Archive for September, 2007 Page 2 of 3

Goodbye Jose

Published by
Paul
at September 20, 2007 in News. 1 Comment

Ding Dong. The Witch is Dead. Yep, the Special Needs One has left Chelsea (see BBC report here). Whilst he was an annoying man, he was a very good manager and this can only be good news for United. They may not have played attractive football, but it was effective football. And coming from a man who follows the New Old Arsenal (4 1-0’s in a row? When did that last happen?) sometimes effective is required.

However, rumour has it that the rubbish attendance at Standford Bridge was the last straw as Roman wants his team to play attractive, watchable football and the is fact that Chelsea play anything but that.

Should make Sunday even more interesting. Expect the home crowd (around three times the size of Chelsea) to mock mercilessly :)

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Away Form key in Champions League

Published by
Paul
at September 19, 2007 in Champions League, Manchester United and Previews. 2 Comments

Sporting v Man Utd (Estádio José Alvalade, Wednesday, 19 September 1945 BST)

Champions League time and if United and Arsenal play like Liverpool and Chelsea last night, settle back for a mid evening kip. Chelsea had a laughably low attendance of 24,000 and whenever the camera settled over one of the fans, they invariably were on their mobile to keep themselves awake. Only Roman seemed interested, but he had the look of someone who had queued up for a day to get one of those ridiculously expensive Apple iPhones, got it home, looked at it and realised he’d wasted rather a lot of money for something that he thought would excite him but didn’t. And the Liverpool game was worse, but at least 1-1 away to Porto is a good result.

Enough of other teams, what are United going to do tonight? Once again the group stages, the away form will be key. Get a win tonight and we are half way to the next stage. A draw will be a good result overall, considering our league form.

No Hargreaves, which must particularly annoy Fergie because away matches in Europe were what he was specifically signed for. I expect Nani and Ronaldo to start, being both ex-players of Sporting. Have a read of this excellent interview with a fan from Sporting on James’s blog. They look like they will get a good reception.

From what Fergie has been saying it looks like both Saha and Rooney on the bench and Tevez up front on his own. Seen as Evra will have to go back to left-back, Nani will go on the left and Giggs will play in the middle with Scholes and Carrick in the holding role. I think O’Shea or Fletcher would have started this game had they not been injured. So, is the deal that when we get some of forwards back, our midfield becomes knackered?

Looks like Fergie doesn’t like the ref we’ve got, (and I don’t think much of him either) but is thinking historically on the 50th anniversary of Munich, whilst Bobby Charlton wonders if United would be trying for their 4th European Cup if it hadn’t been for Munich. From what I’ve read and heard about the Busby Babes, I’d wonder if it wouldn’t be the 5th or 6th Cup we’d be going for.

To end on a nice note, how good was it to hear of the Leicester City “giving” Nottingham Forest a goal in their replayed Carling Cup match? Basically Forest were 1-0 up when the game was abandoned because Clive Clarke suffered a heart attack at half-time. Leicester allowed the Forest goalkeeper to score straight from the kickoff so the game started 1-0 to Forest. And Leicester won 3-2 in the end so it didn’t even affect the result.

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State of play after 6 games

Published by
Paul
at September 16, 2007 in Manchester United and Premiership. 3 Comments

At the end of this weekend, United are in 4th place level on points with Liverpool and Chelsea, although Liverpool have a game in hand (but they have already played Derby!). Manchester Citey are in a remarkable 2nd place after an unremarkable 1-0 win over Aston Villa. Arsenal are top, a point clear of Citey with a game in hand, after winning the North London Derby 3-1. United completed their third straight 1-0 win by beating Everton.

Of our rivals at the top, we can discount City as real long term challengers this season, but they look like they will have a better season this time round. Chelsea are looking out of sorts. At one point we were 5 points behind them, yet we have caught them up pretty quickly. Without Drogba they are toothless, and they must be worried about the African Cup of Nations ruining their season. Chelsea will have a good spell, but I don’t see them being good enough to win the league this time.

Liverpool looked good against Derby with Torrez looking pacey and having the potential to score lots of goals. Yet this weekend Rotating Rafa blew it again by resting Torrez, Gerrard and Babel and drew 0-0 with Portsmouth. Made our result at Fratton Park not so bad. Until Rafa realises the correct time to rest players, Liverpool will continue to drop points. Whilst they may well do very well this season, I don’t see them as our main challengers.

No, Arsenal are looking very good indeed. Without Henry, Adebayor has come to the fore and Fabregas is currently the Premier League’s best midfielder. I hate to say it, but Wenger may have got the blend of youth and experience right this season and they will challenge. My concern (if I was a Gooner) or rather hope is that they fall into their old trap of trying to pass the ball into the net as when they had the arrogance of Henry who believed he could score just about whenever he wanted to so he didn’t have to bother right this second.

United will need to up their game from their current form. Whilst grinding out 1-0 wins when you are not playing well is good and “what Champions do”, you also have to actually play well quite a lot and score some goals. With Saha, Ronaldo and Rooney (nearly) back, I don’t see why we can’t reproduce last seasons form, but currently there is something missing and we need to find it.

The top of the table as it stands


P Team Pl GD PT

1 Arsenal 5 6 13
2 Man City 6 3 12
3 Liverpool 5 9 11
4 Man Utd 6 2 11
5 Chelsea 6 1 11
6 West Ham 5 5 10

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Everton 0 Manchester United 1

Published by
Paul
at September 16, 2007 in Manchester United, Premiership and Reviews. 1 Comment

A later header from Nemanja Vidic gave United a third 1-0 win in a row and pushed them right back towards the top of the table.

In a very tight game, United were again out of sorts, not even the return of Ronaldo bringing back the attacking team we used to love. Whilst Everton are no pushovers and we are getting the wins we don’t deserve, you have to worry that we will not find our form before we meet one of the big teams. Indeed with a Champions League game on Wednesday, we’ve got to find some sort of form before we fall out of the group stages again.

Most notable in the highlights I watched later on Match of the Day was the complete absence of Carlos Tevez. Does this guy only play from January to July because he didn’t score for 22 games for West Ham and looks like he’ll be going another 22 before scoring for us. The spectre of Gary Birtles always rises at this point and haunted Diego Forlan out of the club. As Tevez is only on “loan” maybe we will cut our losses in a year and get an out and out striker in replacement.

With Saha on the bench and Tevez operating with Giggs up front, it was like United were playing with a group of bridesmaids, but no bride. We have a host of excellent attacking midfielders, but our one and only striker seems to be perpetually one sneeze away from a two month layoff.

United played with Evra in midfield and Silvestre at left back, but unfortunately for the frenchman, it will be the last time that happens this season as he did his knee in and will be out for the rest of the season. Nani came on as a replacement and it was eventually his excellent corner that helped United win the game.

Vidic had previously stated that he wanted to start scoring goals, and has threatened to do so in recent weeks but this time he really came up with the goods. From Nani’s corner, Vidic got goal side of his marker and powered a storming header into the net. Great goal and much needed.

United ended the game top of the league (but 4th by the end of the weekend) and after such a poor start to the season, this is a pretty good position to be in.

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Preview: Everton v Man Utd

Published by
Paul
at September 14, 2007 in Manchester United, Premiership and Previews. 2 Comments

Everton v Man Utd (Goodison Park, Saturday, 15 September 1200 BST)

Saha’s fit and has scored, Ronaldo is back from suspension and apparently even Rooney is reported to be fit. Suddenly, United have “options” up front, and as an added bonus Fletcher and O’Shea are injured. Only joking there, but you get the impression it is time for the reserves to step down and for the big boys to take over. However, I’m sure Fergie will have Wednesday’s Champions League game against Sporting Lisbon in mind and I don’t think Rooney will start.

It looks like Tim Howard is set to miss the game against his former club again, this time because of injury. Phil Neville should play fresh from his 20 seconds against Russia for England, but he won’t be leading Everton out in tandem with his brother as Gary is still a couple of weeks from being ready.

If United win, we go top; for 45 minutes at least.  Who said our season was over before it had begun?

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