Category: Chelsea

Never In An Age Of Saturdays: What Did We Miss?

OKAY so I think I remember how to do this, let me see… United face a tussle with Chelsea for the league title, a tussle that ultimately lies in our own hands. Our team have lost games when everyone predicted walkovers and they have won at a canter when everyone suspected the going might be difficult. Cristiano Ronaldo is best player in the Premiership and Europe, Arsene Wenger still has trouble seeing incidents involving his own team and dodgy decisions, and Manchester City are questioning the future of their manager. Pretty much summed it up?

 

Something’s never change.

 

I watch Manchester United in what I thought was an absolute ‘under the kosh’ game, and was quite ready to accept that on the face of it we were second best in every department at the Nou Camp. That was, until the television and print media called the performance one of defensive perfection and made us favourites for the return leg… (we’ll get to that). I like what they saw more so it was easy to change my opinion. On the face of the two legs our defence took on their attack over two legs and we scored more times than they did – more importantly we stopped them scoring.

 

Manchester United reach the European Cup Final in Moscow later this month, and Manchester City are allegedly about to sack their manager despite a successful season by their standards. The man that may be about to replace him is the same one that the FA wanted to replace him as England manager, Big Phil. Perhaps the owners at Manchester City are on to something and they are geniuses in believing this man to be the future. Perhaps those men are on a higher level and Manchester City are about to become a world power.

 

Perhaps the board of Manchester City Football Club and the Football Association suits are on the same level, and it isn’t a high one. Appoint a man, lose faith, sack him, chase Luiz Felipe Scolari. If they are to follow the FA mode of employment they will talk to the man, who then refuses to take the job because of the pressure and press intrusion. When he turns you down, hurry through the airport on your return to the office and tell the world you didn’t want him anyway?

 

If he wants a different managerial atmosphere to the one he rejected with England, Manchester City is certainly that.

 

Some things never change.

 

 

Manchester United could have made the title tilt a lot simpler these past few months, but that just isn’t our way now is it. Never has been. So instead we gloriously steal a draw at Ewood and lose the battle of Stamford Bridge and still it has never really been what you would call out of our hands.

 

Level on points, West Ham stood in Manchester United’s way on route to reclaiming our trophy.

 

Some thing’s never change.

 

Ronaldinho is no longer the big thing in European football, there are to be no more ‘great European nights for Liverpool FC’ this season, Wesley Brown has realised he is playing for the best club in the world and has signed the contract, the league leaders have won very important games without Wayne Rooney (not to mention Vida),,,

 

AND Given to Score will have hopefully relocated from Merseyside to Greater Mancunia in time for the next football season.

 

Some things do change.

 

Let us feast on the last month of the season; there will be much to come of that I am sure.

 

Never In A Month Of Saturdays: September

THIS was the month of the header and the 1:0 victory. It seemed that in September we progressed, if only a little, from a spluttering start to one that was consistent whilst still not being the most fluent displays ever.

Yet while everyone was moaning about our lack of fire power, our defence emerged as one of the strongest. Everyone had been focused on the fact that we often had only a 1 in the goals for column, while forgetting the fact that week after week this month we constantly had 0 in goals against. 

We did enough against Sunderland at the beginning of the month, Danny Higginbotham played like a man possessed, perhaps looking to prove a point against his old manager. Anderson ran his socks off, as Anderson seems to do, and the points headed for United courtesy of Louis Saha’s head. 

Nemanja showed the way for the strikers when he broke Everton with a bullet header at Goodison to record the third of our 1:0 score lines, before an emotional return to Sporting Lisbon for Ronaldo who scored the only goal of the game against his former club, with another header. 

The Chelsea game came and went, or rather Jose went and Chelsea came to the home of the Champions looking completely lost. Manchester United benefited from some key decisions, largely the sending off of Mikel. That may have been fortunate but in this game of swings and roundabouts there were unpunished incidents against United players elsewhere in this game so you could say it all evens out, if the referee tries to even it, that is.

The Saha penalty is a non debate in my eyes, no I don’t think he should have done the dying swan after contact was made but the fact of the matter is contact was made. Nowhere does it say in the rules that a penalty award will be reversed if the fouled player makes an idiot of himself with his reaction.

The drama of the referee display was all we had to focus on in this match that lacked the usual spark from this encounter.

United’s only blip this month was a rather catastrophic performance from our youngsters against Coventry City. A lot of the team that night were young and inexperienced but this was their big night and many of them got stage fright. I hope they can recover from the disappointment of their individual displays because from what we have seen in other games, at least some of the players on show that night do have ability. The school report for these lads reads ‘can and must do better’.

So we end the month as we began, with a 1:0 score line in favour of the Premiership Champions. Premiership champions is what we are, and though we have not yet played like them we are certainly going in the right direction.

Our goalkeeper and defence should be praised, Ronaldo is looking good and Michael Carrick has impressed me also. We are managing to mask some fairly average performances by still getting the results. 

So while we are getting the results we cannot complain. It could be worse, we could be Chelsea supporters!

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! 

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