Sorry but can someone explain to me what the problem is with swapping shirts at half time? I don't get why it's such a big deal? 
The media are making more out of it than it is really, knowing it'll 'cause debate. Seen some suggestions around that its detracting from the
real point. (No pun intended)... There's a
hint that Mario had just given up at half-time and him not being on the bench on the second half adds more petrol. It's a fairly big statement to make and I think Rooney got a bit of stick once for throwing off a shirt (Was it Rooney?), a while back.
There might be more to it, there might not; who knows? But it's the media's job to speculate and cause debate. Personally, I think we've got bigger issues concerning the team, but the question for me is whether or not Balotelli is at the centre of those issues. Whatever the weather, it is fairly clear that the lad is looking like a misfit at this moment in time. That may change with a different approach, but whilst he isn't really doing anything to silence his critics, he isn't really doing anything to quantify his transfer.
I think the Madrid game was a bit of a tell. We did show signs of what made us such an attacking threat last season, but by that same token, the game also highlighted how much of a predicament we are in at the moment. Our common tactic seemed very much there, hit them from the off, have them on the back foot and then hit them on the counter as they try to claw back. A bit like sinking sand, the more you try to get out of it, the more you get sucked in. Watching our tactics from last season, I'm always reminded about a certain Anthony Hopkins film, "The Edge". The tactic used to kill a bear is to prod and stab at the Bear with a long and sharp stick. Inflict damage in order to rile the Bear and instigate it into an enraged, full on standing lunge attack. When it does lunge, you simply steady the base of the stick and angle it in such a way that the bear impales itself. Keeping with this shitty analogy, our tip at the moment seems blunt and fucking shite; but what Madrid and the likes of Chelsea, Villa and others seem to have worked out is that patience and perseverance seem to in fact rile us.
It's a pretty sad state of affairs when one has to express their footballing views/opinions via the form of a crappy film. Fuck it, I've read some other wildy lucid accounts of the breakdown of our tactics (As well some very eloquent ones), so shite-on-a-stick, one more isn't going to make any odds.
