Watch this space for updates as we get match news.

Update: Nani scores. A scrappy win. But was it a pleasant sight! Anyway, still plenty of cracks to paper over. All in the report tomorrow. Sorry for not updating as promised, but I will get out a decent enough match report to make up for it.

In the summer of 2008 two fullbacks will be headed to Old Trafford from Fluminese. Of course, both of them are Brazilian. One plays at right back and the other, on the left. Close observers of United would have realized by now that we are talking about Fabio and Rafael.

They are identical twins and will be 18 when they arrive at OT next year. There is a good chance that they are the real reasons behind United not aggressively pursuing long term replacements for Gary Neville. Both are right now playing for the Brazil U-17 team in the U-17 World Cup in South Korea. FIFA.com runs an interview with the identical twins, who are really hard to tell apart.

Fabio is touted to be the more promising of the two - he also is the captain of the side. The interview is pretty good and also goes to show how attractive OT is now for Brazilians due to the already strong Portuguese speaking presence there.

The U-17 World cup is in full swing and Fabio has scored three goals in two games. Brazil thrashed New Zealand and Korea 7-0 and 6-0 respectively. To see the twins in action I found only clips from the New Zealand game, go ahead and click here to go to the FIFA website for the highlights of the NZ game. I know it’s only New Zealand, but they remind me of Daniel Alves when running all over the park.

Oh well, they still have a long way to go, but they also sure look promising.

(Ed: I was about to do a round-up for the week, because, admittedly, quite a bit happened that got drowned in ‘bigger news’ items. But Ollie had already done the job - thanks mate. So I got the easy way out and did some editing and addition of some extra bits of news that got left out. So read on, if you’ve been sleeping all week.)

The week started exceptionally bad for United supporters, with a derby day loss, leaving us with only 2 points from our first 3 matches. And I won’t even mention the injury to Rooney and suspension of Ronaldo. Ronaldo has also said that he feels the three match ban he received for his sending off, as ‘unjust’. Admittedly our Premiership title defence hasn’t started as we would have liked. But perhaps one positive to take out of the match with Citeh was the great debut of Owen Hargreaves.

Continue reading “The Week So Far: Benitez, Heinze, Strikers, Nani, EVDS, Ferdinand, Gibson, Saha and Spurs”

Here are the black away kits and their official pictures. There is also the official poster containing the release date, which is the 13th of September. I wonder why it’s taking so long.

The black kit, however, is ace and I would love to get my hands on it. Even the stripe at the back is pretty good although it would look good with a number in between.

Kit pics after the fold.

Continue reading “Kit Update: Official Man Utd 07/08 Black Away Kit Pics”

Another bit of good news filtered down to the papers all over town yesterday. Real Madrid, now officially known as UUPOAH (Unhappy United Players’ Old Age Home), have come and done United a big, big favour: they bought Heinze, and, wait for it… for £8 million!

Now this, I must say, made me feel pleasantly surprised. Real Madrid have always underpaid for our players. Beckham was a snip at £25 million - a sum they were reported to have recovered in three months! Ruud once again was bought for a ridiculously low fee, given his goal return, and the fee paid by Chelsea for Shevchenko.

Continue reading “Real Cough Up Money for Wheinze | Benitez Moans and Whines”

As you must know by now, Gabriel Heinze has lost his bid to join Liverpool (more over at Soccerlens).

It puts him in a very difficult situation now as there’s barely a chance for him to win the appeal for his Liverpool move, and there is little time left to negotiate a move elsewhere.

Many Manchester United fans have turned on Heinze during this whole process (not surprisingly), and would be glad to see his back. While that’s an emotional response and not necessarily the best thing for the team (Heinze is our best left-back), it’s a valid concern that his actions (and especially the fact that he wanted to go to Liverpool of all teams) will have driven a wedge between him and the other players and apart from the stick he will get from the fans, there’s little doubt that he’ll definitely remain 2nd or 3rd choice now.

So what to do?

Continue reading “Heinze loses arbitration for Liverpool move, what’s next for him and United?”

Just to make it official, I am back from a rather extended holiday and had good times away. That said, the blog wasn’t really away, thanks to some lads who popped up with posts. I did manage to pop up while on vacation too, in the midst of my high spirits. However, the high spirits were slightly tempered by the Reading game, but I have the whole season to look forward to. After yesterday’s pessimistic post, that scared some readers, I would like to say I am still positive about the season ahead.

Anyhoo, I don’t have too much to talk about apart from pointing out to the already well known fact that Rooney is out for two months. What makes one feel really bad here is that he was really in full force right through pre-season. The hunger was there for all to see. I’d say two months to be rather optimistic and it will take him until November to recapture his form. Till then we hope Saha returns for real and forms a partnership with Tevez. If that works out then I wouldn’t worry too much about Wazza.

Continue reading “Rants Returns to Regular Service”

Manchester United have announced their squad numbers for the forthcoming 2007/08 Premier League campaign.

Among the Reds’ summer signings, Owen Hargreaves will wear the No.4 shirt, with Gabriel Heinze moving to 14. Anderson will wear No.8 and Nani has been given No.17.

Carlos Tevez, who was registered as a United player by the Premier League on Friday afternoon, is yet to officially be assigned a number.

United squad numbers 2007/08

Continue reading “Manchester United 07/08 Squad Numbers released”

While the attention has been trained on the exploits of the new signings in Asia, of the likes of Nani & Co., Rossi has been quietly warming up to the next season in style back in England. Since there hasn’t been adequate reports on his progress I thought I can very briefly touch up on that.

Continue reading “Rossi Scores Two in Two Games”

This one is circulating around forums and seems like the real deal. It’s a poster someone took a picture of and uploaded it. The good news is that it is a black kit. I wanted a black kit this time. The bad news is that it is not this one. I really wanted that one to be the away kit.

Nonetheless, this kit below is pretty good, although the picture quality is bad.

Picture of the kit after the jump.

Continue reading “Manchester United ‘Official’ 07/08 Away Kit”