Archive for February, 2008 Page 2 of 3

Arsenal 5th Round Cup preview

Published by
Paul
at February 15, 2008 in Previews. 0 Comments

Due to a calendar malfunction, I’ll be away for this game.  I forgot to add the FA Cup tie dates into my diary.  I’m concentrating on the league and europe this season, ok?  Anyway, hopefully I’ll be able to find a TV screen in a pub or something up in Edinburgh to watch the game.  However, the omens are not good, on my previous visit to Edinburgh on a stag do, I watched Arsenal clinch the 98 title.  Amongst others, Tony Adams scored a cracker against Everton and I knew it was all over for that season.  Might have been earlier that 98, come to think of it, but I don’t tend to remember the seasons when Arsenal won the league.  I don’t remember too much of that stag do either, but that’s another matter.

Speaking of boozing, on a completely unrelated note, honestly, it’s sad to see Bryan Robson got relieved of his duties at Sheffield United.  Captain Fantastic was once down as a future United manager, but surely his career as a manager must be over now.

FA Cup 5th round and United are at home to Arsenal.  After the last two poor performances, United get back to form otherwise the Gunners will knock us out.  Having thought about the derby defeat, aside from missing Rooney the main problem was that United had nothing at all in midfield.  Ronaldo, Nani and Giggs cannot play in the same team at the same time.  Scholes and Anderson didn’t work as a central midfield pairing.  Scholes and Carrick we know works.  Hargreaves and Anderson works.  I think Scholes and Hargreaves would work as well and that would be my first choice for the remainder of this season and long time for Anderson to replace Scholes.

Tevez needs to play alongside someone.  Dunne and Richards totally bossed him, which I don’t think would be the case if Rooney had played.  So we lost out in midfield and up front.  Oh, and our defence had a shocker too.  We were lucky it was only 2-1 in retrospect.

Let’s hope for better against Arsenal and we’ll scrape through to the 6th round and dent Arsenal’s confidence in the process.

Any other United fans have a heart attack when they read about Ronaldo being out for 9 months and possibly having a career ending injury?  I breathed a lot easier when the news sites altered the headlines to “Milan’s Ronaldo ….”

And finally, what are the copycats at Liverpool up to?  Only starting an AFC Liverpool.   Now, forgive me if I’m wrong but didn’t the Anfield mob initially welcome their American owners with open arms?  It doesn’t look good when you then say “oh, but it turns out they are shite so we’ll bugger off”.  At least FC United were opposed to Glazer from the start.  I used to own a piece of Manchester United, but the Glazers took it against my will.

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Roy Keane, rent a quote or genuis ?

Published by
Paul
at February 14, 2008 in Articles. 0 Comments

Quote of the season comes from the mouth of Sunderland manager, Roy Keane :-

‘The Irish job?’ He gives me a look. And says nothing. Which is a shame, because when Eamon Dunphy asked him if he might one day be player-manager of Ireland he replied magnificently: ‘Yeah! Nobody would play for me but we’d have great facilities.’

This is at serious odds with Dunphy’s latest comments that Keane is a “rent-a-quote” manager :-

“But now he holds these lengthy press conferences every week in which he anoints David O’Leary to be the next Ireland manager, anoints Terry Venables to be the next Ireland manager.

“He talks about how wonderful it is for the Premier League to play games abroad and he’s just become rent-a-quote. It’s quite extraordinary,” Dunphy told the Pat Kenny show on Ireland’s RTE channel.

The thing is that a Premiership manager’s job is one long press conference (unless you are Alex Ferguson who can just do what the hell he likes because he is Sir Alex and doesn’t give a damn) where you are asked the same questions over and over and over again.

You can either waste you life taking each journalist seriously or just deal with it with platitudes and simple ciche “we are facing a struggle, but we’re up to it and taking each game one day at a time”. I know what I’d rather have my manager concentrating on and it isn’t some crappy hack. Dunphy should know better.

Also, people complain that Michael Carrick is a rent-a-quote, always in the press. They should realise that he is probably the designated commentator this season and he was probably chosen because he can speak fairly articulately (for a footballer) and has had some training. Don’t blame him for being the one coming out with the obvious comments, just blame the press for asking the same questions over and over again.

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Obi Mikel and small matter of money

Published by
Paul
at February 13, 2008 in Opinion. 0 Comments

When will the John Obi Mikel saga ever finish? Today, we have reports of a court case where it is claimed

John Obi Mikel was crying the day he joined Chelsea and really wanted to join Manchester United, it has been claimed in an explosive court case in Norway.

Honestly. Just a couple of days ago there was a quote from midfield red card expert Mikel saying Manchester United treated him like dirt once he was heading off to Chelsea. We’ll never know the whole truth in this case. We’re well shot of the guy who has proved to be a poor tackler and gets sent off far too often.

The trouble with football is there is too much money in the game. Money turned this transfer into a tug of war between clubs and agents. How the player got into that mess is not sure, but you know that money; lots of it is prime suspect.

Like the ludicrous idea to send off English teams across the globe for a 39th game. Where will that end? When Manchester United’s American owners decide they can make more money from New York United and take the club into an international league that manage to fit a game in England in once a season.

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Manchester United 1 Manchester City 2

Published by
Paul
at February 10, 2008 in Reviews. 1 Comment

Manchester United 1 (Carrick 90) Manchester City 2 (Vassell 25, Mwaruwari 45)

Utd and City fans with scarves aloft

A memorable day was ruined, not by City fans, but by a terrible United performance and a strong defence display from our Blue rivals.

Emotional, evocative scenes as the bagpiper lead the players out onto the pitch. The player’s shirts, free of advertising, badge, and names came from another age. The minutes silence was impeccably observed, saved for some fireworks from outside the ground. A very emotional start to the game, but I think it really got to the players.

City were as defensive and organised as they were in August. United tried to take the game to them in the early stages, but it was clear we were missing Rooney far too much for a team so full of stars. We missed Evra just as much; as much as O’Shea is a decent player, he doesn’t have the attacking verve of Patrice. Brown couldn’t put in a decent ball. Nani showed sparks but nothing came off for him. Only Tevez and Anderson really looked like they were up for the game.

Ferdinand had an absolute shocker today. Terrible. Could not put a single forward pass without hitting a City player. United were undone a fast paced City break which ended with Vassell able to have two attempts to get the ball in the net. The first was going wide, but Van Der Sar blocked it as he got back towards the goal; the second was coolly slotted into the corner. After that it was going to be nearly impossible for United to get back into the game. City scored again on the stroke of half time as Petrov crossed, Benjani Mwaruwari was able to glance his header into the net.

The second half was more of the same as United looked lightweight in midfield and up front. Fergie tried to rotate the personal but swapping one attacking midfield for another wasn’t going to work as Park was just as lightweight as Nani. Shame we’ve got no forwards left.

It was only when United got desparate and stuck Vidic up front and Carrick and Anderson into the midfield (Giggs ending up at left back) that United made some progress. Sadly Vidic is in the right place as a defender and whilst he was able to win the ball, he couldn’t make or score a goal. Only when Scholes made a wonderful pass to Carrick in injury time was the City defence opened up and Carrick struck the ball true and into the net. Too late for it to make a difference. When Rooney was absent through suspension, it was the absence of Ronaldo that hurt the most. On the pitch, but never in the game save for precious few moments of good play.

On a day when United played in 50’s style shirt, it was unfortunate that because of black and white TV, they never looked like their 50’s counterparts. They looked more like the 70s version that got relegated and lost to City at Old Trafford. A sad way to end a sad day.

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Munich: Roger Byrne

Published by
Paul
at February 6, 2008 in Manchester United. 1 Comment

Roger Byrne autograph

 

One of my most prized footballing items is this card from my father-in-law containing an autograph from Roger Byrne, captain of Manchester United. It contains the following quote from my father-in-law, a Manchester City fan, btw

The autograph was collected by me in the mid ’50’s when we would see Roger Byrne walking his dog in our local park in Burnage, Manchester. He would join in our game of football.

It is perhaps a measure of the enormous confidence throughout United’s great side of this era that Roger Byrne felt able to comment cheerfully “Never mind, we’ll be back next year” after defeat in the 1957 FA Cup final.

With hindsight, it was a painfully poignant remark as of course United bravely returned to Wembley in 1958 but, Byrne, killed in Munich, did not.

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