The Devil In Me

History is littered with examples of people making matters worse by being involved in something they don’t really understand. Nobody regards America’s involvement in Vietnam as a triumph, Madonna should never have acted and this week Gary Cook gave us this little beauty. His humungous stupidity acting as the perfect aphrodisiac for all victory celebrations far, wide and right in your face.

Staying with the historical theme, City have not always been the nemesis incarnate. The early histories of the clubs tell a tale of mutual cooperation and we will always owe them for letting us play at Maine Road after our ground was bombed to bits. However, beating them this week was more satisfying than a wedding night with Marilyn Monroe. Not that I’ve had that experience but you get the general idea.

The real enemy appear to be the FA who have begun to indulge in their favourite hobby again. The one where they make a ridiculous scapegoat out of Rio Ferdinand. I heard that a United player failed to turn up for Church last Sunday, no doubt that is sufficient for a medium-sized ban eh Soho Square. Plonkers.

Credit where it is due though. This is certainly the best City side I have seen in decades, if at all. The game at Eastlands will be handful and whilst the guy is never going to win a Nobell Peace Prize – Craig Bellamy is a hell of a player.

With regards to the Budweiser incident, I am deeply disappointed some of our fans were chucking stuff at him. The morons trying their pitching arms at Old Trafford let us all down, the Welshman could have made more of a meal of it if he’d wanted to. When Van Der Sar ran over to act as a human shield it reminded me of exactly what we miss without him. A calm head in heated circumstances and the nous to do the right thing when the pressure is on. Also the team’s biggest nose.

The second half at Old Trafford was the best United have played for months and I am tempted to think that we can kick on from here and start galloping towards trophies. Fortunately, our blue-nosed friends have taught me a thing or two about the dangers of hubris this week. We ain’t won nothin’ yet regardless of how satisfying the result is.

Rooney is getting more coverage than the fall of the Berlin Wall and rightly so, he is unplayable at the moment. Of much more heartening news is that Fergie has figured out that playing the right-footed Nani on the right wing produces alright-on-the-night performances. The young Portuguese did start the season promisingly and if he can maintain this form there is a chance he will blossom into the player he should. But nonetheless, heroes, every one of them, bring on Villa.

The primary reasons not to be hubristic are called Arsenal and Chelsea, the latter being our opponents this weekend. We have done some damage to the Gunners in cup victories in the last two years but the sands have shifted over the last 12 months. This should be an altogether more even affair.

You would expect a game including Wayne Rooney, Cesc Fabregas and two weakened defences to produce goals. Beyond that I am relying on my lucky socks again. There is a nasty chance that Ancellotti could finish the weekend as the happiest manager, which can’t be good for the soul of mankind.

As always though. I live in hope. Allez les rouges.

Footnote: Does the signing of Chris Smalling mean that Fergie has resigned himself to losing Vidic at the end of the season? Bet that’ll help the Glazer’s bank balance.

Follow Markjpayne@twitter.com and www.thedevilinme.co.uk

City must have been delighted to draw United in the Carling Cup semi-final as it means the council house will have a capacity crowd twice this season. This may be a strange set of circumstances for them to deal with, but getting into an almighty tizz over Gary Neville’s middle finger is a bit silly.

I suspect people are focusing on G.Nev’s protrusion so much because they don’t want to zoom in on the reality of the game. United were the better side and City’s goals were both scored by the referee. All of Fergie’s crying wolf may be working against us but there were 5 minutes of injury time in this game and that seems pretty standard for us since he started whingeing. Job done? Evil plan coming to fruition Mr. Ferguson? Perhaps, I wouldn’t like to speculate.

Gary Neville
To be honest, I expected us to get a kicking in this fixture, but we are still very much in the tie and I take great heart from the way the team played. We need to have a sharper cut up front (Rooney can’t do it all on his own) but if we put a few past Hull at the weekend confidence could bloom in the ranks. We’ll also go top if this happens.

I have always had time for Tevez, he worked damn hard for us and reading about his career is fascinating. He won player of the year when he was in Brazil, which for an Argentinean is a bit of a miracle.

But there is no way he is anywhere near as good as he thinks he is. He could do far worse than to take lessons in dignity from Denis Law. And Beckham’s timing for this interview could not have been better.

“City will never be bigger than United. Being successful and one of the most recognised clubs in the world doesn’t come from the money. It’s about history.” Thanks Dave, couldn’t have put it myself and you will get a warm reception from me at Old Trafford in March.

Off the pitch, the financial cobblers still grates me. I can understand the desperate calls for Fergie to resign this week but it’s not the way. In reality, we have pretty much no power over this situation and there are those who think Fergie is the last person with chips to play. Maybe so, but the wizard quitting wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference to ‘them’.

The Glazers are treating United as a toy. Fair enough, if I owned a café or a pub I’d shout myself the odd coffee and have a share of the profits. But football clubs are community institutions built up by local support and their exploitation is a morally bankrupt practice. I feel like a disgruntled punter, leaning against the counter complaining about the rising cost of drinks.

We definitely need to get rid of them but waiting for somebody richer to come in does not seem like the best hope either. What I would like to do to the Glazers is unprintable, I can only hope they get lost before United start to resemble the Tampa Bay Buccaneers current diabolical state.

Club Man

One of the more surprising statistics you can read about United is that John O’Shea is now one of the top twenty performers for the club in terms of games played. He has always been a solid club man and played wherever he has been asked to. This week it emerged he has a blood clot and nearly had his leg amputated. That is scary stuff. He has my best wishes and I hope he gets well soon.

Footnote: One of my mates, The Russian Red Lipstick Crusader, is married to a City fan. Pray for her.

Follow markjpayne@twitter and at www.thedevilinme.co.uk

All United fans are to perform the following procedure. Place both hands over your ears, clasp your fingers together at the top of your cranium and gently but firmly lift your head out of the sand.

The heavy reportage of United’s financial quagmire this week has been gut wrenching. Perhaps the worst thing is that little of it comes as a surprise. Americans talk about “always remembering where they were when JFK was shot”. For me it was the sale of United. Not for a second did I believe it could happen and I was speechless for hours afterwards. Oddly, it coincided with the time I finished Uni and nobody could understand why I wasn’t in a better mood.

The sum of all our fears has now been published in black and white and is slightly uglier than at first envisaged. It is slightly ironic that the Glazers look like a group of well-dressed Mythbusters because there is still uncertainty about what there plan was in the first place.

Certainly, the worst thing about the takeover is that it has divided the support. Despite Fergie’s aggressive attitude towards FC United I have nothing against them and wish the club well. I am aware that a lot of fans are vehemently against the manager’s stance on the owners. A section of the support even hold him fully responsible for the whole mess as a result of his face off over the Rock of Gibralter’s sperm.

Personally, I couldn’t give an ess ache one tee about who is to blame. I am only interested in viable solutions for saving our football club. Because that is what is at stake here – The future of Manchester United.

Regular readers will know about my match going buddies the Crinkleys, one of whom has over forty years experience working in the city and has been the through the latest disclosure in detail. This is his take:

“All the noise in the world cannot force a private company to do something it does not want to do. The Glazers won’t float the company unless they can be guaranteed their £1bn+ and that’s a big ask of the markets in the current environment. No, they will only sell to the mega-rich oligarch/crook [who is yet to appear]”.

We’re definitely more boned than the Natural History Museum then. So what can we do as fans?

Since the takeover many of us have vowed not to give a single penny to the Glazers. In my case, other than matchday tickets and club membership, I haven’t given them a dime. Our household proudly boasts a collection of match programs dating back to 1951, but it stopped the day the Glazers come to town. This has been proven completely correct now we know about their £20 million pocket money bonus, Carlos Tevez anybody? But I still attend matches, because I will always, always support the guys wearing the shirts.

Boycotts have been mentioned as a tangible form of supporter action that would send a powerful message. In reality, fan boycotts and the like often just make things worse in that they bring the day of financial catastrophe even closer. But maybe we will have to do just that. SAF won’t like it because he will have even less money to buy new players, so we can’t count on his support. Of course, they may not even work with the number of international fans we have coming in on day trips.

So do we the fans offer to buy the club? It’ll cost at least £1bn and even
divided by one million that’s still £1000 each. Who’s going to do that? And, if ‘only’ 100,000 Mancs step up then the numbers are even more impossible.

We are in a corner here and, considering the circumstances, our current league position and squad composition is nothing short of miraculous. Alex Ferguson is still doing an absolutely brilliant job. The question is, how much longer can he, and the club hold on? We are slipping towards the precipice and without intervention in the very near future – losing to Leeds will start looking like a good result.

Keep the faith. Somehow.

Follow markjpayne@twitter.com and www.thedevilinme.co.uk

Frankly, at this stage, I am willing to put climate change on the backburner, stop being concerned about the global financial crisis and ignore the beast of Bodmin. Why on earth did we lose to Leeds?

You can make as much hoo-ha as you want about the size of the rivalry – but this was a team 43 places below us in the football league and they beat us fair and square on our own ground. Not good enough.

Certainly, Fergie needs to light a few fires under some of the players but the team selection needs to come into account here. Last season the wizard was extraordinary in his ability to keep all the players happy and tinker the side in the right ways. We very nearly won five trophies and indeed won three. The last three seasons are arguably the most glorious in the club’s history but we’re not happy are we?

We did not learn the lessons of the Besiktas result and occasionally we field teams which are a mix of too much inexperience (Wellbeck, Gibson) and too many underperforming veterans (Berbatov, Scholes).

Santa’s sack has really been a mixed bag for us this year. The result at Villa had been coming for a long time. Our record against them is scandalously good and in no way reflects the disparity between the sides. It was owed and I can take it. Fulham on a good day are better than United on a bad day apparently. Make no mistake though, we were spanked.

I think more than one side in the Premier League has figured out that if you can stop Rooney you can stop United. Leeds provided a masterclass in how to do it. The Roonster had two men on him at all times and when he passed to a less effective colleague the team became less effective. Down the line these are the kind of frustrations that lead to Rooney collecting crimson cards, so it is even more of a worry.

I absolutely agree that Ronaldo was irreplaceable, and I absolutely agree that our defensive injuries are more than unlucky. I am also absolutely sure that we need to open the piggy bank in this transfer window. Is the money there though? I fear it may not be, not even a James Cameron movie could get us out of the debt we are in.

We cannot collect another result against City like the one against Leeds. Ladies and Gentleman, it is time to wash the lucky underpants, apply the red lipstick and get out the scarves. The team all the help they can get at the moment.

On a more cheerful note…

Some great United moments from the last decade:

1. 11 May 2002, at about twenty past four. Last game of a season when we’d won nowt. Miserable nondescript game against Charlton which ended 0-0. Denis Irwin substituted on the last of his 511 games for the club and the whole ground giving him a standing ovation as he went off. Great full back, great club man.

2. March 08, the Lyons home game. A couple of lads in front of us start singing the Adebayor song, only to find that other United fans turn on them and tell them to shut up. ‘We’re United, we’re not racist’. Contrast that with games from the 60s and 70s and the monkey noises and bananas thrown onto the field when there was a black player on the pitch. It’s an indication of how the fans are evolving.

3. The Roma fans in March 07, keeping singing and never letting up even when they were six-nil down.

4. Macheda’s goal, perfect drama, really quite special and the moment we knew we’d make it to 18.

5. Rooney’s debut hat trick against Fenerbahce (oh the promise that heralded…)

6. Giggs getting the BBC award (which I didn’t see, nor vote in, but was so pleased to see justice done to a great man for this club)

7. “That’s bollox that. There’s always been pressure at this club.” Alex Feguson calmly reacts to a question after we defeat Mourinho’s Chelsea.

8. Moscow.

9. Winning the league back from Chelsea.

10. Standing ovation for Fat Ronaldo.
Moments collected by Mark Payne, The Grimace, Jhonno, Underpantman and The Russian Red Lipstick Crusader.
Thank you for all of your e-mails whilst I was on leave, I shall endeavour to reply to all of you personally over the next week.

Wishing you all a prosperous 2010, Mark