Rafael

It’s nice to steal two points. It reminded me of the days of Eric, up until they scored … RVP is already, to my mind, creeping closer towards that bracket (I maybe drunk off admiration for him – ask me again in a couple of days). MOTD2 were poor in their assessment of this game. […]

There’s a lot of talk of Spurs doing the double over us which, in spite of my usual positive – never predicting a loss – outlook, I have to reluctantly admit wouldn’t be all together surprising. Both teams have come a relatively long way since the earlier game at Old Trafford, in which “we ran […]

Last of the bullet point reviews, and copy and paste previews: normal service will resume after this … Oi! Who groaned?! I love RVP. I love Chicha. Our defence is best, when the best defence is picked (including De Gea). Ashley Young is overdue a real stinker. MOTM: Rafael.

We’re inviting some of our Twitter friends, and now resident thought sharer Iwan Lenhert, to share some of their ‘Pre and Post Match’ thoughts with us from now on. You can still enjoy my nonsensical, confusing punctuation buffets below their proper good ones…   Iwan (@IwanLehnert): Hands up if you wouldn’t chastise and taunt if […]

We’re inviting some of our Twitter friends, and now resident thought sharer Iwan Lehnert, to share some of their ‘Pre and Post Match’ thoughts with us from now on. You can still enjoy my nonsensical, confusing punctuation buffets below their proper good ones…   Iwan (@IwanLehnert): Where exactly did that winner come from? For all […]

We’re inviting some of our Twitter friends, and now resident thought sharer Iwan Lenhert, to share some of their ‘Pre and Post Match’ thoughts with us from now on. You can still enjoy my nonsensical, confusing punctuation buffets below their proper good ones…   Iwan (@IwanLehnert): Hands up if you’re also approaching this derby with […]

Football’s weird isn’t it? I mean, who’d have thought RVP would be scoring for US in this fixture this season? Weird and wonderful. My silly non-prediction of a repeat of the 8-2 scoreline form last year, as it turns out, wasn’t too far from the reality. I thought Arsenal were guilty of approaching the game with a similar ‘psychosis’ […]

On an emotionally charged day for many the game thankfully played out relatively trouble free. Suarez shook hands. Fergie’s letter was well received. Calls for calm from all quarters were respected. Let’s hope those responsible for such an appalling injustice can be held to account. The game itself said much about the form of the […]

From an objective point of view, this season football has nudged itself ever closer towards a warped manifestation of utopia. It has lunged violently between menacingly good and astonishingly bad, intermittently grotesque and overtly sentimental. Aesthetes of stats and figures, connoisseurs of footy ‘lols’, perpetuaters of intellectual discourse, bastions of good old fashioned tribalism have all been nourished from […]

Well, result aside, the most important bit which is a shame, I thought we were by far the better team for about 99% of the game. Their biggest threat was De Gea, not that that’s intended to mean I blame him for the result in any way.  I thought the reason we lost was because […]