Liverpool 2-1 Manchester United

Gutted, with the team that almost picked itself due to yet another injury crisis, to have put in such a good performance at Anfield and to get knocked out five minutes from the end wasn't what we deserved. But if you give such soft goals away you get what you deserve, i suppose.
It's being said by some reds today that what use was there in controlling the game if you don't really look like doing anything with it. I don't go along with that at all. When was the last time we went to Anfield and bossed the game, it's that long ago i can't remember it. Even the last couple of times when we actually won there, we were poor and basically nicked the three points. To have gone there with so many injuries and to have controlled the game was an achievement. It hasn't escaped my notice that it was done with a three man midfield with Scholes in the middle of it. I think Scholes delivered a fitting reposte to those who though his return from retirement was a retrograde step.
To be honest i'm not sure why Fergie brought him off, i know he probably isn't 100% fit and he may struggle to do 90 minutes, but he didn't seem to be tiring when brought off. And one again i would have to query Fegie's decision to bring Hernandez on. I know he had a great season last year and i know he's a goalscorer, but almost every time he has been brought on lately we look less like scoring when he comes on than we did before. If we had to make changes i would have kept the same system 4-3-3 and brought Berbatov on for Park and stuck Welbeck on the left.
Having said all that it shouldn't have mattered as the winner was such a soft goal to give away. Evra who had a decent game all things considered should have done better and i thought De Gea didn't cover himself in glory either. I wouldn't put as much blame on the Spaniard for the Liverpool opening goal, i thought that showed how much we are missing Vidic. What were the defenders doing pussy footing around before the corner was taken, they should have been all over those Liverpool attackers letting them know they wouldn't be bossed around, instead we got a couple of half hearted shoves, and then no jump at all as the ball came over. It does have to be said though, that De Gea doesn't inspire confidence, physically he just looks like he can be bullied every time. I wouldn't have played him myself, but that would be more down to the fact that with an ever changing back four we should at least try to have one position of stability at the back. I can't think that will have done much for his onfidence, he is going to have to show some cojones to come back from this .
If the injuries keep on coming as thick and fast as they have all season then the league title is going to be an almighy ask, which is why yesterday was so galling. I have thought for a while that the FA cup was our best chance of silverware this season, and it's about time we won the thing. Old jug ears might not be the trophy it once was, but it' still a trophy worth winning.

Fergie laments the sickening blow that was the scouse late winner, but he is happy with our new midfield signings, i suppose, for once, he might have a point with his favourite mid season catch phrase.

Andy Cole likes what he sees in Danny Welbeck and belives that Capello should be taking him into the England squad for the European championships in ths summer. I don't for a minute think believe Capello will leave him at home.
It looks like Mame Biram Diouf is to move on to pastures new with a move to Bundesliga Nurnberg on the cards. I'm not sure how good Nurnberg are these days, to be honest i would have though the Championship was more his level.
Yet more contract problems at youth level according to the People, if there is anything to that,a big if, it beggars belief on so many levels, it's not true. I can't say i'm that convinced by him to be honest, last season Thorpe was the young defender who looked the business, Fryers didn't really stand out. He has done alright in his first team appearances this season apart from one terrible mistake that he got away with. But his distribution hasn't looked good enough for me.

Robert Skidelsy asks does debt matter, not if your the boss of RBS it doesn't, Aditya Chakraborrty argues that the payout to Stephen Hester is a disastrous deal for the taxpayer. Was anyone ever in doubt that this deal would go through, the tories were never going to block this. Though to be fair to them, i don't for a minute believe Labour would have behaved differently. It does sicken me sometimes watching Labour berate the government over incidents like this when you look at how they behaved in office.
George Monibot wasn't impressed with the governments proposals on executive pay reform, as modest as they are i wouldn't be suprised if even these aren't enacted.

After last weeks news that Britain's national debt rose to over £1 trillion, Frasier Nelson argues that George Osborne owes Alistair Darling an apology, he really had it in for Osbornomics last week. Larry Elliott writes that last weeks dismal GDP figures spell trouble for George Osborne and wonders how long it will be before the credit agencies start to seriously look at Britain's triple A rating.
William Keegan doesn't mince words in today's Observer, claiming the George Osborne is the most dangerous chancellor he has ever known
Faisal Islam argues that as a UK slump returns it would be hard to blame the Eurozone crisis for its re-appearance, it won't stop them trying and probably succeeding in getting the electorate to believe them though, will it.

Anfield revisited

Utd reserves hit barcodes for six

You would never have guessed that they were going to net six times at half time but it's not the first time that piled it on once the opposition are out of the game. Will Keane showed nice flashes, though he ruined a great run in the first half by trying to beat one more man instead of passing to his left. He made up for that with his well taken first goal.
Paul Pogba actually showed the kind of form that had pundits raving about him last season. One drag back to beat his man on the bye line and cross to Lindgard in the first half, was worth the admission alone, just a pity Lindgard couldn't finish it off. It will take more than one impressive reserve outing before i change my mind about him though.
Michael Keane once again impressed especially the longer the game went on, it's amazing how much he has shot up since last years youth cup and looks like he is still growing. He makes some brillianr foward runs the longer the game goes on and the more stretched the game becomes. I'm not as sure as i was that we have future first teamers in this squad as i was but they are great to watch. Once the the game is there they go for the jugular, something i wish the first team would do more often. Though to be fair the first team have shown more signs of doing that this season when not decimated by injuries.

Welbeck has still not finished growing according to Fergie, i'm not sure whether that's good news or not. He seems strong enough as it is, he has certainly not been bullied by any centre halves this season. The worry would have to be, not fully grown means there are still more niggling injuries to come, when United have played well this season he has been a big part of the reason why.
Steve Bruce argues that his time at Sunderland was crucial to his improvement, time on the pitch enabled the boy to become a premier league man. I would dissent from that for one minute, i watched them a fair few times last season and they were always a far better team when he was in the side as the stats would suggest. I thought he was the man who made them tick, even alloing for the goalscoring of Darren Bent. We certainly need him fit for the run of fixtures that started at Arsenal and continues at Anfailed tomorrow.
Speaking of which Fergie has called for calm, telling the players to act responsibly. I don't really expect any fireworks on the pitch, though you can never be sure, but i can't really expect it to be very calm off it. I would take a one nil all day long, but it would be even nocer if we could actually put in a performance at Anfield for the first time for years. It's hard to see though, it's hard to see past the usual 100 miles an hour battle that it has become over recent years. If Jones is fit i would like to see him in central midfield as he was earlier in the season.
I thought Dalglish's decision to play Bellamy up front against City was a big part of the reason for their improved performance against City. The good news for United is that Bellamy doesn't generally play two games in four days, he looked fucked just before he came off on Wednesday. So there must be a fair chance that Carroll will come back into the team tomorrow. If Bellamy does start it will be interesting to see how long he lasts.
The bad news for us, is our injury list just never seems to come down. It looks like Park will come in for the injured Nani, it's hard to see Fergie bringing Young, if fit, straight back into this game, that obviously blunts our attack. I hope that Fergie is bluffing when he warned that Rooney was not certain to be fit. If he isn't and Rooney is missing we will be woefully short on creativity. I couldn't see Giggs starting this game but if Rooney is out i can see Giggs standing in for him just behind Welbeck. It would be nice to see Ferdinand fit for tomorrow, but i mean fit, not the half fit that was struggling through 90 minutes throughout January. If not it has to be Smalling and Evans in the centre of defence with Rafael and Evra at full back. There can surely be no thought of leaving Evra out.

Steve Richards warns the coalition to drop NHS reforms before it's too late. Lasnley doesn't seem to be going out of his way to take the medical professions with him as he carries on his detested reforms. I'm not too sure it's politcally a wise move to start slagging off the doctors.
Peter Oborne returns to his attack on the moral decay of the British establishment. I wouldn't argue with the two cases he brings up, but i can never see how his policy prescriptions would alter anything.
Apple are slammed over their attitude to the Chinese wokers who produce their massive profits and who pay the price. If that firm was a blue chip British outfit would Peter Oborne be slaughtering them?

Freddy Gray in the Spectator asks whether American conservatives have given up, looking from this side of the pond it would seem so, you can't believe that Obama could possibly lose to Romney or Gingrich.

Happy days from 85, more of the same tomorrow please, you can see me on the pitch at the end, what a night.

Arsenal 1-2 Manchester United

After events earlier in the afternoon i suppose it was imperitive that we emerged with the three points from the game and thanks to Welbeck's goal ten minutes from time we did indeed manage to keep the pressure on City. If that final ball had been better in the first 45 minutes it could have been so much easier.
I was hoping that Jones would be paired alongside Carrick in central midfield, but Fergie chose to start Jones at right back and pair Giggs with Carrick in the middle of the pitch. I was definitely hoping that Jones would start in the middle of the park at Anfield next week, but the twisted ankle that saw him leave the pitch after just a quater of an hour has put paid to that. Just what we didn't need another injury, let's hope it's not as bad as it looked.
United completely bossed the first half, the only disappointment being it took us until the last minute of the first half to actually get on the scoreboard. Wenger chose to put Vermaelen on Valencia meaning Valencia was never going to be as dominant as he has been over the last few weeks. This meant that Nani had to be more on his game than he has been recently. But as easily as Nani found it to be his man, the out of position Djourou, he couldn't produce the final ball when it mattered.
Once again Welbeck was causing the back line of the opposition all kinds of problems, but Rooney was slightly disappointing again. Giggs and Carrick dominated the middle of the park as Arsenal starngely sat back. When the goal did come, it was simplicity itself as Nani fed Giggs who put in the perfect centre for Valencia to hit the back of the net with a rare header. So the first half domination didn't go to waste as looked like happening.
The second period saw Arsenal remember that they were the home side as they started to cause our back line problems. All the talk before the game had been about keeping Van Perise quiet, which United had managed fairly easilyup this point. But a Smalling slip saw Arsenal break forward and saw Van Persie produce the miss of the match. It was now end to end and Welbeck saw an effort he hit unbalanced cleared off the line by Mertesacker. That looked like it could be a crucial miss when Van Persie equalied with twenty minutes to go.
Inexplicably Wenger then took off Chamberlain who had probably been the home teams most dangerous player to replace him with the Russian Arshavin. It didn't take long for the Arsenal fans jeers to be fully vindicated when Arshavin lost Valencia all too easily who then produced one of his runs and put the ball on a plate for Welbeck who made no mistake. United deserved the three points but we made harder work of it than should have been the case. I would imagine next Saturday's fourth round tie at Anfailed will be a tougher encounter than yesterday regardless of their defeat to Bolton. We will need to be stronger in the middle of the park than we were yesterday, because it will be a battle, i don't expect to see much pretty football next week.

Fergie was happy with yesterday's performance singling Smalling out for praise, whuilst Wenger has to face the music as his relationship with his own fans takes a turn for the worse.

The official site profiles the much mis-understood Michael Carrick, he is playing well at the moment.

Daniel Taylor profiles Ravel Morrison and argues United have never had a player like him, thank fuck for that. Ahead of the north London Manchester double header Gary Neville picks City as his team of the season so far... It sounds like he fancies United's chances.