Martin Samuel of The Daily Mail speaks of his admiration for Ryan Giggs.
The Guardian predictably tips Owen for the World Cup after his performance against Wolfsburg.
Vote for Ryan Giggs in The Spoiler‘s player of the year.
The Daily Mail reports on Paul Pogba.
The latest Rant Cast.
Check out the footie game Hattrick.
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Lizzy knight him up. I really thimk evra is doing fantastic for united this season but GIggs is the premiership played of the season in my book
van der sar given 12 month deal.
Owen should involve England Squad as he has the quality!
Voted for the King of Wales, of course.
Here’s a FACHT for everyone
Goals scored by Michael Owen in Champs Lge group stage: 4
Goals scored by Liverpool in Champs Lge Group stage: 5
Get your act together, Mickey!
FACHT
Dont play the hattrick game. I played it couple of years ago and it is a complete waste of time. You can never be as good as the guys who started the game earlier from you. It is pure money power.
Good read.
http://www.goal.com/en-india/news/2638/english-angle/2009/12/09/1675586/matt-monaghans-manchester-united-special-michael-owen-proves-hes-
http://www.tribalfootball.com/chelsea-lose-essien-two-months-498571
Essien out, a problem for Chelsea ? Looking at their next fixtures don’t think so.
Gotta say I voted for Left-back Pat. Though it was a tough call between him and Giggs.
Great piece by martin samuel, giggsy without doubt is the best player in the premiership era.
Ha, and if you think Rant cast is a bit dodgy this week I was on Red Wednesday, BBC GMR last night making a bit of a twat of myself. Gotta laugh.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/leagues/premierleague/manutd/6778095/Zoran-Tosic-determined-to-prove-his-worth-to-Manchester-United.html
Just seen the comments on the Manchester Evening News site about Owen the other night. This is just one of the idiotic comments from a “fan”:
“Actually Balders I have to side with Steve on Micheal Owen. His third goal was taken expertly his other two goals were basic, I could imagine Macheda doing the same and would prefer to see the youngsters get a chance than Owen who looks shot to me. He looks unbalanced and like he really stuggles to move or turn, his pace has deserted him. Although he scored three I thought he was pretty poor !! And yes I am aware how stupid that sounds !!
Lee , Heywood, Heywood”
All this talk about the World Cup is spectacularly boring. I can’t believe there are journalists getting paid to say, “If Owen keeps playing for United and scoring goals he’ll get picked for the world cup.” That’s the level of insight I’d expect from a fortune cookie.
Much as I enjoy seeing Giggs stretching his prime further and further I am a little disappointed by journalists continually talking about it to be honest. At the start of the season, when it was clear he was not showing his age, then it was news. Now it’s old news and sure, he’s great, but he’s been great for nearly twenty years. For me the bigger news has been the almost miraculous return to form of Paul Scholes, who is back with a vengeance. He’s played quite deep in the midfield so he’s not getting the goals or the assists that really earn the column inches or highlights on TV, but he’s breaking up attacks and spraying the ball to all corners of the park like a machine these days and notably without picking up many cards while he does it. Course to notice that sort of thing you’d have to pay attention and I doubt most journalists can be arsed with that when they can earn their salary for stating the obvious and regurgitating what they heard on Match of the Day.
Speaking of the world cup, has anyone else noticed how fixated Henry Winter of the Telegraph become with Owen…
Here’s a nice article I’ve found. Good write up on Fergie’s tactical changes for Wolfyburg match.
http://manutd24.wordpress.com/2009/12/10/sir-alex-turns-adversity-into-tactical-masterstroke/
Off-topic a little but does anyone else think some of our best performances this season seem to have come with a 3-man midfield? No 2 of our midfielders seem to be gelling particularly well but 3 in the middle really seems to bring Anderson and Scholesy to life. A front-3 of Valencia, Rooney and Giggsy seems to be working a treat. Just a thought…
what is this world cup thing all the papers keep going on about? who is this capello chap, and why all the fuss over our michael owen being selected for this capello character’s squad?
i am of the understanding that manchester united players only play for united, not some other team! who gives a fuck if this other team wants him!
only seen limited footage of pogba training and playing in the academy, but he sure looks like a player for the future. i just hope the viera comparison’s stop. veira in all honesty was quite a player to be sure, but it was easy for us to hate that man. i always wished keano beat the crap out of him during the gary neville pre-match tunnel incident.
long live ryan giggs! long live united!
my read of the day was
Nesta claiming he has no problem playing united in the CL, but that he get nightmares about barca and chel$ki.. just laughed and hope we pick ac milan.
Agree with mite about hattrick. Played it for about 3 years, the match engine was (and still is afaik) pretty poor.
The cricket offshoot, however, is blinding and I would recommend it for anyone who likes the real game: http://www.battrick.org
@ doghouse – way to not make generalizing statements about journalists and media…too bad not everyone is as smart as a guy named doghouse
@ rooninho – If in your mind slagging your country and international football is proof that you are a United fan than you are an idiot. You are also insinuating that the United players who care deeply about the world cup (i.e. all of them) are idiots as well…thank you for your useless insight…I wish I was as big of a United fan as you
@exiledred: Thats a very, very interesting observation – I was wondering about it myself. So long as you have players with great legs a three man midfield is great because you have players laying siege in the opponent’s half, or falling back to form a defensive wall. There was a post quite some time back about a 3-5-2 or a 3-1-4-2 formation, which could be quite interesting. In injury ravaged times like these, it could be something like this:
————-PIG/VDS————–
Evra——Vida—–Fletcher
————Carrick———-
Obertan—Giggs—Anderson—-Valencia
————Rooney——Owen————
Giggs playing in the “hole” is a mouth-watering propsect to me. Berba to act as super sub (when he is fit) either for Owen (as a striker) or Giggs (as the “hole player”). Rooney plays off Owen. Carrick plays the deep-lying distributor.When defending, Valencia tracks back and Anderson marks the opponent creative midfielder out of the game.
All hypotehtical of course, but one of the greatest priviledges of being a United fan is to play these fantasy formations with the spectacular talent that we have…the possibilities are endless!!
in other news…
Gibson was quoted as saying:
“When you leave here there is only one way to go and that is down.”
Love having players that want to be at the club!
….Or a fullly fit 3-4-1-2
————-PIG/VDS————–
Rio——Vida—–Evans———-
Evra—-Fletcher—–Anderson—-Valencia
————Rooney——Berba————
————-Owen————–
I mean, Evra really plays ahead of the defenders, so not too radical, eh?! 3 center backs to snuff out anything they might throw at us…Fletcher and Anderson are both box-to-box guys and valencia to track back when required. Rooney and Berba cutting into the spaces between the side backs and the center backs and Owen leading the line. Bring on SAF, I know a thing or two!!!
@berbatov
it’s a joke, lighten up a bit. must you take life so seriously?
the press is losing their minds about owen-england. everywhere you look it’s “capello, sign him up!” they’re dragging every ex-footballer, teammate, former teammate, fans of other clubs, basically everybody, to give their opinion of should he stay or should he go. it’s ridiculous. it’s december, it’s champions league, it was one of the best team efforts we’ve seen in a long time and they beat the odds and beat a team who was in a win or be eliminated situation. to me as a united supporter, christmas came a little earlier and i was proud of our lads and our manager.
i actually love to watch international football and supported every single team that had a united player on it, not just england. i cheered for ireland for gibbo and sheasy, and for france because of evra. unfortunately that match ended with that unfair result, but that’s another story. and no i don’t think those english players and other internationals are idiots for being patriotic.
but in the end it’s a joke mate! it’s called sarcasm, and i’m sure most people saw it that way.
sarcasm mate- obviously i’ve heard of the world cup, i know who capello is, etc. i was making a joke about the whole coverage of this thing by the media and their decision to ignore the great united victory and merely focus on owen as an international player.
to me it’s a dead issue. barring injury owen is on the team to south africa and i’m very happy about it. capello is cleverly keeping owen on his toes and ensuring he’s giving maximum effort to be in top form. i just don’t think it’s a big deal at this point when we have such a fantasic domestic and european campaign going on which should be what the media is talking about in the first place. so at this point who cares if he’s in the squad or not? is it really so important right now? must the media be so obsessed over it? enough already!
so frankly, again-i’m insulted by the way the media is carrying on about owen and england- and choosing to ignore united’s courageous team effort and great victory. thus, i chose to articulate this frustration in a sarcastic manner. forgive me for my comedic attempt at trivializing the situation.
true, i am a united>england person but that’s my personal preference isn’t it? if you feel it’s your patriotic duty to put down every person who comes on hear claiming united>england you’re in for a long day. in fact, if you really can’t stand it i wonder why you even come on scott’s blog in the first plac? how many united>england posts has he made since this site’s inception? go to the merchandise section and i think he even sells shirts with that phrase on it! if you feel so strongly about it why aren’t you boycotting rom?
in the end i will support both teams but as is the case with many other’s here- i can’t ever cheer on stevie me, terry, ashley cole and lampard, and i merely cheer for them not to screw it up for everybody else. i’d probably have tears of joy if england and all the lads were to lift the cup, but if should one of those players i mentioned, in the ultimate ironic scenario, score the winner for england in the final, i will be happy for england and for the rest of the squad, not those players. i even like players like joe cole to be honest, but yes because of my hatred of certain players, for me it will always be united>england.
now go ahead and call me what you will. unlike you i suppose, i support your right for personal choice and opinion, and even your right to call me an idiot! i can’t change your opinions on the matter, but at least now you know mine. i’m quite happy with my personal choice of how i raise my family, how i live my life, and finally, who i choose to support and won’t change that for anybody. cheers mate! no animosity on my end, honestly i find it distasteful to delve into profane name calling. except to tell stevie me to fuck off!
Berbatov’s love life – Rooninho is quite right, why should United fans give a fuck about Ingerlund?
rooninho – Bang on as usual pal. Haven’t read all the last post as just leaving work but completely agree with the fact I have not heard one media cunt praise United’s supeerb performance the other night. Also sick to death of them almost blaming Fergie for “not giving him games”.
“You can stick your fucking Ingerlund up your arse”.
I liked the Martin Samuel column, was a good read. I remember hearing/seeing somewhere a discussion about modern footballers where they were talking about which players could pop into any pub in any location around the UK and someone would buy them a pint.
Giggsy was their only option!
@rooninho, spot on, think you defended your opinion flawlessly in that last post. I’m from the States so I don’t know too much about the United > England debacle, but I must say you are entitled to feel that way… I can tell you one thing, I can give two f*cks about the US national team compared to how I feel about United. You say United > England. Well, I say United > USA. Cheers, pal.
@king eric
cheers mate! actually, i do support england, but having read many posts on the subject, including many of yours, we are virutally of the same opinion regarding the treatment of united players in the press and by opposing supporters – in regards to united players in the england team. and like many others we have a shared hatred of many of the england players due to domestic rivalries.
anyway, i don’t want to go over this again. but again its all just opinions, people here can take them as they please i say.
exiledred- Yes I very much agree mate. We have been superb when playing with a midfield trio.
berbatov’s love life – Not having a go pal but Doghouse is also bang on. Why the tetchiness?
So what does PIG actually mean? I’ve been curious, so to speak.
Always be Closing – Pole in goal mate.
I worked it out just as I clicked on the link for this article again! Cheers dude.
well since no one picked up the story on ROM, this is a story that will make you laugh your socks off. if they go through this it shows it is like knee jerk reaction fans controlling that circus joke of a club.
http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/opinion/columnists/guillem-balague/Why-Karim-Benzema-could-be-heading-for-Manchester-United-in-January-article251859.html
@rooney the new king:
Just saw that on newsnow mate. That’s hillarious. Even if Real are serious about selling him elsewhere, i don’t want him anymore. Once a mercenary…
Off topic: Does anyone know what’s up with VDS? Kuszczak has been fantastic recently, but when did Edwin get injured and how serious was it? I feel like i missed something.
@ sprite
Now I really hope we get ac milan, so we can shut up the little fucker.
Costas — I think EvS picked up some kind of leg injury in the Everton game when he had that collision with Cahill.
Pogba scored in the FA Youth Cup fourth fourth round. Team won 2-0, with also a makeshift defence. Anyone seen it?
@Drew Vader: Thanks. I remember now that collision. At the time i didn’t think it was that serious. Maybe Fergie also wants to see how far Tomasz can go.
Fze123
watched it mate, pogba is raw bit could turn into something world class. Because of the media hype aroun the name pogba there is alot on attention on the guy but it doesn’t seem to effect his game at all. There in lies the making of a great player. Goodatch even with there makeshift defence and 4 players united have on loan are out injuries which is loco
I think Berbatov’s love Life has been hacked by manutdchump2008! Either that or his wife just left him! =OP
Chin up son!
Yeah, even McGuinness said so. From what I have seen from him so far, he has potential no doubt, his strongest quality is his eye for goal/powerful shot. Love how people call him the Black Paul Scholes.And I am looking forward to to his debut, probably after 2 years, maybe sooner. It’s great to know that not only do our scouts bring real talents to OT, but they pick the ones who are also tough mentally.
VDS injury is his knee which took a bad knock
@ Rob the Red ouch when is vds gonna be back
@sanj
sorry a bit late but cheers! not too excited about landon donovan and the u.s. team then? at least spector and howard played for united at one point. i’m quite curious to see if everton sign donovan. i always felt he was at least as good as mcbride who had a respectable stint with fulham.
agree with all of you about pogba. i wonder how long before ole gets a hold of him for the reserves. best bouquet of flowers united have ever sent. i suppose le havre has dropped their legal action against united by now.
Rooney the new king: I believe he will be fit for Villa, BUT he may be given a little more time to recover in light of the PIG’s good showing.
rooninho: Not this season for sure, he is far too frail at this point. He is one of those kids that has grown like a beanpole, he will start to fill out soon due to the diet he will be put on. Maybe next season!
Incidentaly he scored the opening goal with his head inside 1 minute in the 2-0 victory over Birmingham in the F.A. youth cup
OBERTAN IS THE NEW STAR!!!!
doghouse- isn’t scholes serving a second suspension right now for cards?
Yeah Scholes is suspended. Just heard on SSN that Sir Alex has said no he’s not signing Sol Campbell. Can’t put into words how glad I am that we’re not signing that fat money-grabbing prick.
Scholes has picked up a few yellows, but he’s not cut anybody down at the knees for a while is what I mean. The most common sentence out of a commentators mouth after Scholes won a challenge used to be, “He’s lucky to still be on the pitch” and that could refer to either Scholes or the guy he’s kicked into the air. Now he’s putting in a shift, breaking up opposing play, and not getting sent off.