The Moyes effect
After Manchester United side were beaten 4-1 by Manchester City, David Moyes confessed that the pain may not be over just yet. “It was always going to be tough,’ he said ‘following such a great manager with a great team and I think people with real football knowledge will know there are probably some changes to be made.”
I suggest that people with real football knowledge will think that the pain was self-inflicted. Mr Moyes sent out a team without a midfield runner, with a centre-back at right back, with £27m worth of Fellaini played too far back to do any damage and with a passenger on the left wing. A couple of weeks ago he was saying that he was perfectly happy with the squad at his disposal; now it seems he isn’t. I’ve seen most of Man U’s games since he took over, and it seems to me that there are two major problems; the way the team is set up and the manager’s apparent inability to make obvious tactical changes in the course of the game.
The signs are that the club will do well to finish in the top four this season.
Good luck. mate
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24209800
The football transfer window is so obviously in restraint of trade that the mere threat of an action might scare FIFA into a compromise. I hope so.
Waste of time
A couple of weeks ago I had an email from SAGA, also known around our house as ‘Sex And Games for the Aged’.
Since I turned 50 I’ve been bombarded with cold-call mail from that organisation. I used them briefly for home insurance, but binned them when the first renewal premium showed a whopping increase on the rate that had won my business.
The most recent pitch promised me the best travel insurance on the planet, with pre-existing conditions taken into account. Eileen and I have a couple of those, but they’re all historic, so I filled in an on-line form. It took them two seconds to reject my application. Given the market they target, a large chunk of that population must have medical issues on their CV, so why are they in the market at all? Beats me.
Guilty!
I have just spent three of my precious remaining hours watching an ITV series called The Guilty.
I never do book reviews and I am loth to rubbish anyone’s creative work, but I feel I must express a degree of impatience, having been lulled into wasting all that time. A third of the way through episode one, I reckoned I knew who the perp was and what had happened; it was that obvious. I was almost right, save for a ridiculous twist involving a character who was introduced belatedly to provide it. Also I am still trying to figure out what the lead detective’s private life had to do with the story. Okay,she may have empathised with the victim’s mother, but so what? As a friend of mine once memorably, and cryptically said, ‘What did that have to do with the cars going up the Mound?’
Quote of the day
“She was a handsome woman of forty-five and would remain so for many years.”
J. B. Priestley
Invaders
So East Lothian is not the only rural community to be plagued by the cycling Nazis.
A couple of months ago I contacted the brand spanking new Police Scotland, through its website message facility and asked for a statement of policy in respect of roads being blocked by organised gangs of men on bikes, dressed in condoms. I am still waiting for a reply. Looks like we’re on our own.
Hoops
At the risk of upsetting those of an unshakeably blue persuasion, last night I watched Celtic put on a remarkably classy performance in Milan, where they were unlucky not to leave with a point. Even the Spanish commentator said so. The difference between the two sides was a late own goal, (they called it a deflection but it was more than that) and a free kick that may have been dodgy, since Balotelli had been play-acting all night.
We have a habit of rubbishing our own game at every opportunity, but last night we were done proud.
How many?
Further to ‘Here I go again’, the answer was around a dozen. However some may have been American, in which case they might take home with them my thanks to Dr Bose, for his excellent headphones.
Not sought after
Sometimes, methinks, we should be left with our memories, and our 1960s vinyl albums.
Not fine at all
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24117963
When a person, even an eccentric like Paolo di Canio, can be fined £8,000 for speaking the self-evident truth, the body that imposes the penalty needs to take a serious look at itself.
Sadly missed
And so the Champions League proper is with us again. But this season it just won’t be the same.
Here I go again
Bound for Girona via Newcastle this afternoon. I wonder how many school age kids will be on the plane this time.
Contemptible
No contest
I’ve just read David Cameron’s passionate defence of the Union in today’s Sunday Herald., all 130 words of it.
A year until the vote, but the question is very simple. Will Scotland continue to be dependent on a Westminster government, run by a gang of old Etonian prefects or, God forbid, the limp-wristed Ed Miliband, or will we stand on our own two feet and build a society based on fairness and equality for all?
Mystery
A disturbing story. I will watch this with interest and wait to see how long it is before some enterprising soul writes the novel. It won’t be me, out of respect for the family.
Meantime, Kenneth is right. The Crown Office cannot let this go without further investigation. If Ayrshire had a more locally accountable police force, it might help.
Mano en mano
For those of you who think that independence movements are just people blowing off steam . . .
Yesterday was the annual National Day of Catalunya; by coincidence it falls on 9/11. This year it took on extra significance because of an organised public demonstration in support of a binding referendum on Catalan independence, not simply the consultative poll that has been proposed, and ignored by Madrid. The idea was that people should link hands all along the road that runs from the French border to the territory’s southern limit. They made it work: an estimated 1.8 million people of all ages and stages turned out in one of the most impressive and peaceful displays of national spirit that I have ever seen.
There’s no way that we in Scotland could link hands from the Shetlands (making allowances to the water!) to Gretna Green, but I hope that Blair Jenkins and his team are looking at the precedent that’s been set.
Bloody Stirling
Heading for the airport in three hours, en route for Stirling tomorrow and the second Bloody Scotland, our very own annual crime festival. I’m on in the opening event, a thorn between the two roses that are Lin Anderson and Alex Gray. The kick-off time is 5pm in the Albert Halls. On Saturday, at 2pm, I’m in a second event with Jason Webster, a very bright guy with Spanish connections that are far stronger than mine.
Events like Bloody Scotland aren’t made by the authors they attract, but by the people who turn up to hear them, question them, throw fruit at them . . . okay, skip the last part. If you can get to Stirling this weekend, but haven’t bought your ticket yet, please do. We’re nothing without you.
I’m free
Sorry I’ve been off piste for a few days. I’ve been working rather hard to finish the first draft of something that will not see the light of day until late 2014. I’m there now, but it’ll be a formidable edit.
Fuzzy
Only one Man U signing yesterday, and Moyes is getting stick. Actually folks, it’s Ed Woodward, the Chief Exec who does the business, not the manager, so cast the stones in the right direction, eh, but at the same time congratulate him for refusing to shell out £16m for Baines, at his age.
