Seriously!

As seen in the recent years, FIFA/UEFA loves the Spanish teams and their players. All the controversy is around referees helping Spanish teams (2009 it was Barcelona who was pushed into the final as Chelsea crashed out and last night it was Real Madrid who got help). Same with the choices of the highest awards and selection of best players (last year’s 11 were all from Spanish teams despite Chelsea winning the CL).

UEFA and FIFA spend special time to promote the Spanish football as best, the Spanish teams as best, the players that play in Spain as the best,

Why not boycott it then? Let UEFA see how much money they will lose once the English teams are out. Man United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and even City have 10 times bigger fan bases and are more watched that Getafe, Genoa, Lille or whichever secondclassed team that will play instead of them.

Let Barca and Real play and they will get to the oh so special and expected final but the profit will be lots lower. Same with the fan base that will be watched. Get United out of it completely and you lose the biggest fan base in the world (forbs!).

To all those who forgot how with 13 injured at one point, we are tied for #1 against a team who was complete through the whole year.

It’s a shame and if anything, if United does end up winning the title with all the youngsters and all those injuries, City fans SHOULD gun themselves.

End of story.

Okay, so we’re down to the ‘game of the season’

I still cannot believe we’ve lost 4 points and it can all change tomorrow.
But, if i believe in anything, it’s this team. Why do it in the easy way!? It’s the one thing i’ve learned in the past 15 years i’ve been a United fan. There’s only one way -the hard way -the United way.

I believe we can manage a draw tomorrow. I really do. A win would be a precious bonus, but i wont go that far, saying we can easily do it. If we do manage to win, it will be the harder way. Never an easy game, playing the noisy neighborus in their yard.

I am sure the boss will go for a draw as well. Playing Smalling instead of Rafael adds to it. With Rafael, the team is attacking machine, especially from the right side. Valencia + Rafael = deadly attack. On the other hand, with Smalling as RB, you get a defensive stability. Something Rafael still needs to learn.

My prediction for the team is -

De Gea
Evra - Evans - Rio - Smalling
Giggs - Scholes - Carrick - Valencia
Rooney - Welbeck

bench: Rafael, Owen, Young, Jones, Park, Cleverley

(or maybe only with Rooney in attack, having Park in the midfield as well)

The experience will be crucial, that’s why i think he’ll go with Ryan instead of Young (Nani is rumoured to have suffered a knee injury today :/). Plus, Giggs has been out of action for a few games already, maybe he’s been resting him for this one? Dunno, but the above selection seems like ‘the one’ for me. Experience AND stability.
I’ve already explained why i think Sir Alex will play Smalling as RB. The only problem might be the left side. Evra has been starting in almost every game this season, but that’s been mostly because we don’t have other LB. Otherwise, he’s been far from great. Fabio has been more injured than fit this season. I do hope the defense will be more ready and less carefree, like they were with Everton.

I firmly believe United can control the game tomorrow, and with Subs like Young and Owen, we can manage to stay strong through the whole game. But in the end (in my opinion) it will all go down to Rooney and Evans.
Rooney’s play will make the difference for United. He combines quite well with Valencia and Welbeck. If we wanna win, he’s the one that we depend on.
If we don’t wanna lose, it’s Evans we turn to.
Rio has been quite good this season, with some ups and downs, but Evans has been superb. He needs to keep his head. It was unlucky he got sent off in the derby on OT back in the fall, but he was guilty. Let’s just hope he wont rush and do anything stupid.

Another thing - the supporters. At Blackburn, they were phenomenal! (I hope for a repetition of that, seriously).

At the end of the day, it will be a tough game. Match of nerves. Something that United are used to. Let’s just hope it stays like that tomorrow. And i do hope the crowd will get their voice heard. . for another night, full of drama and at the end joy.

Oh United we love you…

Pain.

I’ve mentioned in my last post, today for the first time since i’m a United supporter i felt like crying. Oh i have cried from happiness so many times, so many times… Moscow ‘08, when we won the 19th title being among the last times my love for United has gone wild and made my cry. But today it was different. Today it hurt.

I knew there were chances to lose today. I knew City were good enough to surprise us. But to say i expected us to lose the game like this, to say i expected utter humiliation would be wrong. I sure expected a very very tough game. I said 50-50, we can win it but they can also win it. If you’ve seen the last 5 derbies, you will know what i’m talking about. Gone are the days when City was a small utter shit club. Gone are the days we beat them regularly. Even with a weak manager, they still have bought very good players in the past two years so them finally showing their real potential was bound to happen sooner or later.

I would have loved if it didn’t happen at Old Trafford though.

It hurts but we have no one but ourselves to blame for this. Being a fan for a longer period, watching every game, analyzing the players, one can easily see who played well and who underperformed. It pains me to say, but today they were all miserable. Our midfield was bad, our attack was bad, our defense was horrible. Last season we won the title because of the solid defense.So the question is - what happened?
It hit us in the head, that’s what happened. Last season our defense was incredible. Ever since we lost Vidic at the beginning of the season, our defense has been horrible. It’s like they forgot we don’t have VDS anymore to save incredible shots and to save their arses when a mistake in defense is made. The improvement in the attack and the fact that we were scoring so much goals in so little games made us believe we were good in every aspect. When you’ve scored eight friggin’ goals in one game against Arsenal, those eight goals are the only thing you keep thinking of, not even bothering with the two goals that were scored against us. The key thing is, the goals they scored were type of goals one team with title ambitions CANNOT let in. I’ve been saying this since that game - our defense has to improve if we want the 20th title.
Without Vidic, we are weak, slow, we are not stable.
I have never doubted the Boss when it came to choosing a team for games, but i think he did huge mistake today when he benched Jones (and left Vidic out of the team) and played Evans. Don’t get me wrong, the guy had some awesome games this season, but what he lacks of is not good games - it’s constancy. When you play against a title rival, you play safely, you don’t take chances especially not with your defenders when the team you play against is the best attacking team in the league. Evans was never and will never be a first team material. He’s good for the bench, good for games against Blackburn, Newcastle, Everton… but against City? Derby games against Liverpool, Chelsea? Big fat effin’ NO! It seems like every derby he’s the one that under-performs. I can only hope that now when Vidic is back, Evans wont play as much. At least not in the big games. The scoreline would have been different if we had 11 players on the pitch till the end. Then again, after a game like this you can’t blame one player. The whole team underperformed today.

On the other side, City had a good day. Manchini as a manager is miles behind Ferguson, Wenger or Redknapp but he did his homework before the derby. His tactic was right, his players did what were asked for, and they had luck. All in all, it was their day. If it’s worth mentioning, 3 of their goals today came in the last 3 minutes. 1-3 score would say another story though. But it doesn’t matter in the end. 1-3 or 1-6, it’s still a defeat. And it still hurts.

What i think it’s the only good thing about the game today is the epilogue of the match. We were average against Basel, against Norwich, against Liverpool and against Otelul. We still managed to grab crucial points from those games. But we can’t always hope on luck. You can’t win games against good clubs with luck. You need to play, you need to think, you need to work harder. So, after this, I am sure the players WILL give their 150% in the upcoming games and we’ll see improved United. We are only 5 points behind City and with Vida and Cleverly coming back next week, i am positive we can get on top by December.

It’s not the end of the season yet. There are 28 games left. We’ve had similar debacles and yet we have won the league in the end. Nothing hurt like the 1-4 defeat against Liverpool at OT in 2009, but we won the league that season. It doesn’t matter who laughs in October, December or March - it matters who laughs in May.

And i am sure, we will laugh! Bel20ve!