Happy new week! Here’s Matt with the latest from AFC United…

Welcome back to your Monday pick me up of life with the Alex Ferguson Cast Offs. We’re getting to the middle part of Season 5 where we’re defending champions, but we’re not hitting the heights of last season.

The League Cup is a welcome distraction, but lowly Runcorn run us close, but we Twiss the knife in extra time.

It’s business as usual though in the league, another draw and David Brown goes missing in front of goal again. Another left bank visiting the treatment room as well, what is it with that position?

4 in 14. Not hitting the form of recent seasons. I can’t figure it out. Still, 167 goals in 199 games is pretty good for a playing with randomly generated stats….

This is not a good result in Europe and puts our qualification from the group in doubt. £750k would have been useful too.

Oh, mercy, please.

I wish we could play Luxembourg every week. look at Cooke go!

Bryan Robson’s Forest have the best of us until Carlo Nash sees red and sweet Nevland reminds us what 3pts feel like.

Brown’s form has deserted him, but Rodders steps up to the plate and maybe we still have a chance of progressing in Europe. Maybe.

Not much I can really say about this other than turgid.

I rub my eyes a good few times. Brown gets his 5th of the season and at least we’re making headway in the League Cup…

Goal number 6 for Brown and Nevland shows what a beast he is, as usual.

D-Day in Europe and whilst it’s hard enough being 2-0 down, losing Blomqvist just shows how far we have to go to earn our place at the top table.

Not even a shot on target….Peruzzi would have saved them all anyway…..

We can barely afford it, but maybe Larsson can galvanise us in the same way he did for United in real life? Here’s hoping….

Nope.

Although maybe…injuries though. When you’re lucks out….

Still, could be worse. I could be Martin O’Neill. Arsenal are languishing in 14th after getting back into the Premier League. Even a 1-0 win over us isn’t enough for Fabio Cannavaro’s best mate.

Notman’s goal annoying ruins any puns about Starsky and Hutch remakes, but the win is welcome all the same.

Michael Owen is starting to repay the £5.25m we gambled on him. Lee Sharpe – Gone in 60 Seconds….that didn’t feature Owen Wilson though did it?

It’s another match up with Man Utd in the European Super Cup. We look more like Man Utd than they do these days….

I’d love Phil Neville on our team. For now though it’s John O’Kane and George Switzer for me. Andrew Duncan obviously worried about Blanc nicking his number 5 shirt.

Another cup match, another loss. You can’t win em all. The League Cup has never been kind to us.

Tight and tidy against City and Keithy G settles things us late into the game.

Young Casper and his pet kestrel put us into the 5th Round of the FA Cup, helped by Rodders. How many games is it now since David Brown scored a goal? Should have upped his consistency stat…..

Our only remaining involvement in Europe is the Super Cup and we edge it on away goals, Nevland is the main Man(aman) these days.

It’s a dirty match against Sunderland, but Nevvers takes it all in his stride.

Sunderland’s red card was courtesy of Bryan Robson’s regen. Maybe he could do a job for us?

All the talk is David Brown finally remembering where the goal is in the FA Cup, but Danny Hall at the back is showing vetern Steve Bruce a thing or two about the art of defending.

It’d be a good time for Brown to start scoring again, our Henrik Larsson experiment is on ice, just like his knee.

Sean Devine always seems to score against us, but luckily he doesn’t make it a hat trick and it’s another 3 pts to appease the board.

We’ll be reacquainted with Sunderland again in the FA Cup

The board update is troublesome reading. Losing £1m a month is not good, considering most of the guys are still on Division 3 wages until 2003 – when they get renewed we’ll be in for it. The alternative doesn’t bear thinking about….

Maybe I shouldn’t have signed Michael Owen – I’m starting to think it upset David Brown….

Our final match of this update is away to Spurs in the league. Cooke starts to heat things up but Duncan adds to his recent red card shame with an own goal. Alan Tonge comes on for him before he does more damage before Tonge,who is now aware of this blog – thanks Sid :-), has a goal ruled out for offisde….

Well, we started in 5th and we’ll finish up in 5th for this update. We have two games in hand on Liverpool, but I’m not convinced we’re the consistency to put a run together. I think the FA Cup is our best bet of glory this year.

That’s it from me for another week, the week is stretched out in front of you, take it by the horns. I’m off to give David Brown some shooting practice. Michael Owen suggested starting against a 12 year old in goal…..cheers!