Connect with us

Manchester United News

United gravy train chugs back after Asian jaunt

So after completing the Asian money-making exercise leg of the pre-season, United return to Europe with a stop in Germany (Munich, in particular) to play in the Audi Cup. This ‘Cup competition’ involves United playing two matches on Wednesday and Thursday (of this week). With such a demanding schedule, I honestly hope they are in the plane to Munich, like right now.

In this Audi Cup we’re speaking of, we will be playing Boca Juniors on Wednesday whilst Bayern play Milan in the other game. The winners of each will play each other on Thursday, whilst the losers play each other in a third-place match. And that’s really about it. This means we get to face some decent opposition where we can hopefully glean a little more about the way our side is shaping up than a rather pointless day of kickabout against Greentown something-something club. [Lawyers reckon I must add “with due respect” while referring to that Greentown something-something club. So, with due respect…]

In the friendlies that zoomed past, I couldn’t catch a single match in its entirety live. So I had to rely on reports on blogs, highlight reels on youtube, and other forms of the social media sphere such as facebook and twitter to see what other fans thought of some of the players. The general consensus, if there was ever such a thing, is that we seem to be switching back to a system that was more predictable and classic — the one that relied on wingers providing telling crosses. We do have a couple of players capable of providing consistent delivery. Zoran Tosic and Nani have been able to do so quite well this pre-season and so has Darron Gibson. As an aside, I always saw Gibbo as a central midfielder and not a right sided one (although he has played in that position in the past).

Berbatov seems to be showing more hunger while Macheda has managed to take the chances presented to him. For a 17 year old striker looking to make his mark, that’s about as good as you can get. And finally — the biggest plus so far — Michael Owen is still fit. I just wildly knocked on some woodwork as I wrote this.

And that, sadly, is all I can say about the Asia tour.

Meanwhile, Emmanuel Adebayor gave his perspective of truth (after all, truth is really a matter of opinions, no?) on his transfer to Man City. When asked about Ferguson’s comments that he wanted to come to United/Chelsea he said, “There was interest from other clubs but I don’t want to dwell on that now.”

There have been question marks raised over our ‘keepers, which has prompted Edwin van der Sar to declare that it would be hard for either of the two backups to dislodge him from his number one spot. Well, if we were to mix owl vomit with beaver turd and place it in a bowl by the goal post, would even that stench from the concoction struggle to dislodge him? That is the sort of question we must ask. And, would Ben Foster and co be prepared to withstand that stench to become our number one? We shall have to wait and see. Because, that, to me, is the real way of identifying the best man for the keeper’s job at United ever since we lost Schmeichel. Honest.

* * *

Meanwhile, some interesting links for today include…

1. Mark Ogden wraps up reporting United’s final Asian pre-season game against Greentown H… (with due respect) club with a glowing report on Owen.

2. Mark Hughes thinks the poster was “a bit of fun between the fans” — conveniently sidestepping the fact that it was a banner created by the club (like, official stuff, and all that).

3. Nicolas Anelka thinks Chelsea are a far bigger threat to United on account of Ronaldo and Tevez’s departure.

And that’s about it. I’m off for now, and you know you can find me throughout the day on the comments or twitter, or facebook.