According to Sir Alex Ferguson, the reason that Dimitar Berbatov struggled to settle into Old Trafford in his first two seasons was purely because of the size of his club record transfer fee. “When we buy a player for a lot of money there is more focus on him” he said  ”if they have an odd bad game there is a criticism which other players may not get”. It’s a factor which was well understood by Sir Matt Busby when he agreed to pay Barnsley the odd amount of £29,999  for centre forward Tommy Taylor way back in in March 1953, a fee agreed so that Taylor would not be burdened with the label of a £30,000 player and the story goes that a tea lady was the beneficiary of the extra pound!

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Four 6-0 defeats in just 20 Premier League matches! So what’s going on? Could there have been such a yawning gap created between the top and bottom of the league? Manchester United could have easily made it five 6-0 scorelines had they taken even half the hatful of chances that went begging in the 3-0 defeat of Newcastle in their opening game. Yet the newly promoted Magpies came back themselves to inflict a six goal hammering of Aston Villa a few days later.

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Manchester United went throw to the next round of Carling cup after defeating Barnsley away at Oakwell Stadium in the fourth round of the competition which United won last year. Two goals from Danny Welbeck and Michael Owen were enough to see the reds through.

Sir Alex Ferguson started the game with players who didn’t start against Liverpool plus some players from the reserve team. It took United 6 minutes only to break the deadlock after Anderson bended in an accurate corner to find unmarked Danny Welbeck who nodded in at the near post. Read the full story

Manchester United defeated Mark Robins’ Barnsley 2-0 in the fourth round of Carling cup. The first goal came after 6 minutes by Danny Welbeck and the second scored by Michael Owen after 59 minutes .

Match Report to follow

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