The Man United Football Blog
The votes are in and have been counted and verified. No dodgy ITV telephone scams here, and I can reveal the results. 75% of you think that Arsenal will be our main challengers for the title this season. Only 25% think Chelsea despite the signing of Anelka and the fact they are just 4 points behind us.
People think that Liverpool have as much chance as Derby of winning the league this season as they polls precisely no votes. More bad news for Rafa to deal with.
Popularity: 21% [?]
50 years ago, the very thought of interrupting a minute’s silence would have been abhorrent to football fans, but a lot has changed since the Munich air disaster.
The pleas this week for United to hold a minute’s applause instead of silence have been turned down, and rightly so, but the fact that some people could think to disrupt such an event is just wrong. It would be like some men shouting “F*&k off grandads” during a Remembrance Service.
The Munich chants are wrong. The Hillsborough chants are wrong. The Arsene Wenger chants are wrong. Let us not blame Manchester City, or their fans when it goes wrong. Let us blame all football fans and the culture we live in.
However, something could be done. In today’s CCTV driven culture, it would be easy to find out who was not observing the minute’s silence. There will only be 3000 fans going. Would a threat of a life ban from City and football have any effect of them ?
Today, the very thought of interrupting a minute’s silence is abhorrent to football fans, but do you let the bloke next to you doing it get away with it?
Popularity: 10% [?]
Reading 0 Manchester United 2 (Rooney 77, Ronaldo 90+2)
A very entertaining open game was decided by some Rooney magic as the Champions overcame the Royals in Berkshire.
As previously noted, I managed to get tickets for this game and went with my son and my dad to the Madejski Stadium. We were in the South Stand amongst the home support, but in the same stand as the United fans. Once inside with pint in hand (for two of us) we could hear the United fans on the other side of the wall, singing away. We went out to find our seats and found that they were actually back row which gave us a tremendous view of the passage of play but meant we were not exactly close to the action.
The game started and United were attacking the far end to us. After the initial 5 minutes the game settled very open. Reading played with two forwards and another forward in right midfield and Hunt, normally a winger in midfield. In contrast to their Old Trafford performance, Reading made this a game took the game to United. By the end of the first half, Reading were on top. Whilst United looked dangerous going forward, the midfield was conceding too much ground and possession and putting too much pressure on the defence.
Hargreaves harried well enough, but offered nothing going forward. Carrick was anonymous for large parts of the game and Park was just simply poor and completely outplayed. Reading were very clever in putting two left midfield players, Hunt and Convey over on United’s weak spot, the right back. Whilst Wes Brown is competent enough, he is the least of our defenders and gets no protection from Ronaldo in front (not a criticism of Ronaldo, btw).
As a result of their dominance of the midfield, Reading were able to put our central defenders under considerable pressure. Despite reports on MotD, I’m happy to say that Ferdinand and Vidic coped well. Kitson was very good as a strong centre forward but Vidic met power with power. Whilst I say they coped ok, due to the amount of pressure Reading had a number of chances when the could have scored.
A rare blunder from Van Der Sar left him well out of position and only intelligent positioning from Ferdinand denied Kitson the opening goal. More pressure and Kitson was brought down in the area by a poor challenge from Carrick but the referee gave the free kick the other way. Finally Vidic had to desperately tackle Kitson and ended up putting the ball in his own net. He was only saved by the fact that Kitson was offside.
All this said, United’s forwards are of such quality that they were able to create a number of chances themselves, without much help from the midfield. Hahnemann saved well from Tevez, Rooney evened up the “balls in net but offside” count and Hargreaves curled a wonderful freekick to the top corner only for Hahnemann to produce an excellent save. The replays on the big screen produced a loud “oooooh” from all corners of the ground.
Sir Alex Ferguson didn’t get where he was today by ignoring the blindingly obvious and at half time replaced Park for Ryan Giggs. An early second half corner from Giggs almost provided the first goal as Hahnemann didn’t collect it and it bounced off Kitson’s back towards the goal. It was saved by an excellent clearance from Reading’s centre back Cisse.
Slowly the pressure increased on Reading’s goal. Ronaldo skied over the bar from six yards out. Hargreaves was replaced by Nani as United decided that as the midfield was so poor, we would just play with forwards and wingers.
Eventually the goal game, just when you were starting to think that this one was going to get away. United built on the left and Reading failed to clear it properly. Tevez got the ball and played a wonderful pass to Rooney, who provided the deftest of touches to glance the ball into the net. A quality goal. All Reading’s hard work was undone by a touch of genius.
Reading pushed further forward in search of an equalizer and nearly got it. Good work in the midfield again and Harper burst through on goal and put his shot inches wide. Reading attacked again, it broke down and United had a three v two with the keeper but failed to score. Into injury time (I’m with Fergie; the game had virtually no injuries and only one flashpoint where Convey and Ferdinand were both booked; where did four minutes come from?) and still Reading attacked. Murty’s attempted shot hit Vidic and then Fletcher cleared to Ronaldo. This time it was three on one and Shorey got no where near him and he coolly made it 2-0.
A hard fought and vital away win for United and an entertaining and open game. We left the ground and got caught in a group of Man United fans looking for their coach. They were all happy, if a bit lost.
Popularity: 37% [?]
I’m back from the Reading match after watching a very entertaining open match — hope some of you followed the my mini match reports on Twitter. I’m not a teenager and had some fun typing Vidic and Tevez into it whilst trying to watch the game 
Random reaction from the Reading game — Reading too good to go down; Ronaldo is on a different planet to every other player; Park wasn’t up to it today; should have started with Giggs; Carrick and Hargreaves did not boss the midfield like they should have. In the end worthy winners but in the first half I was worried.
No proper match report until tomorrow as straight after the game we went off to a friends birthday party and now I’ve had one too many pints to write up a proper report
Just got back to watch Match of the Day and the idiots show a Keegan inspired 0-0 draw between Newcastle and Bolton first. It seems that the most interesting part of the game was a Newcastle forward elbowing a Bolton defender twice and getting away with it. Seems nothing changes; oddly enough Shearer didn’t mention that after the game.
Popularity: 6% [?]
Reading v Manchester United (Madejski Stadium, Saturday 19th January 2008 15:00 GMT)
Reading away. Last season United played at Reading and ended with a 1-1 draw. Kevin Doyle scored from the penalty spot after Gary Neville handled in the area before United equalized fairly late on with another great Christiano Ronaldo solo run and goal, turning the Reading full-back Murty inside out.
United are better than when the played Reading last season, and Reading are not quite as good. Their defence seems to be leaking more goals and they have lost key central defender Sonko to the African Cup of Nations. Backup defender Bikey has also gone to Africa and an injury to Michael Duberry leaves then very short in this position. Up front Doyle seems to have be going through a lean spell and Kitson, the top scoring English player in the premiership is doubtful with a knee injury. Their key player to watch, is Stephen Hunt, infamous from the Petr Cech incident but a very good winger, both skillful and not afraid to get stuck in.
United are flying again, top of the league after putting six past Newcastle last week. Rooney, Ronaldo and Tevez are all on top form. Hargreaves is fit again, Anderson and Carrick did well against King Kev’s new/old team and Scholes is closer to returning to the team, so there is real competition for central midfield places. The defence picks itself at the moment which says it all.
We shouldn’t be too complacent as Liverpool came to Reading and lost this season and we have only won one of the three league games against Reading. When you virtually need to win every game going, a draw is like a defeat, so we shouldn’t be overconfident. Reading are 13th in the table, but only two points from the relegation zone, so will fight for all the points they can get.
Popularity: 20% [?]