haha deluded mancs

[Barnesy_10]

I am loving this Van Nistelrooy leaving for a bargain and them buying Carrick for a daft amount when Spurs get the better player to replace him for much cheaper... fair play Jol.

 

Anyway, the mancs I have spoken to about Horse leaving are saying things like he fell out with Ferige, theres no place for troublemakers... Fergie knows best etc etc... So now its Stam, Keane, Beckham and Van Nistelrooy who have left surrounding fallings out with Fergie... so at what point can the finger be pointed at the manager? Yes he's been a great manager over the years and its great to see such a challenge at the top of the table these last few years, and Liverpool achieving much more than they have this century thus far, but how long can Manc fans accept whats going on at their club? If it were happening at Liverpool I would be deeply concerned, of course I am not saying all Manc fans feel this way, but from what I have seen on some forums it seems to be the majority saying 'believe in the manager etc etc'...

 

some quality quotes on Redcafe trying to justify Horsey leaving, saying how its been clear the last two years that Ruud is on the decline, and that before he left he was Mancs 3rd best striker This is the same player who even though fell out with the manager and was dropped to the bench for a long time, he still was one of the top strikers in the league... Very hard to replace... Especially hard for the likes of a manager who makes one half decent signing every four years.

 

Another thing... their greatest asset is Rooney. Hes won a worthington cup medal with them, thats it.. If I were a gambling man I would put a lot of money on Rooney being at Barca or Madrid next summer.

Am fed up of manc fans seemingly ignorant to their own problems and just ask about 'oooh do you think Gerrard will stay much longer, or Alonso will leave etc', why should they leave? they are at the greatest club in the world and arguably the most successful over the last few years... something the mancs haven't been... they seem to think that playing for Man U is enough for a player, maybe for a fan of the club, but Rooney who is arguably driven by his girlfriend as much as he is his advisors won't be satisfied with winning f*** all for another year...

 

 

am slightly pissed so its waffled a bit, but its just exciting to see how the Mancs wil ltry and claw their way out of this one.

[Spike]

f*** that Macca, let's trounce the scum

[Spike]

Fair point Knox but all of the Manc fans that I know, including season ticket holders, are s***ting themselves about this season.

[Knox_Harrington]

Fair point Knox but all of the Manc fans that I know, including season ticket holders, are s***ting themselves about this season.

Yeah, I think it's an interesting one. They haven't a dominant centre half, a dominant centre mid nor the goal scoring machine that is Nistlerooy. But having said that they could have a well-oiled unit of people working for each other which they arguably haven't had since they began to break up the Beckham/Butt/Scholes/Neville generation. Saha and Rooney look to have dovetailed nicely, they missed Heinze hugely last season and now they have him back and getting quality in midfield could give them some impetus.

 

Feel that both them and Arsenal could go either way. Both need a good start because neither have the leadership in the middle to drag the team by the bootlaces anymore. I think that's why fans of both sides are s***ting themselves.

[Ombudsam]

Yeah, I think it's an interesting one. They haven't a dominant centre half, a dominant centre mid nor the goal scoring machine that is Nistlerooy. But having said that they could have a well-oiled unit of people working for each other which they arguably haven't had since they began to break up the Beckham/Butt/Scholes/Neville generation. Saha and Rooney look to have dovetailed nicely, they missed Heinze hugely last season and now they have him back and getting quality in midfield could give them some impetus.

 

Feel that both them and Arsenal could go either way. Both need a good start because neither have the leadership in the middle to drag the team by the bootlaces anymore. I think that's why fans of both sides are s***ting themselves.

 

We'll see what this Vidic can do. As much as it hurts Ferguson is just too good a manager to have United being that bad an outfit. He's been in the game so long and knows every trick. Look what he did with the shambles he had to pick from last season. Won a trophy and bagged 2nd

 

This is going to be an awesome title race. It's almost a shame Spurs didn't get Duff as I thionk this could be the best prem since it started

[R A Softlad]

Rooney who is arguably driven by his girlfriend

 

This just popped into my head when I read that.

 

[Ostrich Man]

we'll have won the league by christmas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

probably.

[Cunny]

I think the mancs have got a decent deal for a 30 year old forward past his prime. The key is who they replace him.

People on this forum have been talking about the mancs suppossed decline since it's inception and still we have only finished above them once in that time.

[Jon]

Shredding his legacy at every turn

 

Sir Alex Ferguson's brilliance famously knocked Liverpool off their perch. Now his incompetence is doing the same to Manchester United. How did it come to this, wonders Rob Smyth

 

Monday July 31, 2006

Guardian Unlimited

 

 

 

 

It was John Cleese, in Clockwise, who said: "I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand." Manchester United fans would beg to differ. Usually, the best thing about pre-season is the hope: reality's incisors have yet to pierce the gums of optimism, and fans can live off the balmy, often barmy belief that this is their year. For supporters of most of the other 91 English clubs, that's the mood right now. For United fans? Forget it. After three seasons of papering over the cracks, it seems most United fans are awaiting the moment that the fault lines tracing a veiny path across Old Trafford are exposed

 

 

 

Almost everything about the club reeks of disarray. Owned by the Glazers, who push buttons from a remote hideaway like Dr Evil; run by a manager who shreds his legacy at every turn; almost exclusively represented by the inadequate (Darren Fletcher and Kieran Richardson) and the odious (Rio Ferdinand); unable to close a deal for West Brom's reserve keeper, never mind the new Roy Keane. The signing of Michael Carrick, a Pirlo when a Gattuso was needed, is a band aid for a bullet wound, and a ludicrously expensive one at that.

 

If anything, it's a surprise that United have bought anyone at all. This summer, they have been like a pathetic drunk lumbering across a dancefloor at 1.45am, trying to get off with everything that moves. No matter how many people they move in for - and if reports are to be believed, United have made offers for dozens of players - nobody wants to go near them. And the one person who surely would, Damien Duff, was allowed to slip into the arms of Newcastle for less than United paid for Patrice Evra. You couldn't make it up. You don't have to.

 

United finished second last season, but that said more about the deficiency of the Premiership than their own. Arsenal will not have a four-month blind spot this season, while all evidence suggests that Liverpool's gradient will continue on its upward trajectory. With Tottenham getting stronger, even with the loss of Carrick, it is entirely conceivable that, if they start slowly, United could finish fifth; in today's environment, that would be disastrous.

 

The problems are so obvious, so fundamental, as to be beggar belief that they have not been addressed. Just as the glory years of 1992 to 2001 will only fully be appreciated in 20 years' time, so will Ferguson's subsequent failure. It is particularly bewildering that a man who once exerted such an unyielding grip on every single aspect of the club that he had to be virtually coerced into delegating has let things slip to this extent. Take the Cristiano Ronaldo situation: Ferguson said recently that he had not even spoken to Ronaldo since the World Cup, a staggering dereliction of duty that is in total contrast to the us-against-the-world protection that he gave to David Beckham - and for which, for a time, he was so thrillingly rewarded - in 1998.

 

Once upon a time Ferguson could play 'who blinks first' with fate and win every time, his iron will shaping his destiny exactly as he wanted. Now he is reduced to uttering garbage like "it's like having a new signing" of Paul Scholes, Ole Solskjaer, Gabriel Heinze and Alan Smith, the irrational if-I-say-it-enough-it-might-happen gibberish you'd associate with a serial loser like Kevin Keegan. These days, the man they call The Hairdryer is full of nothing but hot air.

 

Ferguson's squad, once so taut, is a baggy mess of has-beens, never-will-bes and Liam Miller. The simple repetition of 4-4-2, of Giggs, Scholes, Keane, Beckham, Cole and Yorke, has given way to myriad tactical and personnel changes, to a ruinous obsession with utility players and tinkering. It's a truly appalling fact that, with Ruud van Nistelrooy gone, none of United's outfield players have played in only one position at the club. A nadir was reached in the FA Cup game at Wolves last season, when nearly £60m of defensive and attacking talent (Ferdinand and Wayne Rooney) was used in the centre of midfield.

 

It is an increasingly inescapable conclusion that, unwittingly or otherwise, Ferguson is winding down, a prizefighter who no longer has the stomach or the wit for an admittedly enormous challenge which, once upon a time, he would have fervently inhaled. Like he did with Liverpool. Ferguson's almost maniacal yearning to "knock Liverpool off their fecking perch" was arguably the single most important factor in United's 1990s renaissance. It makes it all the more vicious an irony that, 10 years later, he should knock United off the perch he had made for them through increasingly rank mismanagement.

 

Indeed, it must irk him beyond belief that United are making exactly the same mistakes that Liverpool did: lack of pheromones in the transfer market; laughable, fall-back signings at suspicious and ridiculous prices; deluded ramblings ("we are as good as Chelsea, no question") - and, worst of all, a dressing-room where playing the field seems as important as playing the game. Liverpool's Spice Boys were bad, but they have nothing on Merk Berks like Ferdinand, Richardson and Wes Brown.

 

Ferguson has taken this end-of-an-empire template and, incredibly, managed to develop it: he's added a sprawling, outsized squad chock-full of obscenely well-paid deadwood; insultingly obvious spin that a two-year-old could see through (the Van Nistelrooy saga); economy with the truth (Ferguson ridiculed a journalist for saying that Paul Scholes had been scouting for United; a few days later Scholes confirmed the story); a coaching set-up that had Wayne Rooney playing wide for a season and turned Ronaldo from the world's most thrilling off-the-wall talent into a run-of-the-mill winger.

 

Ferguson, an essentially honourable man, is partly suffering because of the impossibly high standards he set, and he carries the fatigued incomprehension of a man who is out of time. When he cites his favourite United team it is not the Treble-winners of 1999, but the Double-winners of 1994: Schmeichel, Bruce, Pallister, Ince, Keane, Hughes, Cantona, Robson - a team that dripped masculinity, who bonded over blockbusting Saturday-night sessions, who embodied the old-school values to which Ferguson can relate. Real men. The gentrification generation - sarong-wearing, pink champagne-swigging metrosexuals - are entirely beyond his comprehension. He could handle one, David Beckham, for a time before eventually giving up on him. Now he has a pack of them, for whom the hairdryer means only one thing - a trip to Toni & Guy. It is a different world. Ferguson probably doesn't even know what 'merk' means.

 

Everywhere, principles are being sacrificed. In years gone by Ferdinand - who for all his irrefutable ability is the type of character whose presence in a United shirt symbolises everything that has gone wrong with the club - would've been out the door faster than Paul Ince could say 'big-time Charlie', but now Ferguson can't afford to lose his only world-class defender. In years gone by he wouldn't have considered signing someone like Patrick Vieira, on grounds of age or character, but now he is left looking for someone, anyone, to appease the fans. In years gone by he would never have given a game to someone like John O'Shea, whose sole use is to put the podge in a hodgepodge midfield. In years gone by, he would never have sanctioned the mediocre football that, except for a few giddy weeks in the spring of 2003, United have played ever since Carlos Queiroz arrived in 2002 masquerading gobbledygook as continental sophistication.

 

And the thing is, it is only going to get worse: Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham have all made shrewd, cheap signings and are on an upward trajectory. United are going the other way: they are hugely dependent on Ferdinand and Rooney, but no amount of Carling Cup medals is going to sate their ambition. Then there is the Glazer factor, the full, inevitable horror of which is only just beginning to emerge. United fans think this season is going to be bad. It hasn't even started.

[Coyler]

.

Edited August 1, 2006 by Coyler

[Ostrich Man]

Carrick and now i hear we're gonna get Viera.

 

 

 

we're gonna take this at a canter.

 

 

easy peasy lemon squeezy

[Andy @ Allerton]

Can I just say that despite the delusions etc....

 

Their new home kit by Nike is classy. Saw it on SSN just now and it looks nice and retro. How long before we "follow suit"?.

 

 

 

I'm sorry - are you joking?

 

The colour of it and that massive stupid logo makes it one of the worst kits I've seen in a long while - when they played celtic the other day - it didn't look red really - it was a horrible dark reddy kind of off-colour sick colour..

[Tosh]

The sort of deep red that our kit used to be before Reebok made it orange?

[5InIstanbul]

Why do we do this every year.

 

Last season we took 1 point off them. Yes it should have been a fairly comfortable 6, but we didn't and it was 1. And they finished above us in the league. Arguably we bottled it in both league games and in that league period when they went in front and away from us.

 

I think we should just get on with it and hope our optimism is founded. Caning the Mancs just never seems to work.

 

If they are not right up there next season I'll be astonished.

[Cobs]

their kit is ok, the AIG logo in a box is feckin awful

[Knox_Harrington]

their kit is ok, the AIG logo in a box is feckin awful

Yep.

[Ahmed Dimwitson]

Why do we do this every year.

 

 

was thinking the same thing. Every year starts off with a discussion of how weak United are now, and then come May United are above you in the table.

[stressederic]

Can I just say that despite the delusions etc....

 

Their new home kit by Nike is classy. Saw it on SSN just now and it looks nice and retro. How long before we "follow suit"?.

 

 

That kit is bloody awful. It's some weird off-red colour, the logo is horrendous and the badge looks like a christmas card.

Edited August 1, 2006 by stressederic

[mally]

 

 

 

 

does the AIG stand for Alex Is Going?

[Guest Anders Honoré]

the badge is a bit too large but other than that, I kinda like it, tbh.

[Cobs]

the badge is a bit too large but other than that, I kinda like it, tbh.

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

MANC!!!!!!

[Guest Jack Bauer]

Why do we do this every year.

 

Last season we took 1 point off them. Yes it should have been a fairly comfortable 6, but we didn't and it was 1. And they finished above us in the league. Arguably we bottled it in both league games and in that league period when they went in front and away from us.

 

I think we should just get on with it and hope our optimism is founded. Caning the Mancs just never seems to work.

 

If they are not right up there next season I'll be astonished.

 

We knocked them out of the FA Cup, which was well better.

[Guest Anders Honoré]

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

MANC!!!!!!

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «