Wes Tender

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It isn't only the MOTD coverage that puts across this stilted view. Having read a good selection of the reports in the newspapers, many of them and the internet blogs go with the angle that Man Utd had enough chances to have won, but were the victims of a late smash and grab from us. The usual summary concludes that they had hit the bar twice and had a goal disallowed, not accepting that they could have hit the bar ten times and that those don't gain any points, and that disallowed goals count for nothing either. However, their only goal should have been disallowed, whereas we were the only team to actually score a valid goal and to also have 50% more shots at goal than them, more possession and more shots on target. One can understand the bias of the rose tinted spsctacle brigade on the blogs, but it's funny that these facts seem to somehow be overlooked by sports writers of the more serious Nationals. But as I said earlier, who cares about the understandable bias towards the ultimate Glory Club, as it's understandable that the journos will show bias to them because of the proportion of their readership that follows them. All that really matters from our perspective is that we can be quietly confident that we were the team that should have come away with the 3 points and that most objective commentators will conclude increasingly that on our day, we can beat any team in this division.

It would be interesting to hear Bazza's thoughts on that brought up to date. He was deriding our lack of investment in new players when compared to the likes of Norwich. Looking at where they are compared to where Saints are, tends to suggest that their signings, added to their existing team, doesn't match up to what we added to our existing team. Barry?

It was done like that after consultation between Cortese and the big wigs at United, who put pressure on the MOTD editor to show the match in that light, each for their own reasons. Cortese is happy that we continue to be portrayed as the little club punching above our weight. In particular we didn't want to show how good players like Schneiderlin, Shaw, Clyne and Lallana are. United didn't want the World to know how crap they have become without Ferguson. 99% of United's plastics will be under the illusion that they battered us and were unlucky not to have had the points, so they won't be getting on their back quite yet, allowing a little time for Moyes to either turn them around, or get them deeper into the sh*t. Everybody including the referee colluded to give them all three points, the ref awarding 5 extra minutes, which was usually adequate for them to score a winner under Ferguson, but even that misfired and almost handed us the three points. Frankly, I couldn't care less about how MOTD portrayed us, as Shearer's assessment of our tactical nous was spot on and the statistics tell their own story. Having watched the match, I know that the highlights were a travesty

You can be jusifiably proud of it, Chris. It's also been doing the rounds on Facebook. It's lovely to enjoy our moment in the sun, at least until 5pm today, but if we beat United, then our euphoria will go sky high.

Is this what you were thinking about? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/9681860/Society-of-Black-Lawyers-blast-against-FA-is-a-huge-own-goal.html

It's easy to make points about players last season when the situation in the team has altered quite substantially since then. Jos has been replaced by Lovren and his partnership with Fonte has developed so that they are a much better unit than Jos and Fonte ever would be. Boruc has also proven to be a very good keeper, and the understanding forged between him and his two CBs is largely responsible for the improvement in our defensive record. Add in that Shaw and Clyne when they both play, are also more solid and add an attacking dimension out wide and these are all factors that go towards making our defence so solid. I dispute your opinion that Cork and Schneiderlin are easy to shrug off the ball and both players are very good at gaining possession by their tackling ability. So which is worse, losing the ball when other players from your team are often close by to tackle back, or to give the ball away by a wayward pass to an opposition player who is often in acres of space? I am yet to agree that the Wanyama/Scneiderlin partnership is better than the Cork/Schneidelin one. It might become that, but I don't think it is there yet. The defence is tighter, but the number of goals scored has also declined, probably due to us being slower to get the ball forward. In my opinion, Cork was better at that than Wanyama.

I hate rap

Quote Originally Posted by trousers View Post I wonder whether this is a fitting remark for somebody in his employment position? Perhaps his next child will have Downs Syndrome and he might then learn how distasteful and offensive his remarks are.

Very much this /\ /\

Left-handed, so probably left back

Except that Chimpanzees are apes.

It's our very own George Weah's Cousin.

I'm sure that Ricky would have done better than Wellbeck. What really is the point of him? His finishing is attrocious, as is his ball control. As VW says, we could easily have been a couple down at least by half time except for Poland's poor finishing and maybe we could have also bagged a couple ourselves if not for the poor finishing of Wellbeck and Sturridge. We'll have to be whole lot better than that to progress in Brazil.

A great tactical analysis that heaps praise on the way we are playing at the moment. The weakness is observed as our relatively small squad, which might be hampered by injuries as the season progresses, but I assume we would either have brought through some of the youngsters or bought in reinforcements in January if we're still in contention then.

http://metro.co.uk/2013/10/16/can-this-mid-table-team-hold-off-the-title-chasers-when-they-clash-at-old-trafford-4147880/ I'm just loving the satirical humour in this article! Who'd have thunk it? I just noticed it is by our very own George Weah's Cousin. Come on you Reds.

As Gemmel rightly points out, the atmosphere does change, because the use of the handheld camcorders is a form of intimidation. You might not have seen it recently, but perhaps you're not in the Northam nearest to the away fans, because I can assure you that it is quite frequently aimed towards the home fans there. The difference between the footage filmed that way and all of the static cameras around the stadium, is that the camera also picks up chants and banter from much closer and then if that was used against certain fans, then we can have the inevitable debate about what is acceptable as banter and what crosses some line determined by the PC brigade.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7888301.stm It would be strange that there were two pieces of legislation on this matter at more or less the same time, so in the absence of any link to anything else, then I conclude that the act was to prevent the filming of the police for fear of terrorism, rather than just for the sake of it.

If he's not good enough for United, he's not good enough for any of the teams above them.

The use of a camcorder would be much more intimidating, as an individual phone camera would hardly be noticeable. Perhaps when they hold up their camcorders, hundreds of mobile phone cameras pointed in their direction might get the message across though. If anybody was arrested for filming the fuzz at a football match on grounds that they were a suspected terrorist, it would be laughed out of court. We are not a Police State - Yet.

Neil Allen is on crack? That would explain a lot.

When I was in the Northam up to last season, you would often have a rozzer with his camcorder in hand filming the fans. I thought that it was deliberately provocative. By all means film an incident involving the police restraining a troublemaker, as evidence to back up a complaint against them, but filming us when we are just watching the match is totally unecessary. It's a pity that we aren't allowed to bring in camcorders ourselves, as it would be very satisfying to point them back at the police and see how they liked it. It seems to me that they pick a particular type of officer to police matches, ones who are deliberately confrontational and who like to make a point that they are more macho than the fans and look for any excuse to exercise their powers.

A mountain out of a molehill, caused by a sense of humour bypass from the prissy PC brigade

I'm in total agreement. The lowest of the low. But as I say, I don't think for one minute that Cortese as a former banker would wish to have us associated with sh*t like that.

It would be nice to imagine that Cortese as a banker would as a matter of principle avoid being associated with cowboy financial institutions such as Wonga.