I’ve been trawling through pages randomly when I bumped across this article on the Telegraph. It started off like the usual articles one gets to read on the back of a great performance by United. The usual stuff — on this occasion, bringing Rooney’s birthday into perspective, as if his day had an astral significance on events that unfolded in Kiev — punctuated the article, with facts that United’s injury ‘crisis’ hasn’t really affected their play.
But it was towards the end of the page that I came upon these quotes from our Utility Man.
Continue reading “Why We Love John O’Shea”
This is the final part of our three part series, where we take a look at our players’ performances so far this season. For the benefit of those who haven’t read the previous two — where we profiled the attack and midfield — here is Part I and Part II for you.
So sit back and read on as we get through what was, basically, an excuse to get through this international break which, by the way, has been going on forever.
Continue reading “Manchester United Player Ratings: The Defence”
This is part two of our three part series, looking back at our season so far. Player ratings are, admittedly, an objective way of looking at things. But with the current break giving us only pointless transfer rumours to chew about, we might as well look back at some of our players who’ve featured so far.
For those who missed Part I where we dwelt on our attackers, you can have a look at that here.
Today, as mentioned in the title, we will be taking a look at the midfield — more specifically this will be central midfield. We discussed wingers along with our attackers.
Continue reading “Manchester United Player Ratings: The Midfield”
Now that the international break is well underway, it could be a fair enough time to look back at the season so far and reflect on the team’s performance. Well, it wasn’t necessarily electrifying to start with, but things have been picking up and, hopefully, we’ll continue in the same vein as we left off against Wigan.
So let’s look at our players — those who have played in the team — one by one.
Continue reading “Manchester United Player Ratings: The Attack”
It is all over the news and it was certain to crop up sometime sooner or later. If Rooney manages to make it for the Everton game it would be a record of some sorts for a player who broke his metatarsal just four weeks ago for the millionth time.
The player is desperate to get back to the side. There is no doubt about it. It was the first summer in a while where he stayed injury free and away from a major international tournament. Coming off a season which was labelled by the media as poor, by his own standards, he was hungry to impress and was looking really good in pre-season.
Continue reading “Rushing Rooney Would Be Foolish”
Hope you’re having a good Sunday. I, for one, am not. The whole international break thing is crap. Especially after just three weeks since the season started. It’s like getting on to the freeway after spending an hour negotiating a traffic jam only to suddenly come upon another serpentine queue of stationary cars, honking furiously at those in front. Go figure, if you find the analogy a little off.
Anyway, international breaks, like those periodic dentist check-ups, are necessary evils. These are times when you would want to keep your fingers (arms and legs) crossed, fervently hoping that your players avoid anything untoward.
Now that the first set of international games are over, let’s all heave a sigh of relief.
Continue reading “Ronaldo Scores, Players Come Through Unscathed… So Far”
(Note: This is Part Two of the two part tribute to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Yours truly, here, couldn’t really be satisfied with what he’s written to do complete justice to the man, so he felt it was better to use a contrasting example of another departed ex-Red to fully highlight the true importance of players like Ole. Part One, which was a video & images tribute, can be read here.)
No one could fathom that a player who was signed from a little known club, which went by the name of Molde, instead of another future legend (albeit for another club, Newcastle) would go on to become a legend himself. No one quite expected a player to make such a name for himself by just coming off the bench. No one could quite imagine a player to be so influential off and on the pitch and yet slip under the radar for most part. It was certainly in keeping with everything that Solskjaer stood for. The player, who, of course, despite the numerous contributions made by him for the United cause would be forever remembered for that day.
Continue reading “Heinze And Solskjaer Represent Two Different Worlds In Football Today”
According to reports from Sky Sports, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has decided to call it a day. He ends what has progressively become a far more troublesome knee than expected. Obviously it hasn’t been holding up as well as he thought and probably if he thinks that it is indeed time to quit, then so be it.
(Note: This post was written when news was filtering in from Sky. BBC also brought out reports. Although Manutd.com has remained mum so far. Anyway, even so, take this post as a trip down memory lane for our Ultimate Super Sub. If he does retire for real, then a tribute post will follow. Read on…)
A full tribute post is in order, with this being a curtain raiser (or an appetiser if you may).The encomiums will follow shortly. For the moment, just let these images, chants, clips sink in. We’ll get to the main course in some time.
Continue reading “To The (20)Legend, The Departed: Part I”
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.
I’ve always wondered, long before this site ever existed, how it would be to say goodbye to a player who’s served your club so admirably. The feeling of parting would be one thing that’s not totally alien. But expressing all those feelings that come rushing into your head, all at once, in some concrete form, is a different challenge.
So in this way, I wondered how difficult it might have been to say goodbye to such players - more prominently, names like Beckham, Ruud, Keano, even Stam and Phil Neville, come to mind. I’ve also wondered in the past about how tough it might be to write a fitting farewell to current players like Rooney, Ronaldo, Giggs, Scholes and so on. Needless to say, they are all extremely difficult if you plan to write a farewell that does justice to their contributions.
Apart from those names I mentioned above, I did also wonder about Gabriel Heinze.
Continue reading “So Long Heinze, And Thanks For The 8 Million!”
