Red Rants

This blog is not dead. I’ve been out of town during the weekend, and have had some urgent matters to attend to. Apologies to everyone for not covering the testimonial of a true United legend.

Regular service will resume either later in the day or tomorrow.

Until then feel free to discuss away as the lads take on Peterborough later today. Sorry for the inconvenience (?) and thanks for understanding.

There have been requests for a fantasy football league to be setup in the comments, so I thought I’d do it. I just wasn’t sure if it would keep up the attention span of people for an entire season, but hey, if there are prizes to be won, then I guess that is enough motivation.

Anyway, here is how you join:

Continue reading “Join 08/09 Red Rants Fantasy Football. Win Prizes!”

The Sun runs a story today that Rio Ferdinand could face a four match ban. It’s only the Sun at the moment that carries this ‘exclusive’ (that’s why they call it an exclusive, don’t they?), but one wonders why it’s taken them this long. Ferdinand lashed out after the Chelsea game, which seems like aeons ago. The part of the article that reckons that his captaincy status for England would be threatened is pure bollocks, because that would be Capello’s decision. But if he does get punished, we could be in for a rocky start to the season. Not that I lack confidence in Brown but Ferdinand has grown in stature so much that his assurance is absolutely crucial.

I am not going to cry conspiracy, because if he is found guilty then I couldn’t possibly condone it. I don’t want my players, especially the ones who are the presumed leaders in the side lose it — it shows your weakness more than anything. At the moment I’ll adopt an ‘innocent until proven guilty’ stance.

Continue reading “Ronaldo’s Alligator Adventure + Cannavaro - Zola - Eriksson - Pele - Banks - Ferdinand”

… and pigs flying? Too many questions. So little time. Well there is plenty of time but, you see, I have to run off on an errand or two after this so I’ll get right into this straight away without much waffling.

There have been stories that Darren Fletcher has caught David Moyes’ fancy. I think Fletcher should not move because players like him is the reason why we are where we are.

Continue reading “Fletch For Everton? Pako for a ‘Thrilled’ Queiroz?”

Welcome back. Hopefully most of you might be able to read this now that the site is fully functional. As mentioned yesterday, we went through a bit of house cleaning — house moving, rather — as we shifted servers and made changes to the backend.

While we planned an overhaul of the visible part, we decided that can wait. However, we will hope to add some more features that’s visible to you to make the commenting experience better and more expressive.

Continue reading “It’s Holiday Time at Old Trafford”

I’ve been meaning to write a set of guidelines to make certain things clear to commenters on this site. Of course, these are in addition to the comments policy on this site. What I am going to say won’t be ground-breakingly new but a repeat of things I’ve been saying all along for about a year just to remind people of some key issues on the site.

So hear me out…

• Whilst you are allowed freedom to express yourself in anyway as long as the object of your reference is United, the players or football in general, you can’t judge or attack or make some presumptions on fellow commenters as for the most part they will find that annoying. Also snide remarks that seek to wind people up will be frowned upon; if you have something to say, say it don’t try to back-hand the person.
• I don’t enjoy moderating fights that go on in the comments section. It’s very tiresome trying to keep one’s cool and trying to understand where both parties are coming from and then having to make a decision. But it has to be done, and I will continue to do it.
• Whilst I’ve been fairly patient in listening to emails, responses and grievances from readers regarding being attacked or offended by certain comments, at the end of the day I hold the sole discretion to make a call. You will have to agree with it and move on. If you can’t then I suggest making use of the multitude of links on our blogroll — they are all good United fan sites and I am not forcing you to read this site. You come here on your own volition. You know it and I know it too which leads me to the next point
• I don’t hold any personal vendetta against any particular commenter. Some of you might find this laughable but I have got emails from not one or two but several people thinking that I have been partial towards the other party — often it has been from both people on either side of the warring fence! I think I have a fair idea of what is good for the site: if I keep banning people for no rhyme or reason it will be this site which will suffer. So yes, I do know what is good, and my decisions will be for the good of this site and community.
• You can make controversial remarks but when you do so you must open yourself to being questioned. You have to be prepared to take it if you dish it out, of course, as long as there is only questioning of ideas; not personal.
• At the end of the day, and I’ll repeat it, I make the final decision to resolve fights and I don’t intend to pick on anyone when I make a choice. Respect it and move on. Or, you know, this is not the only United site… bah! You get the point.

PS: Don’t worry, this isn’t the last post for the next 24 hours. Another post will follow soon.

… yes, dear readers, indulge me this day. Today I will talk about myself.

It was one year to this day that this site was launched.

So here is wishing this site a very happy anniversary (bloggiversary?)

Continue reading “Allow Me This Indulgence…”

This is to enlighten readers of this site that Soccerlens has launched it’s first Blogging Awards.

I would also like to mention that this site was not nominated for any of the categories. But then, as you may have seen, I don’t write for awards. They are incidental, you know — actually pointless. And of course, I certainly have more class than these lowly awards. I mean, who cares?

Oh, and a fox cried “Sour Grapes!”.

Anyway, honestly though, I would recommend you all to head over to Soccerlens and vote for the various categories — and trust me, there are quite a few excellent blogs out there; some of which you may have never heard of before. Personally, I was pleased to see top notch ones like 200Percent and Pitch Invasion get nominated, among others.

More than the voting, such awards serve to bring into focus a lot of quality content on the web that one may not have stumbled upon earlier, and this is a good chance for readers to find more such blogs to waste time.

Happy voting.

This site is not down. It is very much alive. I am finally home and free from jet lag. And I certainly promise to bring RR back to it’s glory days.

About the Newcastle game report, I will write one. I missed the game but I still did watch the entire recorded match. So I will get a small report. Surely, our biggest win of this season deserves a match report?

Also I will get back to discussing United rumours and news.

And I will get to this soon. Before signing off, here’s the video of the Newcastle game again [Motd].

Redrants are proud to run a competition in conjunction with our pals at Savile Rogue, purveyors of the world’s finest football scarves. Woven in the pure cashmere wool in a traditional Scottish cashmere mill, their scarves are made in the classic, red, black and white bar design.
Continue reading “Win A Free Scarf from Savile Rogue”