Manchester United have a new manager. A time-served professional has been parachuted in to replace the failed apprentice who will now seek alternative employment. It could be a long seek unless he is prepared to drop down a division or two because, as has been shown time and again over the last three years, he just wasn’t up to the job at the highest level!
(more…)
We here at WSA are all for modernity. We live for the now, not the then or the was. Just because most of our life is in the past does not mean that we choose to live there although, to be fair, it is often a much better alternative to what we have nowadays.
What we have nowadays, for example, are words and expressions attached to the game of football which would have drawn a more than quizzical look if used in the not too distant past.
Take Manchester United, (we wish somebody would take it, at least off the Glazers), for example. A massive club with millions of fans/supporters worldwide.
It is now very easy, through social media, for these fans/supporters to “talk” to each other and boy, do they talk to each other!
(more…)
When I first started to attend games at Old Trafford my father and I used to set off from our home in Ashley Lane, Moston, Manchester 9 at around 11:00 am on Saturday morning. In those days ALL games were played on a Saturday and nobody had yet had the audacity to suggest playing on a Sunday. That was the day reserved almost exclusively for the pub teams!
We would walk up the hill and wait for either the number 112 or 113 bus outside Langhorns, which was an ironmongers, amongst other things. Eventually the bus would arrive and we would be off on a 45 minutes journey, barring breakdowns, to the match. (more…)
Our education is now complete. We have, very recently, learned that Sky Sports News is sponsored by The Sun newspaper. We should have been able to guess as much and the only real surprise here is that it came as a surprise at all!
So one peddler of amateurish and exaggerated hyperbole, (Ed – is it possible to exaggerate hyperbole?), sponsors another. A match made in heaven, if ever there was one!
But we digress because this has nothing to do with the subject on which we are about to impart our considered and valued opinions. (more…)
In the good old, (bad old?), days back when WSA was unheard of and was, in fact, just a strip of a lad, trekking down to Old Trafford every other week to watch a decent team which didn’t win very much , football was a very simple affair.
Arriving at the ground by 1:00pm if United were playing another big club usually ensured that we would get a seat in the Stretford End. If not then it would be standing in the Stretford End and, due to my size, or lack of, back in those days, standing did not always guarantee a view of the game. If United were playing a lesser team then we would arrive around 2:00pm and usually have no trouble getting a seat. (more…)
If reports in the Daily Mail are to be believed then Wayne Rooney is considering staying at Manchester United to see out the final year of his contract. Forgive us our cynicism but why is this thought even crossing his mind? Not through his inherent greed surely?
Reportedly, Everton would like to take him back, but can’t match the wages he is currently paid at Old Trafford. Fine, surely Wayne would be happy to take a pay cut to rejoin his boyhood club, after all he is an Evertonian and loves them far more than he has ever loved United. And he doesn’t need the money. (more…)
It is now Wednesday, 26th May. Manchester City are two points behind Liverpool with two games in hand and an inferior goal difference.
Manchester United are three points behind Liverpool with two games in hand and a vastly inferior goal difference.
The upshot of all this is the following: If Thursday’s derby game is a draw, both Manchester clubs gain a point on Liverpool and both will overtake Liverpool should they win their other game in hand. (more…)
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us…………”
And so it goes on. This extract, as learned readers will know, is taken from “A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens. In some ways, it describes quite well the period between Louis van Gaal being told to do one and José Mourinho being welcomed into the spider’s web which masquerades as the manager’s office at Manchester United. (more…)
Manchester United’s problem is scoring goals, or rather, not scoring goals. Their total for the season would be abysmal if Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s tally were to be taken out of the equation.
When United signed the Swede along with Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Paul Pogba, it appeared to go a long way to addressing the goalscoring side of things. The fact that he only signed one defender, Eric Bailly, did not necessarily mean that he was happy with what he had, more that there was a shortage of world class defenders available. (more…)
Manchester United are among the top four teams in the country, just not according to the league table or their results at Old Trafford.
The league table currently has them in joint fifth position and, at Old Trafford, they have failed to beat Stoke City, Burnley and 10-man Bournemouth to name but three.
Failure to take three points from each of these games is inexcusable and it is difficult to imagine the same happening to Chelsea or Manchester City.
Against Bournemouth, for example, the finishing was woeful. Both Paul Pogba And Zlatan Ibrahimovic were guilty of missing excellent chances with the latter even managing to miss a penalty. (more…)
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 