Former Red Devils – Page 5

They Ruined My Headline

“Newcastle United are a massive club. Not in terms of success but they are a massive club.”

A Newcastle United fan shows that they aren’t in fact deluded.

SOMETIMES the team that has just lost their manager play their first game without him like they should have done when he was there. I have to admit, this was not strictly what happened today as we faced Newcastle, though for forty five minutes when the red United tried and failed to make the breakthrough, I did wonder if they would eventually have the last laugh. Newcastle United’s team had a strangely familiar look to it with Nicky Butt and Alan Smith in midfield. Nicky Butt seems to have gone through an on off love affair with the Newcastle fans and it seems they finally may now be taking to him. Although the Toon Army are a funny lot so maybe acceptance isn’t on the cards for Butty just yet, but they should admit that he does a job for them. ”If you ignore the chances Manchester United had during the game, it easily could have been a draw!”

Given to Score hero Alan Smith was back at Old Trafford. He got a well deserved welcome from the Manchester United faithful. They will always be grateful for the blood shed for the Old Trafford cause by that man, and many were sorry to see him go but football is like that and old loyalties were forgotten fairly quickly on both sides. The result makes the look one sided and in the second half it was, but that was only after chances galore failed to find the net. How Wayne Rooney did not bag a goal today is a question which he may still be asking himself. How the home team were not awarded at least one of the two stone wall penalties we could have had, is a question which Rob Styles can ask himself. We certainly asked him from our seats, along with the hail of words which I cannot repeat, I have a picture of my impressionable little brother in my wallet and familes read this website! Steven Taylor certainly left his leg their for Ronaldo in the first instance, the Newcastle defender can be happy with his performance today when you consider that he was in the right place for goal line clearances in the second half. There were very few plus points for the visitors today and he was the only player to go and salute the visiting pogoing Newcastle United fans at the end of the game. Maybe another who would have applauded was Alan Smith, had he been on the pitch at the time.

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Winning in a Winter Sunderland

ROY Keane knows that what lies in front of him as he heads into 2008 is one heck of a challenge.

We knew that Sunderland shouldn’t have been much of a challenge for United today but whenever us fans think it will be a walk in the park, it’s usually when we get tripped up. On the evidence of Boxing Day we need not have worried. We did not over run Sunderland, we didn’t run through the gears, we simply didn’t get the test. We didn’t need to dominate them, we looked at times as if we were not trying too hard to score all those goals, it just happened and occurred with less than half the effort than we would have expected to give against a team managed by Roy Keane.

As a result I found myself thinking that it was job done, both for us and our title hopes and for his team and their chances of staying in the top league also. I’ve never wanted to show mercy in football, the points are their and we’ll kill any bar stewards that get in our way, we are the Pride of all Europe…However, I would have gladly given them only a 45 minute game on Boxing day because Sunderland were just poor and Roy Keane didn’t deserve the feeling he must have had watching them try and keep up with Ronaldo and our boys. When we played Sunderland at Old Trafford earlier this season they actually tried to play. At times they kicked us all over the park but they were really up for it, on Boxing day we played a team that seemed to have already accepted its fate of playing in the fizzy league next season.Keano doesn’t deserve that and it’s going to be hard watching him being connected to that team if it happens but he would have known that there was a chance of relegation in their first season back.

Before you think that we are showing a little too much peace and love to our former midfielder in the spirit of the season, I will point out that some of the players he famously ranted about during his last few weeks with Manchester United, were on the winning side on Boxing day. I’m not the biggest fan of Darren Fletcher but he did well, and Rio Ferdinand isn’t everyone’s cup of tea either but he could have had a cigar on the go during this game for all that they challenged.

“The younger players have been let down by some of the more experienced players. They are just not leading. There is a shortage of characters in this team.”

That was part of Roy’s rant against his below par Manchester United team mates, for MUTV, although I swear the same could be said for Sunderland at this point in time. He cannot work miracles and he isn’t working alongside the same quality of players he was with at Old Trafford, by the looks of it his players are not even up to the ‘lower quality’ United players he watched in his last few months with us.

His rant, as ill advised as it was, was spot on at the time, right on the money and it provided a spark of reaction that may be something to do with where we are now. Maybe what Roy Keane needs is Dwight Yorke to turn up on Sunderland Tonight and blast his team mates the same way – in my opinion all of them besides Michael Chopra would deserve it.

The red’s go marching on, while Boxing Day showed that we may have extinguished what little fight there was left in the Sunderland dog, although I hope not.

Never In A Month Of Saturdays: August

PRE season is our slow introduction back to the fast pace of Premiership football and we all knew that it counted for nothing, but results went our way against the mighty Doncaster and Peterborough and fans could be forgiven for thinking it would be business as usual when the real campaign began.

Well, we know it didn’t really turn out like that. A goal-less draw against Reading at the home of the Champions was not the start we wanted. Sky Sports happily pointed out where we were year ago and just how many we had put past Fulham. A year on, we couldn’t hit a barn door in a field despite our best efforts and to make matters worse, we lost our striker for the next few weeks.

Portsmouth gained a point and then down at the Council House at Eastlands, City managed to find the net with arguably their only shot on target. This defeat hurt, not only because it was against the local rivalries but because yet again our performance looked promising. The month ended with United finally getting a win under their belts. A win we had expected to come earlier than this. Although it was something of a dull game it did have moments of sparkle which have been debated in the days following.

For the record, Berbatov ran straight into Vidic, floored him and claimed the big defender had brought him down. Not a chance. There is of course, the other massive debate. Was it or wasn’t it? Did it touch or didn’t it? Well, let’s put this to bed as well – Nani’s shot DID touch Tevez and the striker is within his rights to claim the goal. Oh yeah, and camera angle after camera angle shows, the ball hit Wes in the chest and it was never a hand ball.

The performance against Tottenham wasn’t great. We have played better this month, and only drawn or lost so for that game the most important thing was the three points. It gives us something to build on and sees Manchester United end the month in the right half of the league table. Maybe if we work out how to combine the good performance with the ability to stick a few goals in the net before our opposition do, we will do okay this season.

Talking of sticking the ball in the net, someone that did that better than most (especially from the subs’ bench) has now officially left our playing ranks. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has called time on his career after knee surgery over the summer and eleven goals last season. This season would have been his last anyway and it’s sad that he has gone out with a whimper like this but we shall not forget his contribution to the United cause. He won us the European Cup, the final part of the treble and that is enough to make anyone a legend, Personally I remember being at Old Trafford against Everton in the opening home game of his first season with us, he was playing for the Reserves and we heard that he had scored a few (at Oldham if I remember rightly), and that he would play some part in the next game against Blackburn. He did, he scored and a legend was born!

Thanks for everything, Ole!

It seems strange to talk of only one win meaning progress but so it goes, and now for September. Relegation? Never!Onwards. Combined celebrations v Spurs