His last activity was on the 19th. I hope the ol’ git is ok.
Wow, United have absolutely buried Arsenal in this game so far. Arsenal’s back line doesn’t look like it woke up today, they certainly don’t understand how fast Shrek and company can be. :eek:
That 2nd goal was reminiscent of United’s counters with Rooney and Ronaldo the past few years. For the third, I’d caught that Gallas was charging up to attack, so I was just praying United could snag possession and counter asap. I couldn’t believe Park led that one the whole way. That’s easily the best goal I’ve seen him score for United. Perfect match.
That third goal is a classic example of what happens when a defender is more worried about where the pass will go than where the man with the ball will go. Arsenal had a central defender chugging back well ahead of Park, but he kept paralleling him centrally on the theory that Park would eventually try and square the ball. It was a bit late that he realized Park had designs of self-glory. 
Goal number two was a gorgeous example of counter-attack footie. But again, the Arsenal defense was simply asleep at the switch; Shrek runs right by them as if they aren’t there.
To me, the best goal was the first one. The sublime splitting of the defenders, followed by the total fakeout around the next defender, then the perfect lift of the ball to the far post (Park surely would have scored if Almunia’s hand hadn’t already done the job) was beautiful individual skill. Too bad the person displaying that skill doesn’t get credit for the goal.
Last thought on that game: Arshavin may be a gifted player, but he’s always been too damn selfish. Both of his early chances, all he had to do was gift the ball square and it was most certainly in the back of the net; the United defense had left one or two attackers unmarked in both cases with very few bodies in between them and goal. But Arshavin tried difficult curling shots rather than pass. Of course, he is a damn quick little bastid!
Woo! Going to Bolton vs Fulham tomorrow with a full sit down meal. Managed to get a seat in a box. Go prawn sandwich brigade!
Ross County pounded Stirling Albion 9 - 0 to progress to the Scottish Cup quarter-finals. I’m almost ready to dream about promotion to the SPL…
Too bad they gave you a snoozer to watch. 
Hull City 2-1 Man City. Go Tigers!
1st half was awful. Second half was a big improvement, especially after Elmander came on. Wave after wave of attacks at the Fulham goal. Elmander missed a sitter when he was through on goal, then we scored a perfectly good goal which the ref disallowed. Missed MoTD though so didn’t get the impartial view of that decision.
It was split - Lee Dixon thought there was nothing wrong with it, Garth Crooks thought he saw a push. Lee responded by saying that if there was a push, it was minimal, quite normal practice at a set piece, and how big is the defender, anyway? The commentator also thought it should not have been disallowed.
It’s official then! Clattenburg goes on the lost and will be in the first party escorted to the wall and given a last cigarette, come the revolution!
Citeh tonight. Not too hopeful of getting anything from Eastlands given our injury situation, but you never know. Maybe Wilshere will save us.
Maybe City will save you.
BTW, just to channel chowder here, Rochdale are on 59 points, 6 clear of second place in the League Two, and 13 pts ahead of the 4th spot, which is the first spot thrown into the playoffs. Looks pretty likely that they are moving up this year!
Up the dale!!!
Bolton played City pretty even for the most part, and the game could’ve easily gone the other way. the thing that seperated the two teams seemed to be the finishing quality, as Bolton definitely had some chances. Pen should have been given the other way shortly after Bolton gave one up.
On the other hand, Adebayor’s strike was magnificent, and as a City fan, it was good to see him hustling around a bit. Hopefully Viera will help give them that back to front link that they have been missing.
I watched MOTD last night and it was hard to detect a good performance from any of the teams shown (Everton being a notable exception). I have to say that I am currently overloading with Schadenfreude after watching John Terry’s display.
Man U have got to be happy with a point away at Villa, under the circumstances - their goal was very lucky as well. It was a disappointing challenge by Nani, he got the ball but I think the ref made the right call there, I have to say Petrov made a complete meal of it to ensure that the red card came out though. I am not nearly as annoyed about that as I am at Fabregas’s blatant piece of cheating in the final seconds against Liverpool. IMO, he put his arm up to block the ball deliberately, under the guise of protecting his face. The fact that his arm was waving around indiscriminately a few inches higher than his face convinces me of this. It should have been a straight red card for deliberate handball (though I suspect DSYoungEsq will now inform me that this is not possible under the laws. However, he was on a yellow anyway so should definitely have gone). As the ref missed the offence, is it possible for the FA to take action retrospectively? Bendtner’s dive was disgraceful as well, nothing changes at Arsenal.
In the other games, Spurs played unbelievably poorly against Wolves, who were pretty solid. They don’t seem to want fourth place very much, and on this evidence aren’t ready for it anyway (and won’t get it). The rest were forgettable, from my point of view at least.
The Portsmouth saga continues on its merry way, at this stage most of their fans would probably be happy to be relegated as long as the club can stay in existence. Surely the FA can do something to stop these financial troubles happening, or would it be an illegal restriction of trade to prevent (for example) overseas takeovers?
Given that the whiny Scots bastard also said it was a fair decision, I’d say we could be pretty certain it was justified.
Should have got the win, but we seem to be doing pretty well against the good clubs. Why we can’t put away the scrubs defeats me.
This has always been the MO’N pattern. He gets his teams to excel against challenging opposition, but he doesn’t seem to get them consistent against lower table opposition. It was constantly happening to Leicester City when they had him as coach in the Premiership; I once made a study of something like three years of results and found that the only thing separating Leicester from the top four was how they did against the bottom third of the table.
Nani’s foul was clearly a sending off. I didn’t see what Fabregas did, but if he did indeed intentionally prevent a direct shot on goal from going in by raising a hand, that would be “serious foul play” and sufficient to result in a sending off. 
That’s what it looked to me. If I had been reffing it and had seen it he would have been off, in that case.
I’ve seen a still picture of it. Pretty clearly, the referee managed to be looking at something else at the crucial time. As I recall, it was England’s main international referee involved, so it’s quite surprising, really. And according to the players on Liverpool, he had specifically warned against raising an arm above waist high.
However, in the instance in question, it would probably only merit a caution. In the case of Fabregas, if he was carrying one yellow, that still would have reduced the Arse to 10 men.
Jeez my heart almost stopped multiple times. A replay will do. For any Palace fans, I agree, it should have been a goal kick.