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Posted Apr 12th 2007, 3:09pm
Praise Be
A bit late... but what a result and what a performance.
This might sound biased (well in truth it is) but I've never seen football like it.
After ten minutes I was getting a bit fidgety. Roma were dominating the ball, Totti was running the show and I feared we might go into our shell. Previous exits at the hands of Milan and Porto had seen plenty of passion in the stands in inverse proportion to the gumption on the pitch.
Suddenly Ronaldo breaks down the left, tries a few stepovers, is closed down but finds Carrick. The Geordie midfielder appears to stumble at this point, losing the ball under his feet but regains his balance sufficiently to guide a shot towards goal. An easy save one would think. Fortunately, Roma's Doni seemed to expect anything but a shot as the ball sails passed his left shoulder before effortlessly riffling the net - and like that United are on fire.
The second was a one-touch move made in heaven - Heinze to Giggs to Smith, back of the net. The third: Ronnie wins it in the area gives it to O'Shea who releases an out of position Giggs. A slide-rule cross touched home by Wayne Rooney. Nine minutes, three goals - Europe stunned.
The rest of the half was spent hoping we wouldn't throw the lead away (remember Roma were only two down at this point) before Ronny inevitably got a run at Panucci and beat three defenders and the hapless Doni from the edge of the box - cue the gushing praise of ITV's pundits.
In truth the second half was little more than gilding the lily. The 9 minutes United produced were simply stunning, unmatchable by any current team except perhaps perhaps an on song Barcelona.
So they can go all the way. But will they? Call me a pessimist but defeat at the hands of a parsimonious AC Milan side now seems inevitable. Should we get past the ageing Italians, I don't think we have the midfield to outmuscle either Liverpool or Chelsea's tightly packed, heavily marked defensive tactics. But ultimately I don't think it matters. A performance that good deserves to sit in the pantheon alongside Brazil beating Italy 4-1 in 1970, the reds own 5-1 victory in Benfica in '66, England's 5-1 win in Munich and Argentina's 6-1 destruction of Serbia.
Those performances have lived longer in the memory than the rollcall of victors in the respective competitions.
As far as I'm concerned, whoever triumphs in Athens in May will forever be in the shadow of those 9 magic, manic minutes at Old Trafford when we watched footballing perfection.
Posted Apr 10th 2007, 4:06pm
Squeaky Bum Time
With two defeats in two games and a nation barely containing it's delight at the impending Old Trafford implosion, this hasn't been the greatest week in the club's history.
The squad suddenly look knackered, key players (Neville, Vidic) are dropping like flies, our experienced keeper is making the same mistakes that saw us go three keepers in as many seasons and Chelsea show no sign of slowing their relentless pursuit of glory on all fronts.
And, yet reds wouldn't swap this season for anything. The past 8 months have been about as close to footballing perfection as any United fan could wish for.
Few would have dreamt that we would still be in the hunt for the two big prizes. In particular few would have grumbled with a three point lead at the top of the league having scored 75 goals in just 32 fixtures.
Should it go the way of all flesh, few fans would quibble with the statement that United have been the team of the season, playing an exciting brand of football seemingly at odds with modern coaching methods. Where Messrs Benitez and Mourinho have sought Defensive midfielders and security, Ferguson has pegged his faith on a pair of world class attackers and Michael Carrick. In an age when footballers over the age of 28 are thought to be over the hill, so Fergie has entrusted the winning of an improabable treble to Messrs Neville, Scholes, Giggs and Van der Sar who average 34 years between them. Then again Fergie, a perennial putter-offer of retirement, has always lived by the adage, 'If you're good enough...".
And yet the brio with which have taken this season by storm contrasted heavily with their labours on Satruday evening. Finally a sense of forbodeing overtook the team - fear, heightened by Chelsea's equally laboured victory over an even more knackered Spurs team earlier that lunchtime and defensive cock-ups the like of which most had assumed had disappeared with the sale of Roy Carroll, came to the fore as a committed Portsmouth side took full advantage of favourable conditions and a blind referee extract three points.
So should we panic? Is this the time for squeaky bums to parp up and down the land.
Well, for the Premiership's sake, I wouldn't mind us getting knocked out to Roma in a few hours time. Then we have the semi against Watford, again not a testing fixture before what should be a home banker against Sheffield United.
The real test will come with the Middlesbrough game in two Saturday's time.
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Posted Mar 20th 2007, 4:19pm
That Lad Ronaldo
... in the words of the song he's been making English footballers look pretty shite all season.
I have to admit, when it was rumoured he could be on his way in the summer my first reaction was, so what?
Not for any little Ingerlunder reasons, you understand - England were woeful in the world cup and deserved everything they got and quite a bit they didn't.
For some reason Cristiano's peculiar mix of sheer ability, gauche cockiness and the downright continental cheek of loving every minute of beating England wound the British media up.
I was more concerned with how Ronny fitted into the team: his tendency to dwell on the ball limited United's counter-attacks - where once we'd flow from end-to-end, now we'd get the ball out to the right wing and then have to wait to see if the Portuguese could beat his full-back a few too many times before crossing.
Rumour had it that Ronny was one of the reasons behind van Nistlerooy's fall-out with the coaching staff, in particular Queiroz who RVN accused of being Ronny's dad (an unfortunate expression considering that Cristiano's father had died earlier in the season).
So Fergie's brave decision to back a stuttering, buck-toothed Portuguese wing wannabe over a proven Dutch goal hound looked dubious to say the least in the light of the World Cup fall-out. Like many others I wondered who would fill the 30 goal-a-season void left by the defection of the horse-faced Netherlander.
Step forward Ronny.
Put simply Ronaldo has stopped messing about. Some put this down to the failed attempts of his agent to secure him a deal with either of the Spanish giants last summer, when both player and agent assumed he would be persona non grata in the Premiership and sought moves to the Camp Nou and the Bernebeu. Some believe that Ronny has been in the shop window all along. If so the recent talks over a massive wage rise and the continued speculation emanating from Spain would indicate that, so far it's mission accomplished.
I prefer to believe that the lad's grown up. Contrast his professionalism with Wayne Rooney. Both are under immense pressure to live up to massive contracts but while Wayne never gives up a lost cause, he also expends far too much energy on seeking revenge for one thing and another. He tries too hard, seeking to appease the odd miss with improved work rate and ire which usually land him in the book.
In contrast Ronaldo will rarely chase an opponent having lost the ball, although he's stopped sitting on the floor for lengthy periods with his arms raised up in supplication to a disinterested official. Rather Ronny doesn't get mad, he gets even - as his late penalty winner proved yet again last night. He bided his time, waited for the cover to look elsewhere and lured Boro's best defender into a challenge that gave the ref little option.
One thing's for sure, United won't let Ronny go without a struggle - he has to be the hottest property in world football at the moment, any offer under £50m should be laughed out of town.
Yet it would be churlish to boil down what Ronny has given us this season to mere figures. His performances of late have been a joy because he is so clearly enjoying beating the English. The one blot on his copybook is his lack of goals in the Champions League, a statistic I expect him to put right in early April in Rome.
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Posted Mar 15th 2007, 3:11pm
The Gambler
It's an uncomfortable fact that the longer a gambler enjoys a winning run, the more likely he is to lose. As the great Kenny Rogers said, 'you've got to know when to walk away'.
Both Alex Ferguson and Jose Mourinho have eyeballed each other at the top of the (league) table for a good six months now and, while it appears that the Portuguese's chips seem a little lower than the Scots the game is far from done.
United's recent form suggests that sooner or later a bollock (or points) will be dropped. Having seen the reds lose just two and draw three of the 22 games they've played in all competitions since November's draw with Chelsea, the feeling lingers in red circles that the team have been riding the kind of outrageous run of fortune that turns trailer park trash into Vegas millionaires.
Back in August few would have put money on a league record that read played 29 won 23, drawn 3 lost 3 and those that did assumed that they would at best be level with or just behind Chelsea. Instead United enjoy a six point lead, the kind of advantage that, if it were the other way round, would have the press pronouncing the title race over.
Yet it's just as likely that Fergie's prowess as a gambler could suffer at the hands of one of the Premiership's arch-pragmatists before the month is out.
Fergie is best pals with big Sam while the signing of Mark Hughes was one of the reasons the Scotsman was spared the axe during his Old Trafford nadir in '89. Either or both could conceivably be in line to replace the great man once he leaves and if either dealt a mortal blow to United's title ambitions the odds on them succeeding Sir Alex in the Old Trafford hotseat would surely shorten.
United have enjoyed their slice of luck in recent weeks, Yet this up-and-down form isn't all from one side. Just as United have found last minute winners to cement their lead at the top, so Chelsea have trailed in four of their last six games drawing two and winning the rest. Each time Mourinho has found the words to turn around lacklustre performances and somehow keep the Blues on course for the quadruple. An interesting statistic this season is that Chelsea are more vulnerable when they have the lead (the Blues led in losses at Spurs and Middlesbrough and the drawn home games with Aston Villa, Fulham and Reading) an indicator perhaps that the pragmatic mindset of settling on a one goal lead has lost out to United's British approach of killing the game in the first half of games.
In a recent spat, Mourinho accused Ferguson of riding his luck, yet at both Craven Cottage and Anfield his players instinctively went for the win against teams who had more than shaded the contest but had pragmatically settled for a point. Someone at Chelsea has also been busy getting the local travellers onside: how else to explain a Portuguese goalkeeper who couldn't catch and a Spurs defence falling asleep after a late night UEFA Cup tie.
Yet having got this far on good fortune with injuries and suspensions, perhaps the old bluffer is due a streak of bad luck (the absence of Saha, Solskjaer and Scholes this weekend has most reds fearing the worst) and with Chelsea getting back to full strength perhaps six points plus goal difference won't be enough but at the very least Ferguson will have proved he still has what it takes at the very top, a fact not universally acknowledged at the season's start.
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Posted Mar 12th 2007, 11:03am
The Treble
Found these vids on Youtube - enjoy
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Posted Mar 9th 2007, 12:26pm
Premier League Darts
Watching this on Sky last night I was struck by the realisation that darts is actually making a strong comeback. Having fallen asleep watching snooker's equivalent, played in virtual silence and before negligible audiences - the sight of 5,000 or so students getting leathered on cider being held back by a phalanx of yellow coated stewards and cheering 56 year-old Dennis Priestly to defeat was an eye-opener.
I think the Prem League format needs extending, perhaps have two divisions (including the guy - forget his name - who insulted Phil 'The Power' at the World Champs in January) and Sky could broadcast highlights of the lower league in between the Premier matches.
Watching the enthusiastic crowds, two questions arose: Do Sky give tickets away to the local student union or is it pay on the gate? Where were the darts dollies marking off the scores as they go in with massive indelible markers? Are you allowed to watch darts with a beer in your hand or have Sky sanitised this aspect of the ultimate pub game? And what percentage of the crowd actually knew/cared what was going on?
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Andy Crompton
Stockport 2 - 7 Rochdale (24.3.2007)