Mar 13
No Fear For No One
It’s been a day of big talk, and not much else. So let’s document the big talk for your future reference.
First up, the great Rafa Benitez, whose arrival at Liverpool was heralded — by many Scouse fans — as The Revolution (Rafalution?) only for said revolution to be shattered by, em… rotation. He’s had this to say: “I do not have any preference now who we play next, but I would be more than happy to face an English side in the final. This victory shows the power and strength of the Premier League. We have fine clubs who are among the best in Europe, a league that is the same and players of quality who are some of the best in Europe.”
Next in line, Sir Alex, who had this to say: “I think the Premier League is the strongest in Europe. For a spell it was the Spanish league – I remember about seven or eight years ago they had three teams in the semi-finals and Spanish football was really strong, but I think the English game has now reached that level.”
Cesc Fabregas had this to say after their win at the San Siro: “When you play against these kind of teams and players like Kaka and [Andrea] Pirlo you have to play with no fear. We play football because of nights like this. Scoring that goal was one of the best moments of my career.”
I haven’t managed to dig up any quotes from the Chelsea camp, and their statuesque manager, but I’d assume similar talk from Terry, Lamps and Co. This Guardian article creams over the greatness of the English league.
Of course, it was a different matter that two Premier League clubs, yesterday, despite dominating the hell out of their respective games, in time honoured English traditions, bowed out in penalty shoot outs. I guess, however good your league may be, some habits die hard.
But then this is a Man Utd blog, so we will not cream ourselves over the beauty of English football, but stick to our niche. So continuing with the theme of being brave (and having no fear) here are two more quotes:
Park Ji-Sung: “We don’t mind who we play next. Maybe it would be good for English football if we drew an English team but, for me, it doesn’t matter. We don’t worry about the opposition because we have good players and we’ve shown our quality this season. As long as we concentrate on our performance, we can beat anyone.”
And Johnny O’Shea: “It obviously proves the Premier League is probably now the best league in the world. It is great to be a part of it and we are not looking to avoid anyone or get anyone.”
So as you see, no one is afraid of anyone, so by that logic we should get to watch exciting, fearless, attacking football from here on, no? If only pigs could fly…
Slightly changing the theme from fearlessness to injury ravaged players, skipper Neville completed an incident free 70′ of reserve team football against Sunderland. United reserves lost, by the way.
And at the time of writing, I haven’t a clue on EVDS’s injury status. Although I’ve read reports saying that he may be out for a couple of weeks at least. If that’s the case, it would surely pave the way for a Ben Foster debut against Derby, which to be honest, after yesterday’s result, isn’t the worst place to make your debut.
And what the fuck is this woman on about? Did she find just Sir Alex to pick on? Has she forgotten Arsene’s “Martin Taylor must never play football again’ rant? I am not condoning Fergie’s over the top reaction, but if you have an article targetting mental managers, then Arsene I-fought-with-Alan-Pardew (not to mention, I don’t see incidents that implicate my players ) Wenger, is also well on that list.
How do these French blokes charm the media? It was a rhetorical question, please don’t bother answering.
Anyway, sorry to end this rather meandering, and extremely incoherent, post like this, but that’s how I get to fill another quiet day.
Related items from Red Rants:
- City Is Concerned About Some ‘Idiots’…
- Some More Thoughts Ahead of the Scouse Trip
- Links of the Day
- Hot News Ahead of Barca | Gattuso and the Usual Nonsense
- The Karim of the Crop?
Tags: Manchester United News
Opti (541)
Stephen (479)
RedDevilEddy (459)
Craig Mc (345)
Moscow is my heaven (272)
I predicted the other day (in the previous article) that we had a good chance of getting Roma again and Chelsea would get Fenerbahce/Schalke, and funnily enough, that’s exactly what happened! Are these draws rigged or something??
Regarding the striker debate, does anybody wish we still had that c**t Heinze on our books? As we could have then perhaps done a straight swap for Senor. Torres
……(aaaaah….*wishful thinking*…if only eh….). There can’t be a better in form striker on the planet than him, a true no.9 in every sense (blasphemy i know but class has to be appreciated!)
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bloody hell, he is not that good, and tbh, he only scores against lesser teams and teams off form, he scores when liverpool score over 3 goals, compare that to tevez who scores important goals for us time and time again. I’ll take important goals over goals in romps any day of the week thankyou.
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I agree Dan, Tevez is much more important than Torres. His goals have saved our butts this season(Chelsea, Liverpool, Spurs, Lyon and Birmingham.)
Pleased with the draw, could have been worse, but could also have been better. Roma is a really tough game and I think we will play a really boring game there, but win 1-0 thanks to a Ronaldo free-kick. When they come to Old Trafford, they should cause problems, but still lose by some margin. I have this feeling that both Shalke and Fenerbache will surprise lots of people and go through to the semis. But a United vs Arsenal final would be great!
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yea i have this feeling in me that schalke will get one over on barca…
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You don’t really believe that about Torres do you? Take the red tinted specs off, Tevez has done well but if we had Torres we probably wouldn’t be having all these arguments about what type of striker we need and how Rooney is playing out of position.
Tevez has scored 8 of his 15 goals in the so called ‘romps’. Torres notched up 14 out of 26 in them. Tevez saved our asses against Lyon, Liverpool, Birmingham and Spurs. Torres played a key role in the results against Chelsea, Inter, Reading and Porto. Tevez has a knack of scoring some big goals, but on the flip side, if Torres had been leading the line instead would we have lost to Bolton, West Ham and Man City?
Personally I think there is a perfectly valid argument to be had over whether we got the right player or not. My gut feeling is that we didn’t.
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At this point i have 2 say this with the utmost bravery.The only way we can get 2 moscow is if saf drops the non functional 4-5-1.We never win with it and we never will.We are an attacking team not Juventus or bloody Liverpool.Look at roma (7-1), milan(3-2),the whole 99 campaign.We were simply playing our game i.e attack and pressure opponents upfield and we got results.Barca won playing their style in 06 and we can also do it
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I have to agree about Torres, he is the best striker right now in the EPL. I am a big fan of Tevez, but I dont think he is worth anywhere near 30 million(that is the figure I hear kicked around). If I had my choice I would swap Torres for Rooney in a heart beat. I know everyone is gonna jump on me for saying that, but thats just how I feel. Rooney is a great player but I think English fans over estimate him too much. I find that it funny that people say Kuyt is terrible cause he doesnt score goals and all he does is run around like a tireless dog. But then they excuse rooneys lack of goals for how hard he works.
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Tevez is more of a team player. If u look at the dippers goals this season, most of them are: Give the ball to Torres-he moves towards goal- either passes or shoots-goal! He does everything by himself, and I dont think he would fit so well in this United team. He is really selfish, we already have Nani and Ronaldo! Uniteds regular style of play would have to change with Torres. We dont need another player like that, certantly not when he plays in the the centre. Dont get me wrong, I think Torres is one of the worlds best players, and I always hoped for him to play for us. But now he is at `pool and does some great things there. I just mean that I think Tevez is a better team player, and fits better in to this squad.
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yep that’s entirely true RD.
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Here’s an idea. Tevez playing withdrawn on the left wing role he plays so well with Argentina.
Rooney and Saha starting up. And ronaldo up on the right. Will this help
rooney score more goals?.
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Come on guys.you and I both know torres in a united shirt would be brilliant.Hes better than both rooney and tevez.but hes not ours so thats that. Im a united fan but its the truth.shami,rooney is missing LOTS of chances now…what makes you think hel start scoring if saha partners him.I want rooney to score and do well but to change the formation because of it.Hell no.He must sort himself out.His control is horrible and it was the same last season.It seems the way he starts a game is the way he does it.I always look out for his first few touches and thats the type of game he has.
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I had a nightmare.We drew with derby…
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johnsom33: It’s not as if Rooney doesn’t score any goals. He did turn in 23 goals last season despite a largely mediocre year and is currently running on a better average than that. At any rate the reason he is excused is his creativity, eye for a pass, world class movement, desire, inspirational effect on those around him, ability on the counter attack and the general impact he has on United’s play. If you think he is some form of workhorse like Kuyt or Smith then you should probably give up watching football because you’re not getting much out of it.
RedDevil: Tevez may be more of a team player but is he as good? Downing is more of a team player than Ronaldo, who would you rather have? At any rate he isn’t some sort of glory hog, he still creates a fair number of chances for Liverpool. And the reasons his goals and playing style are like they are is because Liverpool are utterly reliant on him and Gerrard to do anything. We need a pace strong centre forward to provide the cutting edge to our attack and Torres could have been that man. With Tevez here, we are forced to shoe horn Rooney into the role and his form suffers as a result. To be perfectly frank, I don’t think Tevez has performed well enough on an individual basis to justify that.
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DO NOT JINX IT TAEHR
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oh bloody hell, are you really going to blame tevez for rooneys utter shit season? there is only 1 excuse for rooney this season and that reason is rooney, no one has done anything to him, if you think about it, tevez has opened our eyes to what rooney really is, rooney partnered smith mostly last season, so any goals scored from are strikers last season seemed good, rooney seemed like a world class player because e partnered someone who could make kuyt look good( a striker who can score is as useful as an injury prone defender) and now he is with a class striker that is really showing him up and showing us we paid far to much for a player he cant put a simple shot on goal accurate. rant over.
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Dan, couldn’t disagree with you more mate. Sure it should not be blamed on Tevez, but Rooney’s form is not his own fault. He is a supporting striker, not a leading striker. If van der Sar was put at right back and sucked would it be all his fault? I think the person at fault is Fergie and the coaching team. Tevez is a great player but I think they made a bad decision in buying him and not a center foward.
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no I’m sorry i wont buy it, there’s goal keeping, defence, midfield, strikers, Rooney is a striker and therefore should be scoring goals, he is being played upfront, there’s strikers and strikers who just stay up there in the box. it doesnt matter which one Rooney is his job is to score and if he can do that because “his backs at goal” then he should not be a striker and we wasted near enough 30 mil on a striker who cant strike.
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Dan: I’m not blaming Tevez for Rooney being below par. However Rooney is not helped by playing out of position and the reason he is doing that is because we bought Tevz rather than a more complementary striker. What I am saying is that, IMO, Tevez hasn’t done enough performance wise to justify Rooney being stuck out of position. He has been good but not great.
As for the rest of the rant, I haven’t a clue how Tevez has shown Rooney up this season. To be frank if I was told one of them had to be ruled out by injury for the rest of the season I would pick Tevez every time. With regards to Smith, he and Rooney played together a grand total of six times last year. Hardly enough to make Rooney look world class is it?
As for Rooney playing with his back to goal and there being no difference etc that is ridiculous. Mascherano and Fabregas are both the same midfielders yet if you asked them to swap roles they would suffer accordingly. Ask yourself this, since Rooney and Tevez are both naturally deep lying strikers, why was Rooney chosen to be the one who plays furthest up? The reason is because Tevez isn’t capable of fulfilling the role, as evidenced by our performances when he has been the main striker.
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so your telling me that if rooney played further back he would not be mistiming passes, getting basic shots high wide and not at all handsome and have first touches that bring him to bloody Korea?
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No, but I’m damn sure playing him right up top isn’t exactly helping. Instead of playing his own game and trying to get his confidence and rhythm back naturally, he is playing a foreign role to compensate for other players and the managements decisions in the summer/winter transfer windows.
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A few days ago i was saying rooney(R10) is being disrupted by ronaldo(CR7)who keeps getting in CF positions.R10 isn’t being played out of position at all.Remember his debut season coincided with RVN’s season long injury and he played and brilliantly at that 4 long periods as a lone.Last season he scored most of his goals as a lone esp towards the end with monsieur Saha taking his annual medical leave think ac milan,roma 1st leg,bolton at OT
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I can’t understand it when people quickly change views.Tevez has really helped us this season and is proving his worth by getting crucial goals just like with west ham.He really knows when it is a crucial game.Torres would’ve worked but what has he done better than CT REALLY
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and plus hello, where do you guys think tevez was playing this season when ronaldo played upfront with him? the brum goal comes to mind, atleast i think its the brum goal.
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jay wire, i know what you mean man, first it was carrick(understandably), then giggs and scholes, then hargreaves for him doing what he’s good at, then rooney(understandably) and now they blame rooneys crap on us buying tevez and “playing him out of position” god if we didnt buy tevez and bought torres and rooney was still a flop then they would be saying we should of bought torres. it seems 15 goals isnt good enough anymore.
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Though i’m fully convinced that CR7 is blocking R10(and CT32) ito golscoring chances another factor is R10′s inconsistency.He can’t maintain a prolonged run of form.I thought he’d grow out of it over the years bt he hasn’t
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Dan: Yes Tevez did play up front that day and scored, when we got a 1-0 win against the relegation strugglers. He also starred in the role against Man City away (1-0), Man City at home (0-1), Portsmouth away (1-1), Spurs at home (1-0) and the first half of Sunderland at home (0-0 at HT). Doesn’t exactly make great reading.
Jay Wire: You are right up to a point. Rooney’s sheer ability means that he could probably play anywhere on the pitch and put in some good performances. However I doubt he will ever be able to do it on a consistent basis. We have seen it this year, great one week, poor the next. There is also another crucial difference this season. In the other two spells you mentioned he was put in as the line leader as an emergency measure, for a spell of a couple of months normally. This season he is having to play there virtually every week, which is bound to take its toll.
On Tevez, it not a question of how good he is. If you had sat down and profiled the striker we needed last summer Torres would have been a much closer fit that Tevez. It’s not that I don’t like Tevez, I just think there was someone out there who would have been more suitable for the job,
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Plus his 1st has been worse than freaking titus bramble.He wil nid golposts the size of the grand canyon 2 hit the woodwork
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Dan: Just read your last comment and no offence but it is a bit rich. You have been fairly critical of Giggs, Scholes and Carrick on this blog. And pardon me for wanting to buy a natural line leader to play up top and not continue to keep sticking square pegs in round holes. Finally 15 goals not good enough? Well the way some people have been acting you would think 13 goals in an injury hit season is a crime against humanity
Jay Wire: There is no need to exaggerate. Rooney hasn’t been brilliant this season but he has hardly been that bad either.
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Torres is class, Tevez is class, Ronaldo is worlds best and Rooney can be top class. Lets just leave it to that!
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Jb only problem is torres has been on the manutd radar 4 like 5yrs and incessant efforts 2 sign him ended with him choosing the dippers.Tevez is just as useful but becoz we don’t expect goals solely from him he seems 2 be a flop 2 most people.15 goals 4 crying out loud.
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I was joking about the grand canyon thing.Everyone knows i have been R10′s advocate and the only one critical of Mr Going 2 Spain In a Few Years(make that year)
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Jay Wire: We were meant to have been very close to wrapping up a deal for him in the summer of 2006 only for him to have last minute change of heart as he wanted to stay loyal to Atletico (given it was his childhood club, I can’t really blame him for it). I just think it’s a shame that we dropped our long standing interest not long before he becomes available.
On Tevez, I’m not saying he is a flop and 15 goals is a perfectly respectable total. However my assessment of him to date would be good but not great. I also don’t think that Torres is the type of player you would rely on for goals, he is a good all round player rather than a poacher. The reason he seems like that for Liverpool is that most of their players have all the creativity of traffic cones
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I know this isn’t contributing to the interesting discussion taking place here, but I’d just like to know what is up with everyone referring to our forward players as R10, CR7, CT32 etc. it makes them sound as if they are bloody robots or androids, not human players!!
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I’m hoping we’ll see a slightly different tevez next season. He’s been playing non-stop for two years so if he has a good break this summer i think he’ll be more explosive next season. You’ll see him running at defenders more, and just generally being more direct.
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I find it absurd that anyone can consider tevaz a flop, and not consider rooney as even a bigger flop. If i hadf to choose to keep one fo the 2 I would pick tevez. he just has that nack to score in crucial situations. I like rooney and I think he is a great servant to the club, I just think that United fans expect too much out of him.
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and as for torres, I obviously dont know the entire story. But I was lead to belive tht we had a chance to sign him before the dippers, but SAF didnt think he was worth the money Madrid were asking for him.
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He might not be a predator in the same sense as van Nistelrooy, but Torres is a true, genuine, all round striker who can act as the focal point of an attack and would have been money well spent, as he is one of the few out and out centre forwards in world football who could be considered truly world class at such a young age, 23 is it? (there is also a certain Monsieur Benzema too, but lets not go there…..) Thats practically a decade of potential service there; I think the Dippers have got an excellent steal at £21m, bearing in mind Wright Phillips cost Chelski the same amount.
Torres has the pace, technique (watch his goal vs Inter Milan) and physical robustness to fit into our system, so I see no reason why he would have caused us to alter our style of play if we had bought him. To be honest, the converse is true and at the moment our system is currently begging for a player like him to fill the lone/main striker role, which we know Rooney and Tevez cannot perform. So all I am saying here is that Torres would have been the best all round player to fill our problem position, rather than the Berbatovs (pushing 30), Huntellars (lack of pace), Benzema (way too pricey), Quagliarellas (unproven) etc. being bandied about. But alas, he is at Liverfool now and there is nothing we can do about it….
Also, brilliant a player he is (and he has scored some vital goals for us this season as somebody mentioned earlier), I still cannot fathom why SAF bought Tevez, as we didn’t really need his type of striker (withdrawn/deep lying) since we already had Rooney. If SAF knew Tevez was/would be that good, why didn’t he pull out all the stoppers to sign him back in 2004, rather than Shrek?
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NB Just as a foot note to my previous rant, I would (to quote a famous old foe) love it, just love it, if we could return to the days when we (and teams in general) played with two genuine, out-and-out strikers e.g. Yorke and Cole from the Treble season in ’99.
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First off there is no comparing Tevez with Torres. Torres is a better player and he is showing it because he scores for n inferior team of Scousers. Tevez is a good little player but sorry 15 goals in all competitions is not good enough for a forward on Man U. Still, he bring a lot more to the table than just goals. I like his attitude and his heart. He also scores big goals.
As for Rooney, it is ludicrous to blame Tevez for Rooney not being able to control a pass with is first touch or to shoot on goal and not miss. Rooney’s fall of form has a lot to do with his injury and a loss of confidence. I also think he feels pressure as the main go to guy as a striker and also, Ronaldo’s exploits have made him envious and this added pressure has caused him to be too cute with the ball at times. He needs to simplify his game.
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Agree with your point there Grognard… He needs to get back to basics
On the Roma tie… As Fergie said they know us but we know them… Im confident we will progress…
And if we play Barca in the semi’s well then i think its a 50/50 regardless of how they are performing at the minute.
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Entering the CT32 debate allow me to clarify that the 37 quid quoted covers the transfer fees+loan fee for 2 yrs+wages paid
so then the transfer fee alone would come down to about 18 quid
(am i getting across?)
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from what I have seen out of united this season, we have the quality to beat any team in the world. I dont care if its Milan or barca, when we play our best we have no equal. I know I might be a little biased, but i just dont see anybody matching us on our best day.
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There is a certain Manucho in our team who could be THE tall and big striker in the out-and-out role and till now he has been showing great signs. Just wait for next season, and we wont be PINING for Torres or Huntelaar anymore!
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Agree that Manucho could be the one… Carlos Q has done a fantastic job finding him… Imagine his value had we waited to sign him before the African Cup…
Just looking ahead… i can see a Man Utd Vs Dippers Champions league final in Moscow oh that would be great
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I think Manucho is still a bit raw, he’ll take some time to adapt and get into the EPL flow, i expect him at the VERY earliest the 2nd half of next season (if he gets a permit to play at the start of next season), but to be honest, i would really target him to come into play after next season, he needs to learn the european type of game, and language issues possibly?
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What a load of Shite “Manucho could be the one”. We haven’t seen the guy play one game at a high level and we are already donning the crown on him as the heir to King Cantona. Give me a frakken break already. Let him come here and play and then one can make a boast like that. Right now he is behind Louis Saha in the pecking order. Some people will settle for garbage if it’s dressed up nice I guess. Too many bandwagon jumpers on this site. Optimism is nice but blind optimism is just silly.
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Apparently the draw leak has made alot of news… But its just not possible for it to have been fixed… I mean, c’mon,Its done live in front of delegates…
This may be a hoax. All that guy needs to do is visit a few forums and post different combinations.. he dint get the home and away accurately. So his chances of getting it right are more than one in 28
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WOW GROGNARD, 15 goals is not enough i see, that must be the stupidest thing you have ever said(not an insult, its just a real silly thing to say) i mean about 2 weeks ago Tevezs goals to games ratio was 1:2(not exactly but more or less 1:2) but that must not be good enough. And as for Manucho, the Angolan league and greek league is not on the same level as the premier league, but the greek league is still a top EUROPEN league, and manucho did show his talents at the ACN.
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No Dan. The thing Grognard is trying to say is, and I agree with, that this season Torres has been much better than Tevez and don’t pass pre judgement on Manucho. Mido too scored quite a few goals in previous editions of ACN.
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Manchester United 8-0 Derby County! Wouldnt that be great? Its even possible too, the way they are playing!
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