So the boys play another game today against the Malaysian XI to compensate for the loss of the Indonesian friendly. I wish I could look forward to it, but timezones don’t help.

Continue reading “United’s Malaysia Rematch”

Update: United cancel Indonesia visit. Club working on revised itinerary outside Indonesia.

Every now and then we get hit by news that brings us down to reality. At the time of writing, nine people were killed in bombings of two luxury hotels in Indonesia.

It’s more shocking if you realize United were scheduled to stay at the Ritz in Jakarta. The cause, people behind these attacks aren’t yet known, so we’ll have to wait for further details to be revealed.

Whether United would tour Indonesia is also up in the air.

A spokesman for the Indonesian organizers, Souraiya Farina, told AFP they had not had any information yet from the team on whether they would cancel their visit. ‘We have had no confirmation of what they might be doing and noone has indicated to us that they will cancel their visit,’ she said. ‘They may move to another hotel,’ she added, citing the Pacific Hotel as an alternative.[link]

Meanwhile, United kick off pre-season in Malaysia with a match on Saturday. We will hopefully have mini-reports of the preseason friendlies.

Travelling squad: Edwin van der Sar, Tomasz Kuszczak, Ben Foster; Jonny Evans, Patrice Evra, Rio Ferdinand, Gary Neville, Wes Brown, John O’Shea, Fabio da Silva; Nani, Zoran Tosic, Darren Fletcher, Anderson, Darron Gibson, Paul Scholes, Michael Carrick, Ryan Giggs; Michael Owen, Dimitar Berbatov, Federico Macheda, Wayne Rooney.

We will look to update this post as an when we get to hear about United’s plans to tour Indonesia. Watch this space.

While I work on getting a new post ironed out consider this a stub and a post to prevent the previous one from crashing (due to saturation with comments). Reply to comments from previous posts here, so that you don’t spend too much time waiting for the page to load.

Meanwhile here are some good reads you must consider:

1. Scott on RoM talks about Carlos Tevez’s dreadful miscalculation — fun fact, he made 51 appearances this season, despite his whingeing.

2. United Rant wonders why United still struggle to produce a striker from the youth ranks, following Campbell’s sale after he failed to make the grade.

3. The ever excellent Pitch Invasion site reviews Grant Wahl’s new book on David Beckham, ‘The Beckham Experiment‘

4. Liverpool’s most famous lady-man, Fernando Torres narrates a ghost story, exclusively for the award winning Run of Play blog.

5. Some Brazilian based writers wonder if United are being conned over Douglas Costa (it will be touched upon in a forthcoming post as well)

6. The Guardian’s Paul Wilson questions Man City’s status among English football’s elite.

This will be very short because I am not currently disposed to do a long one right now. So I’ll share some links with you, mumble a few words under my breath and leave the stage to you.

The well respected Andy Brassell, the European expert on BBC’s excellent World Football Phone-in, gives a favourable review of Gabriel Obertan on the official site. He was also on World Soccer Daily yesterday as guest and considered him to be physically suited to the demands of the Premiership. Considering Brassell spent a good part of his life following Ligue 1, I would feel a little encouraged by his assessment.

The man of the moment, Obertan, meanwhile completed possibly the slowest medical and signature in transfer history, as his reported medical took about two days. Allegedly, of course.

Since the fee seems to be in the region of £3m, I think it’s not a bad bit of business.

The Huntelaar stories seem to have gone a bit cold at the moment, although Arnold Muhren gives a ringing endorsement of his compatriot.

The Mirror reports we’re sending Richard Eckersley out on loan to QPR for the rest of the season.

And shockingly, we’re linked today with a move for Zlatan Ibrahimovic. I am wondering how to say the world’s biggest “No!” to that flat track bully.

It’s official. The sun hasn’t run out of hydrogen yet, most humans continue to work for a living, but Michael Owen somehow finds himself a Manchester United player.

Continue reading “Owen Signs, and he’s no Henrik Larsson”

United signed Valencia, but their intent to go blitzkrieg on the transfer market suffered a blow when Benzema opted to go to Real Madrid. Reports say they were willing to pay £6m more than us. This can mean either of two things: one, we were trying to play hardball with them while staying firm in our [new found] commitment towards not getting fleeced. Two, we didn’t really expect Madrid to act so quickly so as to have gazumped us to this bid.

If it was the second it’s a shame. If it was the former, I’m not sure how to react to it; I am torn between lauding them for not paying £32m for a largely unproven, albeit talented, 21 year old and expressing bafflement over their refusal to budge on £6m when we have £90m lying around. [Correct me if I'm wrong, but Fraizer Campbell's this close towards completing a £6m move to Hull.]

Continue reading “Time to move on after Benzema snub”

This will be a short one, and I can’t help but point out the overwhelming twisting of quotes to fit headlines.

First of all there is a quote from Bernard Lacombe, the advisor to Lyon’s president, who talked about clubs being flush with cash. And that it would be difficult to resist a big bid if it came: “If United want to buy Karim then what can you do?”

Continue reading “Benzema, Benzema and more Benzema. But it’s only talk.”

Jean Michael Aulas, Lyon’s chairman, who’s allegedly charismatic according to reports has revealed that whilst Karim Benzema will most likely stay with Lyon for another year, if he decides to depart, it would be for Madrid.

Don’t trust me? Well, here’s the quote:

“No-one is intransferable, but knowing Karim, if he did leave, it would be to Real Madrid. For the moment, we are not talking about transferring Karim.”

Continue reading “Benzema ‘Prefers’ Madrid but United better sporting brand than Madrid”

The latest in ridiculous transfer stories is the one about United’s bid for Liverpool’s Fernando Torres. Much as we rate the Spaniard, it’s not a deal that makes sense. There’s been talk about Liverpool’s reported financial situation that will force Liverpool’s hand. But let all that talk not fool you. Liverpool will be absolutely mad, and even absolutely mad would be a gross understatement, to sell them to any of the other three top clubs in England, let alone United, whatever their financial situation maybe. In fact they would be crazy to sell him, full stop. There is the debt situation, but it is surely not even close to that faced by Valencia.

To sell Torres would mean regression in all Benitez might have achieved so far at Liverpool, and it is conceivable to say that it could result in the manager himself quitting the club. It all makes for a nice little read on a Sunday afternoon, but I wouldn’t pay too much attention to that. If that ever happened, Liverpool would go down in history as the club run by cretins bigger than Mike Ashley.

Continue reading “Ronaldo transfer money harder to spend in reality”

Prior to the Champions’ League final Ronaldo went on a PR crusade doing interviews affirming his decision to stay on at United. “Manchester is my home”, he would say. He even did a spoof interview, where he interviews himself with a choice selection of canned questions that journalists are wont to ask. Has his Real Madrid dream really ended?

Following our defeat to Barcelona, he went back to his old ways. “I don’t know about my future. My future is with the national team”.

Continue reading “Perez would ‘welcome’ Ronaldo — that’ll be £70m, thank you.”