A Cradle Of Arguments And Anxiousness

(Image from here)

With the new season getting tantalisingly close, there's a few previews in the papers today. The Times has a strange one, Patrick Barclay, their "chief football commentator," "talks to" Ben Smith about our chances. Isn't that type of thing reserved for celebrity columns? Why can't he write his own preview? I'm a bit confused. Maybe there is some actual reason, who knows. After looking at a few of our players and the inevitable Ronaldo-gone talk he says this on our actual chances:

The best United can do this season is to become champions for a fourth successive time which would be a remarkable achievement. Of course you can never, ever rule them out but my feeling is that they would need Chelsea to suffer injuries and suspensions for them to win the Premier League.

The worst is second, certainly no lower than that. Ferguson is the master of squad rotation, he can manage a squad better than anybody in the world and that always stands in United's favour.

Henry Winter much more sensible in The Telegraph, tips us to win to it, and has a pertinent point about Chelsea which a lot of people seem to be ignoring:

An inclination to plump for Chelsea is tempered by two question-marks: can Carlo Ancelotti adapt to the Premier League and will an ageing squad last the course? ...

Predicting United for the title represents a gamble, particularly without Ronaldo but if Carrick and Berbatov pick up the gauntlet, if Valencia settles quickly and if Wayne Rooney excels in a central role (and he will), United will accelerate in January towards the line. First.

Sir Alex sounds cautiously optimistic on our chances:

"We would like to do it," said Ferguson. "It would be a great achievement obviously, because we all know what a difficult league it is. Under the circumstances, it was a great achievement to win it last year. But we don't have to go for the Club World Cup this time and we don't have to play catch-up in terms of games."

There's also a quote from him on how losing in Rome will be got out of our system first game:

"Adversity is always an important factor in developing and improving.

"I've always reacted well to adversity over the years and whenever we lose a match I tell my players that the next game is the important one.

"That's the match we have to focus on. That's always been the case here at this club.

"When you lose the last game of the season you have two or three months to reflect on the disappointment and we haven't enjoyed that. But we'll cope, and we'll bounce back."

Some words from Gary Neville, on Ronaldo, and on our chances this year:

"We always want to win the league. Reaching 19 isn't something we're talking about, although it will be brilliant if we do it.

"It's going to be incredibly difficult though. Nobody has ever won four in a row, which is a massive incentive. But we can't think too much about records."

Rio talks of room for improvement from last season, which is the type of talk I like, no talk of how we'll "cope" without Ronaldo, but how we'll improve:

"We won the league, we won the Club World Cup, the Community Shield, the Carling Cup, and we got to the semi-finals of the FA Cup and the final of the Champions League.

"I think if you'd offered us that at the start of the season we would have snapped your hand off.

"We take pride but we also know that there's room for improvement in a few areas.

"So if we're to be successful again this season, in all competitions, we need to remember how important it is that we're on top of our game every time we walk out onto the pitch."

The Sun reckons we had scouts watching Sergio Aguero in a recent international.

Finally one of those silly stories in which the Italians should just change the rules regarding under 16's rather than whine on at us:

Manchester United are facing an official complaint to Uefa from the Serie A club Fiorentina after their latest move to sign young Italian talent, the national Under-16 captain Michele Fornasier.

Fornasier is 16 next week and already established at United, having played for them during the Milk Cup tournament in Northern Ireland this month. United have subsequently offered the defender a contract, much to the displeasure of Fiorentina, who, under Italian rules, are unable to sign players until their 16th birthday. It was the same loophole which enabled United to sign Federico Macheda from Lazio two years ago, incurring the wrath of the Italian side when he burst into the United first team last season.