WHY SAY ANYTHING?

No doubt there will be some supporters of the lesser clubs which reside outside Manchester who will disagree with our selection here but we are not really the type of publication which cares too much about what others think! Don’t get us wrong, we appreciate your comments and views on all topics and will always publish the sensible ones, we just don’t have the time to be overly concerned about them!

We have narrowed our list of ‘best midfielders in the Premier League’ down to two! Those two both, coincidentally of course, play for a Manchester club. First up to the podium amid rapturous applause is Manchester City’s Kevin de Bruyne, who scores as follows:

Overall Ability 9/10
Passing 10/10
Shooting 9/10
Tracking Back 8/10
Set Pieces 8/10

Total 44/50

Following him to equally rapturous applause is Bruno Fernandes of Manchester United, who scored as follows:

Overall Ability 9/10
Passing 8/10
Shooting 9/10
Tracking Back 8/10
Set Pieces 8/10

Total 42/50

So there you have it! Kevin de Bruyne just about shades it and is the best midfielder in the Premier League. No arguments because no other team has a player who can stand shoulder to shoulder with either of these two!

Farewell the Doc…..

Tommy Docherty, Manchester United’s popular and third most successful manager, departed this mortal coil at the ripe old age of 92.

Having taken over a dodgy, ageing team from Frank O’Farrell he somehow managed to keep them up in his first season but, in the second season, he could not repeat the feat! However United bounced straight back up, as he had promised they would, after a season in which the attendance record at almost every away ground was broken when United were the visitors.

He also won the FA Cup in 1977, beating Liverpool 2-1 having lost the previous year to a blatantly offside goal from Southampton! This, again, was following a promise made to supporters.

So just as things were beginning to look very rosey at Old Trafford, the Doc admitted to an affair with Mary Brown, the wife of club physiotherapist Laurie. The board were torn over what they should do and decided to leave the final decision with Sir Matt Busby who was due to return from holiday in a few days time.

This meant, with Busby being a very staunch catholic, there was only ever going to be one outcome and Docherty was on his way out.

His relationship with the club became, and remained, quite frosty after his sacking but he has always been one of the club’s most popular managers with the fans.

Sleep tight!

Farewell Nijinsky…..

Also leaving us in what turned out to be a bad couple of weeks for football was Colin Bell. Easily our favourite City player of all time, he was their answer to Bobby Charlton at United. Always a gentleman and rarely booked he also had that gift possessed by only the very best of footballers in that he never made a mistake, (or so it always appeared). The only players we can remember who shared this ability were the aforementioned Charlton, Franz Beckenbauer and Bobby Moore. There were others but these were the main ones!

Although difficult to believe, given the youthfulness of this publication, we had actually stopped going to Maine Road before City signed Colin Bell in 1966. (Prior to that we alternated between there and Old Trafford depending upon who was at home but it became pretty obvious pretty quickly that we much preferred going to watch United).

That didn’t mean that Bell wasn’t appreciated in our household. We were never of the crazed mentality whereby we hated the “other team” and their players. We were much more of a ‘United to win everything with City second’ way of thinking. After all they both represented Manchester.

It was Colin Bell, amongst others, who made us feel this way and made it impossible to dislike City despite the efforts of a certain Mike Doyle to make us think otherwise.

Sleep tight!