Berbatov angling for move?

I like him as a player, but i am not sure about his attitude. And would he be prepared to put up with squad rotation, i can't see spurs letting him go anyway.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml;jsessionid=0Y2YH2DVP4LVJQFIQMFSFF4AVCBQ0IV0?xml=/sport/2007/12/31/sfnfro131.xml

Fergie hopes Rooney and Carrick will be back for Birmingham tomorrow
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/7163892.stm

Is Thaksin Shinawatra back in the clear after the Thai election
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/tom_fawthrop/2007/12/a_billionaires_comeback.html
not yet says Tom Fawthrop

Anatole Kaletsky looks back to his economic forecast for 2007
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article3111688.ece

Pakistan and the bomb
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/johann_hari/article3295877.ece

The indie's albums of the year
http://arts.independent.co.uk/music/reviews/article3292132.ece

New years eve party poopers
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1030042_nye_a_nonevent
Seems pretty sensible to me, why do you need fireworks for everything anyway, a bit sad for me. We are Manchester aren't we, i thought we liked to be different. I don't know what we should have in the city centre to celebrate new years eve, but whatever it is, shouldn't it be different and innovative as befits our great city. When you see the news on new years day, it will show Sydney, Hong Kong, Edinburgh and London all celebrating with fireworks, are we so sad and boring that we can't come up with something a bit more unique. A winter carnival, i don't know anything a bit more inspiring than fucking fireworks.

Does anybody believe that Branson tosser is on the side of the ordinary guy
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7165490.stm
He is a total tosser

West ham 2-1 Manchester United

Back to earth with a bump, after a cracking day that saw almost everything go our way on boxing day, yesterday saw almost everything go wrong. I thought we had took west ham too lightly when i saw the team, no Anderson in midfield and Rooney not even on the bench, but apparently Rooney and Carrick had been struck down by a virus, so we can only blame the manager for not having Anderson in the starting eleven for what was the hardest fixture over the Christmas period.
I had expected this to be a hard game, and was hoping that we would be on good form. It was hard to know whether we were in decent touch as the Sunderland game had been so easy. Right from the off you knew we were, indeed in for a hard game, with West Ham crowding the midfield and stopping United getting any rhythm. There wasn't much fluency, and Tevez in particular seemed to slip way below what we have come to expect from him, holding onto the ball too long and not getting many telling passes in. Apparently he received an excellent welcome back to Upton Park, the consensus seems to be it was so good, it put him off his game. If that's so, let's hope he gets it out of his system the next time we play them. We had a scare early on as Mullins managed to get himself free in the box but he only managed to hit the bar, the resulting rebound fell to the feet of noble who blasted over the bar when he should have at least hit the target. But apart from that scare, there wasn't too much threat from the home team. Not that we doing that much better.
Then out of nowhere United managed to put their one quality counter attack of the game together to take the lead. Saha managed to find Giggs in acres of space on the left, and raced forward before delivering a perfect cross to find Ronaldo running into the box, and he made no mistake with a fine firm header. The game now became a tight affair with West ham creating the marginally better chances, forcing Kuszczak into fine save from a dipping Solano shot. The closest United came was when Giggs failed to control a through pass that would have put him clean through on goal. So as the teams went off at half time we were pleased to be one up.
The second half was the big disappointment for me, fair enough we didn't play well, but the substitutions and tactics just made things worse and contributed to that last dismal quarter of an hour where we just completely lost any grip on the game that we had . As poorly as we continued to play, West Ham were not troubling us to the same extent as in the first half and had hardly created a thing up the point the equaliser went in. When we got that penalty, after a bad mistake from Spector, i thought that would be it, three points in the bag, but when he missed it you worried that it may come back to haunt us. Not to the extent it did though.
The substitution of Tevez completely baffled me and still does, he wasn't playing well, that i won't deny and probably deserved to be subbed, but not by Anderson, a midfielder. And then reverting to the dreaded 4-5-1, and a real negative 4-5-1, everybody behind the ball playing for 1-0 leaving Saha up front on his own. From then on in we just completely handed the initiative to the home team, inviting them to come at us. And with nobody breaking forward from midfield when we did get the ball, we totally lost any threat going forward. And when they did equalise we had to reorganise the side and tactics again, and this time we became totally disorganised. Although both goals came from set pieces, those set pieces came about from the pressure we allowed West Ham to impose on us. At least if Tevez as poorly as he had played had stayed on, West ham would have had to leave one or two midfield players deeper to look after him. We never really looked like we had a goal in us after that and our third defeat on the trot duly arrived when the ref blew his whistle. With Chelsea winning in the last minute, and then Arsenal managing to win 4-1 at Goodison when they supposedly didn't play much better than us, it was a bad day all round.

Stop the partying warns Fergie
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/sport/football.html?in_article_id=505128&in_page_id=1779
I think it's fair to say that is probably aimed at Ferdinand as much as anybody.

A decent article by David James in the observer about stats and them telling only half the story
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/sport/story/0,,2233385,00.html

Motherwell captain Phil O'Donnel collapses and dies
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7164820.stm
very sad

Robert Fisk on the hypocrisy of western leaders blaming al-Qa'ida, whilst many Pakistanis are blaming Musharaf. I wouldn't rush to blame either, but that's the point isn't it, there are such a myriad of forces who alone or conspiring together could have perpetrated the assassination, nobody really has a clue who has done it. But Bush, Brown et al cynically use it, to divert their voters from their disastrous foreign policies
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article3291600.ece

Another bank in trouble
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/dec/30/merrilllynch.subprimecrisis

William Dalrymple on the flawed Benazir Bhutto
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2233261,00.html

Henry porter on the proposed bill to criminalise prostitutes clients
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2233229,00.html

Nick Cohen on her majesties revenue and customs
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2233253,00.html

Sunderland 0-4 Manchester United

A much easier win than i expected against a worryingly poor Sunderland side ( if you want Keano to be a future United manager that is ). United huffed and puffed a bit for the first twenty minutes not creating any chances of note, but once Rooney broke the deadlock in the twentieth minute, any threat from the mackems vanished into the air, and it became very very easy. It's usually hard to say after a game like this whether United played extremely well or the opposition were very poor, but not this time United hardly broke sweat. The second half was a glorified training session really as United settled for 3-0, the late penalty an added bonus.
If ship goals as easily as the first against the teams around them in the table in the second half of the season they will be headed straight back down. The way McShane and Higginbotham conspired to leave Rooney all alone in the middle doesn't bode well for their premiership future, saying that the finish was cool as you like. The weakened team, there was no Evra, Anderson, Hargreaves, Giggs or Tevez now took a vice like grip of the game. Sunderland started to look in big trouble every time United counter attacked. And ten minutes later that is how United made it two, as Ronaldo found Rooney breaking down on the left hand flank, Rooney cut back in and crossed with his right foot and Saha popped up in the middle to slot home a ridiculously easy second goal. That really was game set and match and much as Sunderland tried the chances were occurring in their half of the pitch with Ronaldo and Nani having decent shots saved before Vidic went pretty close with a close range volley from a corner. Then just when Sunderland thought they were going to escape at half time with just a two goal deficit, they gave a needless free kick away just outside the D. Up stepped Ronaldo and instead of trying to make the ball wobble in the air as he usually does he curled an absolute beauty into the top left hand corner of the net. So a great finish to a great half for United and we wondered how many it might end up.
But United took it easy in the second half , taking Ronaldo off with more than half an hour to go and replacing him with Park. Park played reasonably well for a man who has been out so long, though the quality of the opposition has to be taken into account. United were still a constant threat on the break, but the urgency and quality of final pass were missing for the most part. Pique got a run out, coming on for Vidic with a quarter of an hour to go, he probably won't get an easier 15 minutes for the rest of the season. The penalty decision in the last couple of minutes given against Collins may have been a bit harsh, i thought he did make contact, but unintentionally, sealed a pretty dismal day for the home side as Saha made no mistake to drive it home for his second and United's fourth of the afternoon.
With Arsenal and Chelsea only managing to draw and the rentboys having two men sent off, this was one of the best days of the season so far for us. And who could have foreseen us having a goal difference six goals better than anybody else at this stage of the season when we were struggling to score more than one goal a game in September.

How to take penalties the Ronaldo way, from the times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/manchester_united/article3101578.ece

Hull want Frazier Campbell to stay for the season
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/h/hull_city/7160842.stm
Good to see our youngsters out on loan doing well. I would like to hear how Cathcart is going on at Antwerp, he looked a real prospect in the youth team last season.

More from the infamous party from the mirror before Xmas
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/2007/12/24/police-doubt-man-u-rape-89520-20264770/

Benazir Bhutto assassinated
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3099534.ece
An article from the indy describing why her murder will not be solved.
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article3289239.ece
And even if it were would her supporters or opponents believe it anyway
What Pakistan should do next, or what the Americans should encourage them to do
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/paul_cruickshank/2007/12/plan_b_for_pakistan.html
Sympathy vote ?
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/paul_cruickshank/2007/12/plan_b_for_pakistan.html
Christopher Hitchens with the most balanced summary of her life so far http://www.slate.com/id/2180952/




The last ever episode of Extras was on last night and excellent it was too. It has been just as good as as the office for me.http://www.slate.com/id/2180952/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/dec/28/television