Feb 15
Derby Man Utd: Live!
Welcome! Follow us live, as we live blog today’s FA Cup.
Update: Leave your comments in the comments thread now that the game’s over.
Related items from Red Rants:
- Rooney Out For A Month
- Man Utd Blog 2007/2008 Home Kit
- West Ham v Man Utd: Live
- Derby County v Man Utd: Preview
- Will United deliver decisive blow in derby epic?
Tags: Manchester United News
Opti (541)
RedDevilEddy (459)
Stephen (454)
Craig Mc (344)
Moscow is my heaven (272)
@colver: Park offers a great balance and a lot of intangibles that others don’t. I agree with you there. But he is not a very skilled player and luck comes to those who earn it with their abilities. Park has very little offensive talent so I have to ask myself why he started a game at home against a park the bus team like Fulham? If we had a Nani or even Giggs on the left side we would have scored 5 or 6 because less attention would have been spent on Ronaldo. Nani gives us way more options offensively than park but yes Park does offer great work ethic and desire. And occasionally his terribly inaccurate shots will land at the feet of one of our players like Rooney and end up looking like a great assist.
I think Park has great value against the bigger clubs who have a wide player who can attack and cause problems. I think Park will be a perfect player to put up against Leo Messi should we play Barca in the CL. He is a pest and a hard worker and if anybody can contain or keep Messi to just human output, Park is the man. But please, do not tell me he is the man who we should be putting out there against poor teams because he does hamper our offensive output quite a bit. Even though his work ethic and desire occasionally makes things happen. He’s a valuable asset but as a role player and nothing more.
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@Beachryan: Tevez, to me, seems to have lost his first touch!! The ball seems to bounce off him like a pinball bumper. I don’t know if he’s so intent in getting into scoring position that he forgets the basics, or what? But that 30mil tag does not seem realistic anymore.
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come on tuesday i cant wait….
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@Redrich: This happens to players who are not relaxed and who feel a lot of pressure to perform. They try too hard and the tension just doesn’t allow the muscles in the body to relax enough so that their first touch and their passes etc come more naturally. As much as I love Tevez, I often wonder if we will ever see the player South America was so raving about five years ago. His talent and control of the ball was supposed to have been sublime and that he would literally go through a whole team like Messi and score. As he has progressed in his career he has found the competition harder but I think it has more to do with how he handles the pressure. Playing for a team as great and as high profile as United has got to add a lot of pressure to any player. And I think his situation this year has just added that little bit more doubt and hesitation in his game as well as the added tension.
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Tevez I think would be better suited for Spain or Italy in a team where he could be the star and play every game. Being demoted to third striker has obviously shot his confidence and his touch has completely disappeared and he has been goal shy and done little in terms of assists.
Grognard as well as the big games I think Park has also been very useful in helping out Rafael on the right, taking some of the defensive pressure off the lad and letting him bomb forward without worrying too much about getting caught out.
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“Tevez I think would be better suited for Spain or Italy in a team where he could be the star and play every game”
That is just complete rubbish, who would he sign for abroad and play week in week out? Barca, Real, Inter? Football is about a squad and every member has a part to play, football isn’t about who starts every week it is about mixing your squad keeping players fresh.
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@Grognard: i seriously doubt that even Messi will exhibit the same kind of control he has in la liga here in the EPL..i don’t think i need to explain why…all the same what people seem to forget so easily is that even with Carlitos being the 3rd striker, he easily gets around 30 to 40 games per season mainly due to the number of injuries we sustain in a regular season..we always have couple out for the full season and a couple who play half of it..Rooney missed a good chunk of last season and he did this season as well but we are stronger this year because we didn’t have to striker shortage like last season mostly because Tevez is here..we spend around 30 million during a regular transfer window annually and if we can keep Tevez all the more better for us..Campbell can’t seem to keep a place with Spurs even when he has done reasonably well and Welbeck is at least a year or two from being regular starter or even maybe never…Tevez is world class no doubt proven goal scorer in the EPL..which is rare..Liverpool only has Torres…Arsenal has van Persie..maybe Adebayor…Chelsea has Anelka and Drogba…our edge has been our assembled cast of attacking football over the last couple of seasons…who better go for otherwise?
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@Stephen: Spoken like a true bench warmer.
Seriously mate, do you believe that? Players have egos and the better they are the bigger the egos. There are plenty of teams in Spain where Tevez could go and star for. Spain does not consist of only Madrid and Barcelona. For example, Valencia is going to be very hard pressed to hold onto David Villa. Do you not think that a Carlos Tevez would be a decent replacement for them? How about Atletico if Aguero leaves or even some of the smaller clubs like Deportivo or Mallorca?
If I was a good player and good enough to start on most teams, I’d say to Hell with the team concept and sacrifice and I’d demand a move to a team that would appreciate me, play me and that would have a chance at success with me in the lineup. We all can’t be champions of Europe so many would be very content to sacrifice that silverware for a steady job starting for a team and becoming a club favorite. And a star player should not have to become a sacrificial lamb for the good of his team. Carlito chose football because he loved the game, not the bench. Fuck the squad. That’s easy to say if you are one of the few great teams in the world, but most teams aren’t and their squad’s are not laced with world class players sitting on the bench. Carlos Tevez is too good a player to be sitting on anyone’s bench. I would not blame him one bit if he went signed for a team that ensured him a starting position. And to hell with being part of a squad. That’s code for you aren’t good enough to start.
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@RMJ: 30 or 40 games per season sounds nice but when 20 to 25 of those games constitute a 15 to 20 minute sprint and cameo sessions, it’s really more like he’s played about 20 games total. When you come in to a game in the 70th minute you hardly have the time to develop a sweat yet alone make any kind of impact. Tevez has a significant drop in minutes played. Who cares how many games he’s featured in? It’s the minutes played that is important and in that category, he has a right to feel pissed off and betrayed. He’s great to have as far as depth goes but that is also money that would be foolishly spent based on the minutes he has given us. Nope, next year I see Campbell and Welbeck making up those minutes and Carlito doing the Tango somewhere in Spain.
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@colver: no need to apologise mate, it was my fault for not being clear enough
@Grognard:
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thte way i see it, fergies job will be a lot easier without tevez! He would have is starting pair in rooney and berba(plus ronaldo and giggs!), then all those minutes that tevez plays off the bench will be welbecks/campbells.
In an ideal world, we will put a bid in for the kun(or any other young prospect thats already accomplished *cough*benzema*cough*) with campbell going the other way. Nothing against campbell, if it wernt for berba i would keep him, but campbells a player that needs a run off games to find form, an he does find his form, but at united, he wont get a run off games with rooney, berba and quite possibly welbeck infront of him.
Bloody hell im turning into grognard! i cant remember the last time i made a comment like this!
Only kidding
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@Dan: That’s funny Dan because my campaign to get Campbell brought back and partnered with Welbeck as our #3 and #4 strikers makes me feel like I’m turning into Dan.
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Well you can understand why Tevez feels rejected. He plays 2/3 of our games in a season when we win the Premier League and the Champions Cup…..then rather than sign him permanently we shell out 30 million on Berbatov who immediately starts despite Tevez having the pre-season of his life.
Berbatov starts slowly but Fergie is patient and plays Berbatov every game and Tevez gets these insulting 15 minute cameos. Then after a few months Berbatov settles and gets better and better to the point where he is undroppable, while Tevez is forced to play with a bunch of kids in the Carling cup and even when he scores four goals still doesn’t get to start in the Premier League.
Then Rooney gets injured and Tevez finally starts but doesn’t have the same chemistry with Berbatov he enjoyed with Rooney and is short of match practice and form and his touch just isn’t there.
Meanwhile Fergie stalls again on signing Tevez up permanently and Tevez is uncertain about his future.
Personally if I was Tevez Id walk just like Rossi did. He’s been mistreated and not been shown the respect he deserves. Fergie made no attempt to rotate except when forced to by injuries and clearly underlined Tevez’s second class status in the squad.
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look alive people
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@colver:Tevez feels rejected because he is being rejected!! Without an immediate improvement in his performances I just can’t see him staying, realistically. His contributions this year are difficult to quantify because he’s not doing what he did last season – score the big goal. Without trying to condemn him totally, I just feel that that the price tag is holding him back in advancing to the stability he seems to crave.
His work ethic is admirable and because of that I can see how he appeals to his fans, but with the quick flow nature of our attack, his skills, or shall we say, style, doesn’t seem to fit and now he doesn’t seem to be able to keep up with it all!!
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The bottom line with Tevez is is he’s not presently good enough to start for United but he could start for a lot of good teams out there. His price tag however is way to high for a striker that is not a prolific goal scorer. So whether we like it or not, he’s probably on his way because I cannot see United spending that kind of money for a player to sit on the bench when a Welbeck is probably more than capable of scoring the same number of goals given the same amount of time on the pitch.
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@Grognard: You’re dreaming in this respect man! The only reason that two Rookies will be in the strike force will be if SAF can’t spend any money this off season. Well, wait, that’s not that unbelievable any more is it!!
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I laugh when some call the EPL the best league in the world and then I watch total minnows like Shaktar Donetsk and FC Copenhagen have their way with Man Shitty and Spurs today. Lets face it, if you take away the real big money teams that are established and have built their squads over time, the league is crap. So lets not have any more people putting down the La Liga or even Serie A because their middle of the road teams seem to do a lot better in the UEFA Cup than English clubs. The EPL is nothing without Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool.
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http://www.goal.com/en/news/9/england/2009/02/20/1118189/cocky-welbeck-banished-to-manchester-united-reserves
should have banished ronaldo a longtime ago then….
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@Grognard: I’m not sure it is regarded as the “best” league in the world. It certainly is the most successful if you quantify the high profile it enjoys along with it’s commercial success with TV contracts world wide.
The top teams and the top players are probably better off in the PL than any where else but as you move on down the scale, it becomes a beacon of the stark reality that faces most pro teams trying to compete against all odds.
The problem with the PL is that nobody has ever confronted the idea of “parity”. The notion of all teams playing on an even playing field is just not Cricket!! Spending caps and squad limitations are just an alien idea to the way it’s always been.
The top four, as it’s been dubbed, are really an obscene exercise in elitism with the other teams either trying to claw their way into contention or seething at the fact that they cannot!!
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@Grognard: Oh, and by the way, please do not call me an elitist!!
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So says The Sun …
ALEX FERGUSON dumped teen ace Danny Welbeck into the reserves for being too cocky.
The Manchester United boss was incensed by the striker’s Eric Cantona-style goal celebration in Sunday’s FA Cup win over Derby.
And instead of picking him for Wednesday’s clash with Fulham, Fergie decided to knock the 18-year-old down a peg or two by dropping him to the stiffs for their trip to Wigan.
A United source revealed: “Alex was very angry about the way Welbeck celebrated his goal at Derby. He felt there was a touch of arrogance about it.
“Danny is just a kid and Alex does not like the thought of him getting too big for his boots.
“That is a lesson plenty of players have learned over the years at Old Trafford.”
Welbeck is rated as a star of the future by Fergie. He came off the bench against Derby to complete the scoring in United’s 4-1 win with a brilliant first-time curling shot into the far corner.
That led to his big-headed celebration, with his chest puffed out, reminiscent of French United legend Cantona.
At least he did not sulk at being forced to play for the reserves.
He scored twice against the Latics’ second team as United came from 4-1 down to win 5-4.
That positive reaction may well earn him a recall to the first-team squad when United take on Blackburn tomorrow.
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@Redrich: It really is amazing in world football how this elitism as you put it is constantly allowed to wield it’s ugly fist. In Germany it’s Bayern Munich every bloody year. In France it’s Lyon In Italy its a rotation between the two Milan’s and Juventus, in Spain it’s always been a two horse race between Real Madrid and Barcelona, in Holland it has always been PSV and Ajax and the most ridiculous of all has always been Scotland where there has been a two team league for a century now and then another ten teams below them. Celtic, Rangers, Rangers, Celtic etc etc. What amazes me is how this is not only tolerated by the league authorities but how nothing is ever done or introduced to bring about reform or change. Above all, why the other teams do not make a greater stink about the status quo.
This kind of nonsense was tolerated in North America for a time but then the 80′s came and the NFL brought parity into play. Then the NHL did the same and the NBA followed. Only Major League Baseball refuses to bring about parity by forcing extreme measures and salary caps to make the playing field truly level. Yet amazingly, baseball still has teams from the middle of the pack financially occasionally win the World Series. Money does not guarantee success in that sport. The New York Yankees will have a payroll this year that will be an incredible 250 million dollars. The defending World Champions payroll is slightly more than half that. But the nature of the game and it’s statisitical complexity makes it difficult to dominate it like in soccer. Soccer is really a very simple game at it’s core unlike baseball which depends too much on individual players physical and emotional peaks and valleys. It’s team game played by individuals whereas soccer is the ultimate team game that allows great players to blend together with much more ease and guaranteed success.
World football needs to copy the Americans and integrate a salary cap system and other measures that will bring about a just and fair parity. That will allow teams that utilize their resources within the limitations best to succeed. I used to be a believer that the prestige of a league was dependent on “dynasty” teams. Teams like Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool are dynasty teams because of their long records of success. The Montreal Canadiens, the Dallas Cowboys, Pittsburgh Steelers, Boston Celtics, LA Lakers, NY Yankees and LA Dodgers are dynasty teams with great historic prestige. It’s important that teams like that are consistently good for the overall reputation of a league. Having a team who finished last one year and champions the next may sound romantic but all it does is bring down the overall quality and prestige of the league. And if this kind of thing happens regularly or if you have new champion every year, that may seem democratic and fair, but it is not always seen as offering a quality product. But the flip side to that coin is having Celtic and Rangers win every fucking year. That my friends is a bloody joke and it should not be tolerated. Nor should it be tolerated every year that England be known as the league with the “big four”. Yes I like dynasties byut I don’t like monopolies. And that is what we have in football. MONOPOLIES. A few teams having all the spoils. It’s rubbish and it’s laughable. After all, what is the purpose of having a league and a season when the champions are a foregone conclusion. Only in soccer is finishing 17th in a 20 team league equivalent to winning a championship. Preventing relegation has become a form of championship run for bottom feeders. Some think that’s great, I think it;s pathetic. LOWERED EXPECTATIONS is nothing to be proud of. Football is a mess and it’s going to take Herculean effort to save this ship from sinking in these difficult economic times. I mean how much crap, unfairness and insults can people take before they say enough?
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@Redrich: Why would I call you an elitist?
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@jos: Jeez I never any of that in his celebration. In fact I liked that it was so subdued and reminded me of old school players who acted like scoring a goal was second nature. It has gotten to the point that ever y goal has some kind of ass clown celebration after it that when somebody doesn’t really celebrate he is seen as cocky and elitist. JEEZ WHAT A JOKE. Fergie needs to lighten up and fine Tevez every time he takes out the baby soother and acts like an idiot. Not penalize an 18 year old boy for acting subdued but confident.
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@Grognard: Well, I spend most of my spare time in a form of devotion to an elite team. I saw an irony here, that’s all!
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@Redrich: I wouldn’t call that being elitist. I’d call that having good taste.
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So reports today have Joorchabian saying United wouldn’t play ball, and Tevez now needs to look elsewhere. Am torn, as I feel most of us are.
Bottom line for me is that we win and play very well when Tevez is in the squad. It is impossible to tell how much of this is because of him, and how much in spite. There’s no doubting Campbell and Welbeck have shown glimpses of talent, but that’s all they’ve been. They are not at Carlito’s level, and he’s not that much older than them. I also think the contract stuff has dulled his performances on the pitch.
The big difference between him and other players Fergie has given the hard treatment to in the past is that he has this weird, ‘you don’t own me’ situation. Whereas everyone else would just have to get their head down, work hard in training and bust a gut to get better, Tevez will always have this get out of jail card in his back pocket. If we signed him up, he’d lose this, and I think become the better for it.
I still say (and maybe this has happened) we offer him £15m, for a 4 year deal, at the end of which he can walk away. It might be £5m less than what htey want, but he can stay in his settled life, with friends and the squad he’s comfortable with, and surely that’s worht something.
Problem is Kia. That’s it.
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@Grognard: I agree matey but neither of those teams could afford him.
Only time will tell if he signs, but if we have him on loan until the summer, then why pay the money now, surely the money is better in our account than Joorabchian’s, I love Carlos and hope he stays but not at all costs.
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@Grognard:
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Anyone else think we’re going to conceed tomorrow? Probably a good thing (has to happen eventually) and I really see Blackburn doing it. I think they’ll have a real go, and they’re not a bad side, with good attacking options. I hope we’ll still win, but just thinking of the trouble we had last year (Tevez last minute equaliser) has me fearing for us here. Would be a massive boost to Liverpool if we drop points before the play
!
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Bull fucking shit! when welbeck celebrated his goal, i didnt see arrogance, i saw something that i havent seen from our english youth in a long, long while, confidence! confidence in his own ability. Its no secret, that danny is a star in the making, if we were to sell him now i would demand £10million based upon his potential alone. So why is fergie bringing him down like this? when you have the “1st, 2nd and 3rd best player in the world” in your squad should he not have been put in the reserves as well?
SAF needs to get some of his hardness back, and stop pussy footing around his foreign players and start being fair.
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@Beachryan: Thats what chelsea were saying back in 2004, 4 years later, englands most wanted came to the bridge.
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@Dan: Isn’t Ronaldo a little arrogant?
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@Beachryan: To be honest mate I wasn’t even born the last time we conceded a goal, my Grandfather tells me it was against a small team from London, but they are long gone now.
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@Beachryan: Liverpool play Sunday mate.
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@Grognard: spurs 3rd string team mind…
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@Stephen: lol, nice one
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bout f-ing time… what the hell was he waiting for?
http://www.tribalfootball.com/man-utds-rooney-reveals-new-finishing-training-228545
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I dont belive that Welbeck story for a second, truth is he wouldnt have gotten a game now that Rooney is back. It better to have the boy playing 90 minutes with the reserves then just practicing with the first team(which Im sure he is still doing). this is just a case of the typical UK media making up headlines cause people are sick of hearing about beckham.
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@Dan: Dan you are so right Bro. Lets celebrate the actions or lack of animation of an English lad instead of sucking up to the gay gestures of the foreign contingent every time they score a goal. I thought Welbeck’s celebration was perfectly alright and I watched it again last night to see if I had missed anything. I’m sorry but I did not see the increased arrogance and cockiness that got him sent back to the reserves. What I saw is a confident player react mildly to the 4th goal in a game after the game was completely won. He didn’t go nuts as if he won the World Cup, he never started rocking his imaginary baby in his arms, he never took of his shirt and started to suck his daughter’s soother nor did he come up with any other of the very foreign and very gay celebrations that we have all been forced to endure over the years. Instead he acted like a player who had pride, dignity and had scored before. If we start punishing players for acting more like Thierry Henry after a goal, then we are losing perspective on things. I don’t like Henry but I have always liked the fact he never made a spectacle of himself after a goal. Shame on Fergie for punishing this lad for showing some pride and poise at the end of a goal. What the Hell is the world coming to when you get punished for that?
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@johnsom33: You know mate, you are probably right about that. Dan and I are probably overreacting and getting mad at Fergie when it’s the media as usual who are culprits here. With Rooney back it makes sense that Welbeck would be sent down in order to get playing time. I just cannot believe that Fergie would punish the lad for not celebrating a goal like all the other ass clowns out there who have turned goal celebrations into circus acts. Good point and I’d bet on your theory being 100% correct.
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Erm, the whole Welbeck thing is a complete non-starter, it’s completely fabricated. Like most things you read in the Sun. Why are we giving it credence by discussing it?
Anderson might be back for Carling Cup final, which would probably mean we’d play a 4-3-3 with Tevez, Welbeck, Nani up front, Fletch, Gibbo, Ando in the middle. Maybe. With the big guns on the bench just in case.
I’m beginning to doubt our chances now, as Harry is resting his spurs squad in the UEFA cup in preparation for the Carling Cup. What a f*cktart.
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@Beachryan: I agree the good old British media, load of bollocks.
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“New Arsenal signing Andrey Arshavin will pay for his hairdresser from St Petersburg to fly to London to cut his hair because his wife does not trust British stylists. (Daily Express)”
Has it really come to this? It’s too bad he’s too young to really remember what life was like pre 1990 in Mother Russia and that an ounce of practicality and humility wouldn’t hurt. And to think that I would go to that trouble to get an 1970′s style haircut like the one he has been wearing for years now.
EGOTISTICAL PEASANTS! I’m actually getting sick and tired of Russians like Arshavin, Pavlyuchenko and Voronin and their wives constantly put down life in England and all things English. Considering the sewer of a country they come from.
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@Grognard: Classic!!
Stalin and Lenin will be turning in their graves.
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@Beachryan: Lets be fair to Harry, he needs to try to win something for Spurs other than preventing relegation of course. The Carling Cup Final for Spurs is their Champions League final. I’d expect nothing but his best for that game. And I hope Fergie doesn’t knuckle under and do the same because it’s the kids that got him to the final. A quad is nice but not necessary. Rest your best for the important stuff. For me the Carling Cup has always been the B-Movie. Nothing I would pay money to see.
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@Stephen: Stalin and Lenin take most of the credit for having turned their country into a sewer.
I mean we have gone from 200 people long lines waiting to purchase bread or eggs to having some hack hairstylist who gives mullet cuts fly all the way to England to keep Andrey’s head looking like something from the 70′s Show. MADNESS! These people are so unhip and uncool it’s scary. And they complain about a country that invented pop culture, style and cool along with America. Proof positive of Russia’s dinosaur mentality. Apparently their number one television show in Russia is Hawaii Five-O and I Love Lucy because they are so hip and modern…….RIGHT! They probably think Goldfinger and Dr No are new movies too.
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@Grognard: That is fucking funny mate!!
By the way The Usual Suspects was a B Movie and look what Bryan Singer has achieved since then, the great X men films, three of them, X1, The league, X2 F A Cup and X3 the Champions league!
Lets hope it doesn’t turn out to be Superman Returns.
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There seems to be quite a bit of support on here for an American-style salary cap/earnings split (which is odd considering how much we’ve benefited for the lack of it). Yes, it would be nice if all the teams had the same resources available to them, but that throws up more problems. English clubs would still have more money than Ukrainian clubs. Is that fair? Players would rather go to live in London than Stoke. Is that fair?
There is a lot of disparity of football, especially internationally, but the fact remains that if I pay £30 to go watch United, I don’t want half of that money to go to the opponents. And when I buy a shirt I don’t want the cash to be split between every team in the Football League. Hoffenheim are this season showing that money isn’t a prerequisite for success (although it helps), as Allardyce showed at Bolton and Redknapp at Pompey.
It’s my opinion that while TV money should be split evenly at the end of the season, if a team attracts 70,000+ every game then they should keep the cash and if a team fails to bring even 20,000 fans then why should their poor performance be subsidised by better sides?
There will always be disparity, and attempting to alleviate it just hurts fans and players. Fans will be subjected to NFL/Reebok style kit monopolies and forced to pay the same for Derby vs Wigan as for Chelsea vs Arsenal, while players will have little faith in any team they join as building a side that can sustain success for more than 3 or 4 years becomes impossible, and ensuring a “fair” spread of youth players will likely result in something akin to the American draft system where crap teams get great players no matter what the player thinks about it.
Yes, it is unfair that we have benefited enormously because we have been successful as TV contracts have gone through the roof, but it is not as if those rewards were not earned. Circumstances were favourable, but they will always favour someone. Madrid were lucky that Franco was willing to let them naturalise the best players in the world and field a stolen team, but that team deserved everything they won.
The only fair system is one where success is rewarded and failure punished, and to pretend that eliminating the rewards for achievement in order to comfort the loser is fair is an out and out lie.
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