The two week implosion - where's my Strongbow?

After the entire internet ignored my blog for a few weeks, I received this comment after Liverpool's demolition of Aston Villa - “bad weekend for manc bloggers the world over”.

The writer left themselves anonymous but their succinctly put reply reminded me I hadn't made a post in a while. I haven't been avoiding it because I'm a fair-weather blogger, I just haven't had much to say in all honesty.

Needless to say, I could vent all day long about our attempts to destroy our season in a two week period. There are many factors to blame for our current arse-over-tit form; Ferguson's selections, big names prancing around the pitch like gurning women, sheer bad luck in some cases.

For Saturday's debacle I'm going to edge towards Ferguson being the main problem. In a game where we needed to stamp our authority early on and show the opposition that we weren't in the midst of a crisis of confidence, Ferguson decided to drop our best player and talisman, Wayne Rooney. This move was to accommodate Dimitar Berbatov, the last player in our entire squad that you would want at your side in battle, and a battle is exactly what we have turned the season into. Pairing him with Ronaldo was merely insult to injury, as a recalcitrant Ferguson seemed determined to prove that he had a trick up his sleeve to turn us around from our drubbing at home to Liverpool.

The midfield saw the teaming up of Giggs, Scholes, Fletcher and Park. Attacking outlets – virtually nothing. Now, don't get me wrong, they are all good players in their own right, but not in this combination. By removing Ronaldo from midfield, we had no real natural width (our main attacking strength when we play two wingers) and so our normal style was completely negated. Dropping Michael Carrick is simply moronic at any time.

The game itself started poorly, the penalty and sending off are almost inexplicable aside from the fact that Paul Scholes has form when it comes to playing volleyball in either box. He must shoulder a large portion of the blame for this result and won't shirk away from that responsibility, unlike our esteemed manager who will look to blame everyone but himself.

Once Danny Murphy did what he always does, that was all she wrote. At no stage were we ever going to get anything from this game.

Berbatov sulked around, Ronaldo moaned, the defence decried each other visibly all afternoon.

By the time Rooney was sent off for daring to throw the ball back to his team mates too quickly, we were already two down after a very fine finish from Zoltan Gera, a very good little player in his own right.

All was not lost, with Chelsea unexpectedly losing at White Hart Lane but Liverpool dispatched Aston Villa with consummate ease as they eased past our goal difference and to within one point of us in the table, albeit we do have a game in hand that won't be played until a couple of weeks from the conclusion of the season.

The international break couldn't come at a better time. Hopefully Ferguson will have noted how susceptible Aston Villa are looking at present and actually set out to impose our game on them, something we haven't done since the Fulham cup game. We'll have to do it without Vidic, Scholes and Rooney, with Berbatov possibly missing due to injury after leaving Craven Cottage with his foot in a cast after an awkward looking ankle injury. Is that a bad thing?

I didn't drink during the match. Two week self imposed hiatus from the sauce. What am I thinking?