It has only taken four days but the last remnants of the World Cup drug are leaking out my system. Time then, to turn the focus back to United, the coming season and an appraisal of how things may unfold. Currently our newly-kitted out lads are touring around the US and it is always interesting hear the murmurs from Sir Alex at this time of the year.
Nobody on earth is a more critical analyst of the team’s fortunes and after his usual break in the South of France Fergie usually has new ideas up his sleeve on how to approach the forthcoming campaign. It came as no surprise to hear that none of the World Cup participants are likely to feature against Newcastle.
The purple-nosed warrior will be under no illusions that his dressing room will be full of players whose egos have just taken a battering in South Africa. The first order of the day must, must be to try and reinstall the confidence of Messrs Rooney and Evra, who were our stand out players last year.
When he says things like “I have not bidded for Sneider” I tend to believe him as it would be a great surprise to learn we have oodles of cash to spend. The big money this summer will be flying out of Eastlands and we all know it. I should imagine a tremendous amount of smugness will accompany their next outlandish outlay but frankly I couldn’t give a monkey’s.
What is of far more interest is just exactly how Fergie is going to squeeze more achievement out of this squad. Scholes and Giggs have both stayed on but to get anything close to 10-15 decent performances out of them would constitute a miracle.
If there is hope, it lies with the young players stepping up. Fortunately, in this field, United have done it all before.
What needs to happen for us this season is something that palpably didn’t happen last year. We really require the young players to step up. People can say that Rooney’s performances did improve, but he is too experienced for me to class him as a ‘young’ player anymore.
I see reasons to be cheerful in parts of Nani’s season and lots to admire in the work of Antonio Valencia. Jhonny Evans needs to add some steel and consistency to his game and Anderson has quite a bit of bridge building to do with Old Trafford faithful too.
My gut feeling is that there ain’t gonna much in them there transfer coffers – so it is a matter of team cohesion and improvement from those already in the squad that will count.
To be honest, I approach the season more in hope than expectation.
What do you think about the goalkeeping situation? More specifically, what do you think about purchasing Maarten Stekelenburg from Ajax? I think that if any money is to be spent, at least some of it should go toward shoring up this issue for the long term. I think Maarten Stekelenburg really showed class while playing for Nederland, and that United ought to splash a bit of cash to get him. Once VDS is gone, I think Stekelenburg would be a very good, long term replacement.