Q.what have David De Gea and Darren Fletcher got in common? A. both are hoping to keep clean sheets over the Christmas period.
1)United obituaries have been written all too often in the past decade, you'd have to be an idiot ever write them off in terms of any game or title challenge.However I do feel that if we are to get anything out of United now would be as good a time as any. As a follower of a team with no interest in the title race, (and not an ABU'er by any means -indeed I can't thank you enough for frustrating our big-spending, noisy neighbours in so many ways in recent years), it looks to me like injuries to essential players combined with underinvestment have left United relatively vulnerable. Relatively is the word here. Whatever team you send out on Sunday will be, in transfer terms anyway, worth so much more than ours,so a point would do me. It's been said ad nauseum there are leagues within leagues in modern football and it's true. Anything we get out of the top five - Utd, City, Spurs, Arsenal and Liverpool - is a bonus. Whether or not we survive depends on our results against the rest. Warnock's team? Mmmm..I think for a variety of reasons we haven't settled on a "fixed" line-up this time out. I'd like to see: Kenny Young Gabbidon Connoly Hill SWP Barton Faurlin Traore Campbell Helguson United's weaknesses? Carrick definitely. He tends to dawdle on the ball a lot and gets caught in possesssion too many times, and, given the position in which he plays, this is a masssive opportunity for us. He needs to be pressured everytime he gets the ball. Give him time and space he will pass us off the park. Vidic's injury; I can't be arsed to dig out the stats, but your defence is nowhere near as good without him. I must admit to feeling somewhat cheated that I won't have the whole "it was a definite penalty and Vidic should have been sent off" thing to enhance my Prem experience but c'est la vie. De Gea? Is he good enough? Evans? Is there a Utd. fan who thinks he's good enough? Evra? What's happened there? I won't go into your strengths . 2) I'm happy with our start to the season and questions like this are always tied up with expectations aren't they? Considering where we've been over the last 15 years or so, the jump up in class fron the Championship and our chaotic pre-season this is as good as we could hope for imo. Yes there have been games we could and should have got more from, but it's a big learning curve, especially with, what is essentially, a new team. A point a game and survival will do me this time out. 3) Warnock is well liked here. When he came in we were in a bad way. He turned the whole situation around and got us where we are today and that's no exaggeration. Go back less than 2 years and we were staring League 1 in the face. He deserves this crack at the Premiership. He's obviously a divisive character; Marmite if you will. Any dissent on our board does revolve around tactics but, again, given the money spent by so many teams in this division, survival has to be our aim this season. He's definitely not the "long-ball, hoof merchant" popular legend would have it, but sometimes we do sit too deep defensively. Whether defending a lead against West Brom 2 weeks ago or just simply defending against Liverpool last week the results are the same. No outlet up front to relieve the pressure; just aimless balls from a disconnected back line/too deep midfield aimed in the general direction of an equally disconnected forward line. The flip side is when we have been good we have been very good (Newcasle, Villa, City) Sharp,slick passing at a high tempo, moving forward as a unit giving the opposition problems. 4) The less said about the previous owners the better. Tony Fernandes seems like the answer to every fans' prayers. After 20 years of incompetence, asset stripping,chronic underinvestment,questionable finances and downright indifference from the head honchos we are talking about (shock horror) a youth academy, a new stadium and actually buying (not loaning) more players in January. We'll see how it pans out. 5) Ahhh Taarabt. Where do I start? We all really wanted him to light up the Premiership as he did the Championship last year. It just hasn't happened. Whether it's that he can't cut it at this level, he feels he "deserves" a bigger club than us or he's had his ego bruised by not being the biggest fish in the pond anymore I just don't know. I would suspect it's probably all of these to some degree. Many on our board will say that he was the main reason we were promoted last season and I would agree. I would also say that the entire team was geared up to one thing and one thing only and that was Taarabt and what he wanted. He'll get that nowhere else. Basically our club gave this guy the platform to perform at his best and for thanks we get him stropping out of our trouncing at Fulham at half-time because he was subbed. And all this time the fans stayed and outsang Fulham even when it went to 6-0. He's on £20,000+ a week. The fans paid and stayed while he was paid and went home on a bus. Twat. 6) Yeah enjoying the Premier League. Adapted badly; Taarabt, Hall, Perrone, Smith, Buzsacky, Orr, Ageymang. Adapted OKish; Derry, Hill, Bothroyd. Adapted well; Kenny, Cerny, Mackie, Faurlin (shhh don't tell anyone about him), Helguson. 7) No young players of note at the moment (see above). We did have a promising youngster Raheem Sterling poached by Liverpool a couple of years back. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER6S2tCkY0M I can't remember what we got for him but whatever it was it wasn't enough. Of course nowadays with the EPPP we'd be lucky to get a packet of Tootie Fruitys.
