Sep 06
Quotes Galore From Fergie | Hargreaves Injured | Another City Loss
I don’t remember the last time we had so many interesting quotes from Fergie in such a short period of time.
The most interesting one, undoubtedly, is his admission that the sale of Stam was a mistake. For a man who still thinks Veron was a good buy, this is something. Jaap Stam was a quality center half and his sale to Lazio for a handsome 16.5 million led to a poor season.
Of course, the sale of Stam was due to a more familiar situation than the ‘offer too good to refuse’ reason given by SAF. Stam’s autobiography didn’t have too many good things to say about Fergie, and that would have been enough to see him out. Stam did say after being sold that his sale was a ‘big mistake’. Surely the players that came in, viz., Veron and Blanc did not particularly set the stage on fire.
He had some kind words to say about Sam Allardyce, who he thinks is a keen observer of the game and applauded his high-tech approach to the game. Ed Harrison of the NUFC Blog (one of our sister sites on the network) has a detailed article on that. Worth a read.
SAF also spoke at length about Mr. Golden Balls himself. While the uneasiness surrounding the relationship between Sir Alex and Becks has been well documented, the boss has been relatively quiet when it came to actually talking about their feuds. However, at the moment, he has been very forthright in his assessment. He says that Beckham cannot get the US to fall in love with soccer.
“It is difficult with David going there. I don’t know what kind of impact he can make,”[...]“David Beckham himself can’t change the whole country.”[...] “In European soccer, and especially in British soccer, you can travel easily,” Ferguson said. “If you are in Boston and need to go to Los Angeles, it’s a six-hour flight. Supporters don’t travel, so you are missing that rivalry between fans.To make it substantial you would have to go regional, but there’s not enough teams to have four strong leagues.”
All valid points, considering he’s also had to contend with making trans-atlantic trips to play for England before returning to LA to play another game in a span of 36 hours or so. Ridiculous.
He also makes one brutally honest statement:
“He was never a problem until he got married,” Ferguson said. “He was a fantastic young lad. Getting married into that entertainment scene was a difficult thing — from that moment his life was never going to be the same.”He is such a big celebrity, soccer is only a small part. The big part is his persona.”
One can feel a tinge of sadness in the statement, more than any ill-feeling. His marriage to that malnourished skank never went down well with the boss nor did it for most of us fans.
More Fergie quotes continue, while moving onto another issue. This one being a far important one concerning the clubs future - that of our next manager. Worryingly he tips Carlos Queiroz. While his role in keeping Ronaldo and securing Nani and Anderson has been invaluable, he seems like more of a tinkerman to me. And I am not really convinced with his tactics in general, stuff that he feeds to Fergie with alarming regularity - most notably the 4-3-3/4-5-1.
There was this bit of news that wasn’t discussed about here so far. Alan Smith revealed a few days ago that he received a thank you note for his commitment and contribution to United from Fergie. A lot of us had mixed feelings about him leaving the club. While he was not particularly gifted as a player, his commitment and work-ethic was undoubted. He gave his all to the club, coming back from that injury against Liverpool. It comes as little surprise that he’s already popular with Newcastle fans.
Hargreaves seems to be the latest casualty affecting England ahead of the Israel game, according to Sky Sports. I personally don’t care a bit if he’s ruled out of England game as long as he recuperates in time for the Everton game on the 15th. He has been among our best performers and would be essential for the Everton game, who can be formidable opposition. Although, worryingly, Hargreaves claims that he is up to the challenge of playing two games in a week. He hasn’t done so for us this season and considering we have to play Everton, Sporting Lisbon and Chelsea in quick succession, I’d rather he play one game for England at the most.
Finally, we lost 3-1 to City in a reserve league encounter. Not surprisingly we dominated much of the game. Positives being that Anderson got an hour of playing time under his belt, which would help him get fitter. Frazier Campbell was our scorer.
Fergie, meanwhile, tips Anderson to the top. Which he would, having spent significant money on him. I, as mentioned earlier, would give him more time and would not expect him to instantly shine this season. He still is some way off full fitness.
And that would round up the news items I felt were worth covering. Of course, there were some nutty transfer news spraying around in Newsnow that included this gem from the Mirror, which claimed that we are looking at Barcelona’s Giovanni Dos Santos. While he is a scarily good player, at least in FM (as well as from his rave reviews), he strikes me as another of those ‘in the hole, drops deep’ type of players. So bollocks it is.
Until tomorrow.
Related items from Red Rants:- Man Utd 1-2 Man City: City Do the Double
- How good can Tevez be for Manchester United?
- Manchester United don’t need Barton, can’t have Richards
- Can the Guardian Please Find a Better Writer than Daniel Taylor?
- Liverpool 2-1 Man Utd: Questions Galore for Fergie
Tags: Daily Roundup
September 6th, 2007 at 13:13
gio is a great player in FM, i hav in a magic quintet midfield, of in the hole, anderson and ronaldo on the wings, messi between and ronaldo and hargo controlling the midfield, with rooney up front as a lone striker, if anyone gets injured, drop to a 442 formation and tevez comes in, would be a dream if man u have that formation by 2009, is the year im in in FM
anyways, wow that is a lot of comments from fergie,and all so very true, well whats done is done
September 6th, 2007 at 15:07
Personally I feel a lot of the criticism of CQ is unjustified at times. He gets labelled with being the one responsible for our boring 4-3-3/4-5-1 tactics yet when the team plays excellent flowing football (latter half 02/03 and last year) the credit often goes to SAF. The infatuation with the lone striker system predates CQ, I can remember the first notable use of 4-3-2-1 as far back as 00/01 against Charlton, with a 4-4-1-1 formation deployed almost exclusively upon the arrival of RVN and Veron.
As for the tactics themselves, the 4-4-1-1 would have won the league in 01/02 if there hadn’t have been such defensive instability with the sale of Stam. A 4-2-3-1 won the league in 02/03 and a 4-5-1 was looking good for another title in 03/04 up until Rio forgot to piss in a bottle. I would argue that most of our recent woes came from a horrendous summer transfer window in 2003 and the inordinate amount of time required to construct a decent central midfield, a problem clearly identifiable as early as mid 2003 yet only solved in the last 12 months, rather than from any insidious influence from CQ. This isn’t a rant at you RedRanter it’s just something I’ve see thrown around a lot at times and decided to have a bitch about it!
P.S. Apparently the scan on Hargreaves was just a precautionary measure and he is expected to be fit. SAF also found time in his interview to have a pop at the BBC as well!
September 7th, 2007 at 8:10
To hell with FM. Gio Dos Santos is an ace finisher in real life. capable of playing up top, deep or on the flanks. It would be madness for Barca to allow to lose him to anyone.
On a side not 4-2-3-1 helped us thrash Roma 7-1 on top of having previously won us back the title in 2003. Don’t you forget that while you trash Carlos for his tactics.
September 7th, 2007 at 9:35
I am not trashing CQ. 4-2-3-1 to me is just a modified version of a 4-4-2. Of course the interchanging part of the front four was certainly a good thing. Again, against technical sides, 4-2-3-1 is effective, but against teams that park the bus, you just saw what’s been happening to us this season.
CQ has his qualities, no doubt, but I wonder how good he is with man management and in coaxing the best out of players. He seems a soft guy to me. I’d prefer hard men for the United job. A little, ‘Oi, why the fuck did you give the ball away, you cunt’ or something on those lines.
September 7th, 2007 at 12:11
Despite my above response I’m inclined to agree Redranter, CQ strikes me as a very good coach but not managerial material for us. But to be fair I would say the risk with him is about as much as it would be with say Keane or Hughes. Of the formations they are all variations on a lone central striker theme, just with different emphasises on attacking, from the adventurous 4-2-3-1 to the dirge that is 4-5-1. But to be honest I think we put too much emphasis on tactics at times. It’s the players form that will normally be the difference between a formation working well and SAF being hailed a genius and it tanking badly.
September 7th, 2007 at 14:59
I think Queros’ role is very undermined by the United fans. (perhaps I should write an article about it). It’s tru about United fans “when things go bad, it’s CQ, when things goes well, it’s SAF”
When he first came to our club, our defense was in shambols at the time. He played a major part in fixing it. Today we have one of the best defensive records in the world (whilst playing some of the best attacking football) and it is mainly due to him.
United traditionally played 442/244. Our outside backs traditionaly acted like wingbacks. He worked vigourously with SAF to take this to a new dimension. The system worked / works very well in the Premier League, but not in Europe. I know it sounds pathetic to make statements like “we are starting to play total football”, but, I belive it’s true. If you look at our matches, all the players constantly swap positions. If you look at the calibre of players we have (and have gone for in the transfer market recently), you will note that they all share a common trait - to be able to play in more than 1 position (during the same game). That explains perhaps why SAF did not go for an out-and-out striker. It also explains why SAF were not too perturbed about losing one of the best left-backs in the world becuase Evra is more suited to what is currently required at United. As stated, even Rio helps out on the wings on occasions and are starting to break into midfield more often (you guys noticed that someone always drops back when he does that). It also explains why RVN mentioned that he ‘can’ play in a total footbal system before he got booted. (That was one of the reasons SAF let him go - because he could’t really - same reason he did not feature for the Netherlands during the WC).
With all this, guess who is the main man behind the system? (Should not take a rocket scientist to guess it is CQ). All I can say is, we’re not there yet, but we’re damn close. Once we do get there, we will be a major force in world football.
Perhaps the reason for SAF making that statement regarding CQ is to prepare the fans for his retirement. I think CQ will do just fine. Let’s just hope we win the ECL before SAF retires.
September 7th, 2007 at 15:42
I say bring in Marcello Lippi when Fergie retires… Plus him and Fergie are great friends… And it does seem he is waiting for a club like United to come along.
September 7th, 2007 at 15:49
Lippi - too defensive.
September 7th, 2007 at 17:19
agreed carl, it will be like buying the italian mourinho
September 7th, 2007 at 23:30
Karl: I think sorting out the defence had more to do with the princely sum of £30m paid for Ferdinand than CQ. Although CQ has undoubtedly had a major input in the tactical changes at OT, SAF was the original driving force behind the shift after tactical inflexibility cost us dearly in the CL in 99/00 and 00/01. In retrospect you could say this move was wrong as it has cost in the league while failing to bring in any tangible benefits in the CL. However it was probably a change that would have been needed at some stage as the standard 4-4-2 has become a bit of an endangered species amongst Europe’s top clubs.
September 8th, 2007 at 9:04
Very true words from Sir Alex.
BTW I don’t believe Barca will sell Giovani.
September 9th, 2007 at 6:28
What Alex Ferguson has said about Becks is very true. If you want to be a footballer and preserve your career, you got to be disciplined and sometimes to lead a monastery life.
Becks has let the fame and adulation go to his head; since his transfer from MU, i think his career has gone downhill.
By moving to USA for a soccer career, i can only say that his heart is no longer in the game. Moving into the entertainment industry will suit him better.