Czechoslovakia, Greece, Denmark and Portugal spring to mind as relatively recent winners of the European Championships. None of the four could be considered as serial winners of competitions.
Wales also stayed in the last competition for longer than England and even managed a 3-1 win over Belgium while England couldn’t even scrape a draw with Iceland and exited the tournament in their usual fashion, ie when there was still plenty of it left! (more…)
It always seems to me, nowadays anyway, that Manchester United are never far away from having a team to challenge for trophies.
Never mind who is manager, as long as it is somebody with experience of a big club, who knows what he is doing, the manager shouldn’t be the deciding factor on whether or not the club wins trophies, the players should.
When you consider the players they have and the money they have spent the only surprise is that it is taking so long to get things right on the pitch.
Louis van Gaal and the United fans don’t need me to tell them that more goals are required but at least the signs were promising against Swansea, when Martial and Rooney both scored.
I am still not a lover of playing too many people out of position and think that the great teams of the past, not just at United, have usually had specialists in each position.
It does appear though, that United are looking at strikers, centre backs and full backs during this transfer window. That is not to say they will buy all three, but at least they seem to be looking which is an acknowledgement that they know where they can improve. (more…)
(“I last saw it over there!” Louis ropes in Ryan Giggs to help him look for the plot he lost a while ago)
Louis van Gaal is looking a whole lot less calm as the weeks go by. He isn’t the type to be too bothered about losing a job and the salary that accompanies it. He is bothered, however, by not being able to finish one of his “projects” and by being deemed a failure. His pride does not allow for either of those scenarios.
If he is allowed to carry on in his job as manager of Manchester United he may face one or both in the relatively near future.
Depending upon your rag of choice, Pep Guardiola is either waiting in the wings for van Gaal to be given his marching orders or going to Manchester City. It would seem that one of Manchester’s equivalent to Waldorf and Statler will be being replaced by the bald, bearded Bayern boss.
In fairness to van Gaal he has had a lot of injuries to contend with. For the next game which, as I write, is against Bournemouth, he has nine first team players unavailable through injury. Manchester City have also suffered an injury crisis to their better players, and Arsenal most certainly have, so it is a situation which is not unique to United. (more…)
Manchester City hoped that Sevilla would do them a favour. They weren’t asking for much, just that a team who were already out of the competition should have enough pride and desire to please their fans and beat Juventus, in the process denying them top spot and a marginally easier opponent in the first knockout round.
City’s deal in all this was to beat Borussia Moenchengladbach, thereby enabling them to finish top and get the marginally easier opponent in the first knockout round.
Manchester United hoped that CSKA Moscow would do them a favour. They also weren’t asking for much, just that a team who were already out of the competition should have enough pride and desire to please their fans and beat PSV Eindhoven, in the process denying them qualification to the first knockout round and allowing United to qualify even if they could only manage a draw or even a defeat against Wolfsburg.
What United were hoping for was a safety net in case they couldn’t beat Wolfsburg which, as it turned out, they couldn’t. (more…)
(Wazza can’t quite reach the nasty ankle to check for injury!)
Apparently Wayne Rooney has a nasty ankle. I don’t know which ankle, but one of them is not too nice an ankle.
Having scoured the newspapers I cannot discern which it is because the great British press don’t deem it important that we have this knowledge. Suffice to say that one of the ankles belonging to Wayne Rooney is nasty.
This is the headline that says it all: “Manchester United captain Wayne Rooney will miss West Ham and Wolfsburg with a ‘nasty ankle injury’ confirms van Gaal”. Not, you will notice, a nasty injury to his ankle. There is a world of difference!
Maybe we should be glad that the injury is to his nasty ankle, rather than his nice ankle, assuming that his other ankle actually IS nice.
Anyway, enough speculation. Whichever ankle it is and however nasty it is, the injury has arrived at a very opportune moment for Louis van Gaal. (more…)
Manchester City had already qualified for the knockout stage of the Champion’s League by the time they arrived in Turin to play Juventus.
This had been achieved by their fine away form in beating both Borussia Moenchengladbach and Sevilla and was in no way thanks to their patchy home form where they had already lost to tonight’s opponent. Unfortunately, their patchy home form became their patchy away form and they lost 1-0 at the Juventus stadium.
Manchester United knew, when they arrived at the Lowry hotel in Salford, that beating PSV Eindhoven tonight would mean that they would qualify for the next round as well.
Their passage had been based on reasonable home form where they have already beaten CSKA Moscow and Wolfsburg, not their patchy away form where they had only collected one point. Unfortunately, their patchy away form became their patchy home form and they drew 0-0 in a boring game at Old Trafford. (more…)
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 