We all, by now, are aware that John Terry’s red card has been rescinded. The word, I can’t seem to find the link, goes that his punishment (i.e., the one match ban) has been ‘reduced’ rather than his red card being revoked. This in itself strikes me as strange, because I would imagine a red card would at least warrant a one match suspension.

Continue reading “John Terry, AIG and Fergie’s Rant on Hackett”

Late post today, but better late than never.

Cristiano Ronaldo is inching closer to a return to the side and feels frustrated at not being involved in United’s current campaign. In fact, shockingly, Fergie says Ronaldo could even be part of the squad travelling to Villarreal.

Continue reading “Some Waffle Ahead of Liverpool Game”

Rafa Benitez is still hopeful over his star duo — Gerrard and Torres — returning for our trip to Anfield. This comes in the face of Gerrard ruling himself out and Torres being out with a hamstring injury. I would think a hamstring injury takes about two to four weeks to heal and even if he does make it, I’d suspect he will be partly fit. But I do trust Rio and Vida to tackle the El Nino threat. Rio would be clearing up space in his back pocket in preparation for Anfield.

Continue reading “Benitez Smokescreen Over Duo | United’s Champions’ League Squad Announced”

There’s been a lot of nonsense circulating in the media lately regarding David Gill’s comments on the reported £135m offer from Man City for Ronaldo.

Leave all those reports alone. I suggest you listen to what David Gill had to say exactly and make up your own minds about it. Here’s the link to the interview on BBC 5 Live.

Listen to the interview right now and come back to read the rest of this.

I am waiting…

Continue reading “Gill on City and Ronaldo”

Zzzzzz… So have you ever seen such a boring period of absolutely no football? Well, I know the answer to that is yes; all international breaks are like that. But when we went through a nerve wracking 24-hour period as the transfer window shut, any period of no club football would seem terribly empty. It’s like the other day when a mate of mine was going at 110 mph when he slowed down to 80 only for it to seem like the car was crawling at 30 or something. (Oh, don’t tell your local cop about it though.)

Continue reading “Brief International Roundup + Berbatov’s Fitness Regime”

Yes, I’ve coined that word and have applied for a copyright. Today we’ll indulge in a little more BerbaTalk©®, as I’ve never really penned my thoughts on the Bulgarian, post-transfer.

Reports yesterday suggested that we’ve indulged in some underhanded dealing with regards to Dimitar Berbatov. Ferguson personally picking Berbatov from the airport clearly showed how badly he wanted to sign the striker. But Levy does not see things that way with Spurs maintaining that they did not accept an offer for Berba even as late as 23:30pm.

Continue reading “Some More BerbaTalk”

Paying over the odds to Tottenham (yet again) for the signature of Dimitar Berbatov: £30.74 million.

Citeh paying over the odds to Real Madrid to prise Robinho from under the noses of Chelsea: £32.5 million.

The look on the faces of Peter “I fucked it up again” Kenyon and (some) eager Chelsea fans: Priceless.

I have been in a naughty mood today, hence the baiting and teasing. A more serious article will follow (either today or tomorrow). But I’ll just say this: whilst we got our pants pulled down yet again over transfer fees, it at least dispels the thought that had seemingly enveloped a lot of fans over the summer — that we are broke. We are not, and I think spending 30 million quid on a 27 year old surely stands as reasonable evidence?

Comment away…

[Oh, and I acknowledge the flurry of activity that smashed all commenting records for a single post yesterday. Cheers for spending a good part of your day on Red Rants. And apologies for some of the comments that somehow got sent into the moderation queue. I've managed to recover some and lost some others. Sorry for the inconvenience.]

We lost the Super Cup to Zenit. Chelsea proved they are still shit by dropping points. Liverpool drew to Villa, sussing out early season optimism and, more importantly, both Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres are extremely doubtful for our Anfield visit.

We have no news on Berbatov, yet. Either way we’ll get to know it today. Hopefully let the good times roll as we get into a two week period of boredom — also called the international break.

Meanwhile, I apologise for not writing up my thoughts on the Super Cup. Or generally not updating this for the last couple of days. Kudos to the folks to keep commenting despite my negligence — trust me this is only temporary. It turns out that I do have a life outside of writing about United, which is what caused me to be off the blog during the weekend.

So, in the words of Arnie, I’ll be back. Hopefully, by then, Berbatov will be wearing the red of United.

Today is the Champions’ League draw. This, coupled with the lack of progress on the Berbatov front (only four days to go), have made my job infinitely easier — I don’t have to come up with a longish post today.

Since the Champions’ League draw starts at 4:30pm (BST) I will leave the stage to you to come up with your predictions for our opponents. (I know, I can be a lazy prick at times).

So here are the pots:

Continue reading “Manchester United’s 08/09 Champions’ League Opponents”

Sometimes honesty can be misplaced and ill-advised. Most of what Vidic said was true. Perhaps he could have been less honest about some of the stuff he said. Or perhaps, should we applaud him for his honesty?

Who knows, really! But what irks me is the tone adopted on some of the broad sheets.

Continue reading “Some Words on Vidic + Fabio’s Cracker + Berbayawn”