Footballbits and pieces

On 1 February 2006, Blackburn winger David Bentley scored the first Premier League hat-trick against Manchester United as Rovers won 4-3. The match was Bentley’s first as an official Blackburn player–he signed with them the day before after spending the first half of the season with them on loan from Arsenal. Playing at home before [...]

Maybe he’s mellowing in his old age, or merely becoming a little more scrambled, but neither fits, really, as a plausible reason for Sir Alex Ferguson’s compulsion to tinker with his team. Last night’s Champions League game against Valencia was the 150th successive game in which he has made changes to the starting line up, [...]

While Manchester United fans may argue that Sir Alex Ferguson deliberately picked a weakened team to take on West Ham in the Carling Cup quarter final game at Upton Park last night, we all know that Ferguson put out a team that he thought were capable of getting a result against the Hammers, something they [...]

The sky is still blue, the earth is still round, water is still wet and Manchester United have confirmed that Owen Hargreaves will face another five weeks on the sidelines after pulling up with a hamstring injury just six minutes into their game with Wolves on Saturday – his first appearance for the club in [...]

The issue of wage increases has been brought into the spotlight once again by the news that Wayne Rooney has signed a vastly-improved contract at Manchester United, having agitated for a move away from Old Trafford. It was Chelsea who famously stimulated the market following Roman Abramovich’s arrival in 2003, a role now undertaken by [...]