1-1 at full-time*.

The two managers presumably threw cups and plates around in their half-time team talks and both teams came out into the second half looking determined to make a game of it.

Bruno scored a fantastic goal on the counter-attack to put United ahead and everything was going to plan. It was the United of old.

For some reason Dalot then decided to try to break his opponents legs and duly received a second yellow card and took an early bath.

For some reason United’s reserve goalkeeper Bayindir decided to play as erratically as United’s first choice goalkeeper and weakly punched a cross he might have caught into the path of an opponent in his own penalty area and Arsenal equalised with a deflection off the hapless de Ligt.

Then the fun really started.

Maguire put his arm out to stop his opponent who was in the process of dancing past him. Fair enough he went down like he’d been hit by a left hook - even my wife laughed at how pathetic it was. The ref rightly awarded a penalty and Maguire led a group rendition of “Handbags at Dawn”. A couple of players went down as if they’d been headbutted, but they soon got up again when they heard everyone laughing at them.

There was another dramatic turn as Arsenal were about to take the lead when Bayindir produced a miraculous save from the penalty.

Raheem Sterling looked on with some seriously impressive sideburns.

There was lots of end to end stuff after that but I missed most of it making big kid’s tea.

*Extra time will now be played.

0-0 at The Emirates at halftime in the FA Cup.

For some reason Arsenal are dressed as Leeds in the 1970s. United are dressed as United in the 1968 European Cup Final. They’re playing with a golden ball in memory of David Beckham.

United’s Harry Maguire produced the most memorable moment of the first half as he nutmegged himself while delicately backheeling an assist for Martinelli to score for Arsenal.

For some reason the goal was disallowed for offside.

Kobbie Mainoo hasn’t scored for United since he scored in United’s win in the final last year, and he hasn’t scored today either.

2-2 in the end after an exciting second half of end-to-end football. United played like a team transformed in confidence and belief. They scored first, and didn’t wilt completely after Liverpool equalised and then went ahead after a VAR penalty decision (technically correct, blah, blah, blah) over-ruled the ref’s “clear and obvious error” in waving play on. They grabbed an equaliser themselves and should have won it at the death, but Zirkzee (probably lacking in confidence after being subbed in the first half against Newcastle) chose to pass to Maguire rather than shoot. Maguire shinned it over the bar.

0-0 at halftime. United looking solid with a narrow four in midfield in front of a back five. Same eleven that won at City. Hojlund missed a good chance just before the break. Not sure they can keep this up for the full ninety minutes, though.

Wolves match report

We watched Wallace and Gromit this afternoon, which everyone enjoyed, little kid was particularly excited.

After that, despite protests from the kids, I watched United at lowly Wolves. I’d been convinced beforehand that this was a game the new Portuguese manager must surely win. At half-time it was 0-0 and I thought it was hard to see either team scoring (or not conceding).

Within a couple of minutes of the restart Bruno stupidly got himself sent off for fouling the Wolves right back in the Wolves' half. Needless, and it left the ten men looking bereft without their leader, talisman, only creative outlet and most likely goal threat.

Wolves soon capitalised and deservedly went ahead. I thought United looked a little better when Casemiro and Eriksen replaced the ineffectual Mainoo and Ugarte in central midfield late on, but even then United looked like they did under Ten Hag - lost.

Yes, we can see what the new manager is trying to do. 3-4-2-1. But it doesn’t work, for whatever reasons. And like Ten Hag, he has no Plan B. Can he have lost the dressing room already? He seems to have alienated Rashford and Casemiro, and while both have their faults, both could be important players, too. Their replacements are worse.

Wolves scored a second with virtually the last kick of the game, and their new Portuguese manager recorded his second win in two games playing 3-4-2-1.

In my opinion, United should be playing a counter-attacking 4-3-3 and playing to our strengths (fast wingers), which would secure our perennial weakness (central midfield), and protect our defence. Instead we’re playing a new system, which no one seems to understand and that seems to play to no one’s strengths.

Of course, maybe we just need more patience and in another ten games it will all look different. Or we could be looking over our shoulders at the bottom three.

United losing 3-0 at home to Bournemouth with an hour gone.

Bring back baldie!

I vote for David Coote to replace Gary Lineker.

COPD

Last week I received confirmation of a diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) based on results of spirometry tests back in August (it took that long for my GP surgery to get the results from the test centre, and only after my own intervention after their repeated failures).

My GP helpfully seemed very keen to blame my twenty-odd year history of smoking.

I first smoked at about age 20. My parents were smokers (wasn’t everyone back then?). I was never a heavy smoker. The most I ever smoked was ten a day. It’s also true I smoked a number of other substances that didn’t come with filters. And then there was some vaping. I suspect that might have been the worst of the lot, but who knows? I haven’t smoked for ten years.

In my childhood, I remember several episodes of severe shortness of breath, e.g., when running around the sports field at primary school I collapsed gasping for breath, and unable to continue. I was never diagnosed with asthma. I was told to get up and stop being so weak.

As I got older, whenever the football season started, I could never get through a full game. I put it down to lack of fitness and stamina at the time, but whatever it was, the symptom was breathlessness. I was told to get fit and sent off on cross-country runs.

I had regular episodes of shortness of breath throughout young adulthood that were not triggered by exercise (I’d more or less given up by then, helped by a dodgy ankle). I thought it might be hayfever or a dust allergy.

Fourteen years ago, I needed a thoracotomy on my right lung after a chest infection went wrong. I developed pleurisy, a collapsed lung and an empyema. In the post-op, my surgeon said my lung was “as good as new”.

In the years before covid, I had frequent chest infections requiring antibiotics and time off work to recover. Then and now, I wonder if that was triggered by the Southall Gasworks remediation and air pollution?

I now see that studies show that exposure to volatile organic compounds (including benzene, naphthalene and toluene) is related to COPD.

The good news is that I had no symptoms of COPD, so it’s been diagnosed at an early stage. I’ve started with my new inhaler, and my wife reports that I’ve stopped snoring.

Clear and obvious error

After watching and re-watching the same three-second clip of nothing happening for so long that here in the UK we had to put our clocks back another hour just to have enough time to finish the game, the match referee (Ross from Friends look-a-like David Coote) turned to face what he knew would be a worldwide audience of millions of armchair experts like me yelling “VAR! WTF!” at the screen in front of us. You could see in his face and his body language that he knew just like us it was ludicrous. Another referee sat in a business park office just down the road from me had told him to review his original decision - that nothing had happened - because the ref had made “a clear and obvious” error of judgment.

The late penalty awarded by VAR and converted by West Ham and England’s Jarrod Bowen should duly result in the termination of the losing manager’s contract. That’s football. This VAR rubbish isn’t, but we have to live with it for now.

This particular fiasco neatly sums up the entire ETH tenure. A clear and obvious error, if ever there was one, and yet we are forced to watch repeat after repeat, week after week of him getting it wrong. Team selections, tactics, transfers, substitutions. A bald man somehow getting balder every time the full time whistle blows.

If only United had a VAM. A Video Assistant Manager. Another (more capable manager) sat in a nearby office watching the game on a screen like you or me, who could intervene at key moments during the build-up to the game (team selection), during the game (tactical changes and subs), and off the pitch (transfers, man-management) to a whisper into Ten Hag’s hairless ear: “Hold on, Eric. I think that signing Antony for £80m is a clear and obvious error” or “Hi Eric, Maguire’s a fucking liability mate” or “Eric, pal. We need to talk. Onana?” I could go on but you get the drift.

Now, I know everyone rightly hates VAR for ruining the game, and it would be unfair to blame ETH for ruining United. But VAM would make it much more entertaining.

Palace Match Report

Watched the United game (on my laptop) yesterday, having missed the Southampton and Barnsley games.

A big improvement on the Liverpool debacle, especially in the first half.

Dalot playing as a LB, DM and playmaker/midfield general all at once was as unexpected as it was impressive.

Eriksen starting, to maintain the creative link he made with Mainoo against Barnsley we’re told, was also unexpected, but it too somehow worked. Drifting left to cover Dalot rather undid his link with Mainoo, though.

Rashford benched, supposedly for “rotation”, went against all known football management laws about not changing a winning team and playing players who are in form and scoring goals.

It almost worked as Garnacho (who always looks like he has a goal in him, if nothing else) replaced him, but hit the bar with a thunderous effort from wide of the penalty box.

When the subs came, they undid all our tactical and positional advantage, perhaps as much due to Palace’s positive changes as United’s later nearly self-defeating swaps. Ugarte was a downgrade on Dalot and less of a creative menace or goalscoring threat than the unfairly maligned Casemiro might have been. Rashford, and then Hojlund, couldn’t hold the ball up or link up the play like Zirkzee did. But by then our shape had gone and Palace were on top.

Lucky to come away with a draw in the end, thanks to an incredible double save from Onana and wasteful finishing from Eze, although we should have won the game in the first half an hour.