Apr 08
Fickle Fans, Old Legs and Injuries
Some shite tabloid went with the headline ‘Manchester United fans want Giggs axed’ and when I read it, it pissed me off. It’s the fkn business end of the season, do we really need knee-jerk reactions and idiots who hit the panic button when they can’t find where they put their keys to represent us?
Axing Giggs is NOT the answer. When he plays well, everyone harps on about how his critics are wrong. When he plays poorly, the critics have a ball. No one’s getting to the real problem – our own ridiculous expectations.
Ryan Giggs of today will not give you a mindblowing season like that of Ronaldo’s. Heck, he won’t even give you a vintage Giggsy season now. What he will do though, is create chances, play intelligently on the pitch and make up the numbers when we have injuries. He’s played 34 games this season and done well, considering his age and the pace of the game (especially United’s) these days. You could just as easily argue that Scholes has lost that pace and verve of before, but then what do you expect?
Both Giggs and Scholes have done well to adapt to their limitations and have evolved as players. They can’t be pure match-winners in the sense that Rooney and Ronaldo are but they are still valuable to the team and I’d rather have those two starting than Park and Fletcher, at least this season.
United made a terrible start to the season – factor that in and you’ll see why we are only 3 points ahead instead of 6 or 8 or 10. One draw won’t end the season – in fact it might just force this side to give a little bit extra against Arsenal on the weekend (too bad Fletch is out) and I’d still back United to beat Roma, Arsenal, Blackburn and Chelsea in this month.
Just take it one game at a time, and we’ll be fine. Vida will probably be back after the Arsenal game (I don’t see why he should be rushed) but Rio is reportedly doing better than expected as well. You’d think that Fergie would rush one of them back for the Arsenal game but I hope he doesn’t and that he let’s those two get fit for the CL semi-finals (assuming we qualify tomorrow) and the Chelsea and Blackburn away games, which will be tougher to win than the Arsenal game at home.
It will be interesting to see if Neville gets a start tomorrow. I think that sooner or later Evra will be given a breather, and that would probably mean O’Shea on the left or Pique slotting in if Rio / Vida are back, although there’s Silvestre to consider as well. A lot of people are clamoring for Owen Hargreaves to play at right-back considering his hard tackling and crossing skills, but he’s a bit like Essien in that spot, albeit less marauding. Overall I’d be more comfortable with Hargo starting central than right-back, but if that’s what it takes to have him on the pitch to swing in those crosses, then why not?
We can’t afford an injury to another defender at this point, so Fergie has some interesting choices to make tomorrow. The fickle fans will barrack him if his team doesn’t win and bask in the glory if they do.
As for Giggs and Scholes – unless Nani is fit and unless Anderson can impose himself in Europe instead of running around like a headless chicken, those two are quite good in their positions. You might have Fergie resting Scholes against Roma for a shot at Arsenal, but whoever he plays in midfield and defence are good enough to win the title this season.
Related items from Red Rants:
- Arsenal Preview: Will United do it?
- Edwin Van der Sar and Ben Foster can happily coexist
- Keegan ‘I’d Love It’ Returns To Geordie-land. Heh!
- Man Utd v QPR: Preview
- Aston Villa 0-0 Man Utd: United Escape With Draw
Tags: Manchester United News
Craig Mc (195)
RedDevilEddy (170)
Opti (135)
Moscow is my heaven (96)
Ian (95)
You won’t get too many more riveting and exciting games than the Arsenal v Liverpool CL match just concluded. WOW! High drama and a very controversial penalty that handed the tie to the frakken Scousers. I am no fan of Arsenal but I hate Scousers (except Rooney and the Beatles of course). Yet again a referee’s stupid call destroys the hope of another team in football. It doesn’t matter where the referee is from, that call for me was rubbish. I sort of feel bad for the Voyeur and all Arsholes out there. Especially after Adebayour’s goal set up beautifully by a 1999 retro Giggs style run by Walcott. In that five to ten second span, Theo Walcott showed all the potential and promise that England fans have been waiting to see. What a game. Now the Scousers play Chelski to see who will eventually meet Man Utd in the final. We have to be optimistic now don’t we?
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The Arsenal Liverpool game was indeed a crazy football match. The Penalty was 50/50 more so after the decison going against Hleb in the first leg which was more clear cut. Walcott’s run was amazing but will count for nothing and regardless the Arse and Pool bieng our sworn enemies they admititly had probably one of the best games of the season.
The best thing to take from the game is knowing that Arsenal must be very low on morale and motivation, thinking that decisions and games cannot go their way. They have a point as well as football is often decided on luck and Arsenal are out of it. Wenger will try to get to get them rejovinated for the title campaign but the season has shown Arsenal lack the leadership and balls when most needed.
Really looking forward to the upcoming games now where it is clear that the experience and control of the likes of Scholes and Gigggs can prove vital but so can the raw energy and drive of players like Anderson and Nani.
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Red Ranter – So you’d be very angry if someone said “good riddance to that Welsh Winger”, and fair enough. Imagine then how angry fans might get at being labelled fickle and hypocritical, for giving an opinion on whether they feel Giggsy is off form, or past his best now!!!.
Dan(u-ol) – mate, the whole point of commenting on an article on a fan forum, is for people to DEBATE and argue the ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ of the topic being addressed.
Ahmed – If you think Dan(u-ol) is the voice of reason, why have a comments section on your articles at all then?. Because as I just said to Dan – the articles are for DEBATING, and each poster arguing his point – isn’t that what forums are all about?.
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[craig mc]
Ahmed was being tongue in cheek about Dan.
And about feeling angry at being labelled fickle and hypocritical, you are entitled to do so. But Ahmed hasn’t pointed fingers at anyone in particular. His statement was generic and, as all general statements go, they are half-truths. You picked your situation (of someone screaming in the freezing cold) and made it sound as if he was specifically keeping you in mind while writing the article and created a sort of a victim complex that I cannot agree with. I agree with your point that Giggs is past his best and many fans have gotten angry not out of a knee jerk reaction but because he has usually been below par for much of the season.
But why the angry phone calls? Why can’t they trust the manager to do his job? We are not Newcastle. We are not mired in a relgation battle. Nor are we fighting for a Champions’ League spot.
To be honest if someone says, as a general statement, that fans are fickle and hypocritical I can’t really say no. Let me tell you this, Figo was the darling of Barcelona, but became a villain. We welcomed Cantona from Leeds with open arms. We could have taken the moral high ground by booing him because he played for the shite. But he became our idol. However we can’t forgive Heinze ever because he contemplated moving to Liverpool. Take a deep breath, but doesn’t that reek of hypocrisy? Now I don’t want you to defend it, embrace it. Hypocrisy is as important an element of passionate fans as is loyalty. Fans can be fickle, they can be hypocrites. It’s a general statement, and there will be exceptions.
End of rant
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Craig; Very well said indeed mate. If we can’t debate on this forum, them what’s the point? So everyone DEBATE AWAY!
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This sucks. One thing sums up everything about people who deffend giggs…”Legend”…We all know that he is a legend and nobody argues that,so why do you have to remind us about it. Andrei “Giggs helping in deffence”? When was the last time you watch a game same goes for Grognard. I wasn’t acctually going to argue because Nani was injured anyway, but hearing all this crap and being called “Fickle fan” is just unacceptable. And Let me tell you stats 2 goals and 4 assists and don’t even tell me that stats mean nothing, even Nani has done better. He can’t help in deffence, creative input is close to zero, loosing the ball too much…I am not saying that Nani and park are way better, but if a player plays shit you call it shit.
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before i make my point here, let me tell you that Ryan Giggs is a legend…. and he’s one of my favourite players of all time…….
All that said, I do believe that he shuld be used in shorter bursts now….. he’s been great in some games this season but for most part he’s not performed all that well from the start….. i still believe that he brings a lot to the team (other than gary neville he’s the only one left who played in the 99 CL final, and that will count for a lot if we get there this season!!) but he shuldnt be expected to start every game…..
grognard, with all due respect, when someone criticizes one of the players’ current form…. simply calling him a legend and refering to his past achievements doesnt suffice…. fans expect so much from giggs because they have grown used to watching him play at a very high level and most people havent realised that he wont reach those heights again….. u criticize other people’s tone when u can come across as a bit harsh urself sometimes….. i’m not looking for a fight, but i thought i shuld make that point……
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Hey Grog, didn’t you want the Scouse to win? I was half hoping they did TBH. I wouldn’t say I was rooting for them(as that sure as shit would be blasphemy)but I’m not that sad that they won it over Le Arse.
You see, I have had this little dream in my head since the last round. We meet the scouse in the final and show them who the real Champions of Europe are. No more whining about ‘how may’ European titles and what not. Yes they may still have more, but we will be the current holders.
Then, we take the EPL title this year, then 2 more out of the next 3 years and then we could really say SAF has knocked them ‘off their fucking perch’…
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I hate the Scouse and Le Arse and couldn’t care less who wins. I would prefer to play Liverpool because they are an easy win compared to the Gooners.
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What rude remarks did taron come up with?By the way Grognard, to say Anderson and Park don’t possess half the qualities that giggs has forgotten is ridiculous.Park runs like mad but not in the idiotic fashion of players like savage.He gets into meaningful spaces and doesn’t let offensive opportunities just look at the last games.That dummy on sunday was what giggs would have done in his prime.Anderson looks even more promising with his spread of play and u can’t take the ball of him without risking a foul.That’s evidence of close ball control.
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I don’t get it?????. I think I have to speak up a little here for Taron!. What was so rude or offensive about his remarks?. He wasn’t saying Giggsy was shit, he was saying he is playing shit, THERE IS A DIFFERENCE!. He admits like all of us that Giggsy is a legend, but feels other players put in better performances than he does now. I agree with him!. He doesn’t like the reference to fans who speak up being called fickle/hypocritical – Tell me about it!. He may have got to Andrei and our Grog a bit with mentioning them personally, but that’s all I can see really. Don’t think it’s fair Grog to say he isn’t on the forum enough to make judgement or statements, because what about newcomers Grog, shouldn’t they be aloud to rant at all?.
Red Ranter – was your last post to me A RANT as you said, because it sounded more like a psychiatric assessment lol!. I know you don’t understand where I am coming from in this debate, but when I talked about fans who stand on terraces, screaming in the cold, I was referring to all fans, who week in, week out, follow avidly the team. These fans can see the form and performance of certain players, and don’t need to wait for the stats in the papers to form opinions. That’s what I meant. The fans that Ahmed was referring to in his article, I listened to on MUTV when they phoned in. The Sun’s take on it, was way off the mark. They weren’t fickle or hypocritical, they were just faithful match going reds, who wanted to say how they felt. There was nothing low or offensive to Giggsy. The programme they phoned in to, was similar to a forum family really, where fans phone in, and different fans offer different viewpoints. Quite a few fans on this board have taken issues with the fickle/hypocritcal labelling remarks, so they must feel strongly about it. Anyway RR, this is my last post on this subject, I am ready to continue the banter in other newer threads.
Grog – thanks for your comments to me about debating – I love your heavy, ranting, tightarsed, debating mate, even though you, like me, can go a bit overboard sometimes!.
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that was an amazing match last night, and something i would like to touch upon is the arse second goal. if you haven’t seen then you must. walcot ran pretty much the whole field using pace and strength and a bit of skill, and when i saw the goal go in, i immediately thought, RYAN GIGGS, that was so similar to the giggs goal in the FA cup, just that unlike giggs he passed the ball. that is what i would like to see from giggs, i know he has lost his pace, but if he masters skill like ronaldo then he would not need pace that much, but really its a bit to late for that now, seeing that next season will probably be his last.
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craig, its a blog not a forum
Sam, AMEN, you speak the truth.
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O thanks Dan(u-ol), I feel very honoured you enlightened me!. I’ll remember that in future posts mate!. And I’m not saying this tongue in cheek, I mean it. Maybe I could piss others off calling a ‘blog’ a forum lol!!!!.
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[Sam]
I had to delete your comment because I don’t want another flaming war here. What you said was right in a way but taking issue and speaking for someone else here is something you should defer to me. Let’s talk about the Roma game and end this discussion here. Cheers.
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No worries, RR. I realised as I posted it that it was likely to go, and I think you were probably right to get rid of it- my little attempt at the end to make it a constructive piece about the subject didn’t trick you, eh?
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Jay wire; & Craig; I don’t know how you read those comments because Red Ranter saw it fit to delete my responses on two occasions. I guess I just have yo sit and take what I see as abuse of a member’s beliefs or opinions. Lets just say I felt his comments were rude and leave it at that. Obviously RR thought I was being overly sensitive because he deleted them.
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I can’t believe my comments were called “abusive”. Well it wasn’t my intention and Red Ranter as far as I am concerned we all are friends here, so I don’t see the point of deleting comments.
Thanks to craig and other people for somewhat deffending me, while I wasn’t here. Seems to me that I was abused enough for the comments to be deleted…and something like “you are not in the forums enough, so you can’t post your opinion” was said…sad…anyway Red Ranter please next time let people deffend their positions. I mean everything, but personal insults, should be acceptable.
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[Taron]
No one deleted your comments. I know you didn’t mean any personal insult.
And when did I not allow anyone to defend themselves?
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I meant deleting other people comments towards me. I guess their comments were abusive and you deleted them. I wanted to read and defend my point. I am honestly not abusive type, I mean I might argue aggresivly, but without abuses. Hope you understand.
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