You Came, You Saw, You Conquered

Brief highlights of the Crawley game -

szólj hozzá: Man Utd vs Crawley Highlights

There's more highlights on the ITV website, including interviews (although when I tried the game highlights weren't working - linking to highlights of Man City instead - someone's idea of a joke...).

Not the best performance, admittedly, but hard to take much from the game - So Bebe and Obertan didn't do too well, but it's all experience. Obertan seemed a bit more comfortable than previous times I've seen him, finding his feet with games. Gibson did well, but as he's been slagged off week in week out for performances in other games not sure why his performance is greeted with great praise while Bebe/Obertan are written off as useless, not "United players" as I've seen written in places. Let's not judge anyone, either good or bad, on one performance. Especially a no win game like Crawley Town, as Sir Alex said (while admitting we didn't play well second half) "It would have been Crawley's day even if we'd won 5-0."

Crawley's day... Here they get praised for bringing 9000 fans - which is great, respect, but where's our praise for bringing the rest of the 74778 fans for such a low key game in a competition which we've already killed...

One last point from this report in The Observer - the overhead kick -

an attempted overhead kick from Tubbs that flew over Anders Lindegaard's bar and was anyway deemed dangerous play by the officials. That seemed a tad harsh, considering Rooney had scored in exactly the same way at the same end last week, and it was only the fact that Brown tried to get to the ball, whereas City defenders in the derby had stood and watched, that marked one incident as different from the other.

I have often had this argument with people and I don't see what the problem is - it is dangerous play if there's defenders nearby. It's simple. The Rooney one he was on his own - so it wasn't dangerous, The Tubbs one, Brown's head was near - dangerous. Praise Brown, don't criticise referees.

The Age Old Dilemma Of Romance Vs. Retribution

Sometimes I wonder whether football journalists know the meaning of the word "shock." When I used to have time to do my paper round up every morning I used to, like clockwork, every FA Cup morning, write a defence of the FA Cup. Today, like old times, I'll do it again. Or perhaps defence isn't the word, because, frankly, I'm not that keen on the bloody thing - especially since its move to ITV now means that... well, it's on ITV... I'd much prefer to be watching us in a normal league game today. When the draw was made I was praying for Arsenal, just so we had a decent game to look forward to - Crawley?! Give me a break....

It's more that I don't see what they're moaning about, it's like Canute raging against the tide. Don't football journalists, by the fifth round say to themselves, "hang on, I wrote this 'The FA Cup is being belittled' piece the last two rounds, and at least 5 times last year, and the year before... why don't I shut up..." All they really have to do is look at the Carling Cup which everyone used to moan about but now everyone accepts is a bit of a laugh, a diversion, a chance to blood some youngsters, whatever you want it to be. It's been reinvented as the the little cup that could. The FA Cup is still under delusions of grandeur - once it, or the journalists who constantly mourn it's passing, realises this, maybe it'll be reinvigorated.

So back to where I started - the word shock - the journalist whine on about the fact there's hardly any shocks anymore. What? A shock, by definition, can't happen very often, otherwise it's expected, not a shock. How about this for ridiculousness -

This reflects the change in the priorities of the big clubs which has so sharply diminished the status of the FA Cup that serious consideration is being given to making it a midweek competition without replays, in other words the League Cup revisited. There will always be surprises such as Stevenage knocking out an up‑to‑strength Newcastle this season although in the weight divisions Newcastle are more middle than heavy.

It is doubtful whether the Cup will again experience shocks on the Richter scale to compare with Harry Redknapp's Bournemouth beating Manchester United in 1984

Yes, there's apparently a difference between a surprise and a shock in FA Cup terms - a shock is what used to happen in the "good ol' days;" a surprise is what happens now...

As ever though, you have to go some way before you can beat the stupidity of James Lawton, who traces the demise of The FA Cup (remember that FA bit, it's going to be important - its the FA Cup) to a predictable point -

The landmarks of the Cup's death as a potent national institution are easy enough to chart. Far and away the most symbolic is the one of 2000, when Manchester United shamefully acceded to suggestions from the FA and the then sports minister that they should not defend the trophy that was the third string of their historic treble of 1999.

Yes - it's all our fault. We killed it. Let's forget who gets televised every bloody round even when we're only playing bloody Crawley - let's forget we're the team that everyone else wants to play in the bloody cup, we'll forget that - we killed the bloody thing. It's the FA Cup. The FA wanted us to pull out... sounds like a cut and dried suicide to me....

And James Lawton follows this up with something even more nonsensical - our beating Millwall in the final was the final nail. WTF:

Arsène Wenger was no doubt expressing a blunt truth when he declared that winning the FA Cup was no longer as important as finishing fourth in the league and qualifying for Europe. But the decision of United not to defend made the new status of the FA Cup official. It had changed from a staple of the English game to a take-it-or-leave it luxury and if there was any doubt about this it was confirmed when United won their eleventh final – more than any rivals – by beating Millwall 3-0 at the Millennium Stadium four years after their South American misadventure.

On their way to the final Millwall defeated Tranmere Rovers, who had been unlikely sixth-round opponents only if you hadn't noticed that on their way they had beaten Bolton Wanderers reserves.

Like so much of James Lawton's writing, I've read it and read it and it makes no sense. The most likely reading is that he bemoans the ability of a lesser team like Millwall to reach the final, proving the big teams don't care. But that hardly squares with the desire for a romance of the cup. Does it... Unless his hatred of us knows so few bounds that every time we win it an Angel dies and the FA Cup gets a little bit more painful for Lawton to stomach...

And James, if you will suggest the FA Cup is on its last legs etc., etc., don't then cite the idea of moving of it to a Saturday night for viewing figures as evidence. If they want it moved to prime time Saturday slot doesn't that suggest it's quite popular... I guess that Champions League nonsense is also in terminal decline...

Out of the Blue

Excellent win today. City came to Old Trafford up for it, looked more dangerous in the first 10 minutes than they had at their home fixture earlier in the season, but we saw them off. Showed our class. And spectacularly so. All the talk will be about the Rooney goal but the first from Nani was quality all over - Lovely control and finish from Nani but a lovely first time ball from Giggs to play him in -

And then, ignoring city's lucky deflected strike, Rooney shows his class. Finally. I was sat having a discussion about whether Hernandez or Owen should replace Rooney when this happened -

Not gonna see much better than that.
And to top it all, we can see just how annoying the whole thing was to city via Mike Summerbee absolutely losing it on Sky, including a humourous harrumph when real stats disprove his imaginary stats -



A more than satisfactory afternoon's work.

Head Into Tomorrow

I'm a couple of days late on this tribute to Gary Neville from Graham Poll in The Mail, it includes little anecdotes of Poll refereeing him-

He was always working for his team's cause and could only ever see through his red-tinted spectacles. He never thanked me for a decision which went his way, just expected - no, demanded - each one.

But the best bit is this:

Sportsmen generally fall into two categories: those who want to play on forever and those who want to retire when at the very top. Think of Alan Shearer or Zinedine Zidane as examples of those who could easily have continued but wanted to go out on a high.

Now, let me try and remember how Zidane's last game went...

Yeah, he definitely went out on a high Graham...

Get Off My Dick And Tell Yo Bitch To Come Here

Andy Gray and Richard Keys have their exile ended after, well, about a week. I think this confirms what I feared at the time, that they were scapegoats, sacrificed so nothing had to change. Rather than admit to an institutional sexism and look at ways to improve the situation, it's a lot easier to sack 2 people and pretend that that makes everything OK - the bad apple theory. It was in everyone's interests to just sweep it under the carpet, everyone closed ranks, Andy Gray and Richard Keys had to go to keep the status quo. And they performed well, kept quiet, didn't protest, took their punishment like men, and so they are rewarded with new jobs. Everything continues as before.

"The events of the last couple of weeks have been a lesson and have changed them," someone from Talksport says, which actually sounds ridiculous. We are meant to believe that 2 people whose sexism we were previously told was absolutely entrenched have seen the light. Surely the opposite has more chance of being true - that they are now even more likely to be resentful of women, women who got them the sack - if it hadn't been for meddling feminists and liberals they'd have still been comfy at Sky. It's the logical next step, from casual, boorish sexists to out and out card carrying misogynists - they'll probably hide their true feelings better this time though - at work at least...

Fight for this Love Part 1

"I have had 20 years of people slagging me off, then I retire and people start to praise me"

When all the tributes were flowing in to Gary Neville last week, I felt a certain unease, in a sense just like that expressed by Gary Neville above, but also because

he's ours, he's not theirs. He's ours. Jamie Carragher paying tribute to him? Give me a break.

"I can’t stand Liverpool, I can’t stand Liverpool people, I can’t stand anything to do with them"

He's ours.

It is important to keep in mind that Gary Neville was, before anything, a great footballer. Let's not fall into the trap of the patronising, "he made the best of what he had, his desire was what made up for his lack of talent." Bullshit. He was a great player. His crossing was brilliant, his tackling great, his link up play going forward on the right was second to none.

FA Premier League (8): 1995-96, 1996-97, 1998-99, 1999-2000, 2000-01, 2002-03, 2006-07, 2008-09

UEFA Champions League (1): 1998-99

Intercontinental Cup (1): 1999

FA Cup (3): 1996, 1999, 2004

League Cup (2): 2006, 2010

Club World Cup (1): 2009

85 England Caps

That's not desire, that's being a brilliant footballer. So he deserved all the tributes, yet, still the unease, still the nagging, he's ours.

And here lies his desire. He goes beyond just being a brilliant footballer and into the realm of legend because of his desire, because of his love for the club. But desire is the wrong word. Here we turn to psychoanalysis and the idea of the drive. The drive is something beyond desire, Slavoj Zizek explains:

A drive is precisely a demand that is not caught up in the dialectic of desire... Demand almost always implies a certain dialectical mediation: we demand something, but what we are really aiming at through this demand is something else ... Along with every demand, a question neccesarily rises: "I demand this, but what do I really want by it?" Drive, on the contrary, persists in a certain demand, it is a "mechanical" insistence

that cannot be caught up in dialectical trickery: I demand something and I persist in it till the end.

Look at other players with a similar will to win, David Beckham or Ronaldo, in their desire to win for the team, wasn't there always a sense that it was actually for themselves really - "I demand victory because I want to be the best in the world, and the best win games," in Beckham's case we can see in his demand for victory a desire for celebrity, the very reason Sir Alex was prepared to see him out of the door: he didn't have the drive...When he was on the pitch Gary

Neville subsumed himself into Man Utd. Nothing else mattered. We had to win. He's ours.

And here, of course, lies the sadness. He's no longer on the pitch.

No longer one of us. Roy Keane was similar, out the door and, while still a legend, he finds other clubs to manage; Eric Cantona, still a legend, but acting takes the lead. It’s an inevitable dissipation of the aura, the red aura. It’s the moment when the legend is in the past, when the legend is no longer on the pitch week in week out, when real life intervenes and something else has to take over - the passage back from the drive to desire.

This is just the first part of some thoughts on Gary Neville, the second part, which will take us further afield, I've decided to make into a separate post so as not to detract from this tribute. I'll hopefully have a chance to get it finished by the end of the week.

It's Alright

Here's the goals from yesterday's victory -

Some longer highlights here -

Man Utd 3 Aston Villa 1

Didn't get a chance to watch the game, due to work, but from people on Twitter I got the impression that it was a good performance, and comfortable win. I could tell it was comfortable because, after Villa, scored there wasn't the usual panic that we were going to collapse, everyone remained confident, because the performance inspired it. Anyway, VDS showed great vision for the first, and Rooney's finish was great, certainly not the finish of a man out of form. Chris Foy turned a penalty appeal down for a Dunne foul on Nani that looked very similar to the one Blackpool claim they should have had last week against Rafael - proving - yet again - that we don't get all the decisions. The commentator ridiculously says "quite unusual for Manchester United not to get a penalty at Old Trafford..." Fairly sure we've had only 5 penalties this season - compared to Arsenal's 14 (these stats from memory, apologies if they're wrong), and when Bent runs into one of our players later he suggests the ref is evening things up *whispers "can we have Andy Gray back now please..."* Nani''s cross for the second was quality and Rooney finished it well. Nani at the centre of a lot of attacking play if these highlights are anything to go by. Vidic's was some strike - not going to see many balls better hit than that.

All in all seemed like we were looking back to our attacking best, could have been a lot more comfortable if Friedel hadn't been having one of those games.

Subterranean Homesick Alien

In our own transfer news there's this story from The Mail which suggests that Obertan wants to leave the club. Let's assume the story is true (which requires a leap of faith i'll admit, been checking Manutd.com for any confirmation but as of now nothing), the timing is strange, transfer request on the last day of the transfer window. If we go back to when he signed, we can see what the problem could be, his then manager, Laurent Blanc had this to say -

"Manchester United have been tracking him for a long time. They certainly hope to advance him, something that Bordeaux and Lorient have failed to do. He has the potential, but he must overcome psychological and mental challenges so he can express his true value."

So it sounds like this could well be what's happening here, less a desire to leave, but, given the timing, a sort of "cry for help," the flip-side of a lack of self-belief - a desire for reassurance that he is good enough.

His performance in the FA Cup was certainly not the worst on the night, his cross set up a goal. Definitely showed potential. He should look at the example of Nani who had seasons of underachievement before flourishing. Whatever happens we have the time to convince him of, and help him realise, his worth.

UPDATE - Just seen this -

Obertan's representative, Karim Djaziri, insists the Frenchman has not handed in a transfer request and is happy to stay at Old Trafford.

"I have read that Gabriel has handed in a transfer request, but no he has not done this," Djaziri toldskysports.com.

"He is very happy at Manchester United and he doesn't want to leave.

"He is still learning and he knows he is not ready to be a regular starter in the team, but he is working hard to be a member of the first team."

So there we are.

Motor City is Burning

Liverpool fans burning a Torres shirt

Which is kind of amusing. They get £50 million for him and yet somehow he's betrayed them. Chelsea were interested, Liverpool have been having a poor season, he wanted to go. Understandable. It's not like he held the club to ransom, demanded a move, refused to play. He played, his return to form seemed to coincide with their recent good results, more so than the return of "the saviour" perhaps (I don't pay that much attention to Liverpool so not too sure about that really...). It's like Ronaldo leaving. Sad to see him go. But we got a lot of money and he left us with the memories - and still we have respect for him. Beckham still gets respect - too much respect as far as I'm concerned, but there you go, rather that than going over the top in protest at a player who did well for the club.

Of course, Torres' comments after leaving about how he's finally reached the top seem particularly churlish and unnecessary- incendiary you might say - especially given that they play each other at the weekend.
On the other hand if you look at the video and see the pictures everyone's smiling and having a good time. It's not an angry mob scenario - it looks like party time. It seems like playing up to the cameras, "Sky Sports are here, let's give them a show..." They're behaving like an exaggeration of how spurned supporters are meant to behave - It being Sky wouldn't surprise me if they'd given the fans a Torres shirt and some matches...