Posts Tagged ‘Marcus Rashford’

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Ole Gunnar Solskjær is trying to assemble a big jigsaw at Manchester United. He doesn’t yet have all the pieces but he is beginning to get a clearer idea of what is needed.

The bigger problem would appear to be that he doesn’t have the box lid! You know, the bit with the picture on it so you have an idea what the finished article is supposed to look like. So he is trying to put pieces in here and there without really knowing if they fit and this becomes evident during matches where his substitutions, in particular, remain questionable. (more…)

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With football’s return imminent one of the few questions raised is; are the FA, ( the governing body of the Premier League), about to do a better job of protecting their charges than the Conservative Party, (the governing body of the UK)?

Well, in truth, it would be very difficult for them to do a worse job and, in fairness, there is quite a difference in the scale of the two tasks. (more…)

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We’re at the end of another boring international break and the English are, once again, being somewhat rapturous because their side managed to score four goals at Wembley against Bulgaria, then five goals against Kosovo at St. Marys, (who managed to get three themselves).

Mind you, it was always going to be a stroll when you consider that, again according to FIFA, England are miles better than Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany and Holland. Reasons to be cheerful indeed! The next Euro Championship is already in the bag and the World Cup will surely follow two years later! (more…)

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The latest pantomime involving Manchester United was played out at Molineux. It was the 67th minute and United were awarded a penalty.

No problem. Step forward Marcus Rashford who has never missed a spot kick. Indeed his last effort was well struck past Kepa of Chelsea only the previous week, so his confidence was high.

But wait, who’s this muscling in on the act? It’s the pantomime villain or Paul Pogba as he is also known. He wants to take the kick and, as the senior player of the two, he will get his way. He did and he missed. So what went wrong? (more…)

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Pep Guardiola has cleared up a misunderstanding. Apparently, Kevin De Bruyne does not have a release clause of €250 million in his Manchester City contract. In fact, he doesn’t have a release clause at all. No, the manager merely stated that anybody wishing to buy the Belgian would have to start the bidding at that figure.

So where did the fake news come from? Well, some Spanish reporter, according to Guardiola his very self, misunderstood the answer to his question.

The bit about this where we are unsure is as to what language the question was asked and answered in. Logically, a Spanish reporter would ask a Spanish coach a question in Spanish, so why would there be any misunderstanding? (more…)

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When it comes to football games, there is really only one winner: EA Sports’ FIFA series. Part of the franchise’s success has been its ability to create a strong partnership with football leagues around the world and, in particular, the Premier League.

Manchester City and Manchester United have one of the strongest rivalries in football, with each trying to outdo the other in all aspects of the sport. As both teams have been champions of English football, FIFA has capitalised on their global support to promote the game and expose it to new customers. (more…)

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The early game this time out was the one between Sweden and Switzerland and was always going to be a close run thing due to the two sides being of similar quality.

Sweden, post-Zlatan, look more of a team now than when the big striker was insisting on being the star man but, on the other hand, they don’t appear to have anybody with a magical touch who can turn a game for them.

That necessity didn’t arise during their match with Switzerland, who were over-reliant on Xherdan Shaqiri who, in turn, didn’t have one of his better days. (more…)

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The first game of the day pitted the wits of Sweden and South Korea against each other.

In what was a fairly mundane 90 minutes of football, Sweden deserved to win purely because they appeared to try and win much harder than the Koreans did.

The goal which did the trick was yet another penalty this time scored by Andreas Granqvist, the Swedish captain. The award of the spot-kick was made after VAR had been consulted and, even then, it still wasn’t totally conclusive. Still, it was given and the match ended 1-0 to Sweden. (more…)

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Poor little Manchester United are considering expanding Old Trafford so that they can increase their rip-off seating potential to more than 80,000 fans because they don’t currently make enough money!

The additional seating would be installed in the Sir Bobby Charlton stand which raises a couple of issues when taking the surroundings into account.

Firstly, there is the fact that there are houses very close to the ground behind this stand and, secondly, there is also a railway line. For any lengthy construction work to take place there is no way the ground could stay open for matches because of the problems this would cause to residents and commuters. (more…)

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So Liverpool are through to the semi-finals of the Champion’s League having beaten Manchester City home and away in their quarter-final tie.

There is no doubt they deserve to be there as the damage was all done in the first leg at Anfield where City proved, yet again, that if their defence is put under any pressure they don’t have a defence!

The second leg may have been more interesting had a perfectly good goal from Leroy Sané not been disallowed. This would have seen City go in at half-time leading 2-0 and chomping at the bit for more in the second half. As it was, they left the field somewhat dispirited and weren’t the same team after the break. (more…)