Good result for the reds at the weekend. I watched the match from the comfort of my sofa and I must be honest found it quite dull for the first half. We didn’t really get going in the first 45 minutes. It didn’t help that Vidic left half way through with what appeared to be a concussion. I didn’t really see a lot in the challenge with Marcus Bent that led to the concussion for Vidic. Granted, there was a coming together of heads, namely Vidic’s cheekbone into the back of Bent’s skull, however I would have thought he would have been knocked out if he had concussion. I’m not a doctor so I suppose I’m not best placed to pass judgement, but in my opinion it looked as if Vidic was using the knock as an excuse to get off the playing field. I wonder if he didn’t feel up for the game or something.

John O’shea then switched to the centre of defence to take over from Vidic. He did well there for about 3 minutes before receiving a dead leg from a clumsy challenge by a Wigan player (I didn’t see who). He left the pitch and made way for Simpson who though young is experienced at playing in the Championship thanks to his loan spell at Sunderland last season. Simpson went to right back and Pique went to partner Ferdinand in the centre.

The first half didn’t really see any great chances by either side, though Evra did make a bit of a blunder toward the end of the first half, letting a cross ghost over his head to Bent, only for Evra to kick the ball out of play before Bent got the ball fully under control. At half time, Wigan were probably happy with their performance, having shut United out for 45 minutes, as well as having created a few half chances. They must have thought that come the second half, if United had still not scored that they woud have a chance of nicking a goal considering we had a makeshift defence including two 2nd string players.

The 2nd half started with all of the United players out on the pitch well in advance of the Wigan players. Sir Alex must have kept his half time team talk short and sweet, probably something along the lines of “right then lads, pass the ball better, pass it quicker and for god’s sake use the width of the pitch!”. When the Wigan players eventually turned up the 2nd half got under way.

It started with United playing much quicker and trying to open up the Wigan defence, something that had been difficult during the first half. Wigan started playing with more adventure and left more gaps in the mid field, which Rooney took advantage of, passing through quickly to Anderson who picked out the run of Tevez, who beat the defender to the ball, used all his strength to hold him off, round the keeper and blast the ball into the back of the net. The celebrations that followed showed just how pleased the united players were to see Tevez score. He deserved it, he worked his socks off during the game, chasing every ball and defending from the front. It was good to see how much togetherness there is in the team.

The 2nd goal came from a Giggs corner, the keeper flapped at it and the ball came to Ronaldo to head home from about a yard out. He seemed pleased with his goal, pointing to his black eye and stiches as if to say “I can still score even though I’ve got a black eye and a load of stiches in my head”. As ever Ferdinand was there to congratulate him, its almost like they have a slightly gay father/son relationship when you see Ferdinand screaming at Ronaldo and praising him like that, weird….

The 3rd goal was created by Pique’s pass to Rooney down the left channel, Rooney got to the ball with plenty of time to look up, see Ronaldo running into the box and then just place his pass perfectly for Ronaldo to score his 2nd of the day. As the commentator said, it was a perfect, professional goal. Completely unselfish by Rooney, putting the team first and passing the ball to create the goal, rather than trying to create the goal for himself.

The 4th goal was a cross into the box from Simpson which Rooney got on the end of with his head. It was a good goal, well worked from Simpson, he showed good composure to cross the ball, and he looks like we might have a good player on our hands. He’s only young, but if he can get some more first team experience he’ll develop into a good attacking full back.

I’m not really sure who my man of the match would be. I thoght Tevez worked hard and played well as did Rooney and Ronaldo. However, it would be too easy to pick one of the 2nd “holy trinity” as they have been called in a few papers. They all played well, don’t get me wrong, but you’d expect that, and more from those three. My man of the match was Anderson, he was quiet in the first half, granted he only played a few minutes. But in the 2nd half, he grew in stature. He played some excellent passes and looked comfortable on the ball. I can see that he will grow into a good replacement for Paul Scholes who is getting on a bit.

Roll on the return of Owen Hargreaves, Carrick, Saha, Neville, Brown, Van de Sar and anyone else who happens to be injured, on this performance, it looks like we’ve got what it takes to retain the Premiership as long as we can get some of our injured players fit again soon. No doubt, there are tougher games to be played, but we’ve got some real quality players to come back so I’m confident we’ll overhaul Arsenal’s impressive early season lead and come next May, we’ll be looking down on the rest of the league.

What a result! I can’t believe this result, it really is poor. I know the Carling Cup is the least important of cups, but I don’t think we really gave this fixture enough respect. Coventry are only a league below us, they would have been up for it. Ian Dowie would have motivated his players, he would have told them to enjoy playing at Old Trafford, made them think about playing in the Premiership and playing at venues like Old Trafford on a regular basis.

What did we do? We fielded the reserves…. A team where the only real first team player was Nani (based on starts this season), who had no idea what Coventry would be like. You could argue there were other “senior” players in the team, such as John O’Shea, Anderson and arguably Kruzsach (spelling?), but the rest were a long way off being genuine first team contenders, some of them I’ve never even heard of!

What’s worse, all the season ticket holders had to buy a ticket for this game, I’m glad I’m only a member of the club and not a season ticket holder, meaning I can cherry pick the games I want to go to. Admittedly, its also because I live in Bristol and the trip up to Old Trafford takes about 4 hours each way and a tank of petrol, so its not cheap! But if I did have a season ticket and had to go and watch the youngsters lose to Coventry I would have been a little cheesed off.

I don’t see why we couldn’t have fielded a more balanced side with a few more established players in the team. Ok, give the veterans like Giggs, Scholes, Van de Sar a rest. Maybe let Ferdinand and Vidic have a night off, but players like Rooney and Ronaldo would have been chomping at the bit to play. Rooney having just come back from injury and Ronaldo having missed 3 games through suspension would have appreciated another chance to play. I’m sure that Tevez would probably have enjoyed a run out too.

Oh well, I’m sure at the end of the season if we’ve won another treble we’ll all be praising Sir Alex, however, unless we do, I’m going to be demanding Ferguson takes the Carling Cup more seriously, it was after all my favourite lager as a student!

What a result! Great stuff! There really is nothing better than to see Chelsea being beaten, especially when they are realistically the only real threat in the Premiership. I don’t care what people say, Liverpool and Arsenal will not be challenging for the Premiership crown this season.

Liverpool got off to an impressive start, but have since drawn their last two matches, matches that really they could have won, had they played Torres! Why does Benitez not play him? I don’t mind, if he wants to chuck points away, as a Man United fan, I’m not going to complain, but I just don’t understand the rational. Torres is possibly one of the best finishers in the Premiership and he’s not started the last two matches.

Arsenal’s kids will lose their way at some point this season, even if they are now officially the richest club in the country thanks to their new stadium and prudent approach to buying and selling players. But I don’t see them winning it this season. Too inexperienced, and not a lot of strength in depth.

That leaves Man United and Chelsea. Well, when you lose one of the best managers in the country, one who’s respected by the players, you really can’t expect to challenge. No disrespect to Avram Grant, but I can’t see that he’s going to inspire the players the same way Mourinho did. They may get another manager in sooner rather than later, but by then I think the damage will be done. If they don’t start winning matches, they could find themselves 10 points or so adrift by christmas, which although not an impossible mountain to climb it is a very hard one.

So that means Man United will win the Prem 2007-2008. Excellent. You heard it here first!

What on earth is going on with the transfer of Carlos Tevez to Manchester United? Surely he should have been given a sqaud number and been photographed on the pitch with Alex Ferguson by now? What is going on with West Ham, do they own him or not? If they do, they should agree a fee for his transfer and go through with it, if they don’t they should simply let the transfer go through and watch on in envy as Kia Joorabchian counts his many millions…

But they can’t because they don’t own him really, but they seem to have persuaded the Premierleague that they do own him, despite the fact that they don’t own him. Its all very complicated to me. I don’t understand how a player can play for a team for a whole season when they don’t own the player. I think the whole issue has highlighted some serious problems in the way players registrations are handled. Hopefully, after Tevez has been transferred to Manchester United, the authorities that control football will take a good look at this situation and see if there is a way that player transfers can be completely transparent, and that any future transfers can go through without any of the complications that this transfer has encountered.

I’ve been reading about the Asia tour on the Manutd website. It sounds like the squad are working well together, and the new signings are playing well.

Queiroz says that the work the squad are doing in the heat and humidity is good for them, it will help them when they come back to playing back in England - I don’t see how, surely playing in heat and humidity will help their bodies get used to playing in heat and humidity, something we don’t really have a lot of over in England right now. Perhaps if they were training in tropical downpours and on pitches submerged to the tops of the goalposts in floodwater would they be preparing for the return back to England…

How much of these tours over to Asia is all about “getting the players fit” I wonder? I suspect its more about “getting the coffers fit”, and ensuring that lots of Ronaldo and Rooney shirts are sold in Japan and Korea. Not that I’m bothered, I’m a capitalist, so can’t complain when an organisation wants to cash in on their assets.

I read that Paul Scholes is now injured thanks to the Asia tour, that’s a shame as we could really use him in the first few weeks of the season to ensure we get a good start on Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal (should they turn up). It means we will have to rely on an untried midfield partnership of Hargreaves and Carrick, not something I am too worried about, however as we know they are both quality players. My only concern is that Carrick effectively did Hargreaves job last season, so could he be a bit rusty when forced to play the creative midfield role, a la Scholes? We will have to wait and see how August pans out…

I heard on the radio yesterday that Fernando Torres has agreed a £20,000,000 move to Liverpool. What is going on? Liverpool don’t usually splash that kind of cash, they certainly don’t usually sign players of his calibre. With Torres at Liverpool, will they start scoring for fun? Will they finally be able to mount a real challenge for the Premiership? Liverpool as a team have been getting better since Rafa arrived. They won the Champions League in 2005 in Rafa’s debut season as manager. He’s finished 5th, 4th and 3rd in the Premiership since he arrived, even the most sceptical of Liverpool supporters must concede that he has improved since he’s been in charge. But can he take the them to the next level?

I firmly believe that lies in the hands of Man Utd and Chelsea. Let’s face it, Arsenal are a team that are building for the future, they’ve just lost Henry, next season will be another season of flux. They’ve got too many young players and not enough experience. I believe, if Wenger stays on after next season, then Arsenal will again become a force in the Premiership. So it really is down to Ferguson and Mourinho. If they can keep the momentum going then Liverpool will find it very hard to catch, even with Fernando Torres, who will no doubt bring Liverpool that illustrious 20+ goals in a season, something they’ve been missing for a while.

But is the Chelsea team a bit too long in the tooth? Take a look at the main players in the team:

• Terry, 27 - no, he’s got years of good football ahead of him.
• Lampard - 29, a few more good years left.
• Makalele - 34, needs replacing.
• Ballack - 30, a few more good years, but look his commitment (or lack of).
• Shevchenko - 30, a couple more years, but his pace will wane.
• Drogba - 29, he’ll be a useful asset for a few more years yet
• Carvalho - 29 - years of useful service left

So when you look at the ages of the Chelsea team, they really need to be bringing in some younger players. When you compare with Man United, its fairly easy to see which team is looking forward, with all the younger players in the United team, and the experienced players that have been bought in, like Hargreaves and Carrick who still have plenty of miles left on the clock being only 26 years old.

I don’t think Liverpool will win the Premiership next season, but I think they will make it closer. Wouldn’t it be good to have a three horse race, rather than a two horse race like last season?

Its been a story ever since the season finished in May, but it keeps on making an appearance in the papers. Even Paddy Crerand, of MUTV fame and former player of course suggests that Gaby will move this summer. As Crerand points out, Heinze won’t be happy sitting on the bench, now that Evra has become the first choice left back.

I don’t see it that way. I see that when Man United are playing a game they expect to win comfortably, they utilise the pace and attacking flair of Evra down the left, usually linking up with Giggs. I would see this as being a good use of a left back who’s arguably not the best at defending. When United are playing a game that they don’t assume they will win comfortably, and perhaps, expect to do more defending than usually, they use Heinze. He’s arguably the best defensive left back in the Premiership, so it would make sense to use him when we need to keep and clean sheet.

Granted, the way last season went, United went into far more games expecting to win comfortably than not, which meant that Evra got the nod more than Heinze. However, Heinze still got to play in a lot of games, and don’t forget, the first few months of the season he was still struggling with his knee, you could see he was easing himself back into playing in the first team.

I think it will be a shame if we have to let go of Heinze. He’s been one of my favourite players for the last few seasons. Players like him and Alan Smith, give it their all, what they lack in silky skills and talent they more than make up for in commitment and drive. The team needs players like them, let players like Kieron Richardson leave, but don’t let players like Heinze leave, he’s too good.

Arsenal have agreed to transfer Eduardo Da Silva from Dinamo Zagreb for around £16m. The 24 year old has signed a four year deal at the Emirates stadium, he’ll play alongside Robin Van Persie and Emmanuel Adebayor.

I guess this means that Nicolas Anelka won’t be going to Arsenal now they’ve signed Da Silva, I could be wrong, but I’ve never known Arsenal to be a big spending club. They will have spent all the money they got from selling Henry on this new player so that probably means no more signings this summer. I wonder what they’ll do about Jens Lehmman - I thought he was retiring at the end of the season just over. Maybe not. If he has though, Arsenal will need another goalkeeper, preferably one who is less mad than Lehmman.

I read on the ManUtd website (www.manutd.com) that a new home kit has been released - wasn’t it only last season that we had a new home kit? I thought Man Utd only changed the kit every 2 years, why has a new kit been released when the old one was only a season old? Think of all the new shirts that will fly out of the Mega Store on match day, great for Man Utd the business, but what about the fans? I hadn’t even gotten around to buying last seasons kit yet, was going to buy one for the next home game I went to, now I’ve missed it. 

Its all the parents out there that I feel for really. They’re the ones that will get pressured into shelling out another £40 on a shirt for their children just so that they have the ”latest” strip. If they only had to buy a new strip every 2 years, its not so bad, £20 a year, but every year seems a bit much! Its not like the football clubs don’t make enough money out of fans already. Ticket prices have gone up quite a bit recently, and the new TV deals mean they are getting millions of pounds of extra revenue from this season. I can’t remember the exact figure, but even the team that loses the premiership this season will get £30,000,000! That’s a hell of a lot of money just for coming last!

I read in the papers yesterday that Sven, the new Manchester City FC manager is on the hunt for Nicolas Anelka, he wants to bring him back to Man City and prise him from the grasps of Arsene Wenger who is reportedly trying to sign him for Arsenal. I don’t see why Arsenal would want Anelka again, he’s not as good as Henry in my opinion, and though he will be cheaper than Henry, I believe that if Arsenal want to remain competitive they will have to find a replacement as good as Henry. They need to hit the ground running this coming season otherwise they will find that they get overtaken by Tottenham.

Will Anelka be good for Man City? I don’t know. He’s been good at Bolton, but will he prosper under Sven. Will any team prosper under Sven? England certainly didn’t, he managed to achieve very little with the talent he had at his disposal. I guess he’s a big name and City need a big name manager now that they have been bought out. Personally, I think City would have done alright if they had stuck with Stuart Pearce. Given the players he had at his disposal he did alright. Not fantastic, but alright. He was a new manager and was rather put under a lot of pressure when he really didn’t have the experience. Perhaps he shouldn’t have tried to coach the under 21’s as well as City….Then again, didn’t the under 21’s do well, getting to the semi final, better than the big boys did last summer in Germany!