riferimento..e puramente casuale: The latest offering from the Italian outfit heavily influenced by a great mix of progressive rock, funk and snatches of jazz. I absolutely love this group, this is as good if not better than their last album.

Espernaza Spalding - Radio music Society: As the album title suggests, the jazz bassist singers lates album has a more commercial soul tinge to it. It's a superb album, with cracking songs and a great band.

Field Music - Plumb: They are nothing if not consistent the brothers from Sunderland, it's the usual mix of pure pop and slightly experimental. I have read them compared to a mix of the Beatles and XTX, i would add a dose of Jone Cale circa Paris 1919 to that.  

Graham Coxon - A + E: Fomer Blur guitarist goes back to the elecrtic guitar to crank it up a notch from his last record. Pretty good, excellent at times, less punk pop than his mid noughties output that i loved, more Sonic Youth or Pavement influenced. Well some of it anyway.

M. Ward - A wasteland companion: Another slab of indie pop americana from Ward and another rewarding experience. His albums seem so effortless, simple and full of tunes.

Orbital - Wonky: The Hartnoll brothers back together again and they roll back the years to the nineties, becasue this is mostly excellent, there's a couple of iffy tracks, but i don't even mind them after a few listens.

The Civil wars - Barton Hollow: This received a lot of plaudits over in ths states upon its release and it's easy to see why. Americana, folk or country whatever you would describe it as, the playing is great, the vocals excellent and there's some outstanding tunes on it.