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40 min Not much is happening at the moment.
38 min In many ways, United have had a poor season so far, yet only twice under Sir Alex Ferguson have they had more points after 15 games, in 1993-94 and 2006-07. They have been excellent here, and the key – as almost always when a Sir Alex Ferguson side plays well – is their tempo. A few of United's best seasons under Ferguson have involved an almighty kick up the backside, most obviously the defeat to Manchester City in 2002-03. If they do win the title this year, the match in Basel will have been their most important league game.
34 min Rooney has been excellent. He's dropping off a lot today, playing in his old No10 role. United's formation is more 4-2-3-1 than 4-4-2.
32 min United should be about 8-1 up here. De Gea has just saved with his left foot from Helguson. He ran at Smalling on the edge of the box and then dragged a shot back across goal, through the legs of Smalling I think. It was a bit of a dribbler, and De Gea stuck out his left foot to save.
31 min Cerny has made another wonderful save. Nani made Luke Young look stupid on the left of the box and then played it back to Rooney, 12 yards from goal. His sidefooted shot was blocked, and Valencia's sidefooted follow up from six yards was wonderfully saved by Cerny, who was on the floor for the Rooney shot and sprung to his feet to save with his outstretched right hand. From the resulting corner, Jonny Evans's header is cleared off the line by Faurlin. United should be about 8-0 up here.
29 min Cerny makes a crucial save from Phil Jones. It was a majestic counter-attack from United. Smalling won possession and found Rooney, who played a beautiful angled through ball for Jones, marauding imperiously beyond the defence. He galloped to within 17 yards of goal before trying to pass the ball into the far corner, and Cerny stretched out his right foot to deflect it wide for a corner. Ray Wilkins describes Jones's run as "Bryan Robson-like", so now he has been compared to Duncan Edwards, Paul McGrath, Bryan Robson, Fernando Hierro, Franco Baresi and Tom Lutz.
27 min Jonny Evans hits the bar from three yards. (The QPR bar, I should stress.) Cerny came for Nani's left-wing corner and was nowhere near it. Welbeck flicked the ball on at the near post and Evans headed it onto the top of the bar. It was a sitter really, although he couldn't quite get over the ball.
26 min "Here's one reason you can support anyone you like, Tom Astin," begins Mac Millings. "If I was from, say, Gillingham, there's no way I would support that team, purely on the basis that other people from Gillingham presumably did, and, as we all know, everyone from Gillingham is a cee. The same goes for all other towns and cities of England. The only logical conclusion is that everyone of sound mind must support a team from another town, preferably one they've never been to, so that they can, at least, pretend that not every resident in that far-off place is a complete effing a-hole." He didn't actually type a-hole. Or effing. Or cee.
25 min Gabbidon is booked for kicking Valencia, who is booed for being kicked.
24 min Danny Welbeck has a goal disallowed for offside. He was put through by a lovely angled pass from Rooney and passed the ball calmly under Cerny, but the flag had gone up. That was a desperately close decision, and could have gone either way. On balance I reckon his big toe was just offside, although I'd like to see another replay.
23 min Nani lays the ball back to Phil Jones, who drags a shot wide of the near post from 20 yards.
20 min QPR are getting right back into this. The pace of the match has been furious.
17 min Rooney is cleaned out by Connolly, who took man and ball, but Howard Webb waves play on and QPR break. Mackie slips away from the increasingly inept Evra – who may have handled the ball just outside the area – and then plays it square for England's Jay Bothroyd, who sweeps a shot high over the bar from 18 yards. Rio Ferdinand is booked for giving Howard Webb what and for about the Connolly challenge, which was pretty robust. The angle of the replay wasn't great, so I'm not sure whether he took ball or ankle first.
16 min A statgasm from my colleague Simon Burnton: before this weekend QPR were eighth on first-half record, but 20th on second-half record. Weirdly, Bolton were 16th on first-half record, 15th on second-half record, but 20th overall.
14 min Carrick plays a delicious give-and-go with Rooney, bursts into the box and is crowded out by a couple of defenders. The resulting corner is punched away unconvincingly by Cerny. After a couple of months out of form/sulking about his Euro 2012 suspension, Rooney looks right on it again.
13 min QPR have responded well to going behind, and are having a decent little spell, although United are counter-attacking with enormous menace.
10 min When I made that comment about the trains, Barry Glendenning warned me that someone would fling hilariious banter about all Manchester United fans being from the home counties. Step forward Tom Astin. "Have no fear! Trains from Surrey, Kent, Essex and Hampshire will no doubt have transported the diehard United fans from those respective counties to this match with plenty of time to spare so all's well that ends well.......no?" No.
9 min United look so much better when Antonio Valencia is playing well, as he is here. It means moving Nani to the left, which is not ideal, but I would take Nani and Valencia over Nani and Young all day.
8 min "Pogba and Morrison to be shipped out in the summer?" says Fred Lane. "I can understand Pogba wanting away, since he's not rooted in the club, but surely SAF has invested so much in Morrison – a local lad – that he will want him to blossom fully at Old Trafford. A season with a lower-league club close enough to Manchester for him to commute might be the best option." Oh I don't think they'll be shipped out – not even Fergie would do that. But apparently they are both out of contract (although there is some confusion about Morrison) and want to grab as much money as is physically possible, like almost all modern footballers first-team football.
7 min Nani almost scores a second for United. He slipped away from Traore on the right wing with a lovely nutmeg, sped into the box and then saw his close-range shot blocked at the expense of a corner.
6 min A decent chance for QPR. Barton drilles a right-wing corner towards Helguson, who gets a run on Smalling and heads just wide of the near post from 12 yards. This has been a breathless start.
5 min United have started at a furious pace, the sort of pace they played at in that stunning fortnight at the start of the season. QPR have their first attack, and Wright-Phillips shoots over from 20 yards.
3 min That was almost 2-0. Nani played a delicious straight pass down the side of the defence for Welbeck, who made an excellent angled run into the area. He got to the ball a fraction before the covering Gabbidon, but his first-time shot from eight yards was blocked by a combination of Gabbidon and the keeper Cerny.
GOAL! QPR 0-1 Manchester United (Rooney 1) What a start from Manchester United! It's the old firm of Rooney and Valencia, who always combine so well. Rooney played a first-time ball wide to Valencia and then darted towards the far post. Valencia picked out an excellent deep cross and Rooney contorted his body cleverly to header the ball down into the ground and into the net. The goal came after 53 seconds.
1 min Manchester United kick off from left to right. They are in red; QPR are in blue-and-white hoops. There's a cracking atmosphere at Loftus Road, a proper football ground and no mistake.
An email "Morning Rob, morning everyone," says Ben Hendy. "This week I'd seen some hints that Paul Pogba might well be getting an opportunity in midfield and yet now he's not even on the bench. Fergie is always held up as an example for giving youth a chance but he seems to turn against some players for some reason, be it attitude or something else. Has Pogba fallen foul of this? With such lack of depth in central midfield it seems a little pigheaded not to try out Pogba – at least have him on the bench – is Fergie doing this out of stubbornness to try to prove critics wrong perhaps? You would have thought it even more important given that the money doesn't seem to be there to bring in replacements…"
Fergie has hardly brought anyone through since 1995, although in his defence he hasn't got many wrong: only Rossi and Pique spring to mind, and the sale of the latter was the right decision at the time. I suspect Pogba will leave in the summer, and possibly Ravel Morrison too. They are two unbelievable talents, but it's not easy to fit them into the team at the moment: Pogba's defensive discipline isn't good enough for him to play in a 4-4-2, and Morrison might have Joe Cole syndrome in the sense that managers aren't sure what position he can play in Big Boys' English Football (although I can't stress enough what a glorious player he is).
I think Jose Mourinho is partly responsible for all this, in that he raised the bar so high that the old Fergie way of coasting till Christmas (which allowed him to give kids a few games here and there, like Ronnie Wallwork at the start of 2000-01) before hitting top gear is no longer an option. Every game is a must-win game; perverse as it sounds, that wasn't always the case.
Well done everyone! The first train from Manchester this morning got in to Euston at 11.02, 58 minutes before kick off. It takes at least 40 minutes to go from Euston to Loftus Road. What a sorry disgrace football has become. In other news, a book has just been released on this very subject.
Team news Sir Alex Ferguson has named an unchanged side for only the third time in the last four seasons. Javier Hernandez makes an unexpected return to the subs bench. There is also the potential for some Berbarotica later in the day. QPR bring in Matthew Connolly and Heidar Helguson for, er, two other human beings who will soon be identified.
Queens Park Rangers (4-4-2) Cerny, Young, Gabbidon, Connolly, Traore; Mackie, Barton, Faurlin, Wright-Phillips; Bothroyd, Helguson.
Subs: Kenny, Orr, Hill, Derry, Taarabt, Campbell, Smith.
Manchester United (4-4-2) De Gea; Smalling, Evans, Ferdinand, Evra; Valencia, Jones, Carrick, Nani; Rooney, Welbeck.
Subs: Lindegaard, Fryers, Giggs, Park, Young, Berbatov, Hernandez.
Previously on QPR v Manchester United... The history of this fixture is all about one man: Dennis Bailey, who gave Old Trafford an almighty new year hangover in 1992. It is one of the most joyously improbable stories in modern football history, and because of that it obscured the fact that, in the modern era, QPR v United at Loftus Road has often been a storming fixture.
There was a famous FA Cup tie in 1989, when the first crop of Fergie Fledglings breathed life into a miserable team, and all four Premier League fixtures have been crackers. United won 3-2 twice in 1994 (this game and this game), both times surviving a furious late assault from an excellent Rangers side, and also triumphed 3-1 in a feisty Monday-night game in 1993. And in 1995-96, Eric Cantona continued his astonishing march to the Double with a 147th-minute equaliser that put United top for the first time in six months.
Preamble In her 1990 single Get Here, an epic meditation on ends and means, the legendary Oleta Adams implored: "I don't care how you get here, get here if you can." And while a small percentage of Manchester United fans justly want to see football as taught by Matt Busby, the majority will be happy for United to beat Manchester City in this season's title race by any means possible. For the majority of the season City have been playing football from the future while United have been playing football from 1989, yet if United win at Loftus Road today they will go top of the league, at least for a few hours. There are a few reasons for this – none greater than the form of the peerless Nemanja Vidic before his injury – but essentially it defies reason. Fitba? Kinell.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/dec/18/qpr-manchester-united-premier-league-mbm
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