Manchester United Dugout

Manchester United have announced their third major sponsorship deal in a week with Africa’s largest mobile telephone operator, MTN Group Ltd. This is the club’s third lucrative agreement in the space of a week.

Following on from high-profile partnerships with Telekom Malaysia and Turkish Airlines, Manchester United have added a seven-figure contract with African telecoms giant MTN that will see the company become their exclusive South African telecommunications partner for the next three-and-a-half years.

The deal will see MTN become the South African extension of the club with exclusive mobile content and online inventory such as match highlights, player profiles, ringtones available to customers for download through the MTN Play entertainment portal.

Additionally, MTN has the rights to produce co-branded premiums and will receive signed memorabilia to use in competitions to reward its customers. It will also offer exclusive United-branded MTN products such as airtime vouchers and will run competitions for its customer base where some lucky fans will get an opportunity to have one-on-one interactions with players in the local and international football arena.

Man United Chief Executive David Gill said: "The partnership with MTN is a very important step in the club's plan to get closer to its fans based all over the world. MTN's strength, particularly in the pre-paid market will provide us with the perfect platform to achieve that."

Edwin van der Sar, Antonio Valencia and Patrice Evra were at Old Trafford for the announcement of  this partnership.

Sir Bobby Charlton also attended the launch. The United legend said: "I’m delighted to welcome MTN to our club. The fact we have sponsors in various parts of the globe and millions of fans in different countries makes me feel quite proud. But it’s not a surprise to me because ever since I was a player here, I’ve always been well aware that our fans are everywhere in the world.”

Manchester United climbed to the top of the table in the Barclays English Premier League after defeating Bolton 2-1 at Old Trafford. The defeat of Chelsea at Aston Villa means United get a 1 point advantage over the Blues.

The game started perfectly for United as they were a goal ahead within the opening 5 minutes. The game looked pretty much one sided once the home team had scored their second. Antonia Valencia netting his first goal in the Red shirt at the Theater of Dreams.

After scoring 2 goals, Manchester United were looking very comfortable as they kept winning possession and troubling the Bolton defense. But Jussi Jaaskelainen was in terrific form as he made a series of brilliant saves. And that resulted in winning a lot of corners for United. It was sad to see that United could not score a single goal from more than 5 corner kicks.

I felt Man Utd got a bit complacent towards the end and that's when Bolton picked up there chance. Matt Taylor scored with a header and the last 15 minutes were interesting as Bolton tried to snatch an equalizer while the home team tried to seal the game with another goal. But it was 2 -1 to Manchester United.

Today's game saw the return of Edwin van der Sar in United goal and Michael Owen starting with Berbatov upfront due to the absence of Wayne Rooney. To be frank, Owen never looked in great form and failed to deliver the same performance that helped United win the Manchester Derby last month.

This win and Chelsea's defeat at Villa Park means the Red Devils comfortably sit at the top of the table. But the comfort level is very narrow as they lead the Blues by only one point and if United doesn't improve soon, then I feel we might lose the lead. Teams like Arsenal, Spurs, Villa and City are making the competition tough with back to back victories and that should really trigger Man Utd to show their real class to lift the premier league for the fourth consecutive time.

Sir Alex Fergusson has shocked everyone by saying that he has no further plans to sign a new player this season. With two players leaving Old Trafford, Fergie signed three players and believes that there is no need of any more players at the moment.

I was anticipating that Ferguson would make further signings in addition to Owen, Antonio Valencia and Gabriel Obertan, who joined last week from Bordeaux. Samuel Eto was supposed to sign a deal with the Red Devils, but United have distanced themselves from any such deal.

After giving Michael Owen the number seven shirt (vacated by Ronaldo), Sir Alex reiterated that his current squad is good enough to challenge for an unprecedented fourth consecutive league title, even though Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez have left. He also stressed that Daniel Welbeck and Federico Macheda will be given a chance to prove themselves by starting on a regular basis.

I think that Fergie is spot on and knows his squad is definitely competent enough to pose a challenge in England as well as in Europe. But somewhere I feel that there has to be a star signing, especially after the massive earnings through Ronaldo's sale.

What's your take?