This injured defender situation is getting ridiculous. At the moment, our treatment room must resemble the beach landing in Normandy – players arms flailing around and field medics frantically trying to issue the right medication to each of them. This ain’t great because on Tuesday we face Germans and a tremendous chance to lose top place in the group.
I can’t for the life of me find justification for our injury woes other than bad luck. Unfortunately though, I don’t think this is an isolated incident. Some of our players have lived in a strange parallel universe of misdiagnosis. As far as I know, we are not sure what is wrong with Rio, with each passing day I think Michael Jackson is more likely to make a comeback than Owen Hargreaves and we never really did sort out the outrageously talented Louis Saha.
Old Trafford
You would think that Manchester United would have the, well, Manchester United of medical facilities at their disposal. Instead, my bizarrely cynical mind worries our physician might be like this guy. Horse placenta seems sane in comparison but you’ll notice that Saha seems to be playing fine for Everton…
Attribution psychology suggests that people can be predisposed to blaming a situation on somebody – whether or not it is the reality. So I blame Malcolm Glazer. Book balancing has been happening all over the shop, see the sales of Pique and Rossi, ask this young lad Ljajic or try to get on the phone to the ticket office. Is it too much to assume that our medical department may have been trimmed back too?
There are too many niggly injuries with slight pulls and strains to be really acceptable right now. If it costs us on Tuesday, I’ll be miffed.
Anyway, onto better news. United are playing well and scoring goals in the league. What with Chelsea finally losing games (shortly after JT’s latest battle cry, God bless him) I should be more excited. True, the goal difference is repaired and true, we have closed the gap. It should be noted, however, that this was against two of the weakest teams in the league and, West Ham particularly, offered less defence than a boxer with no arms.
The game on Saturday was quite the delight to watch. I thoroughly enjoyed all of goals especially the latest thunderbolt from G-Force Gibson. Just the type of player I have been waiting to see emerge since he-who-walks-Triggs departed. Let’s hope he and the rest of the forward players can keep form.
I made the point last year that in 07/08 we had relied on the front players and last season on the back four/five. It’s time for the guys up front to take charge again. Michael Carrick is a tremendous fella for stepping into the defence this week, and he was tidy (making 26 perfect passes) against West Ham. But he only made one tackle. Berbatov has finally, thank Buddha, had a haircut, but it’s the boys at the back who want to avoid any more close shaves.
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Photography from Jon Person at FlickrCcoms
its been 24 days ..where are you mate ?