OCCUPIED COUNTRY

Everything Put Together Falls Apart

Is the sun finally setting on Ol' Red Face's all-conquering cup-winning machine? Well you would sure think so given the rabid United fans on BBC's FiveLive football phone in last night. Also much of today's press has run "Fergie's Mistakes" copy to supplement their (one-sided) match reports. Well I for one bloody hope so. As a City fan I have had to endure some powerful piss-taking over the past 10 years or so. Up to last season's 3-1 defeat of the Red Devils (the last Derby to be played at Maine Road) we hadn't beaten them since 1989 when we stuffed 'em 5-1. If I remember rightly that was Ferguson's first Derby and the fans were calling for his head then as well.

So, maybe this is his last season? It would be perfect symmetry - he starts off with a Derby defeat and finishes with one. Who knows? Football's a funny game though and in month's time United could be on Arsenal's tail again. However - believe me - I have experience of what Board Room shenanigans can do to a team trying to focus on the job in hand. All this Coolmore share dealing and lawsuits flying thick and fast can only have a negative effect. Uncertainty abounds. Speculation is rife and the football suffers. A slow decline and a drop down the table soon follows. Management teams are chopped and changed, players bought, players sold, wage bills soar, leaks to the press, back-stabbing. Obscurity. In City's case we went from finishing in the top six of the Prem to the modern equivalent of the old Division Three in 5 years. It really is that quick and that easy to achieve once the rot sets in.

So, here's hoping !

It made a change yesterday to see all 5 goals in the match scored by British (indeed English) players. Three of them were scored by Mancunians (Macken, Scholes and Sinclair), one by a product of City's youth sytem (Wright-Phillips) and a Scouser (Fowler).