The Devil In Me

Beating Bolton four nil away was a terrific was to start off the current set of fixtures but a hefty main course now awaits us. Twenty years ago, the final games in March saw us play Sheffield Wednesday, Southampton and Coventry – we were also five years away from our last trophy. As such, there can be no complaints against facing two of the richest sides on the planet three times in eight days. This is what it’s all about and we are lucky to be here. How we will fare is another question.

Most of us were dumbstruck last season by how well Ferguson rotated the squad, putting us on the verge of a potential quintuple. The juggling was supreme up until a horrific night in Rome that seemed a game too far. This week Fergie is going to have to pick his teams with the utmost care.

My prayers have been answered by the return of fit versions of VDS, Rio and Vidic and one hopes that all of this hoo-ha about Rooney’s knee turns out to be just a load of rubbish. I expect United to play at least the first two fixtures in a 4-2-3-1 formation, with Valencia looping balls into Rooney to bury. With both matches my fear lies with the speed of the opponents’ front men.

Louis Van Gaal is a wily old manager and you can completely ignore the platitudes he has been sprouting in the press . The man has an ego the size Jupiter and will be looking to make his mark against United. The trouble we had against Wolves, and early on in Milan, will have been noted and G.Nev will need shielding by a dogged Fletcher or Park in both games.

Robben (another nominee for the Jose Mourinho Ego of the Millenium Award) is darn tricky to play against and we will need Evra to be at the top of his game to keep him in check.

With all due respect, Bayern were a heavy side of lucky against Fiorentina but their league results indicate that they are gearing up for the United game more than any other. That seemed to work pretty well for Inter and we should be more wary than the form books suggests.

Having the second leg at home is often regarded as an advantage but after what will no doubt be a brutal slugging with Chelsea on Saturday, Fergie will want to be in the driving seat by the time things get to OT. I thoroughly expect United to go for it in the Allianz arena, alas, I also expect us to concede.

Perhaps some people are happy with their clubs playing the classic ‘score-and-consolidate’ variety of European football. As a United fan it is alien to me. In advance of the next eight days I have booked in with a heart specialist next Thursday who will be able to tell me whether I am still technically alive or not. By that time I hope United are still kicking along too.

Allez les rouges.

To catch up with what the Bayern fans think see Susie Schaaf’s blog here

I am not into any of the darker elements of the famous enmity, but after the pasting we received last season United fans are entitled to enjoy a couple of things. Firstly, Benitez has clearly lost his dressing room, a fact made starker by the fact our best players were the hard working squad men Fletcher and Ji Sung Park.

It is hard to take your eyes off Rooney at the moment – however if do, you will see a hard working team who are working for each other. Our side is not without its flaws but there is a determination about them at this important stage of the season that gives me much to cheer.

I don’t, however, think winning any further silverware is going to be easy. The run-ins for the top clubs have a dizzying number of close-to-call possibilities, the one thing we can be thankful for is that it is in our hands. To defeat Spurs, Chelsea and City during the final push would be some achievement. Ferguson deserves astounding credit for what the squad has accomplished already this season. The man is ridiculously dogged.

How the hell he made the “effing perch” comment and then stuck around twenty odd years to see it through I’ll never know.

Fidelity is an important thing. One must be loyal. This is why I promise, hand on heart, that I will enjoy beating other clubs less than Liverpool for all eternity. The feeling, no doubt, is mutual.

History is littered with great rivalries, Christianity vs Islam, Hitler vs Churchill and Wiley E Coyote vs Roadrunner have all made their mark on times gone by. Now it is time for a new contest – Fernando Torres vs karma.

As this tight game drew to a close the deadly Torres bore down on the United goal and tragedy beckoned. The ball bobbled on the very spot that he had earlier scuffed up in order to intimidate (chuckle) a penalty-taking Rooney. I was seriously worried that I might die laughing. Thankfully, after several hours I came to.

Next up are Bolton, then Bayern and Chelsea. Some week, it’s time to rock and roll.

Footnote: Welcome back Owen Hargreaves, keep those knees together and we’ll hope you can get some playtime. The above sentence cannot be used in any other context.

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

There is nothing wrong with optimism. Cynics claim they are merely being realistic but if I wanted to hang around with people who see something bad in everything good I’d start kicking back with Mary Whitehouse and Jeremy Paxman. That’s not for me, I live in a world here the only reason Jessica Alba hasn’t confessed her undying love for me is because we haven’t met, where the winter is a gift and where it ain’t so bad if someone leaves the toilet seat up from time to time.

I do, however, have limits. Cruel experience has taught me never, ever to take anything for granted on the football field, and sure as hell not in the European Cup. UEFA have now drawn for the quarter-finals of the Champions League and more than one wise United fan has cheerfully looked up and said, “We’ll have a chance to do Barcelona again in the final”. Well hang on a bloody second. I may already have chosen a middle name and high-school for the third child Jessica and I will have in 2018, but this is football. Time to be serious.

Whilst our next sojourn into Europe gives us all an excuse to watch thisagain, it seems to have inspired a bit of innocent buffoonery in our support. So sadly, my cheerful little mind has come up with a list of reasons why we should not be over presumptuous about getting past Bayern Munich in the next round.

1. German football teams are famous for winning things. In the immortal words of Gary Linekar, “Football is eleven men against eleven and in the end the Germans win”. Even when they are losing they can scare the bejesus out of you. For examples of this I cite the 1986 World Cup Final (quote after 1min and 6seconds here) and the 1999 Champions League final (watch it again). Tear-inducingly brilliant as that was, we were luckier than a leprechaun at the end of a rainbow in a pot of rabbits’ feet.

2. Leverkeusen. Just that one vowel-heavy word can have me shaking my head. I still struggle to comprehend what went wrong in that semi-final and the experience alone should be enough to stop people taking things for granted. But if it isn’t…

3. …then feel free to cast an eye over the events at Craven Cottage this week. I doubt any Juve supporters seriously thought they could get turned over in the second leg. But that air of deduction proved to be fatal.

4. French teams are no joke at the moment. So, HYPOTHETICALLY, we beat Bayern and meet, for example, Lyon in the next round – what can we expect? A team that has already seen to Real Madrid this year must be respected and there is the intriguing master/apprentice duel between Fergie and Larry White to consider too. This clip exemplifies they do always work out in favour of the master.

5. Even if we do get past everybody else and meet Barca again let’s not overlook the fact that they are actually a pretty special team. This week they did for Stuttgart what the volcano did for Pompeii. Even if we manage to clone Wayne Rooney and replace his skeleton with tungsten steel I still reckon they’d be a handful.

Mind you, it’d be wicked if we could do Barca in the final and make up for last ye…DAMN!!

United wore black armbands on Saturday as a mark of respect to the recently deceased Macclesfield manager Keith Alexander. You only need to take a quick peek at JT’s absurd armband celebration to understand why he is the most dislikeable man in the universe. I am not going to argue that United’s players go home every night to polish their halos, but if Chelsea’s title campaign is distracted by the shenanigans of Cole and co. there will not be great mourning in the religious community methinks.

Instead, we can thank the heavens for the cool head of Paul Scholes. It was looking horribly like ‘one of those days’ for the majority of the match until Gibson’s superb (and unsung) through ball picked out the Ginger prince for our fairly fortunate winner.

Scholes prepares to battle the Na’vi. Berbatov seems to underestimate the peril.

It would be remiss if I did not say that Wolves were worth a point. Mick McCarthy put out a team to get a result and they were unlucky not to get it. He is unlikely to win a polarity contest in the company of people who venerate Roy Keane, but I have always admired his ability to look like a ferret and maintain a straight face. He also benefits greatly from not being John Terry, we all do.

For the most part I spent the early evening being cruelly reminded how ‘less good’ we are without our number 10. We are still an incisive team without Rooney but for most of the game it looked like we were trying to stab Wolves to death with a damp sponge.

That said, I thought Berbatov played exceptionally well, particularly with holding the ball up and finding passes to colleagues. Lamentably though, he cannot set himself up. Tremendous credit must go to both the players and Fergie for remaining focused on the games with the off pitch battle that is developing. If we are going to be handed slices of luck to go top of the league with nine games to go I’ll take them.

If the result against Wolves was a shot in the arm for our title ambitions then the San Siro game was about as sedate as a drug-induced rampage with a violently mood-swinging Iggy Pop.

I am hoping for a more relaxing evening at OT but being a United fan I know better. David’s return will, quite rightly, heighten the sense of delirium in the stands and Ronaldinho’s form at the moment will raise my blood pressure in all the wrong ways.

Rooney now wears a shirt with his average performance rating.

Milan are a proud club with a lot of seriously good players. We might well be playing Gary Neville against them. G. Nev is one of the great men yet, alas, no longer a great right back.

This is definitely my favourite time of the season, when things start to rock and roll a bit and the big matches stack up against each other. Let’s hope we can stay the course.

Join MUST here and support the green and gold campaign for a change of club ownership.

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

A “source” claims the report, says that two “mystery bidders” have offered £1bn+ for United this week but were turned down by the Glazer family. What a convincing story! How brimming with factual evidence it is. Perhaps the more cynical among us would say this is misinformation, a lame attempt at discouraging the Red Knight campaign. Surely our impeachable owners would not stoop to such a tactic. This can be nothing more than quality news reporting at its best.

There is a disclaimer on this page that states “While these reports are filled with correspondent’s insight and expertise, they are based on the correspondent’s point of view and may contain speculation as well as fact.” In light of that, here is my speculative opinion: Today’s report that the Glazer’s have recently turned down two £1bn+ bids for United from mystery people is more dubious than a £12.50 coin.

Balls(c)Andresmarx @FlickrCcoms
Why do I draw this conclusion? For the following reasons: Firstly, all we have heard this week is that the Glazers will not sell, they are in it for the long haul, etc. etc. Secondly, while this is a vague reiteration of what has been said before it is really being hammered home. Thirdly, as of this morning, MUST’s membership figures are tickling 110,000 – not bad considering the target was 100,000 by the end of the season. In conclusion, we, the fans, are getting organized and they know it.

In 1984 George Orwell wrote, “If there is hope, it lies with the proles”. As the masses, we are the ‘proles’ and this latest campaign of misinformation on their part is highly reminiscent of that novel.

This is not the time for us to either give in or become distracted by the press releases from Old Trafford. This is our club and we will get it back as long as we remain steadfast in our ambitions.

I reiterate the importance of all fans taking up the opportunity of free MUST membership, so that we can all be communicated to with one voice. I would also implore people to not renew their season tickets or purchase tickets for match days from on in. Most blokes will tell you that a kick on the pocket makes you think twice, that is where we need to aim our shoes.

If I was in a scuba suit surrounded by great white sharks , giant squid and other beasties from the deep then I might forget the ocean is rather a magnificent sight when viewed from the surface. Pitchside this week ‘maginificent’ is the only word left to describe Wayne Rooney.

Vidic and Agbonlahor practice their ice-skating routine in honour of the Winter Olympics(c)Getty
Having watched his header to win the League Cup Final a dozen or more times I am still aghast at how much skill it takes to do that. Equally stunning is how little time it has taken for the team to forge a successful new style of play after the departure of Ronaldo.

By turning the tactics book back a few pages United have struck up on a simple winner. Good, pacy wingers running at defenders and putting in good crosses. This has been ‘the United way’ since time immemorial and it is great to see it back. Whether we prove strong enough to pick up more trophies this season is open to debate. It was interesting that none of the players, not even the Manc raised personnel, felt the need to pick up a green and gold scarf on their way up the steps. I’ll bet they were under instruction and this is exactly the point.

The one hope I have for the future is that one day, I will be watching the team again and only be concerned about what happens on the pitch. Right now, I am all too aware of what lies beneath.

Patrics Evra lifts the Carling Cup. The young Michael Jackson stands next to him looking miffed(c)Getty

Photography from Getty Images and Andresmarx @FlickrCcoms.

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