The Futures Bright, The Futures Red!!

This summer has been a huge summer for movement through the front doors at Old Trafford. This season is looking to be a huge leap forward for Manchester United. The players that have come in sound like they are going to shine bright in the Theater of Dreams.

Both Nani and Anderson who have just completed their £30M combined transfers have signed five-year-deals at United that promise to be very successful. They arrive with the sort of promise of skills and ability that accompanied Ronado and we all know how well that turned out.

So far its looking very positive, but now we have got the attacking talent in to takes us the next step to keeping the Chelski blues down where they belong its starting to look a bit more worrying.

The rumors are now all of departures. The main ones being Gabriel Heinze and Alan Smith. Now I believe that if we are to succeed we need to do all we can to keep hold of these players. They both have the talents that we need to hold the team together. When you have all these attacking creative players like Ronaldo, Nani and Anderson we need solid players in between them such as Smith and Heinze.

Even though Evra is first choice left back, after some great performances last season, we can’t survive the season with one decent left back. Evra and Heinze complement each other perfectly. They can play 50-50 games, Evra when we need to be more attacking and Heinze in games when we really really need a strong solid back four.

Alan Smith has to stay too, mainly because he is a top striker and a brilliantly strong combative no stop attacking machine, when he is there the opposition defense can’t rest, also we haven’t bought any other strikers and aren’t likely too as we don’t need any more.

If we really need players out if the squad is too big now then there is interest in Mikael Silvestre he was a great player for the team but with Evra and Heinze in there now I recommend he move on to get more first team games because he deserves that.

Kieran Richardson may have to do the same, he is a good player but we have just got Nani and Anderson who I think might just have one up on Kieran in skill level but I’d be happy to keep him at United. Fletcher is another who may find it harder to get into the United team now, with the arrival of Hargreaves there no chance Fletcher will ever play a midfield holding role again and the flanks are getting crowded too so maybe he will have to find first team games else where.

However I would totally recommend we go into next season with exactly the team we have now, if we do I think it will be an even more successful season than the season past.

The Champions!

Brilliant, we finally have our trophy back from the Blues. I can’t believe we had Arsenal to thank for it today. But if they hadn’t have done it for us today it might have gone close, going to Stafford Bridge is a difficult game, and playing West Ham on the final day of the season, well normally, fine, easy game but when they are fighting tooth and nail for Premiership survival its gonna be tough. So I’m glad its all over already.

This season we certainly deserved the title, the team was strong all season, and played brilliant football. The best is that its still a young team and with a few more additions over the summer there is endless potential.

Manchester United

06/07 Premiership Champions

A Disaster Class of Footballing Misery.

A big night in Italy that required a huge game from all players involved, unfortunately only 11 players turned up and showed how it should be done. I can’t blame the United player though, AC Milan are the best there are and when you come up against them and all their players are fit and fresh having not played a game for a week then you realistically have no chance. Having worked hard to secure a win at the weekend to almost clinch the Premiership and with hardly any spare players to call on United went to Italy with a make shift defense and a team of player not fully fit.

Against Milan this wasn’t the best of situations. Milan were truly great, every time United had the ball half the Milan team were on him like a flash before he could blink. We just couldn’t keep up with their strength, pace and quick passing. Our best chance was to hold out and defend for all we were worth but with a patchy defense we had no chance.

In that sort of form Milan are guaranteed to beat Liverpool in the final, even though they are a good team they won’t be able to compete with a Milan team that can have a rest between now and the final where as Liverpool have more Premiership games to play and third place in the table to play for.

We still have enough in us to win the league and Cup double I’m sure of it. When we meet Chelski in the Cup Final they will have played just as many games as us and will have no advantage over us as Milan did. A double season will be a huge achievement against the riches of Chelski so we should be proud. Getting to the semi of the Champions League was also a huge achievement and something to build on for next year. A few top quality signings during the summer, add some depth to the squad and we will be sorted. Roll on next years Champions league Final!

Champions League Semi Final 2nd Leg
	3-0 (5-3)
Kaka 11 Clarence Seedorf 30 Alberto Gilardino 78

Manchester United 7 - 1 Roma

The greatest night of European football ever to grace the pitches of Old Trafford. Roma currently the second best team in all Italy and defiantly a top European side of some class were totally blown away by some of the best quality football your ever likely to see on this earth.

From the very first minute to the very last, United were all over Roma. The play was fast, quick, slick and just brilliant. Smith started upfront as the lone striker with Rooney, Ronaldo and Giggs in support and Fletcher and Carrick in the midfield just behind them. It was Fletcher and Smith that put in some impressive work as they spent the whole game bitting at the heels of the Roma players. Their determination gave the rest of the team the chance to push forward and join in.

The opening goal was brilliant from long range. Ronaldo for the wing saw Carrick run into space from the half way line and slotted the ball into his path perfectly for Carrick to hit it straight at goal in one swift movement. Alan Smith got the second with some great passing football setting him up on the edge of the area with a neat shot into the top corner. It was a well deserved goal and its good to have him back for the final run in of the season.

Rooney got the third only seconds after the restart from a really quick break out of our own half and United were 3-0 up after only 20 mins.  Ronaldo got the next two, one just before and one just after half time. It was a shame he didn’t finish his hat trick because as always he looked like he really wanted to just score as many as possible every time he got the ball.

After that Roma were starting to lag knowing the game was lost. However out of almost nothing they managed a consolation goal.  Totti crossed to the edge of the area and with such a simple flick, almost with his back to the goal, Daniele De Rossi got the ball into the United net, Van Der Sar really wasn’t expecting the ball to come his way and got no where near it, but its was of little consolation.

Carrick went on to get his second and substitute Evra got only his second United goal to make it 7-1 come the final whistle. Its starting to look like it could turn out to be a very profitable season for United. The treble is a very likely possibility if we are going to play like that a few more times. Hopefully now we have a few players returning from injury in the next few weeks we’ll have a full squad to fight the last few important games with and this could certainly be a year to remember. Either way this game will not be forgotten for a very long time. A lot of big clubs are going to be slightly more scared of coming to Old Trafford after see what happened there last night.

Champions League Quarter Final 2nd Leg
	7-1
Michael Carrick 12, 60 Alan Smith 17 Wayne Rooney 19 Cristiano Ronaldo 44, 49 Patrice Evra 81		Daniele De Rossi 69

Football Tickets

I recently won Premiership match tickets for an Aston Villa game in a competition from Barclays. It was for a February 24th game but got re-arranged because of the FA Cup. Its now being played 7:45 on March 14th.

I got the tickets posted to me but I couldn’t go so I sold them. So now two other nice people will get a chance to see a great premiership game and not have to pay the massive price tag for a premiership game, although I did get a reasonable amount for them.

The annoying thing is that for the big games the clubs charge more. For this game against Arsenal it was a Class A game so the tickets I got would have cost almost £70. I sold them for about half that.

Its a shame because I would love to go to more games, especially Manchester United ones but its often way to expensive. There has to be some way to make the game cheaper to watch, with all the TV and sponsorship money you would think they made enough already. It’s the players and the agents and their ridiculous pay demands. How ever good you are at kicking a football around you should never earn that amount of money. The agents are worse, they do nothing and get a cut of all the huge transfer fees!

All the clubs getting bought out by foreign billzillionaires isn’t helping either, more money just goes to more super rich players, all foreign as well so no room for any English players anymore. Its a mess. It looks like I’ll have to find more time sometime to rant and complain about this because I’m tired now, but I really want to complain some more, so maybe I’ll go have a nice dream about it, I can slap Abramovich round the head with a giant fish and nick his wallet. Thats only fair I think.

MPH.

Liverpool 0 - 1 Manchester United

Thats two games in a row that we didn’t really deserve to win but walked away with the 3 points. But thats the mark of true champions. To win the league luck has to be on your side. It was a good omen today, we are another step closer to the title today.

The match wasn’t the greatest of all time, Liverpool played well but we did a good job of holding them back. It was a bit scrappy at times and there were not many chances.

Liverpool had a goal disallowed for offside. It was a close call be we got the luck and it was rules out. Then with Liverpool pushing forward with the belief they were going to win Van Dar Sar made one of the saves of the season to deny Crouch a goal.

Scholes got sent off for lashing out late on when the tension was getting high. We will really miss him for the couple of games he will be out but I hope that we’ll do alright whiles he’s gone.

With a few minutes left good work by Giggs on the left side got a free kick. Ronaldo whipped in a shot, the keeper spilled it and John O’Shea was there to knock it in.

This and the Fulham game before it are likely to be the defining point of the season and I hope to look back and say that was the point that won us the title.

Premiership
	0-1
		O’Shea 89

It’s suppose to be the Champions League not the Sunday League

Alex Ferguson was right when he said: “It’s a disgrace, what we’ve seen tonight. That’s not football”.

What happened last night in what was suppose to be the first leg of the last 16 of the Champions League was more like Sunday League than Champions League. The Lille players had no respect for the referees decision and although its perfectly fine to protest a bit and its very common, what happened last night went too far. You have to accept that when the referee makes a decision how ever much you protest their is not a snowballs chance in hell that they will ever change their mind.

The goal by Giggs that sparked it all off was totally legal and legitimate anyway. It’s happened to us plenty of times, I think I remember Henry doing the same to us not long ago and we didn’t leave the pitch in protest. You just have to accept that it was a smart bit of play and actually a great goal. Its Lille’s fault for not being better at defending free kicks. The goalie took too long lining up the wall, there was no Lille player near the ball to delay the kick while they took the time to get their defense right. One things for sure they won’t make the same mistake twice, just like we learned the hard way when it happened to us.

The Lille goal that was disallowed probably added to the problem and their players frustration but that was disallowed correctly as Odemwingie was pushing and leaning on the back of Vidic. That sort of thing happens all the time so they shouldn’t be surprised about that, its common to have a goal like that disallowed almost every other game, you just get on with it and try and score another.

The crowd was also a disgrace last night, how can something like that be allowed to happen now a days, after all the tragedies in the past every single ground should be up to strict standards especially for a Champions League game. Who ever is responsible for the trouble should be punished as harsh as possible, this can’t happen again, no one died this time, but they were lucky. The police firing tear gas into the stand was just madness too. It has got to be sorted. The amount of stuff that was being thrown onto the pitch was crazy too, Gary Neville was hit by several objects and the pitch was littered with hundreds of objects after the game.

I just can’t wait for the game at Old Trafford so we can really show them how to play football and how a proper game in a proper and stadium is organized. I really hope that we never see that sort of thing again and that we can just carry on with the football, oh and win the Champions League obviously.

Champions League - Last 16 First Leg
	0-1
		Giggs 83

Tottenham 0 - 4 Manchester United

A very positive game against Tottenham, another 3pts to keep the gap to 6pts at the top and even more goals to increase the goal difference to +17 more than Chelski.

Ronaldo started it with well taken penalty moments before half time. Although the penalty claim was dubious in the view of a lot of people I think it was valid because Malbranque stuck his leg out and even though there was barely contact he shouldn’t have being sticking his leg in there no where near getting the ball.

Just after half time Vidic rose strongly to head a great goal from a corner to make it 2-0. In my opinion the best goal of the game because he was so determined and ran so far to get his head on the cross.

Ronalso agian did brilliantly to set up the third, a fantastic burst of pace got him past the tottenham defence to then cross the ball along the face of the goal for a simple Scholes tap in.

It was then left to Giggs to score a well worked goal to wrap it up just before Van Dar Sar got his face smashed in by the trailing knee of Robbie Keane. He had to go off with a broken nose and after using all three subs it was left to John O’shea to man the goal. He did a good job too, saving one on one with Robbie Keane in the final few minutes.

Over all though it was a game we mostly dominated and could have scored more but for some great one handed saves from Robinson. Tottenham did get a couple of shots at goal and Van Dar Sar also had to make a stunning one handed save to deny them. After this game its starting to look really good for our title hopes this season, I just hope Van Dar Sar isn’t out the team too long.

Premiership
	0-4
		Ronaldo 45 (pen) Vidic 48 Scholes 54 Giggs 77

Manchester United 2 - 1 Portsmouth

This was a typically tough FA Cup game with Portsmouth defending hard, Sol Cambell at the back was solid for almost the entire game, wouldn’t be suprised to see him back in the England team any time soon.

For United though it was a game with a lot of chances that should have been. First Vidic scored a wonderfully powerful header from a corner, jumping above Cambell and heading in just for Mendez to clear the ball from behind the line. The linesman and the ref missed it and the goal didn’t count.

Later in the game a super volleyed goal by Larsson was rules out for offside when the reply showed he was onside. So it was left to Rooney to come on as a sub and score twice to seal the win.

The first a direct pass from Carrick straight throught the middle set up Giggs to square a pass across the box for a simple Rooney tap in.

Then the special Rooney back on form just in time to see us through to the end of the season scored a wonder goal that has seen him compared even more to the legend of Cantona. A sweat chip from the edge of the area sailed over the helpless James in the Portsmouth goal and into the top corner of the net with pin point precision.

A lucky break at the other end then got a goal back for Portsmouth but it was too late for them and United held on for a well deserved win, and a wait for Mondays draw to find out who we will face in the next round.

FA Cup Fourth Round
	2-1
Rooney 77, 83		Kanu 87