Norwich city 1-2 Manchester United

Yet another late late show from United, and just to put the icing on a delicious cake, that boy Giggsy scored the winner on his 900th appearance. As others have said maddeningly United waited for the Norwich equaliser with seven minutes to go to play the best football of the match.
Having said that i don't really go along with the theory that the best side lost. Norwich opened the game showing that theye weren't going to worried about reputations. But once United got a feel for the game they kept the ball well enough and the passing looked good enough for us to threaten the home team. When the opener came, it came from a slightly unexpected source as Scholes gifted in at the far post, as in days of yore to head home. If we do manage to go on and pip the berties to the title, i will point to his return from retirement as the moment when our challenge turned the corner.
United continued to play well and had a couple of decent chances, Welbeck coming closest after a one two with Hernandez was brilliantly saved by Norwich goal Ruddy. But then as against Ajax, United took their foot off the pedal, allowing the home team to gain confidence. The home team had been playing reasonably enough, but United started to pass for passing's sake to no great purpose. Norwich's hard working midfield's pressure started to force United into giving the ball away and all of a sudden we started to come under a spell of sustained pressure.
Norwich had been watching the video's and tried to target Ge Gea, but the Spaniard coped with everything, making some fine saves in both first and second halves and possibly having his finest game in a United jersey. Our defence was a little shakier than i would have liked once more but we got through to half time with the one goal lead.
The second half saw United keep the ball better, but Norich still made it hard for us. But whilst we might not have been at the top of our game we did make some good chances. With eight minutes to go, unlike most commentators i thought we would see it through and maybe pick up another. And really, whilst it may have been a good finish from Holt, it was a pretty soft goal to concede, there were four red shirts around him when he turned to shoot.
But then United through everything at the home team and only Welbeck will know how he came out of this game without a goal. His first chance wasn't a bad effort, the goalie got out well to smother his shot, but the missed header after it being put on a plate for him by Giggs was a howling miss. I wouldn't be too hard on him, because otherwise, once again he had a cracking game, but he will have to improve his finishing, and i'm sure he will as he gains more experience.
The winner from Giggs in the second minute of injury time and the celebrations were just pure United, nobody does that better. It was actually a superb finish from Giggs, it was not an easy chance, but his touch made it look so simple. So off to Tottenham next week, if we can come away with the three points next week, a big if, but maybe not as big an if after their debacle yesterday we will have one hell of a chance of retaining our title. A draw wouldn't be that bad a result, because that would be all our top six games over apart for that vist to the boo camp, which could end up a title decider, though i can't see that myself.

Scholes agrees that United know they may have to win all there remaining games if they are to retain the title and that's why they threw everything at Norwich during those last five minutes. I can't see City winning every game going for their first title since 1968, somewhere along the line before they play us the prssure will tell. Whether we will be able to take advantage before we got to their place is the question.

No suprise that Rooney and Cleverley are out of this week's international against Holland, presumably Rooney will be back for the trip to Tottenham on Sunday, it will have been a nice break for him ahead of the title run in.

I'm sure i can't be the only one to conclude after recent events that Paul Pogba will be on his way in the summer. Left out and not even on the bench last Thursday against Ajax and then left out all together again on Sunday. The return of Ryan Tunnicliffe can be seen as keeping numbers in midfield in the squad, although i suppose he could have been brought back to help persuade him to stay. The odds must be on him leaving though. Time will tell, but if he does go, it just shows that footballers really do live in another world.
I'm not going to argue that he should show United any loyalty, he didn't show any to Le Harve and we took advantage which i was never entirely comfortable with. It's from a football perspective it doesn't make sense, alright United as a club have been slowly slipping in strength since 2008, yet we are still competing for the title against the club with the deepest pockets in the world of football.
Yet he is considering switching to Juve, who whilst a big club, especially in Italy, aren't much of a force in European football at the moment. If it had been Barca, Real, Bayern Munich, AC, Inter or even though it pains me to say it City, PSG or one of the clubs to have benefited from an Arab windfall i could at least understand it.
For all those that say this shows where the club have ended up under Glazernomics, i can only say we'll see. I'm not sure there is much the club could have done to have kept him. It doesn't look good to have lost two of the brightest talents to have come through the academy in recent years, but Morrison, who was the most nailed on, given the right attitude, had to go, it could be argued United should have got rid sooner. If Pogba is asking for the kind of money quoted without doing anything to convince he has what it takes, bar one short cameo in a game that was already won, then i don't see United had much choice. Surely you have to walk before you can run.
There is still plenty of talent coming through the ranks, this years academy squad looks really talented, it looks like Fergie's succcessor will be the man to have the task to bring them through to the first team. Which is of course where i have a problem with Mourinho being the supposed heir apparent, he has absolutely no history of bringing talented youngsters through a club's system.

George Monibot argues that democracy faces a fight against the billionaires and corporations, proved by the recent leaks from The Heartland Institute.

Of course those same billionaires and corporations are the intended beneficiaries of the coaltion's NHS "reforms", Polly Toynbee sets out the cheating behind NHS waiting lists as claimed by the coalition.

I'm sure there was a BBC series based around the late M.R.D Foot's history of the S.O.E 1940-1946, this Telegraph obituary plots the path of his research. That was a brilliant series, the most interesting, oddly enough for me was their operations in the low countries which were a total faliure. I wouldn't mind seeing that again on any channel.

David Blancflower sets his target on the Bank of England for the first time for a bit, claiming its forecasts of rapid eceonomic recovery are far too optimistic and lays the finger of blame at the top, Sir Mervyn King.

Yesterday looks like it was the start of a long week, weeks even for Rupert Murdoch and News International, David Allen Green describes today as an explosive start to the second module of the Leveson inquiry.
Alistair Campbell reckons Gove's intervention last week on the Leveson inquiry will have had the full backing of David Cameron. This week is going to test that strategy then.

Daniel Knowles of the Torygraph is fast becoming a must read feature of that paper and he is right to say low pay is as much a problem as youth employment. The coalition aren't even fighting the last was they are just trying to give us rehashed Thactherism four years after it was totally discredited.
Martin Bright argues that David Cameron's political reputaion will be on the line if he does not get a grip on the governments back to work reforms, which thanks to Emma Harrison and her firm A4e haven't been out of the papers for the last few days. She was always just part of the neo liberal elite as Paul Mason has described it or gravy train as others might.
I can't help wondering what political reputation Bright is imagining, he's a great PR man for his party every now and then, but a complete non entity for the majority of the time.

Kraftwerk

Manchester United 1-2 Ajax

I didn't really see that coming, i thought we had got over this kind of inconsistency, Fergie was probably on to something, admitting he had got his team selection wrong. So much for Henry Winter's advice to Stuart Pearce to play Smalling and Jones against Holland next week. I don't think Jones had a bad game, but i'm still not really convinced centre half will be his position.
We started fairly well, but i wasn't that impressed with our central midfield pairing either, i don't know how serious Cleverley's injury but he didn't really look right the whole time he was on the pitch. I know Park needs game time , but he is not a central midfield player, especially in a midfield two. Still when Hernandez gave us the lead i was thinking of how many we would get .  What the game showed is that with such an inexperienced defence United really do need to attack, attack, attack because they can't hold on to leads, the second half was a reminder why we are in this competition. I think we have the potential to get near Barca but we are nowhere near them at the moment. Which is a pity because i think Barca aren't quite what they were, Messi's brilliance is what's keeping them where they are, if he got injured their form would be interesting to watch.
Their equaliser was fortunate but they possibly deserved it for their attacking intentions. United had chances but were a bit careless in front of goal. It looked like we were going to escape with a less than satisfactory draw until the late header gave them anight to remember. Again it was a pretty soft goal to give away, at least this performance happened on a night it didn't matter too much. Any performances like that in the league and we'll be hearing blue moon sang all summer.

Thursday night channel 5 nearly there

Fergie is supposedly thinking of starting Pogba tomorrow night in the second leg of the tie against Ajax, according to the press this morning amongst reports that Fegie is hoping Rio Ferdinand can persuade the young Frenchmen his future should be at Manchester United.
When the second goal went in at the Amsterdam Arena the thought that Fergie may be able to blood a couple of youngsters did pop through my mind. The trouble is Cleverley is a player that definitely needs minutes on the pitch, and tomorrow's match is the perfect opportunity for that. But would Fergie want to go into the match with a central midfield pairing of Cleverley and Pogba.
Henry Winter has called on Stuart Pearce to forget Rio and Terry for next weeks friendly against the Dutch, and pair his former under 21 partnership Smalling and Jones at centre back, that's not a bad call, i wouldn't mind seeing that tomorrow with the two twins at full back. It may be that Fergie will want Jones for the Norwich game at right back, whatever it will be great to see him back in the team.
One player that i think we can assume will start tomorrow night will be the revitalised Hernandez who has been telling the press that he is happy enough with the way things have gone and is content to score goals coming on as a sub. He has been doing better, we are still noticeably better when Welbeck starts up front though, he just offers our game that much more variety. He's not a bad sub though is he. To be fair to Hernandez the stronger the squad and the better the service he may yet regain last season's end of season form. I suppose the question is who will play alongside him tomorrow, i was suprised that Berba wasn't in Amsterdam last week, if he doesn't start tomorrow, i can't see him getting many more starts this season.
Giggs is hoping that United's experience and players returning from injury will give United the edge over City come the end of the season. Providing United and City both get through the next round of the Europa league we will be seeing a lot of blue against red in April. I'm pretty sure i won't have seen United play City so many times in one season.

Fergie's interview with Radio 1's DJ Spoony has been all over the papers over the last couple of days, i suppose one of the most interesting answers was his assertion that his players want to know how long he will carry on before they enter into contract talks. I'm not sure if that was aimed at anybody or not.
It must be food for thought for the gimps anyway, as yesterday's quarterly reports showed that they have been using the Ronaldo to buy back the bonds amidst results that showed once again most of the clubs profits are being used to pay off the debt in one way or another.
Andersred's blog focuses on a suprisingly big increase in the wage bill. David Conn using Andersred's figures wonders how anybody can justify the £500 billion that has now leaked out of Manchester United to service the debt laden ownership.

United's reserves have hit a little dip in form recently with the defeat to City and yesterday's 0-0 draw at Wigam which apparently wasn't the best. It was a bit of a suprise to see Ryan Tunnicliffe make an appearance, i wasn't aware he seems to fallen out of favour a bit in recent weeks at his loan club Peterborough.
A bit ironic really after Warren Joyce was praising last season's youth team skipper Tom Thorpe for his versatility in adapting to a new central midfield role this season. Obviously it's a good trait to have as a player, the ability to play two or three positions, but i'm not sure it's always the best thing for a young player's career coming through the ranks. After last season he would have expected to have played more regularly than he actually has. Of course Tunnicliffe coming back for a game saw Thorpe drop back to the subs bench, even if he got on reasonably early to replace Reece Brown, another young player blessed/cursed with the ability to play in different positions.

John Pilger's latest New statesman's column warns us to learn from Blair's crimes, so we don't repeat them in Syria. I honestly don't think any of the western nations would have the stomach to get involved in any Syriam civil war however much the reamining neo-cons would like us to.
Blair's former chief of staff Jonathan Powell has also penned a lengthy piece still making the case for western intervention, i think. There parts of that i agree with, but there is no way the west should try intervene in that conflict, Powell's giving Cameron a pat on the back for going out on a limb over Libya, but whilsi definitely shed no tears for Gaddafi's fall, we still have no idea what the endgame will be in that country. It's certainly no functioning state yet, in fact some reports claim it's going backwards, implicit in that being there could be another outbreak of hostilities there.
Peter Oborne argues that the Syrian crisis is leading Cameron and Hague to unlikely bedfellows, warning that they are at risk of over-simplifying a dangerous and complex situation. He's right, but i'm inclined to dismiss the Al-Qaeda theories.
Just in case we wondered how dangerous and unstable the situation comes the news that the Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin has been killed in Homs.
Meanwhile Ian Black looks at Assad and Syria's ally Iran and argues that Iran is in crisis, but it suites everyone to exaggerate its power.

Music
Barn Owl - Lost in the glare: I don't dislike this, but it ends up dragging on a bit. I have heard them described a drone duo, a pretty good description. The problem for me is there is not enough light and shade, individual tracks are good, but it ends up dragging.

Death in Vegas - Trans love energies: A pretty good album, though it doesn't have the stand out tracks of the first two albums and doesn't really match up to that level.

Destroyer - Kaputt: Canadian indie and pretty good stuff, i didn't know that Dan Bejar was a part of The New Pornographers, i like them. I can't put mu finger on why, but if i hadn't have known this was Canadian i would have had this down as very English sounding. There is a lot of good music coming out of Canada nowadays.

M83 - Hurry up, I'm dreaming: I have read this compared to the MGMT debut album and that is a fair comparison for the US based Frenchman's latest album. There are some cracking tracks, not a catchy as MGMT, but not enough for a double album.

Sonny Rollins - The bridge: I saw a documentary on Sonny Rollins on the BBC a few years back related to his time in retiremt when he escaped to the brdige that was excellent. I didn't know that most of the tracks on this are also on his Quartets album. They are excellent though and they seem a lot looser, more fluid on this album.

Wild Flag - Wild Flag: US female indie stalwarts get together to produce a promising debut that veers towards a heavy rock sound, nothing wrong with that. There are two or three cracking tunes, the rest of the album doesn't really live up to that standard, but it's pretty enjoyable.