Manchester United 0-0 Newcastle United

Disapointing result and generally and a disapointing performance. Yet those first twenty minutes saw us play some fast attacking football. It seemed once Newcastle actually got into the game and started to create the odd chance, United became more conservative and regressed to the sterile possession based football that Van Gaal loves and I and it would seem an increasing amount of reds do not.
I had to laugh at the grumbling though, you can bet your life if United had won that game by the odd goal everything in the world would be sweet. Van Gaal was probably right to say that it was a better performance that we gave in either of our two victories. A bit of credit shoud go to the visitors, once they had escaped going behind during those opening encounters, they showed much more resillience than most Newcastle sides of recent years.
If Rooney's disallowed goal had been allowed to stand who knows how the game would have gone. Sorry to sound like a broken record though, he wasn't really at the races again was he. His lack of pace must surely be a detriment to our attack. People say he suffers through a lack of service and the "philosophy", but surely his lack of pace makes it even harder to put defence splitting passes through to him when there must be hardly a centre back in the league who can't easily out pace him.
Januzaj came in for plenty of stick yesterday, he wasn't great, but I'd still have left him on before Rooney. It can't be easy for flair players to perform when they're told they can't do this and must do that.
Memphis Depay came down to Earth after his excellent display on Wednesday as Newcastle proved that Brugges really were as poor as some of us thought on Tuesday. He started well enough, but the longer the game went on the more erratic and Nani like his decision became. It's a learning curve for him, his combination play with Shaw was still quite good.
Some have said Schweinsteiger went off the boil after suffering an injury. But was he injured, he didn't come off did he, at the game, I thought he just looked knackered, after half an hour! Even though our play became more conservative I thought we looked better with Carrick and Schneiderlin in the middle.
I've always thought that if we get Bale, which I still think might happen, it will Be Mata that would make way. And that would be OK by me, whilst he a nice little footballer, he is too slow to play out wide and I don't think good enough to be our main number ten. He did some nice things during the game, but he just slows things down too much at times.
Which brings me to Herrera, it seems to do a lot of reds heads in that Van Gaal isn't starting him. But where would you play him? Too slow to play wide not dazzling enough for number ten and I'd have Carrick and the two Sch"'s infront of him in the middle of the park. Again, for me, yes, he's a nice, neat and tidy player but he's not a really top player, a valuable squad player but no more. I really don't get what some reds see in him. When you see Silva play for City, I'm afraid he really is on a different planet to our two attacking midfielders.

Music

Calexico - Edge Of The Sun: I love their brand of American tinged by mexican influences and this doesn't disappoint, another little cracker.

Django Django - Born Under Saturn: Their first album was pretty good and this follow up is another decent electronic indie pop effort.

Jagga Jazzist - Starfire: This is a superb album from the Norwegian jazz/rock/experimental combo. It's more of an electronica album if anything, almost symphonic electronica, top stuff.

Jim O'Rourke - Simple Songs: I was expecting something a bit more out there, but this is an album of superior singer/songwriter craft. It's chock full of lovely tunes.

Paul Weller - Saturn Returns: I've always been in and out of favour with Weller, loved the Jam, not so much the Style Council. Loved Wild Wood, but thought the run of albums that followed whilst having occasional gems were a bit conservative. But the run of albums since the brilliant 22 Dreams have all been right up my street and this is no exception, excellent, again.

Saun & Starr - Look Closer: Sharon Jones backing singers got out front on their own and the results are pretty good, similar kind of soul to Jones, unsurprisingly with the same backing band.

Terakaft - Alone: If you like Tinariwen you'll like this, from the same part of the wrold as their north African desert compadres, it's a similar kind of electric desert blues.

Manchester United 3-1 Brugges

I'm not getting carried away, it was only Brugges and Belgian football isn't what it was, but still, the second half especially was the most I've enjoyed the football on show at Old trafford since the City win.
I thought there would be a few changes, given we've now got a squad that can be rotated. But he kept Januzaj in, which was a surprise, a pleasant surprise for me. Carrick started, when I'd thought Schweinsteiger would definitely start. Mind you he came on even earlier than during the first two games.
We didn't get off to the best start, with that own goal from Carrick, that was unfortunate, but also a bit sloppy. It didn't take long for United to get back on level terms as for the first time we started to see what all the hype over Memphis Depay was all about. He took the first goal excellently, he was cool under pressure and didn't just blast it when he got a sight of goal, he placed it expertly, a natural goalscorers goal. He looks far better on the wing, I can see why Van Gaal tried him in the middle, but it didn't really work, he just looked lost. Now he's out wide it's as if he has come alive. The second goal was the type of goal Young actually scores. And you wonder when he will come back into the picture and if so, who for?
Schweinsteiger came on at half time and gave his most convincing performance in a red shirt as United played some pretty exciting stuff. The third goal took it's time in coming though, there was relief all round at the thought of taking a two goal cushion across the channel next week. To be honest I was reasonably happy with a goal cushion, we should have enough to not get beat over there, they didn't really look much. A final word on the last goal, it was a fine finish from Fellaini in his brief cameo, but it was an excellent cross from Memphis to cap off a possible man of the match performance from the Dutchman.