New Signing(s) & Team Progress Thus Far

Today is election day, this will shape the world for the next few years. So glad Obama is going to become the next president of the US.

Anyways, Manchester United this season. Has been a slow start without Ronaldo. Also with Berbatov coming late we lacked some firepower early in the season. Fletcher was the only scorer after 3 games if i'm not correct.

Berbatov looked a bit out of it in the first few games, glimpses of brilliance, but not for more then 5 mins. Thank god we got out of that period relatively intact. 10 games in, we are sitting 3rd. 5 points behind Chelsea & Liverpool with a game in hand.

From when we bought Berbatov I always said we need to have 2/3 strikers (rooney, tevez, berba) playing at a time. We CANNOT play all 3. Unfortunately SAF did not agree and tried to play all 3 initially. Since then he has stopped doing that, sacrificing Tevez. This must be done. Furthermore, there is no reason y Berba cannot start on the bench. Rotation!

We have a great squad, there are many good headaches to have. The RB situation is a good example. Infact Fabio (the LB twin) is supposed to be better then Rafael (the RB). I look forward to his battle with evra. Although, Evra is damn good. Can't see him taking over save a major injury. I was not impressed with Neville last time i saw hime play. Would love to see these 18 yos taking over.

Also the other young Brazillian coming through the midfield (appart from Anderson), Possebon (or something). Really great passer of the ball. Love to see more of him!

Olyroos Round Up

Overall a very disappointing campaign by our Olyroos. The illusion of being one win away from getting to the quarterfinals might entice some to say that we did ok, but not this punter.

Considering the creative play that this team showed in qualifying, none of that was on display in the Olympics. I believe we should not go into youth competitions in a negative defensive mind frame.

Youth competitions are a scouting goldmine, and what scout would give a crap about a team that scores only 1 goal. I say go for broke. If you set up to defend, not only will the attack suffer, but the defenders will suffer, conceding only 1 goal from Argentina becomes a team effort, not the good work of a couple of key defenders.

I can understand hesitation and safety in qualification, but when your goal is reached, go for broke. Realistically we were never going to medal here.

Overall Best Player: David Carney. I really hope he gets a run in the Premier League soon. Interestingly he was more of an attacking threat as the RB compared to RM, probably because he had more room to work with.

Most Promising Talent: Matthew Špiranović. What can i say about this kid, just turned 20 and dare I say it, future captain of Australia. He made the best run of any of our players, running past at least 3 Serbian players and putting a shot on goal .... as centre back. His most effective position is DM, and he is much loved by the Nuremberg supporters. Nuremberg were relegated from the Bundesliga so hopefully he gets back to playing top level competitive football soon.

I can't escape saying something about not having Burns and Djite there. SO STUPID!!! Would have guaranteed more goals for sure.

Edit: Found two great articles written by Craig Foster and Les Murray. I really respect these guys and they agree with me entirely (no surprises). FFA have come out to defend Arnold, bloody hell when will it (his career as an Australian coach) end!

Graham Arnold you are an idiot!

title says it all really. what kind of person would not chose burns and djite for the olyroo team?

he has stacked his team with defenders, which is fair enough, we are ranked 15 out of the 16 teams after all.

Even so with the resources disposed to him he has decided to play 3 defenders as midfielders. Milligan as a defensive CM, Carney as LM & Zadkovich as RM. Even with the team he chose, which is not the team i would have chose, you should play Milligan at CB and Spiranovic at CM. Spiranovic actually plays for Nurenberg as a CM and they love him, they think he's great. And you can tell by his solo run late in the first half that he would be quite the attacking threat. Milligan however is useless in that position, he plays it like a CB, comes back to clear, but offers nothing going forward. In fact playing him alongside Musialik, a natrual DM, is too defensive. They cannot make the passes to give it to our forwards and we end up depending on the CBs to bomb it up.

I would have djite playing forward, and Archie playing behind him. I would play Burns on the right and push Zadkovich to right back. On the other side is ok, carney offers enough going forward. milligan and north at the back, and spiranovic in the middle. Maybe Musialik if i was feeling defensive, but sarkies if i wanted to attack.

Troisi and bridge are guys that i would be looking to bring on. so frustrating watching this defensive team, this is not how we played to get into the olympics and it's not good to watch!

i've written this as we are finishing the first half, and if they win then i will eat my words!

who is this idiot that they are playing up front anyway? anyone heard of him!?

EDIT just seeing on wiki that we've already played. wonder how the other games will go.

Player Ratings

forgot to add this to my post match r/v

it will be 5 star system:
1 star = very poor
2 stars = poor
3 stars = did a job
4 stars = good
5 stars = extremely good

van der sar (gk): 3 stars
did a job, nothing spectacular. saved 1/7 penalties, turned out to be the winning save. looked shaky with corners and a few poor clearances. I love the winning save how he pointed to his left goal post and dived right! hilarious, putting that one more doubt in anelka's head probably did a little bit.

brown (rb): 4 stars
sure he put the cross in for the goal, but it was scholes' flick that made space for him, and it was ronaldo that beat essien for that goal. attacking wise he was fair, but defensively he was huge. malouda did nothing!

vidic (cb): 4 stars
huge, monster of a player. i love the guy. absolutely crushed drogba, mentally and physically.

ferdinand (cb): 4 stars
good game for him. together with vidic nullified the attacking threat of drogba. intersting that he got away with fly kicking joe cole in the head. i think if cole had of gone down maybe the ref would have given it. appart from that scare a solid performance from the lad.

evra (lb): 4 stars
together with ronaldo he demolished the right sided defense of joe cole and essien. went missing a bit in the second half but still did a job.

hargraves (rm): 4 stars
great great effort and performance. could have improved on his corners. but his cool penalty kick might put him in the running over ronaldo to be first choice penalty taker.

carrick (cm): 3 stars
did a job, tracked back well. too many long balls though. also didn't take the open goal that was given to him. he needs to be more leathal from outside the box. everyone knows he strikes the ball well. just needs some killer instinct.

scholes (cm): 3 stars
did a good job, great flick to open up brown for the cross. justified SAF choice to start him.

ronaldo (lm): 4 stars
good performance from the kid. he would have been on 5 stars in the 1st half but went missing in the second half and to top that off missed his penalty. he was looking like a top class player in the first half. essien had no answers to the questions he was asking. all the attack came from going down the line and yielded the best results. tevez should have buried his cross in the first half.

I must also say that in the second half he should have cut inside more, and be more selfish. they were onto his touchline hugging ways, and they knew he would be looking for the run of evra. he needed to take a few more shots. normally i don't encourage this, but u got to keep ur opponent guessing.

rooney (cf): 2 stars
i hate to give such a poor rating to my favourite player but he was pretty ineffective. afterall he had 0 shots on goal. his showed some class in the first half by recieving some long balls, not bad for a medium height (at best) cf. he also did some good wing play, creating another golden chance for tevez. i think SAF should have taken him off at about 65-70 mins, but rooney told him 5 more minutes and ended up giving him a lot more.

i think with rooney it's a confidence issue. ur the center forward, ur allowed to have some shots, who cares if u miss, ur bloody brilliant! i think it was soccernet podcast that compared him with alan smith. i hope that never happens. rooney has loads of talent, come on kid!

tevez (cf): 3 stars
great running from the argentine, poor finishing though. that is what worries me about our cf combination. they are great great team players, but finishing needs some improving. well on the plus side these guys will only improve.

giggs (winger): 2 stars
when giggs came on hargraves went into the middle to partner carrick as effectively 2 DMs. giggs went to rm, didn't do too much. put a goldern opportunity into terry's head. converted his penalty but was ultimately quiet.

nani (winger): NA
came on in extra time and didn't have time to do anything really. put away his penalty though

anderson (cm): NA
can't rate him either, had like 2 mins to play. put away his penalty. i really like this kid and should have been given more time. esp the way chelsea midfielders were dominating.

Match Analysis

geez, what a time for us. try ing to dissect the game what can i say. the use of hargraves as RM, what a surprise! even when the team was announced i was so sure, and i'm sure chelsea was sure that hargraves would be playing DM behind carrick and scholes. As it turned out it worked brilliantly, especially in the first half. Hargraves looked like he had the better of his compatriot Ashley Cole and made some great runs and actually defended against ashley really well.

United's 4-4-2. i think this was a good formation to use, especially considering they thought we'd be playing a narrow 4-3-3. so with these extra wingers we were getting behind them and causing all kinds of problems. well done SAF!

Chelsea's team selection was an odd one. i have to say that use of essien, ballack and lampard i thought was a mistake. I think at right back grant would have been better off with a known right back as opposed to a makeshift one. Even though essien is a great player, seems to me like grant was forced to select his best players and then put them on the field where they fit. Ronaldo had the measure of him in the first half and lost him to create the goal. To Grant's credit he worked out united's system and when the second half came around they fixed this by giving essien more licence to float into midfield, and dragging ronaldo out of position.

i think SAF did not adapt well at all in this game. in the second half chelsea were running riot. the likes of lampard and ballack and essien (who was right back but make it up to central midfield) taking pot shots from outside the box was their only threat. i was imperitive that we revert back to 4-3-3. at least get hargo to sit infront of the defense to stop their one treat!

another aspect that SAF didn't do well was substitutions. i think the injection and anderson at about 60 mins would have been important, he brings that extra grit to midfield and he is genuine quality.

ronaldo as a penalty taker. the second i saw ronaldo step up to take that penalty i had bad feelings, he had done poorly on the two previous attempts. He missed the penalty against barca and his last penalty that he scored against wigan was poor, and very savable, but on target.

lastly the incident in extra time that got drogba sent off. chelsea kicked the ball out because a few of their players went down with cramps. we got it back and tevez kicked it out for a throw in. but more then that he urged our players to defend this throw in. now chelsea had already done this a couple of times, but they did not defend the resulting throw in. so when terry came to confrom him tevez was making the point that we are repaying the favour. Then ballack or "the german sausage" as a friend likes to call him comes over and physically confronts tevez all hell breaks loose. somehow drogba and vidic makes their way down from the other side of the pitch and drogba slaps him and the rest is history. ballack finally gets booked, in the 115th min. he should have been booked about 90 mins ago for constant dissent.

Vidic getting drogba sent off actually disrupted their 5 penalty takers. as it turned out terry was not meant to take the last penalty. they asked anelka to take one in drogba's place. but he told them where they can shove it, and thus brave john terry stepped up and performed the slip of the season.

vidic and ferdinand was absolutely huge for us. chelsea only had 1 shot on target from a foolish essien attempt on goal, 2 rebounds and lampard the chucker being in the right place at the right time. two posters mind you. but still huge performance from the center backs to negate the drog.

what else can i say about the game? i could go on for ages, but should get back to some study. posts on transfers to follow.

We Are Champions of Europe!!!

match review to come later, champions of europe! yay!!!

so tired, thank you terry, thank you lampard!

here were the team lineups:

How Do We Play Chelsea?

Looking forward to Thursday morning's game. I have already discussed how we should line up, but how will Chelsea line up?

After hearing about chelsea's injuries from the bolton game i was really happy, any team missing their top scorer and inspirational captain / rock in defense would be pressing the panic button. I am secretly still hoping that they are being overoptimistic about their injuries.

anyway, if u believe the media chelsea, like us, should have a full team.

and they will play 4-3-3

Cech (gk)
Ferreira (rb) Terry + Carvalho (cb) A. Cole (lb)
Makélélé (dm)
Essien + Lampard (cm)
Wright-Phillips (rw) J. Cole (lw)
Drogba (st)

now this is a guess at best, i have no idea what chelsea are likely to do!

I say Ferreira over Belletti because he is Portuguese and has done a good job on ronaldo in the past. Makélélé over Mikel because of experience. Lampard over Ballack because they never seem to play well together, and Lampard is the vice captain. However personally i would be more threatened by Ballack. Wright-Phillips over Malouda because Malouda doesn't seem to get much game time anymore, even though i reckon Malouda is the better player. Expect the likes of Kalou and Anelka to make and impact as well!

I think Chelsea are going to double team ronaldo and not let him play. That is what they did last year in the FA cup and it worked brilliantly. I expect ronaldo to not be a superstar come Thursday morning, what i expect is that ronaldo will create space for the like of rooney and co. It will be important that ronaldo realises this and not be too selfish for once. PASS god damn it! I am hoping for some more team play from him, for example more running down the wing and less cutting in, play the percentages and trust ur team mates to do a job as well.

Also, how funny is the comment vidic made about drogba! so funny to watch a huge black guy fall like a ton of bricks when given the slightest nudge. That really made my day, vidic is not one to talk to the press and stir controversy, so there is extra sting.

Overall
even though avram is supposed to be a more attacking manager, i expect the players to play very conservative. They will try hit us on the counter and hassle ronaldo to no end.

The game will be a boring one unless there is an early goal. If that happens then one team will chase the game and it should become a much better game! I just hope we score first!

Champions League Finals - Moscow

OK, so this is the first post.

I am finding myself knowing more about this team then most commentators, and i keep finding myself predicting the team and where players will play much better then them, so i will use my powers for good rather then let it sit in my head.

personally i am not in the art of predicting a scoreline, nor a victory or defeat. i don't think the nature of soccer lends itself to these predictions. i can say that i hope we will, god knows we deserve more then 2 european crowns.

So team selection:
There are only 8 players that are sure to start:
Van Der Sar (gk)
Brown (rb) Vidic + Ferdinand (cb) Evra (lb)
Scholes (if SAF keeps his words to start scholes after his goal took us through against Barca)
Rooney and Ronaldo (winger or cf for both)

There are 2 types of formations Sir Alex has been using of late:
4-5-1 (that he has been using in europe)
4-4-2

4-5-1
This formation is a more cautious formation. and it has worked well for us away in europe.

Against a familiar foe in Chelsea in neutral territory it is hardly the scenario of away in europe. i expect us to utilise this formation either to close out the game or if SAF (sir alex ferguson) feels extra cautious maybe even to start the game.

the team should look like this:
van der sar (gk)
brown (rb) vidic + ferdinand (cb) evra (lb)
hargraves (dm)
carrick + scholes (cm)
park (rw) rooney (lw)
ronaldo (st)

i think i'd put my money on park at this time, because he has been getting so much gametime of late. SAF loves his little korean energizer bunny.

if this is the formation, expect to see anderson (maybe this is the game to get his maiden goal!) and tevez to be introduced at 60 mins for some fireworks! and of course giggsy to come on at some stage. which means nani might have to miss out, damn we have a good squad.

of course the other option is to play carrick at DM and anderson and scholes to start CMs. atm i like hargraves a lot, and carrick is better attacking then defending, although i haven't seen hargraves in the middle of the park for sometime now. he has been played at RB alot, with vidic's injury and rotations.

anyway, moving onto 4-4-2
this is our standard formation, and i would expect us to start the game like this. esp considering english opposition

van der sar (gk)
brown (rb) vidic + ferdinand (cb) evra (lb)
ronaldo (rw) scholes + carrick (cm) nani (lw)
rooney + tevez (cf)

i think if we played this formation and this line up it would be our best and most offensive line up. it would be throwing caution to the wind and letting those guys go.

personally i would rather see anderson and hargraves roam the midfield rather then scholes and carrick, but i think scholes will play as SAF promised, there has clearly been a division in the CMs where anderson works well with hargraves and scholes works well with carrick. any other combo of those four in a 4-4-2 seems to not work. it's strange.

If this formation was played, giggsy and anderson will come on at some stage, and possibly hargraves.

on the bench
we have some pretty amazing players that will be on the bench who will most likely not play but may make an impact depending on how things unfold.

Saha: i don't even know if he is fit or not, but i saw him able to walk up to collect his winners medal last weekend so i can only assume he is fit. He will be a great plan B for us if we have to go chasing the game. Gives us someone to play to, as we have all short forwards.

Oshea: i can see him coming on if we get an injury at the back. Although i'd rather see shuffling so that we can bring on hargraves, but who knows.

Fletcher: great hustler, i can see him being brought on if we need to close out the game. so a duo of hargraves and fletcher as DMs would make it hard for any team to penetrate.

Lastly
I hope SAF goes out with an attacking 4-4-2 and play like manchester play. Moreover, i hope avrim go out and play attacking football, not that crap jose played in last year's FA cup.

expect ronaldo to be physically beaten badly

hopefully we take it home this year, i'll be watching at 4am in the morning.

Feedback is appreciated. Glory Glory Man United!

NB: hope football manager ppl don't sue me. i am afterall advertising their product!

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Edit: under the advisement of one, Kian C. Lim, i have decided to restate my general thoughts regarding bloggers, that it is a self indulgent exercise. This is not intended to be directed at anyone. I have now come to the dark side anyway, so there is no hope for me. FEEL FREE TO COMMENT AND ABUSE!!!