The Editor

Young Guns Didn’t Go For It

WE all remember Alan Hansen’s words on that Saturday night football programme, years ago – something about not winning and kids. He was talking after United’s fresh faced young side had been well beaten by Aston Villa, and judged on that performance alone it seemed a fair comment to everyone. Of course, Mr Hansen had grossly under estimated the quality of the ‘kids’ he had seen. They of course went on to do quite well for themselves, and United fans have taunted Alan Hansen for that comment ever since.

That time has gone, those ‘kids’ turned into the back bone of our team and it is generally agreed that we will never see the like of that again, where a number of talented youngsters all come through to the first team at the same time. Kids that were enough for Alex Ferguson not to even consider the buy back clause he had for Paul Ince when the self styled ‘Guv’nor’ looked to return to England from Italy. He had Nicky Butt, why did he need to go backwards?

The Carling Cup is a good show case for the club’s youngsters in Sir Alex Ferguson’s eyes. He of course played Paul Scholes and others against Port Vale over a decade ago, 13 years to be exact. I didn’t realise it had been that long, time flies!

He was going to play the kids against Port Vale and I remember reading that others felt it would devalue the competition and show disrespect to the opposition. It wasn’t like that for the manager though, it wasn’t even so much about resting the players, it was more about showing what United had for the future. Paul Scholes’ two goals on his debut was enough to repay the faith the manager had shown.

Fast forward to this season and most of the big teams in the league take the same opportunity to showcase their youngsters, their future. I think it is acceptable practice now to do so, and it is not seen as a huge sign of disrespect as many worried it was years ago.

The opinions I heard about this approach were mixed. After all, if Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez needed games together, surely a run out against Coventry would have been a plus for them? Some also wanted for once to see us play the big guns and absolutely roast the opposition, something which hadn’t happened much so far this season. It is also important to remember that this current flock of United ‘fledglings’ have excited the manager so he would have believed that the team he put out on Wednesday was completely capable of beating Coventry.

He may well still think that they could do well, they may well go on to do great things. Wednesday night’s embarrassment against Coventry could have been their own Villa Park nightmare start.

Maybe we shouldn’t write the kids off so soon, maybe we will be guilty of judging the players too quickly as Alan Hansen had done years ago.

Wednesday night was a disgrace, Wednesday night was an embarrassment – sadly it’s not the first time it has turned out like that – I was at York City when they beat us, now that was bad. On Wednesday night, Coventry City ran for every ball and challenged every fifty-fifty and they absolutely deserved their victory. It should have been more, they had an attempt shortly after their first goal, with a great flick onto the bar. I was glad it stayed out but if it had found the back of the net, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

Anderson, Nani, O’Shea and Kuszczak are hardly unknown and they will all have better games, I hope. We have seen players like Chris Eagles before, in the first team and he has impressed me but he didn’t on Wednesday night. Maybe the lad was helped by the fact he was playing with first team quality players on previous run-outs, whereas against Coventry there were many younger untried players all in the same boat, all raw, trying to make an impression.

It was un-realistic to expect the current ‘kids’ to make the kind of impact that previous generations have, because you can’t go back and if you try it fails. I’m quite willing to believe it’s not all doom and gloom and that when we see Eagles, or Bardsley get a first team run out some other time, they will impress. I do hope Chris gets his ‘Eagles Soares’ headlines that you know people are just itching to use in connection with his football displays.

I’m not ready to accept Wednesday night’s performance because it was only the Carling Cup. This was our club’s chance to show others that we have a lot of quality in reserve, and we certainly didn’t show that.

The all round play was nervous, the passing was okay at times but I got the feeling that they tried to make one extra pass, one that would inevitably go to waste and lead to frustration for the players and the crowd. At the end of the day, people complained against Port Vale and then they saw the crop of players play together and the doubters were silenced. No-one minded him fielding the youngsters because they were good enough to win.

The youngsters from Wednesday night were not but he had to take the chance and he will continue to do so. A baptism of fire for the current crop, and something that will be hard to recover from, but if they are good enough rest assured they will wear a first team red shirt again. If they are not, the red they will wear may well be that of Crewe Alexandra after 2 years on loan to Royal Antwerp.

When I was just a little red, I asked Sir Alex who could I be?

Will I be Savage or will I be Beckham, here’s what he said to me.

Wash your mouth out lad, you could never be Savage bad

You may never be Beckham goodBut believe that you could!

It’s Roman’s Empire

MANCHESTER United versus Chelsea is very rarely an afterthought when it comes around, but this week you could be forgiven for thinking it was, at least in some quarters. Jose Mourinho’s departure will be felt by Chelsea and their fans but it will also be felt by the league in general because I think he was good for the league.

Some United fans will be glad to see the back of him and when you think of a few of his comments about our players, or some of his words last season as our team wrestled the Premiership trophy from him, it’s hard to disagree that sometimes he was out of order. The league will be a poorer place without him. I think some people at South Bay would have been eager for a rematch with him and his training staff; in fact there we at GTS.com may have uncovered the real reason for him leaving. Maybe the thought of a rematch with South Bay members was too much to handle!

Continue reading “It’s Roman’s Empire”

So Won’t The Man United Fans Please Sit Down!

WELCOME back to the main order of business everyone. Facebook pages are a little more packed, I’ve seen a few more celebrities get yelled at by a genius chef and I’ve fallen out of a pub and been stranded on the other side of the River Mersey since last we met. But now, England is out of the way and the bread and butter stuff is back.

I know, I know. You don’t know what’s wrong with Man United, it’s all pretty play but lacks the punch of a proven goal scorer? This isn’t the start we should be making with the money we have invested in our squad over the summer? Yawn.

This is the start we have made and when you actually sit down and look at the table now, after the weekends trip to Goodison park, we aren’t too far off the pace because I don’t know if you noticed but Chelsea’s start has not been fantastic either. We gained our first away win, our third consecutive victory and we were top of the league at the end of the game. Not bad for a team that had ‘lost the plot’ as many people told me.

On Saturday I thought it was a good performance, it wasn’t outstanding but it was solid. I certainly get the feeling that we are playing within ourselves. Most of the time this season that has been a source of disappointment for many but on Saturday, for the first time, it dawned on me that playing within ourselves is not such a bad thing at the moment. Far from the ‘could do better’ reaction I have had to the other games, I was oddly satisfied on Saturday because this is our lot at the moment and the players who are out there are really giving their all.

Okay so we may not be blowing teams away and scoring freely but neither are we conceding. I get it now, we are playing like a team who is doing just enough to progress through the difficult times without some of our big players and match winners. We are watching players find their feet on the pitch and while they are at it they are all turning in some good performances, and without noticing United have bubbled near to the surface of the Premiership.

Against Reading, Portsmouth and Man City, at times we lacked something and it was disappointing because we are used to so much more. Against Sunderland we did enough to get the points, against Everton we did enough to get the points and at times we played quite well. If it sounds like I’m surprised by that last line then maybe I am because maybe I had bought into the panic and the doom mongering that I had tried to avoid.

Take it on the facts and the performances are okay, the results are okay and we are third. Our doom and gloom could actually be a doom and gloom season, if we supported Bolton, it would be. After all, if you can keep your job while players around you are losing games, your name must be Sammy Lee.

So there we go, United win again and while radio commentators everywhere on Saturday were bemoaning the lack of chances taken by United’s forward players, Nemanja ‘Ivan Drago’ Vidic must have heard them, for he took responsibility for sticking the ball in the net. Leaping like a salmon and heading the ball home rather like the other tall scary footballer, the one that used to grace the Everton team – Duncan Ferguson.

Not so ‘ard this scoring lark is it, Nemanja lad? I bet you don’t know what all the fuss about! By hook or by crook (or by the big man in defence) we are getting through and keeping the home fires smouldering, ready for when they will eventually spark into fire we all know and love from our team. No-one said it was gonna be easy!

So wont the Man United fans please sit down! Please sit down! Please sit down!