Tainted or Sainted

It was coming. Nobody can deny that. Despite the entertainment value agin the Scousers, there was a lack of conviction - especially in front of goal - but also a worrying tendency for a return to the defensive errors which have so often historically proved our downfall. Saturday tea time, with the intensely annoying tones of Stan Collymore inflicting GBH on my ears, the chickens came home to roost. The Saints have looked a decent side on occasion, and I remember they gave us a few scares when we played them at the beginning of the season. They also ran the Rags close recently, so this was never going to be an easy trip down to the south coast. Yet, in truth, the loss was as much down to us shooting ourselves in the foot as to the blah-blah-blah philosophy of the new Argie Southampton manager (he must be good, because he can't speak English).

Naturally, to top things off, the Toffees caved in and made life easy for Sir Alex's boys in the run-up to their game against the Galacticos this week, and it really does look as if it's all over red rover now. Even if (which is looking increasingly unlikely) United do slip up, I can't see how we will have enough in us to win the games (i.e., all of them) that we need to in order to stay in it.

As for analysis of Saturday's fiasco, well where to start? There seem to be so many different issues conspiring to tip us into the shit heap at the moment. Barry obviously deserves criticism for having one of those games, and Nasri yet again simply failed to turn up, which is just so fucking infuriating and lazy of him. Hart as well (and again!) hardly covered himself in glory, and there was the now customary fiddling about with the defensive set-up as a result of Kompany's injury. This says so much about the latest recruits and the - let's say - limited impact they have made so far. Yaya hasn't been the force he was last season, and Saturday was just a reinforcement of that disappointing and depressing trend. Whatever the 'personal problem' Tevez had, it doesn't bode well for us, with only Dzeko and Kun to rely on up front. Once more, who could fathom replacing Silva with Maicon, when chasing the game like a Findus horse at 3-1 down?

Though of course it's impossible to know the detail behind much of what goes on at a big club, I feel heartily sick of Mancini sometimes when he starts flinging blame around. It comes across as lame and desperate: blaming the players, blaming Brian Marwood... Who to blame next? Now I hear that dodgy dealings with Barclays Bank are lapping around the Sheikh's ankles, threatening to leave a nasty tide mark on his Savile Row suit trousers, and things could start to go even more horribly wrong. Outside, snow is turning to sleet and a freezing wind blows.

No Telling

A couple of observations from Sunday's match.

It was a good game - for the neutral - and incident packed. The early stages (unfairly panned I thought by the 5 Live mob) were marked out by some dreadful officiating. I clearly saw Milner calling the assistant referee a wanker and telling him to fuck off, and I have to say I thought he was 100% right. This atmosphere was instrumental in setting the scene for Sturridge's goal, though in fairness we had scored against the run of play (if the run of play can include - which I think it can - incompetent officials) prior to that. This doesn't mean that we can be vindicated for switching off when Dzeko was 'injured', and I felt that it was criminal (as well as somehow inevitable) to allow the concentration to lapse so badly there.

Early signs, other than my own gut feeling beforehand that we might draw - or even lose - this one, of the problems we faced were the high lofted balls over the back four or three. Thanks to the way the game is played (or at least refereed) these days, there was a nervousness about the defence getting tight to Sturridge and Suarez and being penalised with a penalty or a card. More evidence of this nervousness about the ball over the top or round the back was seen with that heart-stopping mix-up between Zab and Joe. Almost one of those moments we as City fans know all too well, but mercifully the ball just trickled wide of the post. On top of that, Sturridge I thought had one of the best games I've ever seen him play. He's been quick and lethal at scoring in patches before, but the move to Liverpool is obviously a very positive one for him. Every time he got on the ball he looked a threat - more so even than Suarez - and without him Liverpool would have been a much reduced force.

It seems difficult to single out anyone in the City team as not playing well. Dzeko I often feel could really do more, but - his softness after that foul notwithstanding - he did score after all. Hart (I don't think, though there are some doubts) can be blamed for either goal. Lescott maybe a little shaky at times, but not massively so. Silva - as ever - truly sublime early on, but clearly tired by the second half. Bobby's substitutions were questioned and questionable, in my humble opinion. Maybe there was something wrong with Tevez, but I felt he was the natural choice for subbing when we were chasing the win. Maicon was a mystery to me, but then he has been since we signed him. Fitting somehow that there were two truly top class goals from Stevie G and Kun to even the match out, and of course we're still in the race, Bobby. Of course we are.

Now it's on to the Saints this Saturday tea time. This should be (perhaps has to be) a good win for us. Still, at times we were beautiful to watch, and even if we don't do the Rags 6-1 and win the title again this season, I'd still rather be a City fan.

Please please

The devil makes work for idle hands, so they say. I’ve been struggling with inspiration (and occasionally technology) over the last few weeks, and have 6 posts on draft, none of which have really gone anywhere. Sometimes I’ve felt that I’ve been over sharing, and others that I didn’t really have enough of a point to make (’That’s never stopped you before!’ come the voices of Statler and Waldorf) so have dropped the thread. I also feel recently as if I have no time to myself, no time to think and prepare for a piece of writing.

I am intrigued by the issues of rape currently in the news, with yet another dangerous US Republican religious nut coming out with just such terribly depressing nonsense, and the unconnected issue of Julian Assange’s alleged infractions. I watched closely as a group of businessmen discussed these stories in the park today, wondering if any of them had ever sexually assaulted a woman. Then it was all capped off with the story of a 14 year old boy being raped in a department store in Manchester! Jesus.

I’ve been listening to the Tories tell us that we’re all idle, and thinking about those people who work 12 hour shifts as security guards or 'cooking' in McDonald’s; those who work as carers (obviously not the ones who beat old people up) or cleaners; all of those who struggle into a long day’s work at minimum wage day in and day out, just to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. Not for most the luxury of two weeks in Tuscany, a nice new car or some lovely new clothes. Yet, the problem clearly is that people are not prepared to work harder.

The (fairly) excellent series Toughest Place to Be A… has returned, with this week’s programme showing us the horrors of unregulated mining in Mongolia, and this is surely what those shiny faced little twats from Central Office want – British industrial practices on a par with those of the developing world. Rather than fighting to raise the standards of those less fortunate than us, thanks to many years of hard-won labour rights, they would have us all race to the bottom and a life of struggle and penury followed by an almost certain early death.

And then of course, the football's started again. Come on you Toffees!