While I was away, a few things happened and among those few things included United losing its fifth game of the season; this time a 3-0 loss to Fulham. I wasn’t home that day, and missed the match. On most occasions of my United supporting years it would be a bad thing. Most readers would agree this was an exception.

I wouldn’t want to dwell on that and re-open wounds that are in the process of being stitched (presumably). So I will just move on.

Ferguson has been gushing in praise of Mame Biram Diouf — the Senegalese striker purchased from Molde FC in Norway. Diouf just got his work permit approved and given our strike force’s form, anyone who can half hit the cow’s arse is a welcome addition. Which is not to say Diouf is our saviour. But from Ferguson’s comments it seems like it.

“If you’re talking about value then you can look at our young boy Diouf,” the manager said. “He’s been training with us and is looking very exciting. That’s the kind of situation we’re good at – finding young players who can develop at the club and at 22 years of age he’s looking very good.”

Actually it can mean one of two things.

1. Maybe he is really the second coming of Didier Drogba, minus the diving and being an absolutely disgraceful twat.
2. Maybe Ferguson is scraping the barrel and saying he won’t look to reinforce and make signings in January because we have before us a player good enough, in his opinion, to more than fill the gap.

Speaking of not making any new January signings, reports have him on record saying he won’t bring in new signings to ease the defensive crisis. I think he’s justified in not bringing defensive cover. The comments don’t preclude him from signing players on the offensive end though — I hope we do something to address that. Like all January signings, there won’t be immediate impact necessarily, but in the long run it will be beneficial [read: Evra, Vidic]. If Ferguson honestly believes player values are ridiculous in the current transfer climate, wait till after the World Cup.

There have been some reports linking Guardiola to the United assistant manager job. Honestly, if a Barcelona legend quits after two seasons at the helm, I don’t think he will be loyal enough to stick around at United, even if he does eventually succeed Ferguson. Secondly, the manager of Barcelona wouldn’t really fancy being number two at another club. This is too far-fetched to be discussed, but it’s still an interesting possibility — only possible in imagination-land.

Boxing Day fixtures include no United games, but the 27th sees us play Hull City. After a couple of deflating results, I hope to see something that lifts spirits this festive season. We blew two great opportunities to close the gap on Chelsea, and with all teams being generally crap this season we can still limp to the title if we take advantage of December [or whatever's left of it] and January.

Anyway, the preview discussion would be up prior to that game. In the meantime I would try to update this thing and not abandon it.

The reason I say, ‘try’ is because I am flying to Vegas later today, and will likely miss the Hull game; although I’ll try my best to watch it [I know! How jobless of me!] I also know, considering the nature of the place I’ll be visiting, it would be hypocritical of me to tell you all commenters to behave in the interim. But I’ll do so anyway — responsibilities and all that guff.

Merry Christmas to our Christian readers, and happy Festivus to the rest of you.

Of course, the talking point for United fans is Beckham’s return to Old Trafford as a player. Before Ronaldo he was our biggest marketable star, and like Ronaldo, his departure has split opinion amongst supporters. His reception will intrigue me. So, thoughts on Beckham’s arrival, welcome.

And finally Ryan Giggs has agreed another one-year contract extension. At this rate it’s quite possible I will be reporting a new deal for Giggs in 2065 to my grandchildren. The extension is unsurprising, which is why it’s incredible.

“Ryan deserves a new contract and I am sure he will play for another two years,” said the manager. “His form is fantastic at the moment and he is playing some of his best football.”

Giggs on his extension: “I am enjoying my football more than ever and I am looking forward to hopefully winning more trophies with United.”

Right, so there’s your lot. And, once again, thoughts?

Our injury list reads like so:

Wes Brown – hamstring
Nemanja Vidic – flu
Rio Ferdinand – out indefinitely due to a myriad list of recurring injuries
O’Shea – out till January; ankle, I think
Jonny Evans – out till January (calf)
Fabio – groin
Rafael – unknown injury
Wayne Rooney – hamstring
Dimitar Berbatov – knee
Gary Neville – calf/shin
Edwin Van Der Sar – knee, recovering.
Owen Hargreaves – returned to training, but prone to injury, best termed in this internet world as WTFitis.

Considering the diverse parts of the human anatomy afflicted, it’s safe to say, with the various joints/muscles/tissues mentioned, it’s possible to build one whole footballer.

This is the list so far. We will keep you posted if more players come under the influence of the injury monster — be it liquification of the brain, or anal warts. The monster must be guffawing like all evil monsters in B-grade horror flicks or, as the kids say these days, ROTFLing its arse off.

Evans talks about his family’s move to Manchester from Belfast, his relationship with the manager and his team mates. There is some high praise from the likes of Giggs and Solskjaer. Giggs, says how “we’ve hardly missed” our first choice centre backs whenever he’s slotted into the side in the absence of either Ferdinand or Vidic.

But more than that, it presents us a small window in to the player, the man — he looks every bit the part of a United player. Yet, he looks to shun the flash lifestyle associated with footballers these days. There are signs that he’s obviously surrounded by a good circle of people to guide him through that.

I know a lot of footballers these days say the same old stuff in interviews, but there seems to be an air of sincerity about Evans that isn’t there in say, Rio perhaps [no disrespect to him.] He also seems in awe of the club and that he feels genuinely privileged to play for the club. Now that’s the sort of thing that would leave a lump in the throat in these cynical times.

Other reads worth your while:

RoM, on replacing Ronaldo’s goals

In case you missed it, and since there isn’t much to be talking about right now, try the Soccerlens podcast.

Here’s Schalke defender Marcelo Bordon, in an interview to German newspaper, Bild on goal keeper, Manuel Neuer:

“I know it would be terrible for the supporters of the club, but you have to keep the situation of the club in mind. Maybe therefore it would be better to let Manu leave, just because you would receive a whole lot of money for such a transfer.”

Now, I wonder why the defender of a club is any person of authority to talk about finances, and chances of a teammate leaving — but it could, at the least, point to a feeling of inevitability of this move. The question is when (considering it’s world cup year), and — more importantly — where?

Three ‘keepers — Neuer, Adler and Akinfeev — continue to be linked to us, and this soap opera, while in its infancy, is bound to gather steam as the window reopens. So watch this space…

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Following an unprecedented touchline ban by the FA on a manager (for comments made to the media) the referees’ union are apparently not satisfied, and they reckon Fergie was let off softly. Suggestions of possibly suing Ferguson have come up. Here’s Alan Leighton, national secretary for referees’ union:

“We need to take a few steps back and see what has happened here and I would like to see more about the judgement. We never wanted to get lawyers involved in but if referees don’t feel they are being protected by the regulatory bodies and someone says something defamatory sooner or later someone is going to take action over it.”

So there you have it. There’s mountain out of a perceived molehill. And then there are lawyers who’ll make this sound even more ridiculous. Just as Ferguson criticised Wiley to divert attention from the poor performance of his own players, so are the refs’ union trying their best to deflect the focus from a series of appalling refereeing performances.

Managers deflecting attention from poor performances will help or hurt his team, based on the personnel and his reputation. Deflecting attention from the refereeing incompetence, on the other hand, hurts the entire league.

I’m quite sure which one worries me more.

Further reading: Henry Winter asks for some perspective.

First, Nani:

“People expect more from me and it’s not easy. ‘I’. “I could be doing better, scoring more, but just think, I make a huge game today but the next one, I’m not even sure that I will play. Such a situation breaks the confidence. I know it is still early and that there are lots of games to play this season but I never got to play the big matches like Liverpool, Manchester City or Tottenham and, if I don’t play those matches, I get sadder by the day. I also played through a foot injury so we’ll see if things improve from now on.”

Now, it goes without saying there’s a tinge — to put it mildly — of frustration, mixed with a hint of resignation in the tone. Ferguson has obviously shown much more faith in Valencia this season — playing him in as many games as he could (especially in the big ones) — when conventions indicate the senior player would at least be given a chance to prove himself. Giggsy’s early season form, coupled with Nani’s schizophrenic displays haven’t done him any favours. I could hazard a guess and say he was more of Queiroz’s boy, and it appears — to me, at least — that Ferguson never really warmed up to him. And whilst his handling of the winger last season was a bit dodgy, Nani hasn’t done enough to suggest he demands a regular starting place.

I still think he deserves a fair run this season. Oh, and the money quote that’s made good headlines today, ie, his comments on the manager:

[Sir Alex] goes: ‘Nani, how could you miss this or this?’ No one is safe in the pitch. He treats all the players as equals. Even Ryan Giggs and Gary Neville get it but it takes longer with them because they are more experienced.

“And it is always with ‘Fuck this’ and ‘Fuck that’ back and forth. He is a very complicated guy, very complicated and he is tough. If things are OK, he will be OK. But if there is anything he believed to be wrong, you are screwed. He can go from complimenting you to just plain trashing you in a matter of minutes.”

He also added that he’s “not considering leaving United.” Fair play to him for handling that part right.

The obvious fuss without doubt would be kicked up on the italicised quote above, about calling Ferguson a complicated guy. Headlines already scream: “Nani outburst risks Ferguson’s wrath.” Really?!

All Nani did was call Ferguson a complicated guy, and essentially told us stuff about the manager we already know. It’s like saying the sun is a complicated ball of fire. Some months of the year it roasts the city you live in, while in other months it deserts you leaving the place cold and bitter. Some parts of the world have to bear the brunt of the sun throughout the year while some never have to deal with it. It’s like that.

Well, sort of.

Anyway, Nani should be given a fair chance this season. And if he doesn’t make it this season he would certainly be the next to be jettisoned off to another club. If only brain transplant was an easy medical procedure.

The other interview that has everyone up in arms over is the ‘RONALDO SPECIAL’ (note the caps) in the Daily Mail. [It was originally published on a Russian newspaper Sport Express] Anyway, I’ll skip all the boring parts of the interview which you can all read at leisure and come to the supposed “juicy bit”, when asked about a possible return to Man City:

‘I don’t see them being above United. Perhaps one day, but not yet. At United there are great traditions, which you can’t buy in one or two years. They are created by victories. You need to prove again and again that you are better than the others. Manchester United have always done this and are still doing it, so they are the best.’

‘I don’t know (about City’s interest). I’ve not heard about it. Now I’m at Madrid. Nobody knows what the future will bring. Real are the club of my dreams and I’m glad to be here.’

Ronaldo did what Ronaldo does best, say he has no control of his future and be vague. He also did say a few weeks ago that he wants to spend the rest of his life in Madrid. It’s laughable for anyone to think he will leave sunny Madrid for rainy Manchester especially if said club was City.

Certainly not now. Certainly not in a couple of years. In five? Well, who knows…

As one famous footballing superstar would say: “Only God knows where my future lies.”

1. The Republik of Mancunia interviewed Rob Smyth. Smyth, of course, is a freelancer who also writes for the Guardian. He’s a United fan, and regular readers will recall our interview with him last year (you can read that here.) I like Smyth’s willingness to speak his mind on issues concerning United and football in general.

2. United Rant takes a look at the Vidic rumours that are doing the rounds and wonders what the future holds for our defence.

3. The Guardian’s Sportblog asks about the Premiership action: “What have we learned from the Premier League’s tales of the unexpected?” I have two answers for that

• Upsets can happen. Shock. Horror.
• Hacks will open up drafts of published articles from last week, do a ‘find’ for ‘Rafa Benitez’, replace it with ‘Alex Ferguson’ and then hit publish.

4. Lawrence Donegan, of the Guardian again, looks at the Glazer influence on this summer.

Match report will follow later in the night/day, depending on where you are.

I had the chance to watch the Boca Juniors game but only the first half of the Bayern one. In the spirit of the underlying theme of this post I’ll go with something vacuous: I found some parts of the game encouraging and some discouraging. (I know, I told you today wasn’t the day)

Moving on, I will point you out to some of the coverage of the Audi Cup elsewhere:

1. United Rant looks at Antonio Valencia’s debut and gives their first impressions.

2. Scott at RoM was in Munich, and has done a terrific job covering the Audi Cup. You can read his coverage (including his visit to Busby Babes Memorial)

3. Tim Rich on the Guardian wonders where United’s goals will come from.

4. A Kick in the Grass looks at the way the side is shaping up after the Boca Juniors win.

5. Unsurprisingly, another journo wonders where United’s goals are going to come from — this time Mark Ogden of the Telegraph

That’s about it from me for now. I am a terrible packer and mover — this is my nightmare. So wish me luck.

In this Audi Cup we’re speaking of, we will be playing Boca Juniors on Wednesday whilst Bayern play Milan in the other game. The winners of each will play each other on Thursday, whilst the losers play each other in a third-place match. And that’s really about it. This means we get to face some decent opposition where we can hopefully glean a little more about the way our side is shaping up than a rather pointless day of kickabout against Greentown something-something club. [Lawyers reckon I must add "with due respect" while referring to that Greentown something-something club. So, with due respect...]

In the friendlies that zoomed past, I couldn’t catch a single match in its entirety live. So I had to rely on reports on blogs, highlight reels on youtube, and other forms of the social media sphere such as facebook and twitter to see what other fans thought of some of the players. The general consensus, if there was ever such a thing, is that we seem to be switching back to a system that was more predictable and classic — the one that relied on wingers providing telling crosses. We do have a couple of players capable of providing consistent delivery. Zoran Tosic and Nani have been able to do so quite well this pre-season and so has Darron Gibson. As an aside, I always saw Gibbo as a central midfielder and not a right sided one (although he has played in that position in the past).

Berbatov seems to be showing more hunger while Macheda has managed to take the chances presented to him. For a 17 year old striker looking to make his mark, that’s about as good as you can get. And finally — the biggest plus so far — Michael Owen is still fit. I just wildly knocked on some woodwork as I wrote this.

And that, sadly, is all I can say about the Asia tour.

Meanwhile, Emmanuel Adebayor gave his perspective of truth (after all, truth is really a matter of opinions, no?) on his transfer to Man City. When asked about Ferguson’s comments that he wanted to come to United/Chelsea he said, “There was interest from other clubs but I don’t want to dwell on that now.”

There have been question marks raised over our ‘keepers, which has prompted Edwin van der Sar to declare that it would be hard for either of the two backups to dislodge him from his number one spot. Well, if we were to mix owl vomit with beaver turd and place it in a bowl by the goal post, would even that stench from the concoction struggle to dislodge him? That is the sort of question we must ask. And, would Ben Foster and co be prepared to withstand that stench to become our number one? We shall have to wait and see. Because, that, to me, is the real way of identifying the best man for the keeper’s job at United ever since we lost Schmeichel. Honest.

* * *

Meanwhile, some interesting links for today include…

1. Mark Ogden wraps up reporting United’s final Asian pre-season game against Greentown H… (with due respect) club with a glowing report on Owen.

2. Mark Hughes thinks the poster was “a bit of fun between the fans” — conveniently sidestepping the fact that it was a banner created by the club (like, official stuff, and all that).

3. Nicolas Anelka thinks Chelsea are a far bigger threat to United on account of Ronaldo and Tevez’s departure.

And that’s about it. I’m off for now, and you know you can find me throughout the day on the comments or twitter, or facebook.

Tim Rich, who seems to be The Guardian’s man accompanying the United travelling party, has been doing his share of sending postcards from the far-east. Topics covered in his daily dispatches range from describing the boredom of our poor, grossly overpaid, footballers [boo, hoo. The players have exhausted their stockpile of DVDs and can't get out of their hotel rooms. How are they ever going to survive? Cue: an idea for network executives for a pilot of 'I'm a Premier League footballer, get me out of this claustrophobic, yet plush hotel room'] to pointing us towards the 1.2 million South Korean owners of Manchester United credit cards, for the 98247th time.

But in between the humdrum that is expected of these pre-season travel diaries, comes two interesting pieces, one about comments from the Glazer camp, and another on United’s commercial interests in Asia.

The Glazer family comments [rather the comments of his spokesman] have already been out for a while now; blogs [it's been briefly touched upon here], and mainstream media outlets in general have already been talking about it for over two days.

Tehsin Nayani, the spokesman defended Ferguson’s spending. He made it clear that the manager has £60m to spend. Some of it is quite interesting, and mildly [well, if you look closely, grossly] ironic; well get to it in a bit:

The manager has a significant amount of money to invest if he wants to. The delay has been because the manager has not been able to locate the players he believes fit the Manchester United mindset -– players who are motivated to play for United. You don’t want mercenaries and you don’t want to pay over the odds for players not willing to give their all for the club.”

If, for a moment, you stand back and decide to not read in between the lines and not second-guess, it could possibly point towards Ferguson learning from the Ronaldo and Tevez experience. Granted, both players’ cases could be debated either way, but Ferguson seems to be in a mindset of identifying players would gladly sign for United. Of course, this logic falls flat in the face of our attempts to sign Benzema, who clearly had his head turned towards the Iberian peninsula.

But it’s hard to imagine the manager not finding anyone of reasonable quality who’d be glad to wear the Red shirt. I am certainly behind Ferguson’s decisions, based on how he’s managed to come out well in face of criticism. I am willing to give him the benefit of doubt, because he has so clearly earned that right from fans. But I do scratch my head, at times, at some of the very good defensive midfielders and attackers we have actually let slip.

But the under-26 policy, this theory of not buying ‘mercenaries’ [of course, the irony bit was, these comments were made during a money spinning tour of the far-east, signing deals left, right and centre] all explain, sort of, the mindset Ferguson has adopted this summer. He sees the inflation of prices brought about by Real Madrid and Man City as far from ideal situations to dip into the market. [As an aside, some fans have blamed Ferguson for accepting a fee of £80m, hence causing an explosion of transfer fees in the market -- which I find absolutely ridiculous. If Ferguson had a choice, he wouldn't sell Ronaldo. Imagine the outrage from the same set of fans had he told Madrid that he'll sell him at a lower price, so that this act of philanthropy on his part wouldn't inflate the market. ]

Obertan, Mame Biram Diouf and Owen were bought for a combined fee of about £10m; Valencia at £17m. So a further £60m budget means Ferguson was handed a £90m war chest. I am not going to judge these signings till I see them in action in the season, but, for what it’s worth, this summer we’ve learned a lot more about our transfer strategy than we ever have in the Glazer era.

* * *

I’ve grumbled along at how almost every conceivable European powerhouse is busy scurrying about in sunny California, or sweltering Dallas or, umm, (I don’t know the weather) Baltimore, selling shirts, and playing some football in front of packed houses, yet, Manchester United somehow manage to stay away from the soccer-fuss here in Stateside. I can understand why United see Asia as the bigger market. Apparently they are looking at billion-strong India next year. Conquer China and India, and you’ll have over a third of the world’s market covered. With rumours of Manchester United cafes in India, that would be the next frontier indeed. I am still puzzled that a club as commercially savvy as United would choose to consciously ignore the American market when there has been a sea change in the general perception of the game in the US.

Perhaps, Tim Rich and Dominic Fifield (the Guardian’s US pre-season correspondent) should do a joint piece on the merits of touring one continent over the other.

Meanwhile the club continue to rake in the dough, with football being incidental for now. At least, until they return to Munich for the friendlies against more serious opposition.