There are certain things you need to win the league in England. You need a firing strike-force, a solid defence and preferably a steely-shinned midfield general too. An accomplished and uncompromising manger doesn’t go amiss either, but most importantly, you need to ‘want it’. The team that wins the league invariably has a habit of fighting to the death, for chasing long lost causes and for never saying die, not even saying ‘alright we’ll call it a draw’.
The one United player who surely understands all this is Ryan Giggs, and he has been the team’s outstanding performer in the last few matches. This despite him being the same age as the rest of the squad put together. There is not a United fan alive who doesn’t appreciate how much of a pleasure it is to watch them at times. The club always plays to win, and to win with flair. None of us like Ronaldo’s fondness for falling over but my God the boy can play. Every single time you attend a game he does something that makes the cost of the ticket worthwhile. And they ain’t cheap anymore. But we are not Newcastle circa 96 and something is amiss at the moment.
Our quivering start to the campaign can be attributed Van Der Sar’s need to visit an optician. May’s hero has been no steady Eddie this season (anybody see the game at Anfield?) and this has unsettled the rest of the defence. The stats show us looking quite respectable, but our confidence at times when defending reminds me of my GCSE physics exam. And that wasn’t a happy memory. We need to start blooding Foster more often immediately, because if you add the Proton ‘VDS’ to the Neutron ‘Ferdinand or Vidic injured’ then our defence starts to resemble a black hole, anything could get through there. But I don’t think that is why we are likely to be behind Hull as we approach Christmas, the problem lies deeper.
In the last two close seasons Ferguson has gone on record as saying “I will look in the player’s eyes and see if it’s still there. That hunger you need to win.” He knows it is important because our club has a history with this sort of stuff. After the 68 European Cup Final players burst into tears all over the pitch – something had to give after the effort to reach that goal. George Best lamented at the time “everybody was saying ‘that’s it, we’ve done it’ and I was only 22″. There was a sense around the place that the highest plateau had been reached. Six years later we were relegated.
After 99’s triumph the squad spent two years cruising through the league and falling over teams like Bayer Leverkeusen (LEVERKEUSEN!) in Europe. Fergie’s holy grail had been attained and the bite left once more. Three years later we had our lowest finish for a decade and then went on a four year dry patch in the league.
So what is it that courses through the veins an OT when the European Cup comes home? Do the squad do the playing equivalent of rolling over and lighting up a post-coital smoke? Does Fergie turn into a teddy bear who wouldn’t dream of getting angry at the players who just gave him his favourtie trinket? I doubt it, but there is malaise is our team at the moment and there are precious few other excuses why that might be. This is a shame because never before have we had a squad young enough to carry on the torch. The problem is, do they want it enough?
Good question. On balance yes they do want it enough, but neither Ronnie nor Berbatov are true scrappers so we will have to rely on the aging legs of the likes of Giggs, and, when fit again, Paul “I got there as quick as I could” Scholes, Darren “bites your legs” Fletcher, Anderson and one or two members of the back four.
If Hargreaves a bit more often I think we would see his scrapping qualities too. Oh and Tevez digs in a bit too. Oh, and Rooney.
So yes we’ve got the fighters but for whatever reason they allowed Everton to grab the initiative on Saturday and they can’t do that again if they want to overtake Hull before the New Year …