Oh, bugger…

Unsurprisingly United failed to beat the old enemy, going down 2-1. United fell behind after 20 minutes but in the second half loanee Guy Whittingham scored a debut goal following good work by Sam Ricketts in the 60th minute. With eleven minutes left the opposition scored the winner, dammit. New interim boss Mike Ford rang the changes in his team selection, giving a debut to right back Ricketts, alongside Rico and Lee Jarman in central defence and a recall for Neil McGowan at left back. In midfield Matt Murphy replaced Manny Omoyinmi whilst up front Whittingham started instead of Leon Mike. With about eight minutes to go United made a double substitution, taking off Paul Tait and McGowan and bringing on John Robertson and Jamie Brookes for his first ever league start. There was about a minute of normal time left when Mike came on for Joey Beauchamp. United suffered a number of bookings from an appalling referee, including Dean Whitehead and Jarman following a bit of a bust-up after Whitehead had been stamped on – the culprit didn't even receive a talking to. There were 7.975 in attendance. A match report appears here, although why?

With the exception of our opponents all our relegation rivals did badly too. Luton lost 1-0 at home to Millwall, Port Vale lost 2-0 at Peterborough and Oldham went down 3-0 at Rotherham.

Silly billies

Those twits who we played today are in trouble after they were grassed up to the Football League by United. Those silly sausages broke the rules by charging home supporters a tenner to get in, whilst making the Chosen People pay a fiver more. They can't even get that right, fools.

Cop out

That well-known bastion of truthful and incisive reporting the News of the World (well, where else would it be the news of? Mars?) has stated that Steve Coppell is to be announced tomorrow as United's new manager. Not unwelcome news, if true – he did well at Palace with no budget – but can we be the first to say “Coppell Out” for when it all goes pear-shaped! Meanwhile Carlisle fans report that Ian Atkins is poised to move south to the Manor (there aren't a lot of other directions to move from Carlisle) – it can't be both of them!

Coppell only polled 8% in the Rage Online poll for who you think should be our next manager (our most popular poll yet, with well over 100 votes cast). Overwhelming favourite was Joe Kinnear, with 28%, followed by Nigel Spackman (19%) and Steve Cotterill (17%). Current incumbent Mike Ford polled 6% and my missus received 4% of the vote (she wasn't happy about that!). Votes were also cast for Ray Houghton, Mickey Lewis, Ray Harford. Mark Wright, Mark Lawrenson and others, including me (I'll do it!).

United offered bung by Man U, allegedly

Former United boss Jim Smith has alleged in his new book that he was offered a bribe by Manchester United's chairman Martin Edwards to stage the League Cup second replay in 1983 at Old Trafford. In the event the venue was decided by the toss of a coin, over the telephone, which Robert Maxwell won to stage the game up the Manor. United won 2-1 after extra time with a Steve Biggins header. The Football League are to investigate Smith's claims that Edwards offered to pay £6,000 into the United players' pool for him to agree with Ron Atkinson to play the match at Old Trafford.