*That’s funny cos the middle bit where it says ‘Week Uno’ is in white, so you can’t see what it says. What it says, I guess we’ll never know.

This isn’t just a lazy/crass cut and paste of our “best” Twitter bits…

It is. Bite us.

“I despaired when Brett, who shall remain nameless, said we had to do this review, but that was only until I realised how little effort was required. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ A perfect summer blockbuster!! Would read again.” – B. Glorious, LA Times

“Can’t believe that Brett, who shall remain nameless, didn’t even take the time to embed the tweets in the hope of maximising our #numbers, thus clinching that big money sponsorship from a bookmaker’s that every internetter craves. That aside, pretty good.” – T. McGhee, Exchange & Mart

“You’re all fucking idiots.” – P. R. Antcast, Guns & Ammo

Arsene Wenger and Arsenal would have obviously loved to have kept RVP and so – as I said in the pregame thing – the timing of this game was kind of fitting or kind of painful depending on where your alliances lay. Oh, and while we’re here, the pointless guard of honour, was fittingly pointless.

I missed this game, so have nothing to say, thooooouuuugh … the one thing I will add, is this: Bale will come to United if Spurs don’t qualify for the Champions League, so we should really be plumping for Arsenal to finish strongly. Good luck with that.

Oooooohhhhh aaaaaand … one final thing: Arsene Wenger for all his detractors  (me included) again this season, has got Arsenal into the Champions League again, which is pretty impressive.

MOTM: RVP – it was his day.

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. Alan Hansen dusted off his ‘De Gea having an issue with crosses’ line. Awful. AND the #Bantz that continued after Pat Nevin made a valid and astute observation regarding the Rooney penalty shout were embarrassing. I’m all for sillyness, but when you’re presenting analysis of the day’s big match for a flagship programme, I think you need to offer more than that.

Was pleasing to see Vidic and Rio keeping them at bay (sometimes more by luck than judgement) like it was 2009. Tiny baby steps of improvement from TV maybe, when he came on, too?! Rafael continued this season’s form – with a little help from his friends – in keeping Bale at arms length. All round solid. A point against Spurs, is a point against Spurs, is a point against Spurs. Nothing new to report besides, you’ll be pleased to hear.

MOTM: Rio.

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 out of time”, but that doesn’t mean the scoreline will be too dissimilar – one thing you can be sure of in this fixture is goals.* *I refuse to add a cliched “So expect a 0-0!”* *THAT doesn’t count.* *these things are such an easy way to pad out blog posts.

It’s these kind of games where we need TV at the peek of his powers, unfortunately we have the exact opposite. Failing that, we need Ashley Young at the peek of his powers, but he’s injured and probably due his that stinker now anyhow. Failing that Nani at the … you get the point. It’s at times like this that we must give thanks to the footballing fairies for Michael Carrick; actually we should probably give thanks to Spurs while we’re there. He’s having, what I personally think, is one of his best ever seasons. He’s finally stepped out of Scholesy’s shadow and started taking more responsibility. This has, I’m certain, helped Cleverley come on in spades (other cliches available on request) and those two are currently, I think,  a match for any opposing two. With Rooney dropping back in to form a three when we’re defending, which is how I expect us to line up (trusting that Rooney doesn’t have a mare – think he’s overdosed on those) we should be okay. Maybe if Sandro and not the not-yet-match-fit Scott Parker were playing we’d have to find a bit more.

The big test, as always against Spurs, is going to be the one presented to Rafael in the shape of Bale. Rafael has been great this season, but he does have a tendancy to lose his discipline against more troublesome opponents. Having said that Fergie may decide to put Smalling or Jones up against Bale for a bit more “muscle”. I think having Bale “chasing back the other way” would be the best antidote to his threat. What do I know. They pose a threat from most everywhere, so probably not best to concentrate on one particular area.

I just remembered that Spurs haven’t been scoring as readily as you’d expect recently, but I really can’t see that continuing. Our defence will make sure of that.

The penalty situation is troubling me again. Trusting that RVP is going to now take them, the fact that Rooney has missed so many that it’s now “a thing”, creates an almost untenable position as United penalty taker. The pressure on RVP to score from the spot will be massive (x infinity + infinity, at least).

I feel Danny is due a goal (I could have just copied and pasted that from several of these pre-match-thing-me-bobs)! This could be the game where TV turns it around (The revolution will be TV-sized). Would it be asking too much of Giggsy to play, with the form he’s in? I hope not.

Prediction: 3-4

Goals: RVP 2,  Dempsey O.G, Danny

p.s Was sad to hear the news that Fletcher needs another operation and will miss the remainder of the season. I was aware they were managing his condition, but must have missed the bit about him requiring further surgery(?!). The club statement was altogether contradictory: acknowledging the frustration for the player and club with regard to him missing the rest of the season, but referring to the procedure being planned all along, as an important step in the process of his complete recovery. Not sure how those two points marry up, anyway…

IWAN (@IwanLehnert) :

I blame my headphones breaking this morning for the fact I had a full forty minute walk to work to mull over pretty much every aspect of Saturday’s match for what felt like the third time. Fair play, I’ve checked and the world didn’t end. What probably made it all feel worse was that, barring the large lapse in concentration that led to Dempsey’s winner, United’s second half performance was a glimpse of what we know our club is capable of when they put the effort in. In the spirit of looking forward, let’s keep it brief;

Dissecting Spurs Saturday

*Starting Carrick, Scholes and Giggs with the likes of Lennon and Bale starting back was suicidal.

* 4-5-1 or 4-3-3, whatever formation you like that involves a single striker, it does not properly work for us. I’ve hated it for years and time hasn’t sweetened it. We have four strikers and few decent central midfielders, so why bother playing to our weakness?

*Rooney and Van Persie probably aren’t going to hit it off like Cole and Yorke did in September 1998, as evidenced by the fact that they kept trying to play the “No, I Want To Score!” game instead of being a bit more patient and generous with each other. It’ll come, though.

*Nani needs a fire under his backside more often. His crossing was still wayward, and he still makes those crazy shots that go into row ZZZ when he needs to keep calm and look for options, but he’s not half as appalling as people have been suggesting.

*That’s 5 out of 6 league games we’ve fallen behind in this season. If we keep fobbing the lead off each week then it’s going to come back and bite us in the backside.

Brett:

So, it wasn’t something I ate.

You don’t have to attend every after match reaction post you’re invited to, so I’m keeping this brief – This result was coming (and besides I pretty much talked about most of what happened in the pre-match bit, but in a different tense. Kind of.)

We’re not in terrible shape, we’ve had a few injuries to deal with which has meant Fergie has been extra “testing” with his team selections. Slow starters – remember? We’re slow starters. (Is it still the start? Just.)

Good stuff: Kagawa’s goal was a beauty.  Rooney looked sharp.

Good/Bad Stuff: Scholesy is still about our best player.

Misc Stuff: Nani is Nani is Nani is Nani (Have I said that before? If not – why not?).

MOTM: AVB

“Things shake most just before a breakthrough”

We’re inviting some of our Twitter friends 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):

Hate’s a strong word. I don’t really hate Oasis, I just really dislike them. I never really hated cauliflower in my youth, just couldn’t stomach its healthiness. But if you were looking for a word to describe the feeling amongst Tottenham Hotspur fans when a visit to Old Trafford rolls around, then you could do a lot worse. I know they hate it because they’ve told me so after Nani scored his first, stunning goal for the club and Wes Brown got away with apparently handling (the ball) in the area, and that was five years ago. Since then, we’ve had that penalty and that freekickthatwasntagoalkickoops, so you can safely assume that time hasn’t sweetened this thinking. Both teams are starting to put some decent results together of late after opening defeats, with both United and Spurs enjoying wins in the Capital One Cup in midweek, but if that’s a barometer of form, then we’re all screwed (I’m not mentioning Liverpool, but I’m certainly thinking about them).

United

I don’t suddenly expect every single one of the youngsters who got a run out on Wednesday to suddenly start biting at the heels of their first-team counterpart, but if the victory over Newcastle United does one thing, it showed just how much energy and effort we’ve been missing from some first team displays this season. Will that kick a few players in the backside and get them in gear? Certainly worth a shot after an extended burst of the boss’ half-time hair dryer at Anfield appeared to do exactly naff all. What Wednesday did show was that United do have a fairly decent depth to the squad, and that’s heartening in a season where you can’t really say that any player is truly undroppable.

Playing with Wayne Rooney, Javier Hernandez and Danny Welbeck up front gave United more options going forward than normal against Newcastle, and whilst all three performed well, it was most rewarding to see Cleverley and Anderson score a couple of peaches for a much-maligned midfield. Robin Van Persie will surely come back into the side for this game with maybe Welbeck for company, and rightly so. The great thing about having the Dutchman around is that Rooney doesn’t have to be rushed back into the side after injury for fear of lacking an attacking threat, and that’s a big bonus.

The Nani issue raised its head again after the Liverpool match, and whilst he did have a particularly useless 45 minutes at Anfield, did anyone in a white shirt fare that much better than him bar Ferdinand and Evans? The Newcastle victory showed that we don’t necessarily have to use him to be effective going forward, so maybe the Fear of God strategy will sort his inconsistency out. We can but dream, I guess. Also, it is just me that finds it odd that our best corners this season have come from Van Persie….?

Spurs

For Spurs, after grinding out a 2-1 victory over QPR, their season might just be starting to take shape. Slowly, mind you; every single analyst worth their salt was quick to mention how the pressure was mounting on Andre Villas-Boas after a loss and two draws made Spurs’ start to the season less than stellar. Whilst ol’ Andre was chucked out quite quickly by Roman ‘The Roman’ Ambramovich after Chelsea’s season had almost fallen apart, he will get more time from Daniel Levy at White Hart Lane because they aren’t challenging on quite the same level and the expectation, whilst high, is not quite so intense. AVB fits into Levy’s long term plan for the club and should be expected to succeed, given time and support. Hell, if he gets Jermain Defoe scoring on a regular basis, then the man’s practically a genius…

Part of that long-term strategy will inevitably revolve around Champions League football. Problem is that realistically, only two of London’s big three teams are going to fit into the league’s top four along with City and United (presumptuous, I know), and Spurs want to be one of those three.  These then become the sort of games they need to not only perform in, but to get something from. Spurs haven’t left Old Trafford with so much as a draw since 2005, and as I’m pretty sure both Levy and AVB harbour serious aspirations of that much-coveted and financially rewarding top four finish, they’ll need to turn that record and others similar to it around at some point.

Most Reds would probably agree that we have been a touch lucky in this fixture now and then, with Howard Webb’s penalty award on Heurelho Gomes in 2009 a key part of that fantastic 5-2 fightback or Nani taking advantage to score after a free-kick mix-up two years ago. Then again, United dominated Spurs at home last season with a comfortable 3-0 victory before Ashley Young offered up two excellent strikes in the return fixture down south. Spurs are overdue a decent performance against United, all mishaps aside, and whilst I’m sure AVB’s job won’t be under immediate pressure if they come up short on Saturday afternoon, the Portuguese and his side would love nothing more than making a statement of intent at Old Trafford. There’s plenty of craft in their midfield that isn’t Welsh and is still decent for Spurs, but without suitable back-up for Defoe, there might be too much of an instant reliance on Clint Dempsey to make something special happen, and whilst the England striker has made a decent start to this season, you’d expect Ferdinand and Evans to win that particular battle.

Prediction: 3-1 United with at least seven contentious free kicks awarded, an annoyingly acrobatic Brad Friedel performance and another goal from midfield.

Brett:

Wow. After that I’ve got the chokes!! Oh no, you’re in luck…

Whenever these two team meet at Old Trafford, or White Heart Lane, I always feels like something good is gonna happen (cue montage with appropriate song), probably as I feel like it’s the coming together of two proper teams who like to win a game in the right way … by outscoring their opponents.

Despite always predicting a win, I’ve had an annoying feeling all week that Spurs are going to nick something that I can’t seem to shake off. It’s something to do with AVB; I can envisage our ‘scalp’ being the kick start his Spurs career is aching for. Anyway, probably just something I ate, hey?!

Rooney’s back in contention, but surely will only make the bench (Not a bad sub to bring on – unless he plays badly when he comes on, I suppose), which might see Kagawa and Van Persie kind of up front together – which will please me.

Nani’s rumoured misdemeanours might just be the catalyst his season needs – something to shock him into this realm of human existence. Probably means exactly the opposite. I never once pretended to know what I was talking about. With TV maybe out with an ankle injury and Young out too (I think), we could sure use him AND he likes playing Spurs.

Defensively we just have to cross our fingers that they can come through unscathed. I have faith in all our defenders to do a good job (Not you Buttner – not yet). No defence can stop Bale et al when they’re on it. Hopefully they’re not.

This game will be won in midfield (I heard someone say it once and thought it might trick you into thinking I’m blog savvy). Aren’t they all?!

Prediction: 3-2 thriller.

Goals: RVP, Ka-Ka-Ka-Kagawa and Rooney (with late winner from bench)