Football or soccer has always been my favourite sport. Played and watched every day surge I was a child. When I see players on hundreds of thousands of pounds a week and ordinary working people paying a chunk of their wages supporting them then we expect a bit of effort.

Manchester United are still one of the biggest teams in the world both in terms of revenue and number of global supporters. As a result their players come under enormous scrutiny. In recent times it’s not been hard to find a few cracks in the foundations at the club. One player was allegedly caught on video verbally abusing his girlfriend. He no longer plays for the club. Then a second player was accused of hitting his girlfriend. That issue seems to have affected the player and the issue appears to be still bubbling under the surface.

Add in the Jadon Sancho saga where he allegedly was late for training and didn’t appear to be trying hard enough when he actually turned up mean a second expensive player gone to another club on loan.

So what 5 1/2 other things have we learnt this week

1 Marcus Rashford

Last season 30 goals. This season 4. A new £375,000 a week contract which works out at £ 2 million per goal.

Missed training on Friday after allegedly clubbing in Belfast the night before. Net result he was dropped for the FA cup game against Newport. So what’s gone wrong. Was he good friends with Jadon Sancho and he’s lost his FIFA playing pal. Is there something wrong in his personal life? Has his new found wealth made him lazy? It’s hard to tell but he or United need to find out quickly before it’s too late.

2. Newport County FA cup match

I love the FA cup. A chance for smaller less affluent teams to cause a shock. Newport County started the game 70 places lower in the leagues so you would still expect eleven highly paid players to see off a team in League two. After 12 minutes United were already 2-0 up and a cup shock looked far far away. It didn’t work out like that for reasons we’ll come on to. 2-1 by half-time and 2-2 early on in the second half the Daimler drivers were starting to look decidedly ordinary. in the end United won 4-2 so job done but…………..

3. Rasmus

8 goals in 20 games. I’m ok with that. Rasmus Højlund has done well in his young career at Old Trafford. This has all been achieved without much help from his teammates. At 2-0 the ball is played to Garnacho who has a simple cross on for Rasmus or Bruno to make it 3-0. Instead……..

Garnacho, not for the first time opts for the greedy shot which hits the bar. Instead of 3-0 and game over it would soon be 2-2.

4. Antony

We know he’s had his off field problems this season but even before that Antony has struggled to match his expensive transfer fee. He can take a ball out of the sky better than most players I’ve ever seen but he almost always plays the ball backwards. He doesn’t appear to want to use his right foot and, as a result, almost never takes on a defender on the outside. So, he always cuts in on his left. Defenders know he’ll do this so he’s normally cut off or blocked. If he does create a yard of space then he’ll almost always hit it wide left of the goal, I have a solution………….

5. Wolves vs Man Utd

I’ve written the rest of this post over the last day or so and I’m writing this bit sort of ‘live’. It’s one hour and forty five minutes to kick off or 6:30pm. All I know from watching Erik ten hag’s press conference on YouTube earlier is Mason Mount is still injured and night clubber Marcus Rashford is back in the room ‘ Team probably won’t be announced until 7:45pm so we’ll be back then!

7:05pm

Interrupting things to say I’m watching Big Zuu’s 12 dishes in 12 hours and he’s in London his hometown with Man Utd legend Patrice Evra!

7:24pm

Woah! The media have surprised me by naming the Man Utd team 20 minutes early!

7:45pm

Teams already been announced so 7:45pm link a waste of time. 20 odd minutes to kick off. Which Man Utd team will turn up?

8:05pm

Patrice Evra and Big Zuu are getting tucked into Patrice’s home food from Senegal. Looks lovely.

8:15pm Kick Off here goes anything

Casemiro booked after only 2 minutes

5 mins in Rashford clubs the ball into the net 1-0 Man Utd

23 minutes Rasmus Højlund makes it 2-0 ooh!

45 minutes two goals disallowed for offside and at least four chances wasted. Hmmmm! This normally comes back to haunt United. We shall see but so far much better performance.

21:35

Oh my. we gave away a soft penalty and it’s 2-1 😳

Never a penalty !!!

21:40

GOAL McTominay 3-1 United

21:50

Oh my Wolves score 3-2 with 5 mins to go

22:00

Antony gives the ball away. Wolves break 90+5 with 9 mins of injury time it”s 3-3 – 😬😬😬

22:10

Oh…….Kobbie Mainoo you’re the boy 4-3 wow! 😮 Kobbie nutmegs a Wolves player, weaves through their defence and in the 97th minute scores what surely is the winner.

22:30

Once again you wonder how the game wasn’t finished off. Thank goodness for the youngsters………..

Final score Wolves 3 Man United 4

5 1/2. You Tube Vloggers

There are a plethora of Man United vloggers on YouTube. Some are better than others but generally they’re all good in their own individual way. Despite their moaning about leaks from the club, player issues. or things being handled badly by the club, they vie for viewers so generally the content is anything controversial. One example is the ‘ Of course I’m a big supporter of Erik Ten Hag but another defeat might see him sacked ‘. United have seen manager after manager through the revolving door without any improvement. Leave him alone and sort the rest out first.

The expert vloggers also have plenty of advice on who should be picked to play. For the Newport game vloggers wanted Mainoo and Casemiro in midfield. They would ‘ control the game’. I’m still waiting for an olé as Newport players struggled to get a kick of the ball. We’re all experts from our sofa!