Red Rants

Update: Report will be in later on. Nothing to write about in all honesty though. We were utter crap but Vida bailed us out.

Even the official site confirms that Rooney will be in the squad. Personally I am apprehensive about playing Rooney so soon even if it is for ten minutes. I can’t believe SAF would take such a gamble, given his stance during the world cup last year. Granted, he’s not the sort to take risks on his top men - which would mean that Rooney has shown superhuman healing abilities (Claire Bennet, of Heroes fame, style )

But there is a chance that he is playing Rooney more out of desperation, in case we are faced with a dire situation.

Oh well, we’ll have to trust Fergie’s judgment on this one. Bring ‘em on! What do you reckon will be the formation?

We’ll try bringing you updates, but we can’t promise as in all likelihood we’ll be too busy watching the game. While you are waiting for the game you might head over and vote for Red Rants too. Or discuss away in the comments.

As football fans we follow our club(s) very closely and it’s a natural consequence that we have strong opinions about how things should be done - tactics, transfers, formations, etc.

It’s easy to pit your skills against the computer in games like Fifa 07, Pro Evolution Soccer or Football Manager, but the real test comes when you have to put your money where your mouth is and go up against real people managing clubs just like you.

Short of the real thing (boy would it be good to be manage a club for real or what?), the best thing I’ve found so far is Online Football Manager (the guys we have sponsoring Red Rants).

It’s simple and addictive yet doesn’t take up all the time in the day (like Football Manager used to do before I burned my copy) - a few minutes each day spent managing your teams (you can play more than one league at the same time if you’re a premium season ticket holder) is enough to be on your way.

If you haven’t so far, make sure you give OFM a spin.

And if you’re looking for some tips and suggestions on how to win in OFM, read these articles and especially the comments on them.

United visit Everton after a very long international break - which really seemed to go on for ages - and face a tough game at Goodison Park. The Blues are having a very good season, even on points with Liverpool. A win for us would send us to the top of the table - for exactly 45 minutes (at least!) - before Liverpool play Portsmouth.

For us, Fletcher and O’Shea appear certain injury casualties. Both picked them up on international duty. Otherwise, the return of Ronaldo and Saha to our starting line-up would be the best thing to happen to our side in a long while. Tevez should start alongside Saha but I wonder if the long trip from Australia - where the Argies played them in a friendly - would have any bearing on his fitness. We’ll have to wait and see.

Gary Neville continues his rehabilitation as he hopes to return for the Chelsea game, while Rooney would want to be back, at least on the bench, by then.

Goodison Park promises to be a tricky venue for us and in Yakubu lies a familiar tormentor. The Nigerian has managed to nick goals past us for Boro. Him and Andrew Johnson would keep our defence quite busy. Arteta would be their creative influence, and in Joleon Lescott, they have an in-form player.

We have an early kick off, while Rafa Benitez has shot his mouth off about overhauling the schedule and complaining about early kick-offs, especially after international games. To be fair, he does have a point though. The international games are a major evil during a season and surely FIFA could do something about their scheduling. Although I am not really well-placed to suggest a concrete alternative. At the moment though, clubs have to deal with it and stop complaining.

Back to the game, we expect a pretty well-fought game.

Prediction: United to win 2-1 (Saha and Ronaldo to score.) United to just nick the win.

Anyway, it’s nice to see the lads back in action, and hopefully those of you hibernating during the break would be back to our comment threads in full swing with your rants! Keep them coming. And while you are ranting away, if you thought our site was worth your time you might find it reasonable of us to expect you to vote for Red Rants. We promise you it wouldn’t take you more than 2 minutes to register and vote. (Seriously, just 30 votes so far? Surely there are more readers here!) Hurry up!

Vote for Red Rants

As we pull on through another slow day let’s heave a deep sigh of relief that no one’s injured on their international duty.

*Heaves sigh of relief*

Oh, I almost forgot, Captain Fletch limped off with a calf injury in Scotland’s 1-0 win over much fancied France. Of course, I’d prefer to look at the bright side - Evra was an unused sub. And, John O’Shea was also taken off presumably due to a knee injury while playing for Ireland vs Czech Republic. He was replaced by Stephen Cunt Hunt.

I guess the sighs of relief was a little premature.

Alright! Now onto some news, if you can call it that…

Continue reading “Ronaldo Likes Jolie, Ferg’s A Tough Nut, Fletcher’s Injury, More Int’l Boredom”

No premier league games last weekend. Nothing to report. We can only wait to see how the return of Ronaldo affects (positively) the way the team plays. Since this is slow news time, as far as Manchester United are concerned, (yes, we had that interesting tidbit from SAF about Stam and Beckham, but tell us something we don’t already know!) I present an article which otherwise would not have merited much attention. Namely, what I feel about certain people replacing SAF when he decides to retire.

Continue reading “Sir Alex Ferguson’s Successor”

It is all over the news and it was certain to crop up sometime sooner or later. If Rooney manages to make it for the Everton game it would be a record of some sorts for a player who broke his metatarsal just four weeks ago for the millionth time.

The player is desperate to get back to the side. There is no doubt about it. It was the first summer in a while where he stayed injury free and away from a major international tournament. Coming off a season which was labelled by the media as poor, by his own standards, he was hungry to impress and was looking really good in pre-season.

Continue reading “Rushing Rooney Would Be Foolish”

Not much today. At least that’s what it was at the time of writing this. Highly doubt things would be much different. But whatever we have to talk about today is mostly positive stuff, depending on how you look at it.

Today’s topic is only about injuries. While the second leg of international games is to be held on Wednesday, before we really get to know which players have picked up knocks, we have a couple of players who are certainly not playing them.

Continue reading “United’s Injury Blow… And Boost.”

As we all now know there is a report expected from the Manchester United Supporters’ Trust detailing the failure of the ‘Glazer business model’. It is a little odd that I have to link to a NOTW article but there is truth in what’s published there and what is expected from MUST.

Of course, the members of the Glazer camp have swiftly moved to dismiss speculation as unfounded:

“The story is inaccurate,” said a spokesman for the Glazer family. “Nothing has changed. “The debts continue to be comfortably serviced by the business, which is performing better than ever.”

So with contrasting reports who do we trust. Let’s look at it a little closely.

Continue reading “The Glazer Financial Breakdown”

Hope you’re having a good Sunday. I, for one, am not. The whole international break thing is crap. Especially after just three weeks since the season started. It’s like getting on to the freeway after spending an hour negotiating a traffic jam only to suddenly come upon another serpentine queue of stationary cars, honking furiously at those in front. Go figure, if you find the analogy a little off.

Anyway, international breaks, like those periodic dentist check-ups, are necessary evils. These are times when you would want to keep your fingers (arms and legs) crossed, fervently hoping that your players avoid anything untoward.

Now that the first set of international games are over, let’s all heave a sigh of relief.

Continue reading “Ronaldo Scores, Players Come Through Unscathed… So Far”

One of our readers, JB, pointed me out to this article by Oliver Holt. The ‘bloke’ at Soccerlens also wrote about it, but since I found it interesting myself, I thought I would also contribute to the clutter.

Oliver Holt, of course, is a fine lad who is a columnist at the Mirror. Although the use of the words ‘columnist’ and ‘Mirror’ in the same sentence might be regarded by many as an odd use of the English language. That doesn’t stop said paper rag from proclaiming Holt as the best Sports Writer in Britain. But prejudices aside, the article had enough in it to warrant a retort of some kind. In that respect, well done Mr. Holt.

Continue reading “Much Ado About Ferdinand, And Some Loads of Ballacks”