Aug 20
Rubbish Team Selections Squander United’s Advantage
I saw the match on delay — yes, downloaded it, god bless me — so let me cut out the preface. United were rubbish yesterday; ridiculously rubbish, grossly underestimated their opponents (a gentle reminder of being wary mentioned here yesterday) and were thoroughly deserving of the end result.
If you are of the kind that thought yesterday’s was a good performance, I’d like to inform you that what follows may not be to your taste.
The world will talk about history being made for Burnley and they are perfectly entitled and justified in doing so. But we have no business to dwell on Burnley [fantastic atmosphere from the supporters and tremendous pluck from the players] at the moment.
I really didn’t even have to watch the match; the team sheet made me nearly spill my coffee. I take a lot of pride in being in control of my bodily organs, and so I didn’t spill my coffee. Lesser (or better) men might have. The headline says it, the team sheet was rubbish, whichever way you look at it.
Ryan Giggs and Carrick started in central midfield. As it is, even with three in midfield we tend to put far too much pressure on our defence. Yesterday we had a defence which had players with fitness concerns and little experience playing together as a back four. If anything we needed a player to shield the back four to do the mopping up, yet show enough energy to move forward with the ball. We don’t have such a midfielder — and it has always been a concern I’d raised during the summer that we lack a real dynamic midfielder — but Fletcher comes closest to such a midfielder. Instead we have Giggs and Carrick. Now, dear reader, tell me who has the energy to sit and mop up at the back? I’m sorry, Carrick doesn’t do that for me. He can hold the ball, pick a pass etc., but he doesn’t have the same energy levels a proper box to box midfielder can offer. It had to be either Giggs or Carrick alongside Fletcher and not both.
And what of Anderson, you ask? Why would anyone play him in left midfield (wing)? Yes, he started out his career on the left, but he’s been playing in the central midfield position for eternity with us. If not Fletcher, he should have been played in the centre of midfield alongside either Carrick or Giggs. Not on the left wing!
And Park. Oh, should I even bother moaning? He’s a useful squad player and has his merits. The famous defensive midfield-wing-wizard and part time pitch-squatter. His defensive wing wizardry works on a European night to stifle far superior opposition. Against your Stokes and Burnleys, he’s a luxury, and a wasteful one at that. But I can understand his selection. Ferguson tries to be fair in rotating his side, and I won’t dispute his initial selection despite my misgivings. However, if you decide to keep him on the pitch for the full ninety, despite an obvious show of ineptness, then I have reason to believe your only true intent by that manouevre was to prove you had a good sense of humour. Park staying on the pitch for the full stretch was surreal. And just as you think it couldn’t be topped, Ferguson pulls a rabbit out of the hat: he brings on Neville for Brown. [if it's injury then fair enough, but even then I'd rather O'Shea moving in centre with de Laet coming on at right back -- he gives us more attacking impetus while maintaining defensive discipline]
It’s sad if the best attacking outlet in the wings was from Patrice Evra. And it’s bad luck when a pretty decent penalty was saved. But let the chances we created not fool you. I’ve seen United performances and plenty of slow starts. You just need to search back in the archives of this site [my commentary on our starts in 07/08 and 08/09 always took positives out of the performances, because I could take heart from the effort] to see that. There was something disturbingly impotent about yesterday’s display and I maintain, this was completely down to the choice of starting XI that robbed us of any initiative we may have had in the match.
So am I saying we’re a poor side? No. I am just saying we were poor yesterday. I sort of agree with Rob Smyth’s take on United this season: “The squad is strong enough but I don’t know whether the first XI (if we have such a thing anymore) is. The complete lack goals from midfield is a huge concern”. We have a squad strong enough to last the fatigue factor of a fixture pile-up. However this team will pick up a lot of 1-0 wins because it is one good dynamic central midfielder away from making our strike force work. There was a moment when a marauding Giggs played a lovely one-two with Rooney only for the ‘keeper Jensen to effect a fantastic save. We need a midfielder who can do that more often for our system to work. Carrick is far from prolific to be relied on to score. Giggs, while being the bright spot yesterday, can’t be expected to carry on like this either.
Anyway, that should be enough grief from me. I really don’t care if I get some stick for negativity here [if you've been a regular reader you'd know I don't take pleasure in this]. On yesterday’s evidence we aren’t title worthy, which in itself doesn’t really bother me. I can live with a season without a title. But insipid performances and uninspired team selections, are a completely different matter.
You all have a good day.
Till tomorrow.
Related items from Red Rants:
- Manner of United’s Win More Important than three points
- United’s debt situation explained
- What Should Be Manchester United’s Starting Lineup Against Arsenal?
- Fast and hard, fast and hard.
- United Look For Winning Return At Swansea
Tags: Match Reports
Opti (541)
Stephen (485)
RedDevilEddy (459)
Craig Mc (345)
Moscow is my heaven (272)
@Will: I understand where you are coming from Will, and I agree. With regards to our MF, SAF has come out today saying that we created chances, a good view, but the problems are with the strikers. He reckons instead of just hitting the ball when they get a scoring opportunity, they have to have a touch, and the opportunity is lost. I agree with SAF about our strikers wanting that extra touch, I can’t understand why they do that. That is why I like Gibson, because he doesn’t take that extra touch, he just wallops it every chance he gets
. It is not looking like SAF is going to get that very special STAR midfielder we need, is it will 
.
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@Craig Mc: looks the way. tbh, i can’t think off the top of my head who i would bring into our midfield (assuming that hargreaves is fit i would have him as one) but the other.. would have to be frank lampard.. but not frank lampard. i was saying to my mates after the burnley game, arsenal have fabregas..pool have gerrard.. chelsea have lampard.. and we have….?
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I had to laugh at the blogger who commented that Valencia is as much a one trick pony as Ronaldo was when he first came. Valencia push ball forward, rush to by line, put the ball into the box, usually along the ground pass, then repeat, repeat, repeat the whole game. But go for a little variation wander once in the game, to join NANI on the left wing – WTF
.
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To borrow from UK English, “spot on”
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@Will: we are now being linked with Sneijder.Of course it won’t happen because he is overvalued at £13 million.
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@Elliott: Errrr Elliot, I don’t understand your comment mate????? What does it mean
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@Cyclops-Red: I thought Inter Milan had sown up the deal for Sneider, who wants to play in Italy – where did your info come from Cyclops?
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@Craig Mc: An unreliable source who I can’t reveal (i.e. ME)
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@Will: We could have had Arshavin at a very reasonable price, but alas – and also Modric. These two are as good as Lamps, Stevie Me and Fabregas, and both were bought for reasonable price. SAF just doesn’t believe we have a problem in MF
.
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@Cyclops-Red: Are you just messing about making things up Cyclops
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@Craig Mc: Just repeating parrot fashion some spurious report I’ve just read on NewsNow.
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@Craig Mc: To me it’s down to two things.
1/. SAF thinks that he can do another fledgling coup ala mid 90′s. With all the youngsters he’s stockpiled.
2/. The Glaziers have frozen the transfers funds and SAF, like a good soldier, is sucking it up until he retires.
There can be no other reason why he hasn’t slashed the cash this summer!!
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@Footy4Eddy: Even if he was a good player, the fact he is a United fan automatically disqualifies him from Fergie’s future selections.
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@Craig Mc: Oh they are rich mother fuckers but the big difference is that rich mother fuckers in the US play by one rule of business. Never use your own money. So they borrow. They create an incorporation and are protected by it’s laws and so if the loan goes into default, they are not personally on the hook for it. And even if they borrowed against their wealth, the fact is they never used their wealth to buy the club. Sleazy, slimy but very smart.
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@Cyclops-Red: In Fergie’s eyes he’d be over valued if Real Madrid were asking for a bag of hammers. Fergie is an arrogant SOB and his pride will not allow him to go after anyone before January. After 20 years we all should know that much about the man. Forget about transfers, the sky will fall in before we buy another player this month.
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@Grognard: Does anybody know who owns the united debt??
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Buy Rodwell. Now.
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@Traverse: Are you sure Vidic is leaving??
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@Traverse: Fat chance. Not when they’re gonna lose Lescott.
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@Red Ranter: RR, Wigan game on ESPN2HD as far as I know. Not showing up in guide data yet but I’m doing a manual recording from 6.55am (pacific) anyway.
Worked for the Chelsea/Hull game.
Just love the HD showings, makes all the difference!! Anything to improve the way we look right now.
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@Grognard: First of all bro i would like to refresh your memory that i for never said you might be wrong. I for one never said that we will win anything this season eversince the Ronaldo has left. So, i don’t think that you need to referesh your memory and mine. All i was saying that let the young guns play and prove themselves wheather they are good enough or not thats all. In fact about the playing style i aleays stayed with your point that we are playing shite and even Jose’s Football will be better than us. But, all i was maintaning that don’t go for the quickfix if you don’t want to (for any damn reason i don’t want to get into another Glazers debate) but then ease your youngsters in the team.
Now, i don’t know with all those point throughout the summer break why you felt this way. Now, the only reason i came up with some strong view was because all the things which i thought are not happening. We are playing the attractive footy still, we are still starting with golden oldies so on…
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***I for one never said that we will win ***NOT*** anything this season eversince the Ronaldo has left
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@Onkar: MAking lot of mistakes….please ingnore last one…
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@Grognard: Absolutely agreed withwhole assesment of leadership and end specially that is JOSE MOURINHO. I am so happy that finally we have some thing ni common except for being United fan that we both feel Special One should be next one. I actually wonder that why some people hate him. I always thought he is a perfect fit to be the one. And just look at players like Terry and Lampard what he has done to them. They were never like this but now eversince he came they are just monsters for theor team. I for one always thought that given the opportunity he will stay here for long which he could have with Chelsea but the Roman thing came in.
The MAN just loves winning and winning at any cost. He loves challenges thats why he is perfect for me….
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@Redrich: I think it should start showing up in the guides pretty soon. They’ve already gone full on in their promotion now. Check this out. ESPN have become really serious about covering football in the US. Which is good for us.
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Totally agree with the title. I almost switched off my tv before the match when looking at the starting XI. I don’t think we can rotate a lot this year as we don’t have strong contenders to replace the starting XI. Park, Brown, Neville, OShea, Owen are fringe players who can come on in the last 15 minutes to hold a score or something like that. Yesterday’s defence was a joke only for Evra’s great performance as always.
If we don’t buy now, we’ll buy players in January when we’ll be like 3rd in the league but perhaps it’ll be too late….we’ll see, Ferguson’s not an amateur
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Is it true
http://fourfourtwo.com/news/spain/35437/default.aspx
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@Redrich: The team does. The Glazer’s borrowed against the team’s assets in order to buy the team. Sounds strange but then again, everything banks do strange these days, they get away with.
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@Onkar: I wasn’t challenging you mate. All I was saying is that I have been claiming this team’s downfall for a long time, not just after yesterday’s game. It wasn’t directed at you per say but to everyone. People think I’m gloating and bragging about being right but truthfully, it’s killing me to see my beloved United reduced to such mediocrity. I hope they will improve and that things will start to click soon but I still believe there is no way this team is finishing any better than 4th.
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@Grognard: Yeah i can understand that… Some times its really painful to be right… But, then again as i said i more bothered about how they play. A third no finish and lots of games for young sters with attractive and attacking (old United football) and i will be happy…
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@Onkar: It’s not that he is a perfect fit. Infact, he’s starting to look like not a perfect fit. For him to be a perfect fit he would have to walk into a job where he has complete control and first say over who plays and who we sign. He would have to be given a generous transfer budget every season (at least 40 million) and he would have to be allowed to bring in his own coaches and staff as well as the Sven puppet from Special 1 TV.
Seriously though, I seriously doubt that the present economic and football climate at Old Trafford is something that would attract him. The glazer’s and their penny pinching ways would not be a motivator for him to take the job. Being handed a paltry 20 million transfer budget a year is nothing that will seduce him and he would want control over all player decisions so that he could clean house of the players who do not fit his system, his demands and who are too old.
Tactically and motivationally Mourinho is an ideal choice. Forget about this old idea called United style football. Fergie himself has killed it over the past two seasons. It no longer exists. In all the games that Mourinho coached Chelsea I never ever saw them give such a pathetic and passionless display as was evidenced by us all yesterday. One thing is for sure. His football tactics may not be of the champaign variety, but he will get a 100% from all his players or they will be gone. That’s why I want him. He’s a winner and he knows what it takes to win and to win at the highest level. What would be ideal is if some Arab consortium came in and bought United and then hired Mourinho. Then watch what greatness we would achieve. Ronaldo would want to come back.
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@Onkar: We need to lose a lot of games and basically be eliminated from winning the title before Fergie loosens the reigns on the young players and starts them as well as using attacking formations and tactics. Right now he is too much of a fucking chicken shit and he still has delusions of winning it all. Give him until October and he’ll be singing a different song me thinks.
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@Grognard: Thats precisely why I want him. And when i said he is a perfect fi its from the footballing style like you have said in your second para. I mean the man has guts. You give him support and all the control and he will give you results. And like i said before what i like about him the most is Born WINNER. He likes winning at any cost. We all know he is a Tactician, motivators and whats more we can see that his plyers are ready to play ass out for him. Just remember the passion that Chelsea players use to show with him on board. Its like old time united players ala Keano showing the heart to stand by Manager. Thats ttrue management for me. And i don’t believe in what people say about his style and all. I mean I am poiting this out for long now that Chelsea in its second season title winning season was the highest scoring and least conceding team. That doesn’t sound boring unless you are not Chelsea fan isn’t it??? I remember often Chelsea used to score 3 goals in that season and for me thats better than what we did last year for sure…
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@Grognard: Btw bro… Hows your new place??? Have you been settled now??? How about the after effect of the this monsteres relocating thing all that packing and unpacking of things and all… I hope you are through safely… By the way how about the gals on the beach….. Best way to ease tyour frustration of the way united play
Yeah and one more thing manage to get the new LCD.. I think you were planning to buy one Bravia if I am not wrong..???
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I sucks that I live at different time zones so I’m unable to contribute to the blog when it’s really active.Sucks ass.
@Grognard: Thanks for having my back against some tawdry attacks by individuals who can’t open their eyes and see how fucked up the current situation at the club is. If they weren’t fellow united supporters I’d laugh at their ignorance and naivety but I’m disappointed I share the same passion with such characters.
Its wigan tomorrow, I’m praying that we bounce back like liverpool did and put 4 or 5 past wigan. Fingers crossed.The after effects of the loss are wearing down, partly due to the fact that we have a game tomorrow.
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Those up at this time of the day/night, new post up.
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@Redrich: Yeah RedRich, I wonder perhaps if we had played our whole reserve team youths against Burnley, whether we would have got a more passionate and exciting football performance than we did against Burnley from most of the X1 that played wednesday. Maybe Redrich, Maybe!
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@spizzy: Aaah Spizzy, don’t you start getting ALL PARANOID and egotistical too – attacks my arse, Stephen and others were just not in agreement with you that’s all, and I certainly will never be in agreement with you calling SAF senile
. Why people cannot just accept that fandom is all about fierce disagreements sometimes, and agree to disagree, without trying to conform everybody else to their ideology, and then feeling all precious and attacked if folk differ – beggars belief. At the end of the day, it is just a football game, and every fan will have a different take on it, and will voice their opinions. If somebody comes down on my post comments – tough cookies, it just goes that they vehemently disagree with where I am coming from perhaps. I dont take it as a personal vendetta against me, we are not back in the school playground. Phew, I’m glad my Dad drummed it into me to toughen up, and take things like a man, whether I agree with someone or not, and vice versa. Red Rich and I have had some very tasty disagreements, but we don’t make it personal, like he is attacking me, or I him with some kind of dastarly intent. If peoples answers to your comments offend you so much, then you should realise mate that you are on an internet blog, and posting your comments for people to tear them apart, or applaud them. There is a difference between attacking someone personally because we don’t agree with them, or what is most often done on RedRants, which is attacking someones thoughts on football – jeez!
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A lot of comments here have been right over the top! Yes the performance was poor. Yes, the result unexpected…although NOT as surprising as some people may think http://aussiered.wordpress.com/2009/08/20/burnley-defeat-was-not-such-a-shock/
We have had both bad results and performances in previous seasons yet still went on to win the Premiership! Everyone seems to be forgetting that United has the biggest ace of all up its sleeves – Sir Alex. He is the one that will make the difference between us and the pretenders.
For goodness sake, CALM DOWN
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@Grognard: Oh right!
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@Frank Scicluna: Most of the comments have been made with the full knowledge that we have Sir Alex. Most of those who’ve been ‘over the top’ in your opinion were fairly calm last year (and the year before that) because we knew we had Ronaldo. I am not saying we’ll play too badly going from here, but saying SAF is our ace in the sleeve as a response to any well intentioned criticism is a bit of a cop-out in my opinion. The moment the team sheet was out, my eyes popped out in shock — so it’s not even hindsight talking.
Ferguson is the best there is, but he’s not perfect. So a little criticism is allowed.
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@Frank Scicluna: Frank, its not a matter of calming down for most folks who have posted comments here. Because you are assuming that what you are reading here is coming from aftermatch reaction to the one game. That is where you may have missed it a little bit Frank! Don’t know whether you read this blog regularly or not, but I haven’t seen you posting here before – sorry if I am wrong about that mate! If you have been a regular reader, you will understand that the fan regulars on this blog, have been CONCERNED for a very good while now about the level of football performances of our team, the type of football we are playing, which has for last 18 months become slow, laboured, and BLAND much of the time. People who are Man United fans, are so because we have been used to a certain cavalier, exciting, style of free flowing football. We feel the standard has dropped, and we would like to see it back again. SAF has always said that Man United can’t just play football, we HAVE TO PLAY it the Man United way. Many fans feel we have not been playing the Man United way, but have been served a lot of slow, snooze football, and it isn’t just down to the game against Burnley. There are things wrong with our languid style these days, and our two most FLAMBOYENT players left in the summer, and from what we see their is none of our players left with said flamboyency – the flair for the unexpected. If there are such players, then they are not producing it for us, and we have to address that! So OTT or not Frank, we would like such players to be replaced with equally class STARS. That’s all mate!
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No argument Red Ranter. I have also disagreed with Fergusons selections including Rome and Burnley but hey we have to trust the gaffer. My only point is that some fans have been over reacting to one highly disappointing defeat. Nothing wrong with a little criticism butlet’s make sure that we don’t overdo it.
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Craig Mc, that’s a great comment. I am very new on here but your sentiments are understood perfectly. The only thing I can say is that I was very pleased with the string of 1-0 victories last season rather than a number of 2-2 or 3-3 draws which would have cost us the Premiership. Obviously the cavalier, exciting, style of free flowing football that you yearn for is what we all want but surely, 3 points instead of one or nothing at all is what matters in the end. Maybe, just maybe, the introduction of someone as exciting as Machedo at Turf Moor may have produced a more satisfying result despite the absence of a class midfielder that we all want to see introduced.
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Personally I dislike 1-0 wins especially when it is against bottom feeder teams. You have two potential problems if you go for a 1-0 win. Firstly the opposition could score against the run of play or score a wonder goal like in the Burnley game. Secondly it encourages a style of play where it is difficult to score more than one goal which is a problem in the above scenario. Basically it allows little margin for error.
I’d like to think we have the ability to score two goals against every team in the league. Reason being that so long as our defence does not have a nightmare we are unlikely to concede more than a goal or at most two.
Unfortunately this current team labours out 1-0 wins against the sort of opposition Arsenal, Chelsea and even Liverpool beat 3-0. It pissed me off last season even when we had Ronaldo. This season it will be even worse because our defence despite its quality always seems a bit shaky and we do not have anyone who can be relied upon to score the winning goal.
Yes our strikers are a bit wasteful but I cannot think of a single United striker bar Ruud Van Nistrelooy (and perhaps Ronaldo who didn’t often miss clear chances but would take a lot of pot shots as well) who wasn’t wasteful but we never had a problem scoring in the past. Reason being we created a lot more clear cut chances than we do now.
Our midfield needs a makeover. While we do need an extra defensive midfielder for the really big games-those games only crop up a few times a season. What we really need is a creative midfielder for the average game where our problem tends to be scoring rather than conceding.
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@Craig Mc: I was only thanking him for responding to the comments hitting out at me while i was unable to respond, and doing so brilliantly. This isn’t my first blogging experience mate.
, would you then call him paranoid?
Agreeing to disagree is the main reason I post here, I get different takes on the same situation.But saying I’m paranoid, now that’s stretching it a bit, don’t you think.Stephens comments don’t bother me, I think you and him have similar ideas and notions of whats going on, and if I went and attacked his ideas, then you defended him and he later gave you a
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@Frank Scicluna: Ohh come on mate, You mean only started seeing the cracks after the rome debacle? Al through last year it’s been a worrying trend. Before ronaldo came back last year united struggled to get any form and only when he came back did we see any semblance of a winning team.
The problem is the direction united seem to be going and the glory that we have come to expect thanks to ronaldo.We expect nothing more than the premiership, or atleast a good go at it,but with recent trends i think its dawning on many fans that we don’t have a team that could get us that. Now who do we blame, I personally like to single out a player and bitch about him,but the buck stops at fergies feet.
Lets look at the facts:The glazers came out and said Fergie has 60 mil to spend. If there were lying as some people say then fergie should have threatened to quit. But if he was actually given the money, the complete inaction is a clear indicator our problems lie with him because he should have atleast tried to replace ronaldo, We all know ronaldo is impossible to replace but atleast fergie should have tried and brought a mega star so defenders could get nervous and mark our mega star with two or three players, thus giving room to our other players to at least maneuver. Or buy two central midfield players to command our midfield, but he has done neither and has in turn taken to dishing us boring lethargic performances.
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@spizzy: Spizzy there is my point exactly! You said he was hitting out AT YOU. Attacking someones comments or arguements IS NOT hitting out at the person, but hitting out at the persons arguements or take on things – there’s a big difference there mate. Like I said mate – if someone attacks my comments about team or players, I might disagree and fight fiercely for the team or player concerned I am defending – example NANI. Other bloggers will fight back fiercely – Red Rants is a great debate gladiator sparring experience, I love it – but if we are sparring against each other in such a way – I never feel though that they are ATTACKING ME PERSONALLY, just my good or bad arguement. Hope you can see where I am coming from Spizzy. Also I didn’t say you WERE paranoid, I just said don’t get paranoid that people are attacking you personally, seperate the two mate, that’s all. With regards to Sttephen, yeah we do agree on quite a lot of things, but we also disagree on a good few things too, yet when we disagree we don’t make ourselves sound like victims, we just keep our own side of the arguement as we see it, and move on
. This blog is about Manchester UNited, not about people not seeing things all the same way, and getting offended if we see differently or others don’t want to supposedly listen to us. I can assure you Spizzy mate, although you probably know already, IF anybody does really attack somebody personally, RedRanter will pick up on it, and take necessary action. Hope we are 
then Spizzy 
.
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@Frank Scicluna: Maybe Frank mate, but I don’t think Macheda is anywhere near mature enough just yet. He does need more 1st team opportunity though, so he can get that maturity. I do appreciate and see where you are coming from though, so lets hope for a return to cavalier football, and the 3-1 or 2-0 wins to go along with it. I don’t mind the 1-0 wins either, if we have played great stuff Frank, and not dished up a sneaky, fortunate, snooze football 1-0 win
.
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Rio out for $ months
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