THE RED MAN

We welcome to the blog our latest columnist known as the Red Man. Welcome to Swoosh0018 RED MAN. With Chelsea winning last night and Arsenal in fine form after dispatching Celtic in Europe and Liverpool waithing for David Villa, you gonna need it.
Anyways Welcome and we look forward to your stuff.
Red Man joins an exclusive panel now that includes Shoobs & Rugga Bugga.

Theatre Of Dreams
News & Views

Before we look ahead lets look back. Back to tackle a few issues that have just baffled many a mancunian. What the hell happened in the Champion’s league final?MUFC fans were left perplexed, the fact that we failed to recover after going down & were so comprehensively outplayed just left us feeling empty for days, weeks & still. It could have been 4 in the bag, damn! Sir Alex was asked in a recent interview, where did it all go wrong in the Champions League final? He refused to answer saying he knew exactly what went wrong, insisting he didn’t want to get into it. It felt as if he was avoiding some bad decisions he made on the night. For one, Ferdinand was nowhere near match sharpness, he hadn’t played for 3 games & was still selected when Jonny Evans filled in quite well & was raring to go. Playing Rooney wide left when Giggs could have filled that position quite well. In fact a conventional 4-4-2 with Ronaldo wide right & Rooney & Berbatov up front could well have been the answer, but the £30Mil Berba was left on the bench. Just a gut feeling, if we had played this system we could well have converted a few half chances inside 10 minutes. But once they scored we f%*kin collapsed. No doubting the class of Xavi, he reminds me of previous Barcelona legends like Luis Enrique, pure passion & heart. United did well to reach the final but were a little too stretched by the end of the season.

Anyways let move on, lets talk about Ronaldo, Owen & Valencia. Fergie should have made Ronaldo captain if he wanted to keep him just my opinion on the issue. Many Mancs echoed this general feeling on the matter: “… well if he wants to leave let him go, we don’t need players that don’t want to be at United”, that said Ronaldo is not the best player in the world, he is the best player in a structured system, United have that. Something Sir Alex refers to as ‘balance’, & Real need to achieve it. The best player in the world currently is a creator, ball winner, a midfield General. Someone you look up to when the chips are down - Xavi Hernandes.
On Michael Owen, there’s not a liverpudian I’ve met that just burns with envy when you bring up the topic. Let’s face it they keep saying ‘you took our reject’, but they wanted him back desperately. All but Rafa, his selection & tactics over the weekend makes you think ‘Perfect keep shooting yourselves in the foot’. You need 4 class strikers in the modern game to win silverware & Liverpool has one. Owen might have lost a bit of pace but watching him closely it’s encouraging to see how he drops off the shoulders of defenders & creates chances for himself. He has missed a few sitters, but given his experience it’s only a matter of time before he starts smacking them in. Antonio Valencia could well replace Ronaldo, many are skeptical as he might not get the same number of goals but he poses the same attacking threat. He’s not afraid to take on defenders & looks an innovative dribbler with some excellent crossing in the final third. A traditional United type winger.

Games
Birmingham (1-0). Was Berbatov worth the 30 odd million? Over the years Fergie has been known to make a few mess ups in the transfer market, Jordi Cruyf, Kleberson, Taibi, Miller etc. Let’s hope Berba comes good. His lazy style doesn’t suite our counter attacking pace, but he does have great vision. After years of loathing Fletcher, Fergies Scottish ‘step son’ is finally beginning to show some promise, still needs to work on his passing though. Rooney’s all action display & United’s constant reserve of attacking wing backs proves there’s life after Ronaldo.

Looking Ahead
Vs Burnley 18th-Aug-09, a chance to go top early on in this campaign where I feel the league will be won by the team that gets the best start. Owen should start against the Premier League rookies, maybe get a couple of goals & he should be up & running for the rest of the campaign. Unfortunately Burnley is a small town with a small ground & they will create a very hostile atmosphere so things can screw up given our defensive hospital list.

Will SAF or Ancellotti make a make a move for Aguero before the transfer deadline? I still feel we need a strong midfielder, with Hargreaves coming back, let’s see, SAF might delve into the transfer market in January. By which time the young talented striker Mame Biram Diouf currently based in Norway with Molde FC will hook up with his new Old Trafford pals.

RedMan