The Devil In Me

All of the guff about United’s ‘Harlem Globetrotters’ eleven before the start of the season seems like a distant memory now. I am loathe to complain while the team is winning but in all honesty the best football played yesterday was by Birmingham.

United’s players didn’t seem to have the same level of hunger as theirs did and it told as our players were closed down quickly and effectively every time we ventured into the Birmingham half. They also thoroughly deserved a goal which were it not for a Beckenbauer like performance from Ferdinand would surely have come.

Again I am loathe to criticise an eighteen year old lad who has only been in the country for five minutes but the suspicion is beginning to grow in my mind that Anderson may well be Kleberson in disguise. When will we ever learn.

Points are points and again you can’t complain too much if they are getting results but I wonder if a decent team who are truly up for it might show us up a bit on current form. And I suppose the wounded beast that is Roma will be looking to do just that on tuesday.

Every single finger is crossed that these players start to find a bit of form, and now.

I have never particularly had a problem with Coventry, they were a reliable six points a season when they were in the top flight and fairly inoffensive with it. However, it would appear that I have been mistaken with my toelrance as a quick scan of my memory banks reveals that wherever the city of Coventry is involved in my life an air of doom enters proceedings.

It all started about ten years ago when I attended the barbecue of a work colleague who was from Cov and who at the start of the evening, sternly took me to one side to say two things. Firstly ‘don’t get drunk’ and secondly ’stay away from my sister’. I proceeded to fail on both counts and was roundly unpopular afterwards.

I was also present at the game when David Busst recieved his truly horrific injury and can remember the crack being heard around the ground.

Wednesday adds a new annal to the direct association between Coventry and doom as it was quite simply the worst United performance for about a decade, probably since the game against York when we lost three nil.

All of the talk before kick off was on two subjects. One Rooney being captain for the night, and two the fact that most of us had been strong-armed into buying tickets by the new season ticket holder cup scheme. Rooney didn’t even make the bench and one couldn’t help but feel as though the word con was appropriate.

I await United’s first good performance of the season and hope that we can start showing the kind of ruthlessness on the field that those American chaps in the boardroom are proving to be rather adept at.

John Terry stabbing Mourinho in the back. Ambramovich holding a tactics board and lecturing Michael Essien on which direction passes should be played in. After reading the paper early yesterday morning there was a grave danger that I may have died laughing before the game even kicked off.

Seriously can you imagine Brian Glazer popping down and telling Fergie how training should be run? Unimaginable.

Much as I want to enjoy this there appears to be another rather large problem emerging. Arsenal.

Ever since Chelsea employed Frank Arnesen the Mourinho situation has been a ticking time bomb. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Ambramovich decided to get rid of Mourinho before last Christmas and has been slowly applying pressure on the guy since then.

This, not to put too fine a point on it, makes Roman a first class plonker (or possibly not a Chelsea supporter). I wrote two months ago on this page about the importance of somebody, preferably us, beating Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. Now that just seems irrelevant, without Jose Chelsea will simply not be feared as a footballing force to anywhere near the same extent.

I basically despise the club, even in the eighties it was clear that the fans attending Stamford Bridge were the worst type of plankton football had to offer, and the place was a rip off for tickets back then too.But, perhaps controversially, I had time for Mourinho.  Yes because he was a character, yes because I respected that he was a winner but also because he seems to have enjoyed a decent and respectful relationship with Fergie.  Neither Whinger nor Benitez seem to have felt comfortable enough with themselves to have managed that.

So thank you Mr. Ambramovich, now that your club no longer has its redeeming feature I can go back despising them at will and, one hopes, watching United beat them more regularly.

There is nothing like a run of a few victories to put you in a good mood.

United finished last season terribly and playing some fairly dour football.  After all of the huffing and puffing about a decent summers rest and a proper pre-season for Rooney at last I suppose the continuation of that poor form into this year was not something that we expected. 

Yet continue it did and then of course Wayne and Christiano ruled themselves out from the off.  I am right in saying, however, that we have created more scoring opportunities than anybody else so far this season and even though we haven’t been putting them away yet class will tell eventually.

The last three games have seen us win one nil from headed goals, not the most complicated way to do things but its nice to know we can get the basics right too.Liverpool and Chelsea have both already faltered a touch and it could well be Christmas before we can decide who the genuine contenders are this season.  I am confident that we will be one of them. 

It is also telling that Rooney is back, incredibly, already, and I for one hadn’t even noticed that he had gone. 

Gosh Roy Keane has turned into such a nice chap recently.  His team is being beaten left right and centre and he doesn’t seem to have a bad word to say about anybody.  Just before kick off the teams lined up to give Ole a guard of honour whilst Clive Tyldesly’s “is this their moment” commentary blared out of the loudspeaker and he ended it with a handshake and a word with Roy.

Either somebody forgot to tell the United players that it was over and a football match had just started or Fergie has decided to patent a new 2-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 formation to once again conquer Europe with a tactically audacious manouvre.  Genius.

Honestly they were awful, again, our team of midfield midgets spent the first forty five minutes sitting on each others knees and playing a million inch-perfect 3 inch passes to each other. I for one am of the opinion that we should be having a go at teams at Old Trafford and not treating the matches like Eriksson might have treated an England friendly.  If you are playing a team of midfielders without a striker then you’re giving the visiting team a chance.  It was not that long ago now that the chant 4-4-2 was heard in the Stretford End, I can see its ressurection before Christmas if things don’t begin to change.  

I retain my hopes, Hargreaves looks like he has always played for us and also doesn’t look unlike Robbo did when he was running around in our shirt and Saha, when he came on, was unmanageable, easily as good as a Torres when he is playing.  He looks like our saviour at the moment Louis, but I wonder, how long until he is injured again?