No decision on Gary Neville's career

They won't be discussing whether he will be getting a new contract or whether he will be hanging his boots up at the end of the season according to Fergie. I have to say i hope he retires, because you don't want to remember top players going out at the end of their careers with performances such as the one we saw against Leeds. What's worse you half expect it. He had looked as though he was gaining some kind of form before the injury against West Ham. But yet again he gets an injury and it's back to square one. If he does carry on, supposing the Glazers will stump up the money for a new contract, a big if at the moment as they make cuts wherever they can, i'd like to see him helping out the youngsters. In another report the Mail say he will be offered another one year contract.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/neville-retirement-is-nonsense-says-ferguson-1861807.html

Vidic out for ten days as United have ben finding the weather as much of a problem as anybody else
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/leagues/premierleague/manutd/6950622/Manchester-United-defender-Nemanja-Vidic-faces-10-day-lay-off-with-calf-injury.html

The end is nigh for United's golden generation according to Oliver Kay in the Times, with Scholes in no rush to sign a new contract it seems. That would be disastrous, he may not be the player he was but he can still control a game better than anybody else at the club. Even if he can't do it against the best opposition thses days.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/article6979872.ece

City buy Vierra, why? he isn't the player he was Sam Wallace tells us in this piece from the Independent. As if we didn't knwo having seen him against us and against the scousers in the champions league.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/transfers/vieira-cannot-step-back-to-his-glory-days-1861258.html

James Lawton on the spectacle that is test match cricket, it's still the real thing for me. I don't often see the winter tours so that was a nice treat, i have to admit when the 9th wicket went down i thought they were going to lose.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/cricket/james-lawton-two-series-of-high-drama-show-tests-still-have-power-to-thrill-1860001.html

Mike Atherton slautes Paul Collingwood
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/cricket/article6979992.ece

New Manchester band Delphic get the thumbs up from the Guardians Alexis Petridis. I saw them on Jools Holland and they looked pretty good. The new order comparisons are valid, but unline the Whil whose debut album wasn't bad these seem to be the real deal.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jan/07/delphic-acolyte-cd-review

British films to look forward to in the coming year from the independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/film-the-british-are-coming-1861050.html

Henry Porter on the over the top responses of the boys in blue
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/henryporter/2010/jan/08/police-britain-armed-response

Giggs freeman of Salford

Giggs honoured with freedom of Salford
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/giggs-to-get-freedom-of-city-1860629.html

Andy Cole reckons the hairdryer would have been force 10 after Sunday's feeble display
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/the-andy-cole-column-upset-would-have-sent-fergie-to-force-10-1859991.html

Kevin Garside thinks the recent doom and gloom around United has been overdone as United's lapses this season have been due to Fergie's team being in transition. I would agree with that up to a point. The fact is though he has never has to do this with no transfer kitty in his back pocket. Add to that Vidic is almost certain to go in the summer and who knows who else if big enough bids come in. Will the debt mean that if the price is right off you go as now everyone has a price. How could anyone rebuild a team and compete for titles in those circumstances.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/leagues/premierleague/manutd/6943169/Manchester-United-still-rule-the-roost-despite-Manchester-Citys-lottery-win.html

Diouf is given Tevez's number 32 shirt, i have seen the you tube clips of him and he looks interesting. One very interesting aspect of his play going of those clips is he looks very good in the air. He is supposed to have blistering pace, but i have heard that before then seen them and wondered where the speed has gone.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1241307/Mame-Biram-Diouf-handed-Carlos-Tevezs-old-shirt-Sir-Alex-Ferguson-says-ready-Manchester-United-debut.html
Let's hope we have found another Solskjaer.

Ian Ladyman on the financial worries worrying United fans
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1241200/So-sure-youve-got-60m-spend-Manchester-United-Sir-Alex.html

Jonathan Wilson's latest guardian column ponders the thought that TV has influenced the latest trends surrounding football tactics.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2010/jan/05/is-television-holding-back-football-evolution
I can see where Saachi and Valdano are coming from. But whilst they would put team above individual and Galctico puts the individuals above the team the way Fergie had United playing before the selling of Ronaldo seemed to me a healthy marriage of the two. I suppose Barca play with a system that whilst relying on brilliant individuals does not rely on the individual over the collective And they aren't bad are they. Even if as United and Chelsea have both shown in the last two champions league semi finals they can be snuffed out.

Will Portsmouth become the first team to go bust in the history of the premier league. It would be a huge embarrassment for the money grabbing clowns that run the game.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/portsmouth-reach-crisis-point-over-players-pay-1860006.html

Michael Vaughan thinks England were lucky to get away without an official reprimand over their ball tampering tactics during the latest tests.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/international/england/6943182/Michael-Vaughan-Englands-James-Anderson-lucky-to-escape-ban-for-ball-tampering.html

Have the wannabe putschists condemned the labour party to electoral suicide, Steve Richards thinks it was.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/steve-richards/steve-richards-the-only-certainty-about-this-plot-it-will-damage-labour-1859927.html

Anatole Kaletsky thinks Brown and Ball's electoral strategy will be a loser
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/anatole_kaletsky/article6978409.

The debt is beginning to hurt

David Conn and Daniel Taylor on the worrying signs coming out of old trafford, which has been all the talk on the various United message boards. David Conn asks who could have forseen just a few years ago that United would go into the new decade in such a dire financial position and that City would be entering it as the new powerhouse of British football.
Whilst all of us that opposed the Glazer takeover could not forsee what's happened at the boo camp we did point out the dangers that are now sadly being proved right at United. The fact that the vast majority of people couldn't be bothered to use their brains and read about the dangers and accused all of us who opposed the takeover of the club of being political, doesn't surprise me. It's the same situation that led to the credit crunch, I'm afraid everything has some political aspect to it. To a none financial expert it still holds true to me that if something looks too good to be true and just looks like funny money then it almost certainly is too good to be true and that it is funny money. The Barca, Real Madrid supporters owned club model that we argued for at the time was surely the way to go. Yet another catastrophic failiure by this supposedly centre left government. After the Murdoch inspired Sky bid that was defeated they had the motive to do something regarding football ownership that whilst it may have not been to the clubs liking it would have been popular with fans and it would have proved to have been the right way to go. As we look at the two biggest clubs in England United and Liverpool struggling with debt, Portsmouth in big big, trouble and outside the premier league Wtaford amonst others badly struggling.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/david-conn-inside-sport-blog/2010/jan/06/manchester-united-glazers-debt

Whilst Daniel Taylor argues things are starting to not look so rosy for United's future
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/jan/05/sir-alex-ferguson-manchester-united

Even the BBC's business editor has been looking at United on his latest blog, and he is none too impressed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2010/01/can_man_utd_spend.html

Yet for all the strong financial position City are in they can still post the second biggest financial yearly loss.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/city-record-16393m-loss-ndash-and-worse-is-to-come-1859133.html
At sometime financial restrictions will be brought into the game otherwise it will eat itself.

Nicky Butt considering hanging up his boots at the end of the season
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/football-league/newcastle-midfielder-butt-considering-retirement-1859395.html

Tim Rich tell us not to write Fergie off. I ain't, but i am increasingly alarmed, not just worried, about what happens when he decides he has had enough. Because that was always going to be the hardest job in football. But if the new man takes over a declining team that will have lost Giggs, Scholes, Neville, Van der Sar and who knows who we will have been forced to sell to help pay off the debt, he will be taking over an impossible job. And never mind winning trophies or qualifying for the champions league it could be a task to qualify for the UEFA cup. It will be the end of the Busby reign all over again. But whereas the money was available then and the mess United got themselves into should have been avoided. This time it will all be about some financial chancers from the States that were unforgivably loaned the money and allowed by the laws put in place by a Labour government to buy our club.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/tim-rich-ferguson-feels-the-heat-ndash-but-hes-been-here-before-1858821.html

Mark Ogden thinks that if the debt eventually becomes too much for the Glazer's to service then even in this severe downturn there will want to be somebody wanting to buy into the biggest sporting institution in the world.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/sport/markogden/100004694/why-it-will-take-another-sheikh-mansour-to-rescue-manchester-united-from-the-glazers/
In all these reports it's hardly ever mentioned what madness the takeover actually was.

Vidic denies fallout rumours, but not that he wouldn't mind a move, or his missus would like one.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/leagues/premierleague/manutd/6938757/Manchester-United-defender-Nemanja-Vidic-denies-bust-up-with-Sir-Alex-Ferguson.html

Rob Kelly thinks time is running out for Berbatov's United career
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/sport/robkelly/100004676/manchester-uniteds-dimitar-berbatov-has-five-months-to-save-his-old-trafford-career/