Aug 04
Announcement
This blog is not dead. I’ve been out of town during the weekend, and have had some urgent matters to attend to. Apologies to everyone for not covering the testimonial of a true United legend.
Regular service will resume either later in the day or tomorrow.
Until then feel free to discuss away as the lads take on Peterborough later today. Sorry for the inconvenience (?) and thanks for understanding.
Related items from Red Rants:
- What Now For Wayne Rooney After A Spectacular U-Turn?
- Bordeaux: Obertan wants to play for United
- A Few Words…
- The Battle of Ankles Deep and the Dark Forces of Madrid
- United Close On Lindegaard, But De Gea’s A No-Go — For Now
Tags: Site News
Opti (541)
Stephen (487)
RedDevilEddy (461)
Craig Mc (348)
Moscow is my heaven (272)
yea i mean their comfortable…maybe need abit of positioning work but they are aggresive little buggers…and their only 18
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Put it this way, if we were to start Raphael against Newcastle on the first day of the season, I wouldn’t be worried.
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damn my comp is fd cant watch but sounds like the defensive questions are patched up.
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@Traverse: I think, that’s where you went too far. Of course, we couldn’t start with him and not be worried.
They look good, the twins, but so did a lot of players today. Especially in the second half, where PB ran out of steam. Rafael played very well in the first half, but remember the opposition guys, please.
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The overall game was so so. The twins were good, in attack that is. Both of them have huge potential, but as some people already said, their positioning needs a lot of improvement. From the young guys that were on display they were by far the best ones, but then again I am not really impressed by our youngsters, except Campbell and he is gone. From 1st team Tevez and Evra were on the roll, Nani not so. Rio and Wes did fine. PIG shouldn’t be in the goals, cause he spills to many shots, which puts us into trouble, he did make couple of good saves though.
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YES YES YES…Sir Alex plz play Rafael in the Premier League, please please please…Any of you guys able to tell me what are the odds of Rafa playing a few matches of first team ball this season, and I dont mean Carling Cup
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My thoughts from today….
The right back looked a little better than his brother. The left back didnt have the same assured touch. The right back just looked like he belonged there. Made some great tackles too.
Not a great game from Fletch. If there was ever the definition of a player Playing to the level of the opposition, its Darren Fletcher. If he is playing against the likes of Peterswhatever, he’s average, but put him out against Arsenal and he plays like a monster.
Campbell didnt really do anything. Didnt notice him playing.
Carlitos was a on a different planet than those defenders trying to keep up with him.
Thought Posebon looked really good. Very natural look to his game. And its cool to see him rip shots with both beet from distance.
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@Mihir:
Wellbeck is injured, he wouldnt have featured in Africa anyway as he was due to play for England in the u19 championships till he was injured
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Good performance, the twins impressed, so did tevez. Few uninspiring displays, darren fletcher, john O’shea (he def doesn’t belong in midfield), Lee martin, Campbell (still not convinced he should be starting our games), David gray (who the fuck is dis guy?), Nani (was playing like he didn’t want to be there or was unconcerned or sumthin). The rest were okay; rio, brown, evra, kuszy, rodrigo, cleverley, evans etc.
Still don’t know what Fergie’s plans for our 1st squad is!! We’ve been playin all these youngsters and been comin up with unconvincing displays tbh. I thought pre-season was the time to re-establish the team’s chemistry, but we have been shuffling the squad and producing patchy displays. Hope we get a good 1st team run-out against Juve and portsmouth. Our first team players need to establish and practice the new style of play with ronnie out injured…
.sorry about the rant, it’s just that we have produced very few convincing displays especially against weaker teams. It’s just not encouraging when the season is like a week away!!
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@Tomas:
As far as Rafael goes I think the level of opposition made his performance more impressive. The lower league teams put themselves about more and even in the prem it can be the physical nature of the english game that can make Foreign players come unstuck. He however looked perfectly at home in a physical battle
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Zenit have said that Spurs have not met the valuation of Arshavin and that their bid for 15.8 million has been rejected. Looks like Spurs have to sell Berbatov to raise the money for him. I expect him to be coming to us this week.
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I honestly don’t understand the need and desire to watch meaningless games where few show urgency or desire and where imagination is devoid.
Other than Tevez and the twins the team lacked any energy or any offensive imagination. It was like watching old fashioned boring 4-4-2 footy but with nobody who could cross the ball. Fortunately it was meaningless encounter and on a training exercise. After watching Chelsea beat Milan 5-0 I’d be afraid. I be really afraid. Get a winger and striker and get them now. If Campbell can’t impress against a minnow what can you expect in the EPL.
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@Grognard: mate, i’ve been echoing the same sentiments for ages now!!! This season is gonna be tougher than last season and last season we didn’t have as much injuries!!! Fergie was the one talking about not resting on our laurels, but he seems to be doin it right now!! We strenghten from a position of power. I haven’t seen any decent pre-season game from united so far, worthy of premiership standards.
We have been playing quite poor opposition, yet we fail to display full 90-minute composure and disciplined attack!!! Our main rivals have been playin stronger opposition and are gettin used to the rythm of dominating games and creating chances against strong opposition. What have we been doin? A patchy performane here, another there..
I’m not a pessimistic kinda fellow, I’m just tellin it how i see it, I sincerely hope SAF proves me wrong with the matches against Juve and Portsmouth.
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Just got back from the match itself and have to say the second half was extremely dull. The highlight of the night was undoubtedly Raphael though – he looks extremely promising. Made great runs and looked good in the tackle, if a little frail sometimes. As someone said, Fabio didn’t look as comfortable but was just as willing to bomb forward and has plenty of pace. Just lacks a bit of confidence perhaps. I’d worry about them both a bit in a more physical match though as they’re both very sleight.
Tevez was different class in the first half – ran the show, and Possebon looked very assured when he came on. Don’t think he gave possession away once. O Shea was solid and Kuzsack made one fantastic save. Other than that, not really much worth mentioning!
Except Gibsons goal… that was ok I suppose ;-p
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Forgot to mention also – before the match a couple of the Peterborough mascots carried the EPL and UCL trophies and raised them at the United end. That was a nice touch.
You can see how small Rafael is in this photo – barely taller than the boy mascot in front of him hehe (stood on TK’s right);
http://www.sixshootermedia.com/minirafael.JPG
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Ey Grognard…uv told us that a thousand times but unfortunately Id rather watch up and coming youngsters playing football for manutd than spend hours just discussing the team. I mean after all its actual football and this summer has been so boring with all the Ronaldo crap and us signing no one yet. And if you saw Kalacs performance you would know why milan lost like that…Milan are nothing but a team full of has beens now..no attacking flair at all.On the game -fergie really used the brazilians today!!I find that Rodrigo is so much better than Oshea and Flether in the middle and I feel he should be ahead of them. Would be nice to see him against a team like Juve rather than Giigs or fletch..since Anderson Carrick and hargo are all unavailable.Cambell was poor..needs a big pitch maybe??lol
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hes probably as tall as evra jay!midget fullbacks we have!!
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@Grognard: I honestly don’t understand the need and desire to watch meaningless games where few show urgency or desire and where imagination is devoid.
Whilst I agree that these games can be meaningless, I do think it’s much more refreshing to see some footy of your club, in whatever form, rather than the endless drivel on Newsnow.
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@Tomas: Nah, serious. If it were chelsea or arsenal or liverpool fair enough, but I think he could handle damian duff…….
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@Gabriel: Besides Arsenal in the Emirates cup playing Madrid and Juve, which other strong opposition have they played. Besides playing a Milan B- team, what strong team has Chelsea played? Besides playing a tired Rangers team, what strong team has Liverpool played? I’m just questioning your statement on our rivals playing strong opposition. Also besides Chelsea, all our opposition have mainly being playing their youngsters too, so your comparison isn’t quite valid. The match against Juve should give us an idea where we are for the start of the season cus we should play most of our starting XI. I’d agree with your pessimism if we’ve been playing a full squad and putting out half- decent performances, but playing with half of our starting XI and still playing like the way we’ve done isn’t anything to worry about. In each of the matches featuring our starting players the starting players have always looked good(Evra, Vidic, Rooney, Ferdinand, Scholes, Brown, Nani, Carrick). Based on the team we’ve been fielding all pre- season, i have no idea what kinda performance you’re expecting.
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Have to disagree grog, desire is there. Fergie is playing the youngsters to give them a fighting chance of grabbing a first team spot. Although your point can be said about a few of the 1st-teamers.
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@Rd: I’m just saying this pre-season we haven’t cut the look of a team that can penetrate, counter-attack, dominate and score goals. I know it’s cuz we have not been playin the 1st teamers together, that’s why I said I was looking forward to the Juve match. I mean, last season’s pre-freindlies, we had more or less the core of the team playing the friendlies, hence they re-established their chemistry early on and were able to cope with the loss of rooney and ronaldo early in the season.
I understand Fergie wants to play all the youngsters and give ‘em a feel for playin in the 1st team, but at least, we should have had core team members play more together, be it for 45minutes or less. I’m just overly concerned, as I know we will be ready come the start of the season, but it would have been re-assuring if we had better team performances so we could have got into that rythm by now…
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Hahaha!
I’ve been reading a few posts posted a few months back here and there about the twins, and it seems that everybody at the time agreed that Fabio was the most promising of the two!
Well that sure starts to look good..
Anybody apart from me get the impression that this current crop of youth/reserves has got a bit more potential than, say, those from past recent seasons? I mean Possebon, the twins, Cleverley, Simmo, Cathcart, Evans, and then the Macheda, James, Petrucci are all upper premiership material – i’m sure i’m missing a few good names here too.. Recently its been just the odd player making it, usually ending up like Richardson (Pique and Rossi excluded)… Sure I can’t see more than four of them making it to the first team, but I personally think that its nonetheless great that the talen pool seems to have improved a bit as witnessed by their recent cup sucesses…
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Jesus Christ, with some of the comments on here you’d swear that we will struggle to avoid relegation this season
we are completely fine. The reason that we haven’t been thumping teams is because in every match we have started a different team with huge changes. A lot of players are regaining fitness game by game and I for one am not worried. Chelsea have bought a right back and yet another AM and I don’t think that they will be significantly better. They are attempting to change styles but don’t have the players to play the fluent attacking game that Roman wants. Liverpool have bought one player of note and he is just a slightly upgraded version of Dirk Kuyt. I think reports of Arsenal’s demise are greatly exaggerated and they will be up there again but fatigue will catch up with them
As regards Ronaldo, I think that the stance that we are taking will be beneficial to us in the long term. It shows the other players that they cannot just decide to up and leave whenever they feel like it. Ronaldo’s name has been dragged through the mud and I don’t think players will want a similar situation with themselves
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@Liam
I agree that many of the concerns have been hyperbole. Our squad as is a legitimate contender on all fronts. However, I do find our complete lack of transfer activity to be disconcerting. Many fans, myself included, are gravely concerned about the debt issues surrounding the club. If I remember correctly, the brass made assurances that the money earned from the Champion’s League would be applied to transfer additions. That figure stands at 34 million quid, just from sponsors and TV revenue. That amount seems eerily similar to price tag of a certain striker we’ve been sniffing around for awhile. Fergie has said he only wanted to make one acquisition, so why don’t we just buy him already! It is very frustating. If we we’re making other acquisitions and were trying to stick with a budget for Berbatov, I would understand. BUT WE’RE DOING NOTHING! Spend the money promised and give the man some time to acclimate to the team. This summer has been wretched and some signs of life from the club would be relieving.
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@Gabriel: If Peterborough had more composure in their front line they could have beaten us today. They had the better chances by far. United is just going through the motions right now which is fine. But I have a bad feeling about this season. Fergie has gone a season too far relying on the old guard and I think it may cost us. This team should have bought at least two new and very significant players this year. Perhaps we will still get Berbatov but I think we are showing a lack of depth on the wing. When our B team cannot comprehensively beat a Coca Cola League 2 team and Chelsea can beat Milan 5-0, then I think we have problems. I hope I’m wrong but so far I am not seeing any fire from anyone other than Tevez. He seems motivated as he is fighting for his starting job. Nani should have had his way with the opponents today and he looked terrible. The twins looked good but they are still too young and inexperienced to be on the main squad. Campbell was more invisible in the first half when he was on the pitch than in the second half when he was subbed off. And our defense looked awful. I’m not panicking due to this game but honestly, how can Fergie feel this side will repeat it’s glory in it’s present setup? I just don’t see it.
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@Peterson: I saw the Milan game and Kalac was awful but Chelsea played well despite the keepers gaffs. They seemed hungry and motivated. Why? Because unlike United who seem to like playing useless pre season opponents like Kaizer Chiefs and Peterborough, other teams enter mini tournaments and prepare against decent opponents. We’re treating pre season as an excuse to just find our conditioning and nothing more. Playing a bunch of young kids that have no chance of making the squad lie Gray and Gibson is a total waste of time. You may like watching them play and playing them may serve a purpose but it does nothing for me and it certainly doesn’t help the main squad find their fitness and form before the season starts. Perhaps that would also go to explain why we sucked for the first 6 games last year too. I took the team an extra month to find it’s legs and form because they slacked off by playing muppets in pre season.
Hopefully the Juventus game and the Charity Shield will wake up the boys. No panic yet but I’m not liking what I’m seeing so far. I think we will be fine defensively but I think we will be starving for goals once again like last year’s start.
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@Red Ranter: Newsnow is far more entertaining. Even if it’s science fiction and fantasy.
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@Jezta: If that was desire you saw out there than I’m the next manager of Man Utd. They were sleep walking out there. Nani is a children’s term for sleep in some languages. Well he and Fletcher, O’Shea, Evra, Gray, Campbell and a few others put me to sleep with their lack of pace, energy and imagination. Only Tevez and the the twins seemed interested in going forward and showing any real adventure out there. It was total rubbish. Based on what Fergie said the other day, he should sack the bunch of them.
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@Liam: That’s not true. I’m down on their play but I also realize that it is pre season and that the starting squads are never the first team in it’s entirety. It’s like watching minor league baseball or Spring Training with split squads. BORING BORING BORING!!! Honestly, for those of you who can watch this money grabbing garbage and find it stimulating, I applaud you. You are better and more loyal fans than me, or just really gullible gluttons for punishment. I’m honestly not sure right now. One thing is for sure. Not too much can be read into these performances other than our obvious lack of depth up front and our early season winger worries.
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@IBleedRed: I totally agree with you mate. Unfortunately too many fans look at everything with such optimism and through rose colored glasses. From where I’m sitting and from what I am seeing and reading, I think we have many concerns on and off the field. Yet so many are so quick to dismiss the obvious. I just don’t get that kind of positive thinking. It’s mystifying and annoying because I just can’t understand why some people cannot see things that are blatantly obvious. It’s like people who voted for George Bush. I’ll never understand them nor the ones that still support him after all his treasonous deeds. Never underestimate the poor decision making and general ignorance of the general public. And sometimes it rubs off on our supporters in the way they see our football team. But then again, I’m just a miserable old grognard bastard that’s bitter, angry and paranoid about life.
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@IBleedRed: Spot on mate on all points.
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i think its slightly disgraceful how some of you are talking about peterborough, so what if their lower league opponents, yes they are but they sure as hell dont play like some. lower clubs playing the english way, the crappy way, constantly knocking the ball across the pitch instead of passing their way down, peterborough dont do that, they pass the ball and work their way down, they play proper attacking football, and even with the first teamers in the team yesterday, they had us on the run. Fergie even said they should of scored in the first half. Hehe, darren ferguson wouldnt dear play the english way, at thet risk of the hairdryer coming out
.
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@Grognard: What you call our B team was more like a B/C team. Yesterday we were missing: Neville, Vidic, Hargo, Scholes, Giggs, Carrick, Park, Ronaldo, Rooney, Anderson, VDS and Silvestre… that’s 12 players from the first team squad. We only played Rio (1 half), Brown (1 half), Fletcher, O’Shea, Tevez (1 half), Nani (little more than a half), TK, Evra (1 half)… that’s only 8 players from the 1st team squad, and most of them only played 1 half. The rest were from the reserve squad, so I don’t think it’s fair to say that it was our B team playing. And whether you like it or not… we still won, which is always a good sign. As a matter of fact, we’ve won every game except the first. Look at Liverpool, who played 3 0-0′s in a row…I’d be more worried by that, because it’s important to get used to winning again. Arsenal haven’t had a lot of victories either. I don’t know about Chelsea.
A few players will be added for tomorrows match, but those who won’t are injured or down by virus… what is SAF supposed to do in these fixtures? He could probably play a few of the players with smaller injuries, but I bet he finds it more important to have them fit for the opener against Newcastle. And playing a team like PB just ensures that the youngsters feel part of the environment around the team – surely your experience as coach must have taught you the significance of that?
I’m sure that SAF would like to have played a very strong side against Juventus, but he’ll be without Ronaldo (injury), Vidic (don’t know why), Neville (injury), Carrick (virus), Anderson (Olympics), Hargo (injury), Park (injury), Rooney (virus), VDS (not started yet)… off the top of my head. So even when playing a good opposition, he’s not the master of who he can play.
Another thing is that SAF may not play really strong opposition in pre-season (allthough we played Portsmouth and Juve tomorrow), but I don’t see a problem with that. Pre-season is about getting your fitness levels up, and that can be done against any team. It’s also about getting the rythm back, and the touch and those sort of things, and for that to happen, you need to play team that are on you back constantly. The African teams did a decent enough job at that, because their fitness levels were so much better than our’s at the time. It’s no coincidence that we play Juve in the last pre-season match, because SAF needs to test the players against a top team with good fitness levels. It’s a little unfortunate that so many players are out, but that’s the nature of the sport.
It’s also a well known strategy that players don’t need to be at their best when the season starts. If they are, they’ll run out of steam. As a matter of fact, it’s better to wait a month or 2 to reach the best level and then carry it through the christmas period and January which are so important. SAF is a master at this. The overall fitness and form levels need to be higher at every point of the season now compared to earlier years, but that doesn’t change the fact that they need to be at their best come christmas and January.
Hopefully the quality of the team is so high that we’ll get through the first couple of months just fine – as we usually do. At least fine enough to win the title.
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@IBleedRed: We did make an offer, so it’s not a matter of no money available. It’s very important that we get him for the lowest possible price and not just slug out 34 mil, because we have them. We are in debt, and we need cash to pay it off. So if we can get him for 27 mil, there’s no point in paying 34 mil. He’ll have time enough to adapt to the team, and a player like him won’t need much time anyway.
I would like him ready for the first couple of matches (the 2nd especially, because I think, we can dispose of Newcastle with the player we have now), but if it doesn’t happen, there’s nothing to do about it. We’re also dependent on Spurs getting a replacement, remember. Maybe that’s what’s holding the deal back entirely… impossible to say.
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The real concern for me is that Fergie has been @ OT for 22 years and obviously done a great job, but if Gray, Campbell, Martin is the best we can find with regards to youth talent then that is worrying.
The twins looked promising, but surely we should have the best scouts all over the world considering how long SAF has been @ the club to track down major talent, in France, South America and Africa.
We do seem to have too many “jobs for the boys” at the club. His brother is chief scout for gods sake, we also have so many former players around the club, which I can understand the benefits for, but maybe we should just get the best men for the jobs with regards coaching and scouts.
I am not having a go at Fergie because in Fergie we trust, but Arsenal have Fargregas, Denilson, Traore, Clichy and Vela we have not brought any young foreign plyers through, and if we do we do not give them a chance.
If we found Ronaldo, Anderson, Nani we could have saved just shy of £50m, which would could have been re invested, and maybe pay off some of the debt.
This is not an attack at Fergie, far from it, more of a thought, and our youth system surely is a worry.
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@Stephen: I think we have gradually started bringing in foreign youth (possebon, Twins, Macheda, Petrucci etc). I think Fergie was trying to develop british youngsters that would come up and still have the desire to play in England (giggs, scholes etc) unlike the foreign lads who might opt to leave at certain ages. The problem is, the english youngsters have consistently failed to make the grade, so they’ve began bringin in foreigners, and we currently have quite an exciting bunch!!!
Give it a bit of time, and these foreign youngsters will be knocking on the first team’s door!!
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@Stephen: Ronaldo was bought at 17, but he was pricey, and today we see why. Anderson bought at 19, not exactly old either. And with all the respect I have for those players from Arsenal, but other than Fabregas, none of them are that good yet. You mention Vela, who has just had one good pre-season, and Denilson has hardly played in first team, and what has Traore shown apart from a run in CC?
Arsenal usually have a good crop of young players, and they have today as well, but I think you overestimate some of the players… at least they haven’t shown much yet. They might, but before it happens, it’s merely praising them because they are from Arsenal’s youth system.
Another thing is that I’d much rather pay more money and win titles than less money and have to sell them, if they show class. That’s the state Arsenal are in right now. If a club offers big money, they’ll sell a lot of the times. They can hardly afford their new stadium, and that’s why they only buy youngsters like Nasri. We can afford the real talents and pay a little more to get them, but that’s a good sign to me, because it means we have the money.
Of course, it’s a good idea to try to get some of the youngsters on the cheap and try to develop them into class players, but as Gabriel wrote, we’re starting to do so. Unfortunately hardly any of them are English, because the youth system in England is so horrible, and a lot of the players developed are not suited for modern football.
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@Grognard:
You have to remember as well Milan are a couple weeks behind Chelsea when it comes to pre season due to their season starting a few weeks later.
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@dan(u-ol): Dan, you are giving them far too much credit. They are a tosser side. You take a full Manchester United squad with all players healthy and in mid season form and the score would have been 10-0. That was a lackluster B-Side Fergie put out there and they never even kicked up a gear the entire match, and it showed. And even some of our A-Team players decided to take the night off on the pitch as well as off. You tend to glorify the reserves to the point where they should all be starring on the first squad. Fact is most of them will never get there. And the ones that will and will probably stick are all Brazilian as well as one Italian.
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@dan(u-ol): Naah, Peterborough were crap.
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@Tomas: I used the term B-Team while meaning it the reserves. The A-Team to me is not only our starters but our quality bench players. Well, Gray, Cleverley, Campbell, The Twins, Gibson etc are not A-Team yet. Fletcher and O’Shea are A-Team subs and they were the center of our midfield yesterday. Not exactly something to boast about or to feel intimidated over if you are Peterborough. Obviously Fergie does not like to lose but he was not planning on embarrassing his boy either.
My experience as a coach taught me to give young players new to the team a chance to play early in pre season to see if they have what it takes. But pre season for was getting the veteran player in shape and in form for the start of the season. Very rarely will you find young reservists ever make a team out of training camp. They usually make the team by being called up to fill a vacancy caused by an injury or a mid season sale of a player. That is the time to bleed a player and see what he has to offer. Other than those who are injured or ill, the time is now to be playing all your first teamers in order to get them in shape. Wasting time and resources as well as fixtures looking hard and long at players who have very little hope of cracking the massively talented and veteran core group of the first squad, is a waste of time and money. Play someone like Campbell due to your shortage at striker but how is Neville, Silvestre, Vidic, Giggs, Scholes and others suppose to get in shape if they are constantly sitting down so that these kids get their chances? Still, I do see the bright side of this but the dark side is that the team will not be in tip top shape or form to start the season and to add to that our top two players will be missing as well as Anderson and Nani and perhaps even Hargo. And the solution to all this and the master plan to keep up with Chelsea is to play Gray, Cleverley, Gibson and a couple of 17 year olds. I’m sorry but I don’t get it. I have watched far too many games without Ronaldo or Rooney on the side to realize that United are very ordinary without them.
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@Stephen: I agree. And I also have had a chance to watch Ramsey play with Arsenal and Fergie really blundered. The kid far beyond his years in talent, composure and on field decision making. He’s going to be a massive player for the Gooners and he could have been ours if we had shown the lad any kind of serious interest instead of sicking Gary Neville on him while his hero Giggs, Fergie and Gill were all away on holidays. Fergie is great but sometimes I think he and the organization tend to suffer from narcolepsy. At times like these they seem to lack the eye of the tiger and the new school way of getting things done aggressively with expedience instead of sitting back, suntanning themselves and sitting on their laurels. Standing pat with the same team as last year without adding new blood and depth and not even properly backing up the serious injury concerns we have before the season starts is utter madness.
And now we have no Ronaldo or Rooney for the start of the season. No Anderson, possibly no Hargo and no Saha or Nani. But Hell, we’re OK. We’ll just use Gray, Cleverly, Gibson and the overrated beyond belief Campbell. That will get us through and to hell with the Sanchez kid and Berbatov and who the Hell is that Huntelaar fellow anyway, when we have Campbell and Wellbeck. EPL look out, United is invading the league with a youth program of mediocre proportions and we are flashing our massive transfer kitty of 3 bob and and a couple of Dinner Club coupons to any team which is brain dead enough and willing to listen.
If many of you out there cannot see the writing on the wall, then I can’t help you. Even the purchase of Berbatov isn’t going to seal all the holes our ship has sprung. Please Fergie, buy Berbatov and another decent striker and a winger or two. Our lack of depth in these two areas is absolutely frightening. Why can’t Fergie see this. The EPL is no party and we will not be playing Kaizer Chiefs and Peterborough most weeks. We destroyed Newcastle last year by a total of of 11-0 in two games. We will be fortunate to beat them at OT on opening day by 1-0. And right now I think we can just forget about the Charity Shield. We are not in the same form nor are we as healthy as Pompey. But what the Hell do I know? I’m sure many of you out there say, not too much. Well, I hope Fergie proves all of you correct and proves that I’m just a paranoid wanker. Honestly, I do!
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@wakey: They also played very few of their starting eleven but that doesn’t excuse their dismantling by the unimaginative and dull Chelsea. Also, Chelsea’s play was much more up tempo and they played with more width than they usually do. I just think they are more ready and more hungry than us and they have fewer holes to fill. And no matter what, you always know that if they need a player. Mr Moneybags will provide the cash to get him. I feel more and more concerned with our lack of ability to do so and even more concerned with our lack of desire to do so.
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@Grognard: @Grognard: We did the same in 99 when we won the treble did not capalize on our achievements, I think Schmeichel retired and we only signed bloody Bosnich on a free! I know we romped the league that following season but it was not as competetive as it is now, and with Chelsea and Liverpool investing and you cannot write off Arsenal, it could be a long hard season ahead.
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@Stephen: Many may disagree with me Stephen on this one point but I think we were deeper at the key positions back in 1999. We were solid in the back and our strikers were world class and four deep. Bosnich was actually thought of as a solid replacement for Schmeichel but as we all know, he wasn’t. But then again, nobody short of Sepp Maier and Oliver Kahn could replace the great Schmeichel. Thankfully EVDS has been good for us if not up to the Great Danes level of excellence. I personally cannot remember an off season where we were so silent in regards to buying players. You say 1999 and you are probably right but it really is a different feeling as I am used to us bringing in a couple of big names. Even last year when everyone was raving about Nani and Anderson we still brought in two big names in Hargo and Tevez. God and Fergie only know what the Hell is going on or not going on for that matter.
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