Cracking atmosphere in Turfmoore tonight by the looks of it…
Looks like a lot of teams might struggle there alright, but it’s no real excuse for United, they’ve encountered plenty of feverish atmosphere in their time and dealt with it better than they did there tonight.
In fairness they were missing there first choice keeper and centre back partnership and but they are lacking real quality out wide…Valencia will be a flop while Berbatov looks like he doesn’t give a fuck…
Chelsea looking like a very good bet at this early stage, where supposed to have been very impressive last night
Wouldn’t say there are any very good bets at this stage, whatever people’s opinions were before the first 2 games shouldn’t really change now, it would just be an overreaction.
Wouldn’t be a fan of his but Jermaine Defoe hit a pretty impressive hat trick tonight, third was a thunderbolt…
i reckon arsenal should break the bank for obe mikel…he’s a superb holding midfield player that arsenal badly need and to me he’s going play second fiddle to ballack this season…mikel had a very good first half again’ hull…was then subbed off at halftime and hasn’t got back in the team… to compound a bad week for him he’s going to get the lolly from my fantasy team…
[quote=“briantinnion”]Shan me aul flower - Fergie is not in charge of the purse strings at United, the Ronaldo money has gone towards paying down some debt.
United won’t be challenging this season,they’ll limp into fourth. It’ll be between Chelsea and Arsenal.[/quote]
Lawrence Donegan knows the score
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2009/aug/20/manchester-united-alex-ferguson-transfers
Manchester United’s transfer window looks curiouser and curiouser
Everything is relative, as Albert Einstein might have said about the universe, which as we all know is far less important in the greater scheme of things than the comings and goings in the Premier League.
So when people argue that the Glazers have been decent owners of Manchester United, they are not suggesting they have been perfect but simply that they could have been a lot worse. They could, for instance, have been Tom Hicks and George Gillett. Or Rupert Murdoch or Michael Knighton, both of whom almost did own United.
Instead, the club ended up in the hands of the highly secretive and, more to the point, highly leveraged Americans back in the summer of 2005. Since then, results have been good, which has gone some way to quieten the criticism that accompanied the arrival of the men from Tampa and the creative for the want of a better word way they financed buying an English institution.
It has helped that they have seldom been seen in Manchester and, as much as anyone can tell, they have let David Gill do what he is paid to do and Sir Alex Ferguson do what he is a genius at doing. Sure, ticket prices are high and the marketing department wields way too much power another Asian tour anyone? but that is standard procedure at clubs of United’s stature and it is hard to believe it would have been markedly different under different owners.
Yet opinions might change if, as many now seem to think, the United squad for the coming season is now set. No one in their right mind reads the swath of transfer rumours that circulate at this time of the year without assuming that the vast majority are fantasy. Maybe 1% of them are true, maybe even less. Yet football people are like people in every other walk of life, in that they just can’t keep their mouth shut, especially if they actually do know something.
Inevitably, they let something slip to someone who lets it slip to someone else and so on until the initial truth, modified and distilled, eventually ends up in the papers and on the websites. The point being that there is usually a kernel of truth in the rumours, or at least a whiff of what is actually going on.
That being so, it would seem that nothing is going on at Manchester United, not unless you count the ever more frequent suggestions that Nemanja Vidic will be heading out the door, as have Carlos Tevez and Cristiano Ronaldo. Even if this is not the case, it wouldn’t alter the fact that there has been a very curious transfer window at Old Trafford, one in which United have been net sellers, with most of the 80m received for Ronaldo currently sitting in the bank.
This could be coincidence, or it might simply be a case of bad luck. Maybe the attempt to sign Karim Benzema really was aborted because he didn’t represent good value at 35m. Likewise Tevez, another player deemed not to have been good value at the asking price. Whether this is true of either player (especially in today’s febrile market) is debatable.
What is indisputable is that value for money has never been the primary guiding force at United. If Ferguson wanted a player he usually got him, regardless of the price, as was the case with Dimitar Berbatov. Something has clearly changed, then, and we can assume it isn’t Ferguson’s desire to win or his judgment of football flesh. As he conceded, it is impossible to replace Ronaldo, the best player in the world. But to not even try is completely out of character, not least because it leaves United in a weaker position than they were last season. Surely, Ferguson would find that intolerable, unless he has been put in a position where he has been forced to tolerate it.
There are few people able to bend the Scotsman’s will, but by virtue of their status as United’s owners the Glazers are among them, especially if the family has finally decided to make its influence felt in football matters for reasons that have nothing to do with football and everything to do with finance. If so, if the Manchester United of 2009 really has been turned into a selling club, they might find that shallow pool of goodwill that has carried them thus far will disappear just as quickly as you can say “Isn’t that what Hicks and Gillett have done to Liverpool?”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2009/aug/20/manchester-united-alex-ferguson-transfers
I learnt during Monday’s Football Weekly that Lawrence used play bass with The Bluebells and Lloyd Cole and the Commotions.
Everytime I see his name now I hear that fucking Young At Heart song in my head. Remember it was a number 1 years ago? I hated it.
Apart from that, he does indeed know the score.
[quote=“Thrawneen”]I learnt during Monday’s Football Weekly that Lawrence used play bass with The Bluebells and Lloyd Cole and the Commotions.
Everytime I see his name now I hear that fucking Young At Heart song in my head. Remember it was a number 1 years ago? I hated it.
Apart from that, he does indeed know the score.[/quote]
Yeah, he’s seems like a good egg. He caddied on the European Tour for a year and wrote a book about it a few years back. He also did something else in Scotland and wrote a book about it - can’t really recall, something like he spent a year working for a tiny newspaper in the highlands and wrote a diary about his year as a roving reporter dealing with ‘cat stuck in tree’ type stories.*
- This has come from the very deep recesses of my mind and may well be bullshit.
[quote=“Bandage”]Yeah, he’s seems like a good egg. He caddied on the European Tour for a year and wrote a book about it a few years back. He also did something else in Scotland and wrote a book about it - can’t really recall, something like he spent a year working for a tiny newspaper in the highlands and wrote a diary about his year as a roving reporter dealing with ‘cat stuck in tree’ type stories.*
- This has come from the very deep recesses of my mind and may well be bullshit.[/quote]
Didn’t one of the lads say he also wrote for a Republican newspaper or something? Definitely an alright sort.
What’s the story with this new ESPN channel? Have they taken over from Setanta?
Man City playing some nice football here against Pompey, stroking in around well…Adebayor got their goal but looking like more will follow…1-0 City…
Wonder what odds Roberto Martinez is to be first manager sacked…They are just after losing 2-1 to everton through a last minute peno…Three defeats in a row in the league and hammered in the League cup during the week
Would say Paul Hart(Portsmouth) would ahead of him. Martinez is a Wigan old boy, should buy him some time. Hart has just got a new boss and they cant buy a win.
Chelsea behind at Stoke. Liverpool beating Burnley. City beating Arsenal.
Drogba gets Chelsea Level. 8 minutes of injury time due to injuries to Beattie and Sorenson.
Anyone have a link for the Man v City Arsenal game?
Andy Reid scored for Sunderland.
3-1 city…Fair play to Hughes, looks like he is getting them to gel…