Category Archives: Football

Killing Me Softly

Hmmmm. You can tell that something’s amiss when you reach an international break and instead of thinking ‘dammit, no football for 2 weeks’, instead you’re thinking ‘hooray, no football for 2 weeks’. We’re within touching distance of the top of the table and on course to get through the CL group stages – a scenario I would’ve happily taken if presented with a couple of months ago. Instead, it all feels pretty hollow. I’m afraid there’s no getting away from the fact that watching United has become a deathly dull pastime of late.

When I first had a whinge about Van Gaal a few weeks back, I was quickly shot down by a handful of smartarses who were quick to point out we’d gone top of the league after consecutive wins against Liverpool, Southampton and Sunderland. What could possibly be my problem? It’s not just about results though – this team is always going to be good enough to win more games than they lose. The problem is down to the mentality and the possession-at-all-costs approach. It’s suffocating. It may well successfully bore the opposition into submission but it’s also making me lose the will to live.

Van Gaal, clearly, will not change. I’m not giving to start insulting the guy because he’s only doing what he’s always done. His approach may well ultimately bear fruit… it’s entirely possible in this oddball season where Chelsea have sunk without trace and City look brittle shorn of Silva and Aguero. Silverware will be more than enough to appease the majority of United fans but in 30+ years of attending games I’ve never been as consistently bored as I am right now. I had to smile the other week though, following Louis’ “don’t boo the team, boo me” instruction. Louis mate, they were booing you.

Thing is, I’m not even suggesting that something drastic needs to happen. I don’t think binning Van Gaal at this juncture would be beneficial in the slightest and I’m fully in favour of giving him more time to fine-tune things. It’s just… well it’s just proving deeply uninspiring waiting for things to click. If we had some topsy turvy 3 -3’s to amuse ourselves with whilst adjustments took place it might prove a little more bearable, but 3 x 0-0 draws in a week was slash-your-wrists gear. No more of that United, please. Anything but that.

Is anyone else getting a bit overwhelmed by the unerring omnipresence of the Co92 currently? Seeing Beckham back in town doing his UNICEF ambassador bit this weekend made me realise that we’ve come full circle and reached the unlikely stage where he can no longer be considered the most rampant self-publicist of the group. You literally can’t switch on the telly or open a paper without hearing from Gary Neville at the moment. Pundit, coach, commentator, columnist, hotelier, club owner, champion of the homeless… the bloke is absolutely relentless.

Since retiring from playing GNev has transformed himself into some bizarro world hybrid of Donald Trump and Tony Wilson. Where is it going to stop? Is he hoping to usurp Gary Lineker as the new face of Walkers Crisps? Would be a seismic event for sure, but such a coup isn’t beyond him given his burgeoning media profile. Does he have political aspirations I wonder? Mayor of Bury seems an attainable target but that’s a position for a man of advancing years. What about in the meantime? Leading Manchester Council, buying out the Glazers, re-opening the Hacienda, becoming a Tory MP, playing bass when Oasis re-form… he seems hellbent on doing absolutely everything that pops into his head.

During my mini meltdown a couple of issues back, I expressed some concern about the wisdom of spending £60M on a relatively unknown teenage striker. Thankfully, any fears I had look to have been unfounded as Anthony Martial has come in and endeared himself to everyone with both his performances and his seemingly nonplussed reaction to life in the spotlight at Old Trafford.

That said, it’s not surprising that he looks unfazed at the prospect of playing in front of 75,000 every week when you learn that aged 19, he’s already married with 2 kids! That shows some otherworldly level of maturity, that – at 19 I was sleeping ’til 12 every day and doing my best not to get booted out of college. Kids, in fact responsibility of any kind, was only something that happened to the incredibly foolish or incredibly unlucky. Still, fair play to the lad – in the context of modern footballers it marks him out as pretty much unique.

Hold on a minute. Or does it? A quick google brings up nothing whatsoever about the birth of Martial’s second child, yet an accompanying twitter search brings up a million braindead re-tweets welcoming the latest member of the #mufcfamily. Sample quote: “nigga be scoring on and off the pitch!” Jesus Christ. Who in their right mind thinks, ‘nothing much happening today barring homicidal maniacs running round Paris with machine guns, I think I’ll announce that Anthony Martial’s missus has had another kid’? I suppose this serves me right for ever having anything to do with social media. It’s full of absolute imbeciles – me included.

Looking at the upcoming fixtures, it looks like we’ve got a bit of straightforward run now so the perfect opportunity to cut loose and go GOAL CRAZY presents itself. Anyone else fancy a bit of cavalier football? Remember that? Passing the ball fowards, having a shot, a bit of excitement perhaps… With Watford, PSV, Leicester, West Ham, Wolfsburg and Bournemouth incoming there don’t appear to be many potential 0-0 boreathons on the horizon. If this season is ever going to burst into life then now is surely the ideal time. Please let it be time.

www.rednews.co.uk

Kicking Television

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Whilst debate continues to rumble on amongst United fans about whether Wayne Rooney should be dropped in light of his ongoing lack of form, tv viewers were recently treated to an “unprecedented”, behind-the-scenes profile of the man courtesy of the Beeb in Rooney: The Man Behind the Goals. As far as titles go, I might have plumped for ‘Wayne’s World’, personally.

The programme was commissioned to mark the fact that Rooney has now reached 50 international goals – a landmark haul that Gary Lineker was careful to remind us of at least a dozen times. The footage shown of a teenage Rooney served as a reminder of what an utterly devastating player he was in his youth, completely at odds with the waning Wayne we see toiling away in 2015.

Disappointingly, despite promising much more, there was very little revealed about “the man behind the goals”. Indeed, the most remarkable thing about this documentary was how little about Wayne Rooney we managed to learn over the course of an hour. Instead we were treated to about 20 minutes footage of Wazza playing with his kids, 10 minutes of him driving round Croxteth, 20 minutes of vox-pop plaudits from his fellow pros and 10 minutes of non-insightful musings from the man himself.

Rather than giving us stunning revelations such as “fatherhood has matured him” and “he’s a great captain”, I couldn’t help feeling the whole thing was a giant missed opportunity. It would have been so much more illuminating if instead, Lineker had gone off-piste and started rummaging round his house ‘Come Dine With Me’-style. Rather than simply teasing us with mentions of Wayne’s love of live music and flair for writing poetry, it would have proved far more entertaining if they’d cracked open a couple of bottles of wine and got the karaoke machine out whilst Lineker went delving into Colleen’s knicker drawer in search of said poems. Maybe next time.

It’s been a been a while since there’s been a reverential documentary detailing the life and times of Sir Alex Ferguson, so hot on the heels of exposing what makes Wayne Rooney tick, BBC1 followed up this up with Sir Alex Ferguson: Secrets of Success. This programme decided to forgo the already done-to-death biography format and instead went with the premise of Fergie’s new-found status as one of the world’s foremost thinkers in the field of management in business.

Post-retirement, Fergie has managed to swerve the £500 a night after-dinner speaking circuit so beloved of ex-pros. Instead, he finds himself invited to speak at educational institutions alongside Harvard professors. The format seems to be that the academics start the ball rolling by presenting their theories in lecture theatres full of graduate trainees, before Fergie takes to the mic and dismisses all conventional wisdom with his inimitable brand of icumfigovaness.

It’s an incredible (and no doubt very lucrative) gig that Fergie has got for himself, and it doesn’t seem to matter a jot that his pearls of wisdom are simply common sense methods familiar to any manager in any workplace the world over. Nevertheless, the sway that Fergie has in these circles shows no sign of abating any time soon. Everyone sits there totally enrapt in the presence of such a legendary figure, collectively ignoring the fact that his experiences in charge of a football club aren’t in any way related to their own career aspirations of managing a team of 30 stockbrokers.

Out of all the usual faces lined up to pay homage to Ferguson and his greatness, only Tony Blair had the balls to admit that Fergie’s “just get rid of them” mantra doesn’t actually translate to a normal (not that 10 Downing Street can be considered normal) workplace. How utterly bizarre though, that the former Prime Minister actually sought out the opinions of a footballer manager whilst agonising over a proposed cabinet restructuring.

One of the comedic highlights of 2014 was BBC3’s Football Fight Club, a ‘hard-hitting’ documentary exploring “some of the most active youth firms in the country.” As far as hoolie porn goes, last year’s effort was stone cold classic. We met Dante from Spurs, attempting to kick his habit by fighting trees in a forest pretending they were Chelsea; there was a chubby lad from Bury retiring from active service at 18 to become a sensitive singer-songwriter; and of course there was Carl, leader of City’s ‘infamous’ Blazing Squad, memorably driving round Stockport with his 16 year old accomplices trying to arrange a “4 on 4” with West Ham.

The producers of Football Fight Club don’t try to innovate, they instead stick rigidly with the tried and tested ‘Danny Dyer format’ that’s become the standard for the hoolimentary genre. There are numerous shots of dogs roaming bleak-looking council estates, gangs of kids stood on street corners with their hoods pulled up and a voiceover from a sociology and media studies graduate, explaining in hushed tones about ‘meets’ and ‘top boys’ and ‘banning orders’.

As well as catching up with Carl and Dante, this year’s follow up film introduced some new aspiring Cass Pennants. First we met with Brogan (17) from Lanarkshire, unique due to being a girl and for having seen Nick Love’s adaptation of ‘The Firm’ and taken it seriously. Unusually for a teenage wannabe hoolie, Brogan eschewed the pub as part of her pre-match routine. Instead she met up with her Hamilton Academical’s youth firm cohorts (ages ranging from 9-16) on a piece of waste ground, where they jumped up and down singing songs in their impenetrable accent sharing a small bottle of Buckfast. I’m not making any of this up by the way.

Then we met Denny from Wolverhampton, invited by Dante to travel down to London to ‘mob up’ with Spurs in order to fulfil his long-held ambition of taking on a “top continental firm”. Unfortunately, the game selected was Fiorentina at home, where clearly, nothing was ever likely to happen. By way of consolation, Denny travelled back home on the last train out of Euston gazing wistfully at footage of Feyenoord getting a kicking off the Italian plod the same night. What a pity the programme’s meagre budget didn’t extend to buying the lad a passport and sending him and the film crew out to Rome instead.

Blazing Squad Carl, meanwhile, was still holed up in his Bury flat bemoaning his misfortune of being off the scene due to serving a football banning order. Not really a surprising development when you consider he went on national television last year incriminating himself for an hour. Still, the end was in sight and Carl’s ban was soon due to expire – his preparations for which, we discovered, comprised of getting a new tattoo and buying an Ellesse tracksuit top. Apparently, he was also “looking forward to Derby Day”. Gulp. Be careful out there, reds.

www.rednews.co.uk

Things Change

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Like the majority of supporters, I’ve been mildly enthused with the changes Van Gaal has put in place since last summer. The football hasn’t been great, granted, but I’ve been towing the line and trying to focus on the positives. He’s cleared out numerous has-beens and never-gonna-bes, he’s brought in some decent players and he’s doggedly tried to instil this new ‘philosophy’ (more of which later). Whatever belief I had, however, has now been spent. Call it a moment of clarity, a rattle-out-the-pram incident, whatever… that final 48 hours of the transfer window on top of the last 20 minutes at Swansea has seen me flip-flop into the non-believer camp.

Swansea. It’s now over a week ago but I’m still finding it hard to shake the utter abomination of a performance that followed Mata’s goal. Luke Shaw aside, we were an absolute disaster. From the moment Fellaini entered proceedings, there was only one way it was going to end up. Seriously, is that it? That’s the extent of Plan B? Abandon all thoughts of playing football and lump it up front to the big lad? It’s so appalling it’s almost laughable – the kind of thing I’d stop myself doing when my lad’s under 7’s team were about to lose another game. It’s 2015 and that’s what we’re reduced to? That’s part of the philosophy? Seriously, every other manager/coach in the country must be pissing themselves.

Under Ferguson (and no apologies for mentioning him, he’s our main point of reference and set the standards for modern-day Manchester United), we were famed for our approach to chasing games in the dying minutes. It wasn’t done by simply ballooning the ball forwards, it was done by increasing the pressure, tempo and intensity until the opposition simply capitulated. This was coached into the players from the day they joined the club. We did it all the time… so frequently it became second nature. A reflex, almost – without thought or hesitation.

United under Van Gaal don’t play to their instincts, they play to a philosophy that demands stilted, possession football which stifles any attempt at creativity. Wander out of position, you get dropped. The amount of times players are seen glancing towards the bench rather than looking to each other for direction is telling. We’re inflexible – to the point the team lacks a collective personality and struggles to adapt to changing conditions (not the weather) mid-game.

So by looking towards the bench, what do the players actually receive? Very little, it appears. I can’t recall Van Gaal making a single call from the touchline, not one. Instead he’s sat on the bench clutching a dossier full of instructions which have presumably been relayed in painstaking detail during the days beforehand. Again, this just seems utterly baffling and unworkable. Things happen in football matches which require teams to react and improvise… United simply don’t at present. The message is clear, the team’s brain sits on the sidelines and deigns to speak to you when he sees fit. Until such time, you just do what you’ve been told.

Thankfully, due to real-life commitments, I managed to swerve deadline day on SSN this year. 12 hours of Jim White, Guillem Balagué and their ghastly supporting cast of unemployable ex-pros wasn’t worth a day’s holiday; so I was content to be stationed in work with nothing but text messages and internet access to keep me informed of ongoing developments.

Obviously, very little work got done. After the relative calm of deadline day last year, this year’s saw a return to the bumbling catastrofuck of 2013 aka ‘Fellaini Day’. Then, as now, we’re left surveying the aftermath and thinking, ‘what on earth has happened there?’

The club’s approach to acquisitions now appears to be completely at odds with the football we’re witnessing. Whereas everything is meticulously considered and precise on the field, with zero surprises mandatory; our method of signing players is more on a par with Van Gaal’s end of season speech – somewhat eccentric and largely incomprehensible. Instead of signing the central defender we’ve needed all summer, we sold one instead. Rather than sign a new keeper, we sold another… in fact we very nearly sold another three.

Whether the De Gea non-transfer was United taking revenge on Madrid for the Ramos dealings, or Perez failing to install Adobe Reader in time, I have no idea… and no real interest if I’m being honest. What’s clear though, is that we’re left with a £30M asset whose head is elsewhere and who doesn’t want to be here. It’s all very embarrassing – and reflects badly on the credibility of any long-term plan in place. All summer we maintained that De Gea wasn’t going anywhere, then that suddenly changed with 12 hours remaining. If the intent was to sell him all along, then Madrid should have been set a deadline to conclude a deal weeks ago. It was amateur hour. Cityesque, almost.

Becoming embroiled in last day dramas doesn’t indicate a calm or measured approach, instead it smacks of vital decisions being made on instinct alone. Anthony Martial at £36-52M may turn out to be a world beater, but at the moment he’s just a teenage kid who nobody had heard of this time last week. Expecting him to come in and seamlessly adapt to the Premier League isn’t just a speculative punt from Van Gaal, it demonstrates the club moving to an unprecedented level of desperation.

If Martial comes in and looks the part, then brilliant – I’ll be the first to apologise for ever having doubted the man. In the meantime though, it’s now clear that this signing could either make or break Van Gaal at Old Trafford. For such a master pragmatist and keen philosopher, he’s made a monumental gamble here. At the moment it resembles something of a public unravelling or a last-throw-of-the-dice. Time will tell whether instead, it proves to be his masterstroke.