Sorry but

Only if you mean that by different his view would be warped enough by bias to be wrong. Shawcross went in for the ball fully committed, exactly as a centre half should. Unfortunately things went a little badly, but these things happen. Arsenal (i.e. Wenger) just got petulant over the ill luck they'd had with a few injuries. Tony Pulis' comments post match were spot on.

I thought Rio and Brown looked fairly shakey. Hernandez was wasted out wide, I do hope Fergie won't stick to chucking him out wide in games to accommodate him like he has done in the past with other strikers.

Macheda was unlucky not to have brilliant service, but he had one glorious chance which he should've taken. Ketchup should be chucked onto the scrapheap too, he had an absolute shocker.

He'll be seeing if Hernandez can do a job outwide due to the Valencia injury as we don't really have much cover on that side.

It wasn't a premier league footballers challenge. It was a sunday league challenege. I remember a few years back I was playing Sunday League as a favour as I always played Saturday (dare I say it but at a higher level). I got the ball and every time was taken out in whatever way. What p!ssed me off the most was these horrible things probably didn't have to get up on a monday morning for work, but I did! No good for me having a broken leg just because their clumsy. I remember saying to a ref once..."and you wonder why you don't get footballers playing at this level"

That tackle reminded me Sunday League. A stupid "lets go through them let them know their in a game" challenge to try and impress their mates.

Fair points.

The club are investing more in youth – the amount we are spending each season is obviously not sustainable. The club have apparently looked at Barcelona’s model of youth development, and are looking at replicating that. I guess that will take several years to pull off. This will involve bringing in youth footballers from all over the world. That’s reflected in our current youth team squad – even though we had more players in the England U18 (or was it u17) squad than any other club in the PL. I think last year we had four international captains in our u18 squad.

One of the major changes the club had to make in order to improve the recruitment of players (including youth) was to improve the scouting network. I think I read somewhere that United and two or three other clubs in the PL had as many as four times more worldwide scouts than we did. If memory serves, Blackburn had more scouts than City. We now have more scouts and the scouting network said to be far better organised.

On a separate point, you made a good post on Bluemoon in the last day or so re Mancini. I thought you were spot on.

I disagree. It was a 50-50 ball and Ramsey was just as much charging at him. Ramsey simply got there first and there was a clash of legs on the follow through. Nothing to do with trying to impress anybody. If a player didn't go in for a loose ball like that situation he'd be accused of being windy.

Why can't you win the Carling Cup and finish 3rd or 4th?

United have won the CC the last two years and they haven't finished outside the top four.

I disagree that it was a 50/50 ball. It was Shawcross's ball. He was involved in an earlier challenge, he had possession of the ball, he was involved in a collision with an Arsenal player which hampered him. Then Ramsey launched himself in the air to nip in to win the ball. Unfortunately for him he was nipping in to win the ball at the same time as Shawcross was swinging at the ball to play the ball down the Arsenal end.

As to whether my opinion would change if it was a Chelsea player. At the time of the incident I'm sure club bias would have made me see a viscous assault on a Chelsea player. But by the third or fourth replay I think I'd be able to say honestly that it was an honest challenge and just a collision that happens. IMO there are 20 challenges a week where a player swings in in a manner that legs could be broken. It's just that most of the time players hurdle tackles or jump to evade them.

I've got to side with Citeh on this one a little. United and Chelsea have learned to battle on all fronts and manage to compete in all competitions while collecting trophies.

Citeh haven't even finished in the top 4 yet. They haven't experienced what it's like to need to win week in week out in the league while playing in Europe during the week. They haven't experienced finals. Citeh have a great deal to learn, and obviously have to learn everything quickly.

You just can't point to what United/Chelsea have done and then say Citeh should be doing it as well. Liverpool and Arsenal have managed to take top 4 spots for a few years but they haven't managed to win anything.