Eideard

With the UN Climate Conference underway in Durban, climate “sceptics” have been particularly active in the media and blogs.

Many climate “sceptics” claim that alternate climate models can explain global warming. These models often rely on apparent correlations between climate and other data. “Sceptics” have claimed climate is strongly correlated with the Southern Oscillation Index, the oscillating position of the sun, and the length of solar cycles. Anything will do as long as it is not CO₂…

…To examine the weaknesses of these models, I will introduce a radical new climate “model”.

Global warming is the most significant scientific and political issue of recent decades. Manchester United is the most significant soccer club of recent decades. Could the two be linked?

I examined this one afternoon, by looking at global temperatures and Manchester United’s FA cup appearances since 1881. I averaged the data over 11 years, to mitigate the impact of the solar cycle. The results are remarkable. Each Manchester United FA Cup appearance in an 11-year period raised global temperatures by 0.1º Celsius…

A plot of global temperatures and the Manchester United Climate Model reveals that half of global warming is the result of Manchester United.

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The worst defeat for Manchester United since the founding of the English Premier League in 1992. Listless, mediocre defending, few shots taken at goal much less into the goal – while Manchester City played a professional, workmanlike match throughout.

There will be plenty of professional coverage of the match by those writers paid to do so. I recommend the GUARDIAN UNLIMITED for that task. The result was just so stunning I had to make mention, had to record this at my personal blog.

Sir Alex’ strategy can’t sufficiently motivate a team that doesn’t reach its own standard. Roberto Mancini can take credit for bringing together an international aggregation into a real team.

Mario Balotelli [center] celebrates with teammates after scoring the first goal of the match
Daylife/Reuters Picture used by permission

Man U probably won’t need the extra time against Wolves, today. But, everyone’s suspicions appear to be confirmed by this bit of mathematics. Football referees are afraid of the Red Devils and Sir Alex.

Sir Alex Ferguson likes to boast that his Manchester United team score more late goals than any other side in the world. Others argue that they get a bit of extra help from referees. It has now emerged that the Premier League champions do, as suspected, benefit from an imbalance in the amount of stoppage time that is added to their matches.

After the controversy over Michael Owen’s winning goal in Sunday’s Manchester derby, the Guardian has looked at all of United’s league matches at Old Trafford since the start of the 2006-07 season and discovered that, on average, there has been over a minute extra added by referees when United do not have the lead after 90 minutes, compared to when they are in front…

When Owen made it 4-3 on Sunday the game was five minutes and 26 seconds into stoppage time. In total, the referee, Martin Atkinson, allowed almost seven minutes, even though the fourth official had signalled a minimum of four. Mark Hughes, the City manager, spoke of feeling “robbed”. His sense of grievance will not be helped if he analyses the last three seasons.

In 2006-07, for example, United were winning 15 times on entering stoppage time and referees added an average 194.53sec. In the four games when United were not winning there was an average of 217.25sec. The following year the disparity was greater, Opta’s figures showing an average 178.29sec added when United were winning and 254.5sec when they were not. Last season it was 187.71sec compared to 258.6sec.

The pattern has continued in the first three games of the season. In the two games United have led they have played an average 304sec of injury time. On Sunday, Atkinson allowed the game to go on for 415sec.

We’re not exactly unfamiliar with the habit here in the colonies. The American League treats the Yankees much the same. When the Dallas Cowboys actually were a winning team – they were America’s Team. I lived outside Boston when the Celtics could do no wrong as long as they were playing on parquet.

Oh – and good luck, today, Mick.

Credit: goal.com photogallery

A hard-fought semi-final between Manchester United and Everton came down to the Toffees winning courtesy of Tim Howard’s heroics in goal. It took double overtime and a penalty shootout to decide the match.

Tim Cahill blew the start-up shot for Everton; followed by U.S. National Team keeper Tim Howard not only stopping Manchester United’s languid Bulgarian, Berbatov; but, Rio Ferdinand, as well.

Tough match, ground out by the defensive backs of each team.

Now, the final will pit Blue against Blue. My heart has to go with the Toffees.

Foster stopping O’Hara’s penalty shot

Sir Alex Ferguson hailed Ben Foster as an England first-choice goalkeeper in waiting after the youngster’s fine penalty shoot-out save from Jamie O’Hara proved pivotal in Manchester United claiming the Carling Cup to complete the second leg of what would be an unprecedented haul of the three major domestic trophies, the Champions League and the World Club Championship.

Foster, who had spent the moments before the penalties watching footage of Tottenham Hotspur’s players taking recent penalties on an iPod, dived to his left to palm away the luckless O’Hara’s attempt, Tottenham’s first after the teams had failed to muster a goal in 120 minutes, with David Bentley’s subsequent effort wide of the left-hand post serving to wrest the cup from the Londoners. It fell to United’s Brazilian midfielder, Anderson, to confirm a 4-1 shoot-out success, though victory owed much to Foster whose saves, particularly from Aaron Lennon in normal time, had helped to prolong parity.

“The future is his, the present belongs to [Edwin] Van der Sar, that’s obvious,” said Ferguson while his players celebrated claiming the season’s first major trophy out on the pitch. “Myself and the coaching staff have always had great faith in him but, having now had that experience in a final, that will strengthen his own belief. I think he’ll be England’s goalkeeper for the next number of years.

“I did a bit of research for the penalties,” said the 25-year-old. “We tried to find out everything we could about Spurs beforehand and, just before the shoot-out, I was looking at a video on an iPod with Eric Steele, our goalkeeping coach, and Edwin. It’s a new innovation he’s brought in since coming to the club and on it were some of Tottenham’s penalties, including one from O’Hara. I was told that, if he was taking one, to stay as big as I can. Edwin hasn’t got a bad record with penalties and he just told me to be as intimidating as possible. I stood up for as long as I could, and it is great it worked out for me.”

Enjoyable match – all the more so because of Spurs’ spirited play. No one except a righteous Tottenham fan expected anyone other than Manchester United to come away with the trophy.

Bravo. Well-played.