Ever since the Glazers took over Manchester United Football Club, plunging it into severe debt — on a scale as large as they come — there was hardly much to cheer about if you were a United fan; at least in the early days. The first full ‘Glazer year’ in charge was the unfolding of, what many fans thought to be, the end of the world for United; a Carling Cup win and a limp Champions’ League campaign that saw us knocked out of the group stages was just too hard to bear. Not to mention the departure of a certain Roy Keane and a pasting at the hands of Middlesbrough.

The Guardian ran a piece today, revealing that the club has suffered losses despite the rosy pictures painted earlier, on the club’s financial position.

Continue reading “The Glazer Debt — Dark Truth or Mere Paranoia?”

This post could create a lot of controversy, so I want to make it clear that I don’t have anything against foreign players per se. Many of the United greats have been from beyond these shores, and I revere them as much as anyone else.

That said, I have always been proud that United has had a core of players from the British Isles (note that’s worded carefully enough to include the Republic of Ireland). United are an English team, who have always placed high value on local talent and team spirit. I need scarcely draw the comparisons with the other big sides:

Continue reading “The British Element”

Being a Manchester United fan comes with some responsibility: you just have to taunt every single Liverpool fan you come across and if you attend games, make the atmosphere incendiary - it would really help players. In return, you are the fan of a club who has a divine right to domestic success and your team plays some of the nicest football out there. Or not.

There was huge anticipation ahead of the Barcelona - Man Utd game in the Champions League semi-final. Many bloggers or journalists or drunk ‘experts’ (call them what you will) made everyone believe that this would be the game of the season. In all fairness, the game wasn’t all bad. Messi was outstanding, Xavi and Iniesta had some blinding moments and even Thierry Henry looked on form. The only problem is that these were all Barcelona players.

Continue reading “A disgruntled fan’s views on the Barca game”

Please welcome, one of RR’s readers (and commenters), Conor.

Here we are again, crunch time, squeaky bum time, the big finale, the mutt’s nuts, whatever you want to call it. A day before probably the most important match of our season, followed by a match of equal importance, and it made me look back.

Continue reading “So How Good Is Manchester United?”

There was a time when Manchester United fans were mocked for their manager’s dealings in the transfer window. If the point had been about spending money, we could have handled it. But the accusation was that the manager had signed players unfit for United, and it stung all the more because they were right.

However, since summer 2005, every single player the gaffer has brought in has proven their worth as a valuable squad member. Fergie has a perfect record in transfers for the last 2 seasons, and yet no one seems to have pointed this out as a contributing reason for United’s success in the last 2 years.

Let’s take a look, shall we?

Continue reading “Celebrating Fergie’s 100% record in transfers”

There is no official confirmation from the horse’s mouth but Times Online, the Guardian and The Telegraph — all carry the story. It appears that it’s only a matter of time before Rio puts pen to paper and that the club is waiting for it to officially happen before announcing. While there hasn’t been any direct quotes, it looks like it will happen sooner rather than later.

Continue reading “Rio Almost Signs - Can Fergie Make Him the Captain From Next Season?”

It is not in my nature to necessarily pick on people’s misery, especially if it comes from a person known for his serial whingeries (I take the liberty of ‘inventing’ such a word). But sometimes they take whining to an entirely new level that it becomes hard to ignore.

On the eve of United’s clash with Arsenal, Arsene Wenger let’s fly his agony missiles.

Continue reading “Wenger Whines Again”

Some shite tabloid went with the headline ‘Manchester United fans want Giggs axed’ and when I read it, it pissed me off. It’s the fkn business end of the season, do we really need knee-jerk reactions and idiots who hit the panic button when they can’t find where they put their keys to represent us?

Axing Giggs is NOT the answer. When he plays well, everyone harps on about how his critics are wrong. When he plays poorly, the critics have a ball. No one’s getting to the real problem - our own ridiculous expectations.

Continue reading “Fickle Fans, Old Legs and Injuries”

We are playing Middlesbrough on Sunday, so we’ll get to talking about them, possibly from tomorrow. We have also discussed Vidic’s injury in the comments yesterday — always trust iron-man Vidic’s superhuman powers of recovery. He’s a tough lad and hopefully he should return in a little over three weeks, to put it more conservatively.

Apart from my usual daily updates — well, I try to make it daily — I do notice that I have written very few pure opinion pieces recently. So I thought I’d make up for that by talking about one facet of United’s play this season that could eventually prove to be decisive.

Continue reading “Versatility, Thy Name is United”

Sir Alex must have been behind plenty of transfers in his time in football. It adds up: a new centre-back every three years or so, countless midfielders, even more goalkeepers and a few strikers, but one position he has not touched in a while has been the right-back position.

Continue reading “Should United keep Brown?”