Zlatan Ibrahimovic Opts To Draw His Pension From Manchester United

Posted: June 30, 2016 in Football, Manchester United, Opinion
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In the worst kept secret ever, Zlatan Ibrahimovic announced that he will be joining Manchester United next season. He kept everybody in suspense by not announcing it publicly even though everybody knew where he was going.

He will arrive in Manchester where his age will be verified by Ed Woodward, who has totally forgotten the policy whereby United don’t sign players over the age of 28. He will then set about strolling around the English and Welsh grounds trying his best to look interested whilst trousering enormous amounts of money on a weekly basis.

Having just returned from the Euros where he didn’t manage to look at all interested, scored precisely ZERO goals in three games and was eliminated, along with the rest of his team, at the group stage, he should be remarkably fit. Read the rest of this entry »

Why Should Jose Mourinho Offer Ryan Giggs A Job At Manchester United?

Posted: June 30, 2016 in Football, Managers, Manchester United, Opinion
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He may be Manchester United’s longest serving player. He may be perceived as part of the furniture. He may have scored some great goals over the years. He may also have slept with his brother’s wife and changed his name from Wilson to Giggs because he preferred his mother to his father.

Over the many years Giggs was turning out for United he achieved a great deal. He did lots of things, some positive and some negative. When all of this is taken into account, from where does he get the impression, (if indeed he has the impression), that he should be the next Manchester United manager, whether that was following Ferguson, Moyes or van Gaal?

Where is the experience at lower league level? In fact, where is the managerial experience at ANY level? Read the rest of this entry »

Why Manchester United Got It So Wrong Between Sir Alex Ferguson And Jose Mourinho

Posted: June 29, 2016 in Football, Managers, Manchester United, Opinion
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Who’s idea was it to employ David Moyes as a successor to Sir Alex Ferguson?

If we are to believe the press then it was Sir Alex himself. This is debatable because, although he retired at the height of his powers, it would be churlish to think that one man decides the future direction of a club the size of United. I think he may have been given the casting vote, but that is all and, in itself, shows the power he had at the time.

We are also expected to believe that Moyes was chosen over Jose Mourinho. This is pushing the realms of fantasy a little too far as well. David Moyes, with his record of winning absolutely nothing, was given the United job before the most successful manager, after Fergie, who had won titles in three different countries.

Either Ed Woodward is even more incompetent than people think he is or the stories simply aren’t true. Perish the thought that the great British press may have been telling a few porkies. Read the rest of this entry »

Will Pep Guardiola Be A Success At Manchester City?

Posted: June 28, 2016 in Managers, Manchester City, Opinion
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The jury is out on this one!

There are obvious reasons to expect that Pep will be successful at City, not
least given that he is working with people he knows well at the club. This is an obvious advantage from when he took over at Bayern Munich where he knew nobody really well in the beginning.

He also doesn’t have to win much next season to be rated a success. Manuel Pellegrini left having won only the Capital One Cup in his final year.

At Bayern the odds were against him even replicating what Jupp Heynckes had achieved, never mind bettering it. A treble of the Bundesliga, German Cup and Champion’s League was always going to be a tall order. As it turned out he found winning the Bundesliga and German Cup relatively easy and only the Champion’s League proved elusive. Read the rest of this entry »

Five Jose Mourinho “Targets” Who Have Impressed, (Or Not), At The Euros

Posted: June 27, 2016 in Chelsea, Football, Manchester United, Opinion
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Starting with Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who looks pretty nailed on to arrive at Old Trafford in the very near future. His purchase will sell a lot of shirts and will certainly please some sponsors but is it a good deal? Judging by the way he has totally underwhelmed at the Euros the answer has to be “No”. Also, at 34, he is not in the age group of players a club like United should be signing.

Scoring a lot of goals in the French league is not too difficult a task for a decent striker. Defences are not even Championship level and the margin by which PSG won the title should warn any potential suitors of players that they may not be as good as the league makes them look.

Chances of being a success at United: 4/10 Read the rest of this entry »

Is Zlatan Ibrahimovic A Good Signing For Jose Mourinho?

Posted: June 26, 2016 in Chelsea, Football, Manchester United, Opinion
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I am not so sure that this is a good move. The only possible losers in this deal are United. Ibrahimovic signs a one year deal, gets paid even more money that he doesn’t need and performs or not depending on his mood at the time. Is he another Falcao? Or is he another Sheringham? United fans would prefer the latter but, again, I am not so sure.

Ed Woodward’s almost paranoid desire to sign a big name has already backfired on the two occasions he has done it.

Falcao proved one of two things. Either that he is past it or that he was never really good enough for the Premier League. I think that his subsequent move to Chelsea actually proved that both are true.

Angel Di Maria proved something I have always thought, he is a decent player, nothing more, who, again, doesn’t have the right attributes or mentality for the Premier League. Read the rest of this entry »

Jose Mourinho Has More Money To Spend Than Donald Trump!

Posted: June 25, 2016 in Chelsea, Football, Manchester United, Opinion, Premier League
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He must have, you only need to read the amount of players he is going to buy and look at the total cost.

All this talk of United giving him a kitty of £250 million to spend on transfers is obviously a smokescreen so that clubs are not aware of how much is really available.

Ed seems to have learnt his lesson! Gone are the days when he would brag that United could afford any player in the world because money is no object. Maybe he realised, shortly after making his stupid statement, that any player in whom United expressed an interest suddenly experienced a sharp hike in price. When you add that to the fact that, thanks to Ed’s propensity for dithering, they also paid £4 million more for Fellaini than they needed to, then it is understandable that their budget is being kept a closely guarded secret and that a completely false figure has been circulated. Only the really intrepid football journalists have figured out the truth.

So, following the arrival of Eric Bailly, Zlatan Ibrahimovic will come riding into town on his white horse. Read the rest of this entry »

Fanpower Sacks Van Gaal And Appoints Mourinho. Or Does It?

Posted: May 23, 2016 in Managers, Manchester United, Opinion
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Louis van Gaal is finally gone. After two years of boring, monotonous, sideways-backwards and sleep inducing football, he has finally been invited to do one to his villa in Portugal where he can send his family to sleep with tales of his tactical brilliance whilst managing to win one trophy during his time at Old Trafford.

Has fanpower finally managed to dethrone the king? It is highly unlikely that this was the main reason, although it will have come into the thought process. In fairness, if the fans had managed to get their way then van Gaal would have been gone before Christmas.

United have made exactly the same mistake with van Gaal as they did with Moyes which was leaving him in charge until it was mathematically impossible to qualify for the Champion’s League. In both instances a replacement should have been given the opportunity much earlier.

It is hard to understand why both managers were given as long as they were when both tenures ended in relative failure and that outcome was an obvious one from very early in both campaigns. Read the rest of this entry »

When Jose Mourinho Arrives, Woodward Needs To Go!

Posted: May 22, 2016 in Chelsea, Football, Jose Mourinho, Managers, Manchester United, Opinion, Premier League
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Challenging at the sharp end of the Champion’s League. Challenging for the Premier League title. Mounting serious attempts at both the FA Cup and Capital One Cup.

These are all answers to the question, “Where would you expect Manchester United to be this season?”

These answers would probably have been a lot closer to the truth had Ed Woodward had the courage to sack Louis van Gaal when it became apparent, to everybody except Woodward, that United’s season was actually going nowhere and that a replacement was required.

This became the case reasonably early in the season. United were out of the Capital One Cup almost as soon as entering it and the Premier League challenge was faltering virtually from day one. Elimination from the Champion’s League at the group stage just heaped more humiliation on a once great club.

Now was the time for Ed Woodward to stand up and be counted. To be a hero in the eyes of the United fans he needed to get rid of van Gaal. What he didn’t need to do was dither. Ed had proven himself remarkably good at dithering. Read the rest of this entry »

Manchester United Should Recruit Leicester’s Recruiter!

Posted: May 1, 2016 in Football, Managers, Manchester United, Opinion, Premier League
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The last time I was present at a Manchester United versus Leicester City game at Old Trafford was on March 18th, 1967. I have been to Old Trafford many, many times before and since but only ever once when they played Leicester. The game sticks in the mind for two reasons. The first is David Herd scoring the first goal and breaking his leg in the process when falling over Gordon Banks whilst in the act of shooting. The second is the scoreline of 5-2 to United.

Back then, Leicester didn’t have a bad team, it just wasn’t very good. Now the situations have been completely reversed. At the moment United don’t have a bad team, it just isn’t very good. An example of how far down in the estimation of even ex-players the club has gone was typified recently by Denis Law. He was asked if he thought his team of the sixties would beat the current one. He thought for a moment and replied, “yes, I think so, 1-0.” When the interviewer wondered why such a low score Law replied, “well, we’re all in our seventies now!”

The difficulty for the majority of the United fans, particularly those who comment on popular social networking sites, is that they do not possess a sense of humour. It is also true that many of them have never even been to Old Trafford.   Read the rest of this entry »

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