The Devil In Me

All of this ‘United are perrenial slow starters’ business is utter nonsense. The season before last we began by putting five past Fulham, it was completely neccessary that year because of Mourinho’s presence. Scholari’s Chelsea remains an unknown quantity but nonetheless it was time for us to put our scoring boots on.

This fixture usually goes one of two ways for us, either a romping four nil victory or a frustrating afternoon when they nick a late goal. As the game wore on I feared this may fall into the latter category.

Oh deary me. That penalty was extremely embarrassing, we should be better than that. The main problem with this sort of thing is that it is not the players, or even the referees who bear the brunt. It is us fans who have to put up with the angry accusations of opposing fans.

The second goal was a work of art, great to see Rooney responding to being dropped, but no-one will remember it and all we will have to do is kop grief for the ref’s decision.

I was vaguely happy to see Gary Neville attempt a ludicrous 20 yard shot with his left foot early in the game. As it sailed past Halley’s Comet and off into the cosmos I felt confident he was close to returning to the player he once was.

Thirty million pounds is a lot of money, when do we start asking questions of Berba?

Well, at least Ronaldo scored. Sorry to those who were ‘forced’ to go by the automatic cup scheme.

We have to view this as a huge missed opportunity. I think anybody who is honest was not confident before the game and even less so when the teams were announced. How wrong we were. The build up for our goal was first class but it is a damn shame that with a squillion pounds worth of strikers we only had one bullet in the chamber. Chelsea came back as Chelsea do and we looked a little out muscled in the second half, is Rio our biggest tough guy at the moment? It is hard not to think that with either Vidic or VDS on the field we might have defended better for their equaliser. This is far from a tragedy, but we should have won. Bringing on O’Shea was the move that lost us the points. No offence John.

The judge has predicted we’ll win so obviously we’re doomed.
Sorry guys, no way out of that one.

This was decidedly middle-notch entertainment. In fact, the most interesting part of the evening was trying to decipher the team selection. There were bound to be changes made after Anfield and Fergie must be bricking it about central defence for the Chelsea game.

Johnny ‘no means no’ Evans played okay, and whilst he couldn’t quite keep our defensive areas completed zipped up, he did manage to penetrate the Villareal box against its wishes and nearly scored at the end. Gary Neville is starting to remind me of the original version of the King Kong movie, brilliant in its time but painfully dated now. He needs a major restoration and he may well not be the man to try and stop Joe cole and Bang/Crash/Whallop Drogba on Sunday. I would play Wes at right back and John O’Shea at centre back in the vain hope that he utilises some of that luck his countrymen are famous for.

The mysteries of the midfield continue. Was Fergie punishing the central players for last week’s result? Or was this too, another dry run for Sunday’s outing at the bridge? Or do we simply have no idea who are the first choices in that area? I always like the look of Hargreaves and when he is fit he should play, other than that it is hard to choose, for the most part we will need grafters on Sunday.

Villareal played a very nice, neat passing game. When they got possession they held possession and seemed a very organised team. This result is no tragedy but we are far from in form at the moment.
We are not in trouble in Europe, yet, and Fergie will know his midfield and defence for the weekend now he has had this little experiment. The thing that nobody seems to mention is that, frankly, it is time to drop Rooney.

You should always approach a match against the second best team in La Liga with a fair amount of caution. But it pays to know that last season was one of the weakest in that competition’s history, with champions Real Madrid losing 9 games from the start of the year alone. United are looking a touch dicey at the moment and small mercy it may be, but I am glad this game is being played at Old Trafford. 

Our record at home in Europe is very, very strong (hang on a second, isn’t that what you said about our record against Liverpool?)(SHUT UP!) and the team hasn’t put two poor performances together since, well, since the last two games they played.

Also, Berbatov appears to be injured, Spartacus is only just returning from injury and volleyball Scholes is suspended. This bears all of the hallmarks of an upset (that means us losing) but for some reason I think we are going to win. Why? Because it is Europe, and that is surely the reason Fergie is still there.

Or perhaps there is something in my coffee.

Perhaps somebody should send out a memo at Old Trafford. The memo should read along the following lines:

“Competitive matches for Manchester United Football Club began four weeks ago, maybe the playing staff could start competing now.”

Alas, United have somehow managed to drag the lacklustre performance seen recently in the millionaire’s playground of Monaco into the urban wasteland of Liverpool. The Super Cup Final was, well, a cup final and we looked like we couldn’t be bothered. Games against Liverpool are bigger than cup finals and, again, our motivation was sorely lacking.

Despite recent form, and our decent record against them, if a Manchester United team steps out at Anfield giving anything less than 150% they are going to be beaten.

By starting with Tevez, Rooney and Berbatov we were left with no wingers and therefore no width and service for the guys up front. It looked to be working after three minutes as the new man danced down the right to set up Tevez. But after that it all started to go wrong, poor Rooney was everywhere achieving nothing again and we didn’t even have somebody to take the corners. Anderson’s two attempts could find their way into a textbook on backpassing.

So the formation didn’t really work and our pingy passing game was further unsettled by Liverpool’s energy and hustling. Then we lost control of the midfield and the second half comes close to embarrassing. I struggle to remember anything from that second period that comes close to resembling a good move. Giggs showed enduring class with his reactionary volley but that was about it. You always know it’s not going to be your day when someone gets sent off in the last minute through frustration and now we are missing an important player to suspension.

To put it mildly the players need a major rollicking and you can expect Kuscak and Neville to start against Chelsea whilst VDS and Brown find themselves in Trafford General Hospital having their eardrums reattached.

With Chelsea and Arsenal registering wholesome victories nearby we are the only ‘big gun’ not to have recorded a sizeable win yet. Horribly, Liverpool were good value for this victory. Not to worry, the next game is at Stamford Bridge, we’re sure to win 6-0 there.

The goatee beard arrived at the press conference and was followed in by Rafael Benitez. The beard announced that Torres and Gerard had both come through ‘light training’ and would be in the squad tomorrow. As far as smokescreens go I am sure that the organisers of the latest Kylie Minogue concert are quaking in their boots.

Having just spoken to my ‘friend’, a man more scouse than a twelve stretch for stealing the hubcaps off a glue sniffing factory, I can inform you that the watch grabbers are quietly confident, if for no other reason than it is about time. Being a superstitious old fool I have similar thoughts but never mind.
To the team sheet!

VDS
(Anelka)

Wes Rio Vidic Evra
(Not Gary yet) (Lets hope the back is okay) (Veni, vidi) (Groundsmen)

Hargreaves
(90 minutes please)

Nani Scholes Giggs
(new Ronaldo) (volleyball) (Chest wig)

Rooney
(articulate)

Berbatov
(goalscorer?)

The last two trips to Anfield have been very stressful affairs. Even those with the longest fingernails in the business were unable to play guitar for several months afterwards. Our on-paper record against Benitez-pool makes for some enjoyable reading, apparently their most prolific marksmen against United in recent years has been one John O’Shea, and we have recorded enough 1-0 victories to make an Italian World Cup Campaign drool with envy. That reading though, does not tell the full story. Even the most generous fans would admit we were more than pleased to drive home with three points from the last two; some may even go as far as saying we were lucky. So why, dear God why, do I feel more confident about this trip than the ones in the recent past? 

Despite Liverpool currently occupying top-spot and their usual, pre-season ‘this year we’re gonna do it wac’ posturing, I think that they don’t believe it.  I think that every scouser is secretly cringing inside at the thought of this fixture. Their two great hopes, $tevie Mbe and Torres, are both crocked and they simply don’t have the confidence to win without them. Their farcical board situation means that everybody secretly know Benitez could be out of a job at any moment, and, of course, Carragher has chosen this week of all others to release his addition to that most worthy of fields, the footballer’s autobiography. “The owners are destabalising the club!” He wails in those poetic pages. Yes Jamie, but your book is doing nothing of the sort. 

Unusually for a man with a goatee beard Benitez strikes me as a man of pride. He will want to improve his record against us and he has such experience at fluking qualification from the Champions League Group Stages that he may not even worry too much about Tuesday’s game. Fergie always thinks ahead to the European games, always. Benitez could start with half-fit Gerrard and half-fit Torres, which may or may not help them, but Sir Alex may also field Fletcher and O’Shea. It will be difficult to guess the teams in advance but surely the strongest we have got should beat them.

The players returning from the England set-up should do so with a spring in their step, that would include people like Rooney and Ferdinand but again, tellingly, not Gerrard. Tevez will want to to put in the kind of performance that reminds his international selectors he is good for something other than earning red cards (he has got two in his last three Argentina matches).  There is also the matter of Dimitar Berbatov’s, hopefully, inevitable debut. The stage is set then, the crowning of a new forward maestro and the early season crushing of Liverpool’s title hopes too. I feel so confident about this I have even arranged to watch the game with a Liverpool fan. The only problem is, it just doesn’t work that way does it?

I have a horrible feeling that Fergie will start with Gary Neville, who I am certain is not yet match sharp. I also think that he might go for a cagier formation when, at the moment, Liverpool are there for the taking. Capello’s England decided to go for it this week and it worked out for them, if we adopt the same approach we could record a famous victory. But maybe Fergie, like me, has had a look at his fingers and thought he might want to strum some kum-by-ah over the coming weeks. The result will be on the team sheets for this one.

Proof that everybody needs a hobby could be found in the fact that I was up long past my bedtime last night checking to see if we had got our man. There have been moments of excitement down the years as a fan of the Reds, but I don’t think I can remember a transfer deadline day providing such drama in the past. Deep in the injury time of signings season we have scored an important victory over our rivals.

I think we all knew that getting this guy was important. With all the hullaballo surrounding those last few hours the question arises ‘is he actually that good?’ I think so, he is a good age for a player and managed to score 23 last year for Tottenham. This, while being derided by their fans for being a bit of a misery-guts. That is not bad at all. Over the last two seasons he has displayed the kind of talent that suggests he is a player who can do things which others can’t. I really am looking forward to this.

Key, and I think the clincher, is that he definitely wants to come to United. After all of Cristiano’s rubbish the injection of an enthusiastic new team member may be just what we need to lift the gloomy faces that we saw in Monaco.

Clearly, it would be insane to get too excited too soon, but as mentioned above, I don’t exactly have any hobbies. Bring on Liverpool.