All on now

Who'd a thunk it, eh? Certainly not me as I sat on the 329 in its interminable course along Green Lanes, furious with the BB as it echoed the bus's tardiness in returning a simple web query. Five or six refreshes and at last you get to the score of the current match, which was of course the Rags v Everton at the Sty. At that point it was 4-2 Rags, and naturally I felt that it was definitely Kenneth Wolstenholme, so dejectedly prepared to grab my messages from Waitrose and head home. Then, two text messages came in in quick succession from John the Brief; the first said 'Come on you toffies' (sic) and the second, simply: 'Happy days!' The prospect of again firing up the BB web browser was too much to bear, so I contemplated standing in the doorway of McDonald's and trying to pick up the Cloud wi-fi on my iPod, but instead sent John a text back. 'Out & about,' it said, 'Did they beat the Rags?' A few minutes later, and on my way to Holland & Barrett, came his reply: '4-4 f/t', and at the same moment a bloke (obviously a United fan) was talking to his mate on the mobile just behind me, confirming the wonderful news.

A spring now in my jaded step, I made it home and flicked on the radio, listening to the pundits saying it was perhaps the game of the season, listening to Bacon Face decrying his defence and sending Schadenfreude texts to my Rag mate, tempered slightly by the fact that the City match was still an hour and a half from kick-off. There was also much talk also of how City could wrest back the initiative by winning at Molineux, of how destiny had brought us to this point, and blah blah blah. I vacillated for some time, working out whether I wanted to spend almost £4 on a pint, whether I could be bothered to walk to the top of the hill, and - most importantly - what effect my decision would have on the outcome of the match, knowing full well that my choice would definitely influence the game.

Finally, I settled on going for one pint and one half of 90 minutes, arriving at the bar a minute or two after the start. Wolves looked bright enough, and were testing us with set pieces and high balls into the box, but their early threat faded somewhat, and we had a good few chances which were agonisingly close before Clichy played that absolute peach of a pass and allowed Kun the sniff he needed to bang in his 22nd goal of his debut season. What a player he is! Home again for the second half, and a few more scares before the quick thinking of Tevez gave Nasri an easy task to seal the points, sending the Yow Yows back down below in the process.

All on now for a week today, and a match to look forward to if ever there was one.

Super fast

Surprising thrashing of Wolves in the week, with the fixture (kind of) reversed for Saturday, and a harder fought battle. Tevez fully supported by his union (didn't Gordon Taylor sound like a geek on the radio the other day?) with his punishment reduced by their sterling efforts on his behalf. I'm all for unions (as I may have said before) but the modern footballer - certainly in the higher echelons - is surely one of the least deserving of all workers for union support? Maybe I'm wrong, and we would, by removing the protection from Carlos (why can't he just say sorry?) et al, be opening a can of worms which would spew their noxious guts all over the poor bastards who turn up for Wrexham week in week out? Who knows? Anyway, the sheikh has agreed to pay Mancini's legal bills out of his own pocket, and Bobby himself I believe has signed, or is about to sign, a new four year, £22million contract. Good for him, I suppose.

In the real world, the economy is worse than that bus at the end of The Italian Job, teetering over a precipitous drop while Merkel and Sarkozy do their Michael Caine impressions and tell Lord Snooty to shut up, piss off, die horribly, etc. As we watch the bullion swinging back and forth over the cliff, the pay of FTSE executives has increased by 49 fucking %!

And there really is surprise over the fact that people are putting up tents all over the place? For fuck's sake! There is no sanity. Linked to this crazy bullshit, almost the entire hierarchy of the Church of England has resigned over the tents outside St. Paul's cathedral. Looking towards the Archbishop of Canterbury for leadership has been - unsurprisingly - rather a waste of time, but this whole episode has started what could be an extremely interesting dialectic about the role of the church in political life, and could even forge a strange new alliance between the anarchists and the men of god. Let's see.

Anyway, it seems there's enough dosh in the Abu Dhabi kitty to finance a flight to Spain for the boys, and let's hope we can do something to stay in touch in Europe.

I think it will be a tough call, and fear a draw at best. At least it's on ITV1.

Hi Ho Silver Lining

Bloody good weekend that, unless you're a West Ham fan of course.

Having the pleasure of watching the Rags get eaten by Wolves was deeply satisfying, and the astonishing capitulation by the Gooners up on the Tyne was a sight to behold. Now, with the London Huns (as a good Glaswegian friend of mine so succinctly put it) continuing their trajectory of shiteness, the title's in the mix again for City in this strangely stuttering season, where I thought early on Saturday morning that we would be lucky to grab a top 4 spot.

What can you say about Tevez, really? Marking his 27th birthday with another hat trick and drawing level with Lord Berba in goals tally whilst - according to the Guardian at least - appearing only half interested and missing a couple of beautiful chances. It's frightening to think where we might be without him, but luckily enough that's not a thought that needs to cross our minds for the moment. Dzeko seems to be struggling a little, and was keeping his arse warm for a good while on Saturday of course, but I still think he'll come good. Balotelli (presumably) remains in Colorado with his frozen knee and tortuous training schedule, and in any case I have to admit that he has so far (despite his 8 goals from relatively few games) failed to convince me as a striker.

And, with AJ out for the bulk of the rest of the season, we will need someone to start banging a few in. In contrast to Balotelli, Kolarov (not a striker I know, but an accomplished wing back) has impressed me thus far, and he seems to be stepping up his game now, just when we need him most. Silva - undoubtedly brilliant as he is - should perhaps be putting the ball in the net a bit more often, but that might be something of a harsh criticism.

I'm not going to swagger, despite the obvious lack of quality and depth in the Rags, not to mention that they lost to the team bottom of the league, with the derby coming up. I must admit that we have more than a few concerns at the back which were not evident a few weeks ago. Though not in the same hilarious league as Petr Cech yesterday (I swear he was scared of Ivanovic after having a go at him) Hart continues to make bewildering decisions on occasion and gives me cause for concern, as do others in the back line, including Boateng (disappointingly) Lescott (obviously) and even Kompany in recent games (surprisingly). No doubt we will play a different kind of game when it comes to derby day, making more use of De Jong and trying to slam the door shut, but this tactic can easily fail if there is just one error in the back line.

But it's onwards and upwards; standing toe to toe with the big boys and all of that jiving around. Bring it on.