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I’ve never cried in public before, but I was so close to a few hours ago. The combination of Middlesbrough sussing us out completely and United playing absolutely awful was enough to put me on the brink of balling my eyes out.

Manchester United should be the team that nobody wants to play. They should be the XI that deal out 4-goal thumpings week-in, week-out. Fans should cringe at when they see “Manchester United” on their fixture list. That doesn’t happen anymore, and it hasn’t happened for a very long time. Chelsea, and to an extent Arsenal, should be the only teams that want to play us – the others should be fearing a thumping.

I can administer no excuses for what happened tonight. Middlesbrough outclassed us in every department. It hurts to think that, never mind writing it. I can’t claim an injustice because M’boro sussed United out completely.

It got more disappointing with each goal that went in, because they all could have been prevented so easily. The first one could easily have been saved, why a keeper dives without stretching his arms I’ll never know. A good shot, maybe, but by no means unstoppable. Especially for a keeper of van der Sar’s standards. The second goal should have been thumped into the crowd by Rio – everything with that goal was wrong from Rio letting the ball bounce to the way it was prodded under van der Sar. The third goal… it was a penalty… definitely… but why was there 5 minutes of stoppage time in the first half? What was that about. Not much to say about the 4th goal, for a Champions League club you should be able to defend balls that are cut back into the area. But no… box full of United players, Yakubu cuts it back and Mendieta puts it into an open net.

The worst part is they probably deserved more goals. I know that if I were a M’boro fan I’d say they could have easily had 7 or 8. 4-1 is flattering. 4-0 was scathing, and Ronaldo’s goal takes a gloss of the result that M’boro deserved. Outsiders who didn’t see the goal will think “atleast United scored” or “that’s only a 3 goal deficit”. It was 4-0 as far as I’m concerned, and probably should have been more. Make no mistakes about it – United were outplayed and outclassed.

I’m not one for blaming a single player for a team’s effort, but there were certain United players more at fault than others. Rooney and Ronaldo were the only players of promise for us, but alas neither of them had the proper end product that you associate with them. Rooney often dribbled around players only to send a cross/shot easily into Schwarzer’s hands. Ronaldo came on as a sub and despite all his skill passes were often cut out, crosses never found a team-mate and he had to resort to diving. And those were by far our most positive moments… sums up how bad we really were.

I can safely say that I’ll be happy if this result means O’Shea and Fletcher never play another game for United in their whole lives, but I doubt it because Fergie obviously thought they were worthy of staying on the pitch. Bardsley and Park departed, which I thought were harsh decisions. O’Shea had a good season about 3 years ago, and since has never been anywhere near worthy of playing for Man Utd. Defensively he’s uncertain and unstable… he’s not particularly quick and he doesn’t anticipate things well. Offensively he struggles with crosses, often sending them cannoning into defenders. And other than his chip against Arsenal, he poses no threat to the opposition’s goalkeeper. Fletcher is far, far worse. I can’t see how this guy commands a starting place in the central midfield of the biggest club in the world. His passing is tame, he can’t shoot, he’s as fast as Laurent Blanc, he’s not strong enough to tackle anybody and his decisions are often 3 or 4 seconds later than they should be. Every now and again he’ll make a cross or pass that ‘shows promise’ according to pundits, but one or two passes every few games isn’t Manchester United quality, I’m afraid. Get him out. He’s fucking awful.

Other than that – Rio looked nothing short of shaky. If you think any club would pay £30 million on his recent performances you’re deluded. He was the organiser of a defence that conceded 4 goals against an average side. Yeah there’s other people in that back line, but for £30 million and the world class reputation that goes with it he should be mopping up everything. He just doesn’t do that.

Smith often played too deep and was sucked out of positions too easily. He’d join team mates in tackling one player, resulting in leaving another one wide open. I could be wrong, but I think this is how the first goal happened. Fletcher was trying to retrieve the ball on the wing and Smith galloped out (we’re a good 40 yards from goal here, and most ‘boro players are in their own half) but no… Smith runs over to help leaving Mendieta wide open. Cue the pass to Mendieta and shit loads of space to fire in from outside the area. He’s no replacement for Roy Keane. He can be a midfielder, but you can’t learn how to do Keane-o’s job in the space of a few months.

Van Nistelrooy couldn’t control the ball or hold it up like he enjoys doing. He didn’t get any space, always closed down impeccably by Middlesbrough. It didn’t help that most of the passes were forced at him when he was crowded. He was diving as well because he had no other options. Scholes was quiet and ineffective. Park was disappointing – often making the wrong decisions and taking the ball away from space.

Ugh…

It was the worst I’ve seen my team play in a very, very long time. We deserved to have 7 or 8 put past us.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so I’mma let these pictures do my talking.

……………

Hip-hop is back.

For those of you that don’t have a clue what’s going on… Jay-Z’s “I Declare War” concert happened last night. Jay-Z was supposed to air out all the people who’ve been going at him in the past year (50 Cent, The Game, Jim Jones, etc.) but instead he brought out the G.O.A.T. (Nas) and a whole host of other rappers (T.I., Young Jeezy, Kanye West, Paul Wall, Diddy, etc.). Nas rapped the hook on Jay’s “Dead Presidents” before doing some of his old Illmatic shit.

I guess the thought of a Jay + Nas album ain’t too inconceivable now is it?

Add a broken hi-fi to my list of breakages at Uni. Not only do I have to replace my camera, but now I’ve got a hi-fi that won’t play CDs. The auxiliary outputs and radio options still work, but the hi-fi will no longer recognise CDs.

I have no idea how this happened. I haven’t slept in my room for the past 3 nights, so I’ve only been in my room to change clothes and pick up books. I’ve not even turned the hi-fi on. The other night there was a power surge in our halls though, and in the morning none of the electrics worked. My inkling is that this power surge has some how fucked up my hi-fi.

There’s a way round it. I can plug my portable CD player or my laptop into the auxiliary to play CDs… but I shouldn’t have to. Besides… they don’t hold 5 at a time.

For fucks sake. I was enjoying uni but now stuff keeps breaking. I’ve also heavily injured both my feet, through my own stupidity, but I won’t go into that. So I haven’t been able to walk properly for well over a week (which is why there’s been quite a few updates, I can’t really leave the house for nights out, etc). I can’t put any weight whatsoever on my heel, so I’m having to walk on my tip-toes or put weight on the front of my foot… making me look like an utter dick. It’s incredibly painful, to my pride and appearance as much as the feet themselves.

So… Broken camera, broken cd player, broken feet. What’s next? Come on God. Throw something else at me.

If you hadn’t already guessed. The picture at the top of the article is of me. Before the sex/race change, obviously.

I can’t be doing without a camera. The last one was going to cost well over £120 to fix, so I got the newer, smaller model from Amazon.

I’m £150 down now… BAH… I’ll work it off in the summer.

At the start of the year I fantasised about the thought of travelling the world. Whenever people used to say they were taking gap years to ‘travel’ I always thought they were just going to spend a year of their lives fucking around. Mostly because that’s what the people I know would do. But ever since I’ve moved to Sunderland, the notion that there’s more to see to life than just crappy Yorkshire villages is quite true.

After looking at places like gapyear.com and various tourism/backpacking sites, I’ve decided that come the end of Uni I want to spend time travelling before I finally get the job that my parents have been itching for. Now I’m posed with a lot of questions – How do I raise the money? Where would I go and see?

The answer to both of those is simple. 1) I don’t have the money. And 2) I want to see it all. We’ve got a kind of Hitler-Stalin conflict of interests here, haven’t we?

Money is a problem. When I finish University I’ll already be fifteen grand in debt due to Student Loans. Well, technically I won’t, not until I start earning over £15,000 a year. And even then the payback rate is ridiculously small. It works out as 5% of my wage minus £15,000 (so if I was earning £20,000 then in a year I’d pay back 5% of £5,000 – which is £250). But I’m sitting on no money at the moment, but I’ve got 3 years to worry about fundraising. So that’s not a concern of mine right now.

I seriously want to spend time travelling each and every continent the world has to offer. My parents were in the army, so I travelled a lot as a kid, but I was too young to remember living in Singapore and visiting places like Hong Kong. Maybe it’s this taster that’s whet my appetite. Visiting all these places after 21 (and with a working camera ;)) I should be able to remember and savour the experiences.

Excuse the naivity and wishful thinking, because it is simply a pipe-dream at the moment, but I would like to spend a year travelling from coast-to-coast in North America (Simple Life style). That would be my first option. American culture is something that dominates my life, so if I were travelling I’d want to spend most of my time over there. God knows how I’d do it and/or get a job out in the States with no Visa, but travelling city to city taking me from LA-NY is the dream right now. I’m sure there’s a way to achieve it.

I’d also like to spend 2/3 months exploring other continents, although these expeditions would be years apart (obviously) and only if I could ever afford them. In an ideal world I’d have a couple of hundred grand to waste going round the world from city to city, but alas I don’t.

A few months in Asia would be incredible – Japan and China fascinate me in all ways. They’re nothing like western civilisation and even though I’d be lost in translation, it would nevertheless be a captivating couple of months. Travelling the many countries of Africa would be eye-opening too. As a kid who relies so much on technology (laptops, phones, etc) that would be interesting, to say the least. And the same for South America.

As for Europe, well that’s a lot closer to home. There’s no reason why I can’t just spend a few weekends a year in different cities, checking out football derbies abroad and stuff. That’s completely realistic.

I’ve summed that all up pretty briefly, because it is just a pipe-dream, but after checking out a lot of travelling sites recently there is so much I want to check out. The more I ramble the more naïve I sound but I always get something done when I set my heart on it… even though I’m a lazy bum, and in the next 3 years I could decide that I miss the North Yorkshire moors and want to spend the rest of my days like an extra in Emmerdale.

We’ll see.

Check out gapyear.com, and particularly the “Round the World Diaries”, see if they can inspire you too.