Outclassed By Impressive Zenit

Manchester United 1 - Zenit St Petersburg 2
Scorers
Manchester United: Vidic (73)
Zenit St Petersburg: Pogrebniak (45), Danny (60)

Red Card: Scholes (90)

Team: Van der Sar, Rio, Vidic, Neville (Brown 76), Evra, Scholes, Anderson (Park 60), Fletcher (O'Shea), Nani, Rooney, Tevez

I can't even use the excuse that we didn't turn up today. We gave our best but were absolutely murdered by a rampant Zenit side that was easily the best team in Europe last season. I mean they obliterated the likes of German giants Leverkusen and Bayern Munich in the quarters and semis of the UEFA Cup respectively. And today they did their number on us. For a generous part of the game it was just men against boys.

They continuously ripped down our flanks and created havoc. Neither Evra nor Neville could cope with the speed and accuracy of their passes. The wingers, Fletcher and Nani, couldn't do much to help out either. It was just quite shocking to see us on the receiving end of things. If not for some desperate defending and the heroics of Edwin Van der Sar, we would have been dead and buried by half time.

The worst part was that we're were even out of our element. Damn, we were hardworking and hungry, fighting for every ball, but just outclassed in the worst way possible. Now I know how the Wigan, Newcastle, Sunderland...etc etc fans must feel.

At least when we went 2-nil down, Zenit somewhat took the foot off the paddle and we seiged their goal. But try as we might, we just didn't look very much like scoring. In fact Zenit looked more likely to add on to their tally with lightning fast counters. Their football is fast and, more importantly, ridiculously efficient. Dick Advocaat is a master.

We did eventually pull one back thru some good play from Tevez, who pulled the ball back for Vidic to score from close range on the 73rd minute. It gave us some confidence that we might not play second fiddle to an impressive Zenit team.

The team pounded the Russian goal but some superb goalkeeping and organised defending kept the game from going into extra time. It wasn't that we didn't deserve to draw level. It was that Zenit just deserved to win.

Scholes probably echoed our frustration best when he got himself sent off for a silly 'hand of god'.

As critical as I have been with this team, I cannot fault them today. I'm proud they showed alot of fight, but hand to heart, we're just not good enough. I would love for them to progress further in the Champions League and have the chance to meet them again with a full squad. I would love to see how our best eleven would cope with this opponent. I'm not sure we would beat them, but it sure would be an exciting game.

Goodbye Saha
Tissueboy has signed with Everton for an undisclosed fee. I'm still gushing over Zenit to pen my thoughts on this.

Good player, just not dependable.

Good bye, good riddence and good luck.

The silverlining here is that we still have someone to make fun of as Owen Hargreaves is fast becoming the prime candidate to take on the Tissueboy mantle with his latest knee injury.

Champions League Draw

Good news. This season I didn't go thru watching that dour affair, instead I got to watch Manchester City go thru to the next round of the UEFA Cup by the skin of their teeth. Pretty exciting game it was too.

Anyway here are the draw results:

Group A
Chelsea
AS Roma
Bordeaux
CFR Cruj

Group B
Inter Milan
Werder Bremen
Panathinaikos
Anorthosis Famagusta

Group C
Barcelona
Sporting Lisbon
FC Basel
Shakhtar Donetsk

Group D
Liverpool
PSV
Marseille
Atletico Madrid

Group E
Manchester United
Celtic
Villarreal
Aalborg

Group F
Lyon
Bayern Munich
Steaua Bucharest
Fiorentina

Group G
Arsenal
Porto
Fenerbahce
Dynamo Kiev

Group H
Real Madrid
Juventus
Zenit St. Petersburg
BATE Borisov

I don't really seeing anything daunting about the teams we're facing. In fact I'm rather pleased. We get to visit sunny Spain, take a short trip to Glasgow and a good PR trip to Denmark which boosts a healthy following. All in all a good draw, without having to travel to far away and unknown locations.

Fletcher Wins It For United

Portsmouth 0 - Manchester United 1
Scorer
Manchester United: Fletcher (32)

Team: Van der Sar, Rio, Vidic, Brown, Evra, Scholes, O'Shea, Anderson (Possebon 77), Fletcher, Rooney, Tevez

Who needs Ronaldo? In a game that was really going nowhere, Fletcher stamped his mark on the game, scoring in the 32nd minute, meeting Evra's low cross at the near post. It's the second time in successive games that he's stepped up when the team needed a scorer most.

We injury list grows as we missed Giggs and Carrick, both injured in the last fixture. We had to draft Anderson into the starting lineup due to a severe lack of personnel in midfield. Portsmouth too missed Kranjcar, but it was equalized with us playing O'Shea in midfield.

The opening exchanges were fast and furious, but neither team created any noteworthy chances. It wasn't until Fletcher's goal that we begun to dominate possession. In fact for the rest of the game, we held on to possession well but simply were not able to breech the Pompey defense...or rather, we simply didn't have the necessary firepower to put the game away.

It got particularly worrying when Pompey had a few long range efforts that troubled Van der Sar and threatened to undo all our good work. But in the end, they too lacked the necessary oomph upfront.

In other news, apparently Manucho has gotten his work permit settled. Unfortunately, he's got a broken foot and unavailable for sometime. Apparently it's the dreaded metatarsal. We've also less than a week before we know for sure if we'd be getting Mr Sourpuss, Berbatov. I'm not too keen on this locker room cancer, but at this point, we so desperately need help up front that I wouldn't mind dealing with devil himself.

In 4 days time, we'd be playing in the UEFA Super Cup against Zenit St Petersburg and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Fletcher pulls another one out of the hat.

Silvestre Leaves For Arsenal

That's right, Silves has signed for Arsenal. It comes as abit of a surprise to me since the tops clubs usually do no sell to domestic rivals, unless you're Spurs....and even they have started to regard themselves as a top club.

I'm surprised Fergie let Silves go to another rival, especially one with as bad a history as Wenger. He must either think very little of Silves or very little of the current Arsenal squad. One thing's for sure, the majority of the United fans must be cheering wildly.

As for me, I'd just like to thank Silvestre for 9 years of good, honest work done in a red jersey, although it doesn't always bring back good memories.

Champions Disappoint In Opener

Manchester United 1 - Newcastle 1
Scorers
Manchester United: Flectcher (24)
Newcastle: Martins (22)

Team: Van der Sar, Rio, Vidic, Brown, Evra, Scholes, Giggs (Possebon 63), Carrick (O'Shea 25), Fletcher, Rooney, Campbell (Rafael 80)

Very disappointing game but it wasn't unexpected. We peppered the Newcastle goal with shots in the first 15 to 20 minutes, but gradually faded away badly as the game wore on. In the end, a draw was probably the fairest result, given our lack of finishing.

Today's game exposed all our frailties, from our long standing inability to defend from set pieces to the current problem of turning our possession into goals.

We threatened to run riot from the kickoff, but our lack of experienced goal scorers showed. Campbell had a glorious chance to put us in front, but somehow he headed Rooney's wonderful cross right onto Given's head with the entire goal in front of him. It was a badly missed opportunity. Given then made a double save moments later to deny us.

From the early exchanges, it was obvious that it just wasn't going to be our day. And it was made worse in the 22nd minute. Martins was left unmarked as he rose to meet the corner and powered it into the net given Newcastle a shock lead at Old Trafford.

The lead didn't last long though. While Newcastle were still celebrating, Fletcher stretched to first reach Gigg's cross and equalized before Newcastle knew what hit them. It seems the only way we would score would be to sucker punch the opponents. As the rest of the game would show, when Newcastle were on their toes, we simply didn't have the firepower to penetrate their defenses.

There were moments in the game where we looked more likely to concede than score a winner. It hardly helped matters that we were only able to bring on Rafael, a left-back, in place of the ineffective Campbell upfront.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, this is going to be one helluva long season unless something dramatic happens. The only consolation I can use is that all the other teams looks absolutely crap with the sole exception of Chelsea. At least there is still second place to fight for.

Prelude To The Season

Manchester United 0 - Portsmouth 0

Penalties: Manchester United 3 - Portsmouth 1

Team: Van der Sar, Rio, Vidic, Neville (Brown 66), Evra, Scholes, Giggs, O'Shea (Carrick 66), Fletcher, Nani (Campbell 79), Tevez

Not very much to say here since I didn't really pay too much attention to the game. We controlled a vast amount of the play, contained the opponents sufficiently but couldn't make our possession and domination count.

It wasn't that we didn't create chances. We created chances galore, but just lacked the quality to finish. It's like trying to cut a chicken's neck with a blunt knife. It seems to work in the beginning, but after a while, with all the blood and gore on your hands, and the screeching gets to you, it just becomes a tedious task.

Lucky for penalty shootouts. We could've played till next Saturday when we're due to play Newcastle and still wouldn't have scored. Speaking of shootouts, at least it looks like we're improving in that area.

Until Ronaldo returns or we find someone reliable in front of goal, this could turn out to be a tediously long season, with many of the games having the similar result to the one we just witnessed.

Ronaldo's PR Manager Needs A Rise

I think everyone should read Ronaldo's interview in the Guardian. It's really pretty damn good. He confirms once and for all that he's staying with the team......for this season.

More importantly he mans up to causing a media circus that has sprung up. At the same time he commits wholeheartedly to United's cause.

All fine and dandy stuff. He almost had me. I could almost forgive him for souring a summer meant for celebration, then I realised that it's all a huge PR show. It's a desperate attempt to mend bridges with the fans, at the same time setting us up for a move to Real Madrid, possibly next summer.

Still, I'm impressed with the interview. I'm sure many would have already forgiven him based on it. But there's still plenty left for Ronaldo to win the respect of this fan back.

Thank God Preseason Is Over

This preseason has been just one disappointment built upon another, finally climaxing with yet another inept show upfront. However there are some bright sparks, albeit too few to get really excited over. By and large, judging from our performances, we’re going to struggle mightily if we’re going anywhere close to repeating our achievements last season.

Let me start off with what preseason means to me.

1. It gives me a chance to see our new acquisitions (which to date hasn’t happened).
2. It gives me a chance to see how our youngsters are doing.
3. It gives the team a chance to shake off the rustiness and get back into shape.

New Players
While we’ve not brought in any new players, I was excited at the prospect of seeing Manucho and how he’d gel with his new teammates. Unfortunately I came away sorely disappointed. The only glimpse I got was from the first preseason game against Aberdeen, and he was sitting in the stands. Apparently he’s still to get his work permit, which frankly is shocking to me. Either someone at the club or the immigration department is sitting on their arses and milling around.

Youngsters
I don’t even know where to begin here. We’re just terrible…..just terrible.

I know a lot of people with the club are very optimistic of Frazier Campbell, Daniel Gibson and Lee Martin. I keep hearing endless praises of what they have done last season with their respective clubs, while on loan. When I caught them in the first preseason game, I was underwhelmed. I kept thinking to myself that maybe I’m being too harsh. But after watching every single preseason game, I’m pretty damn sure these kids are not going to make it to the first team. If they ever do, then we’re in deep shit…and I mean seriously knee-deep in shit.

Campbell just doesn’t have what it takes to make it in the Premiership. Other than speed, he’s shown absolutely nothing to justify him being selected ahead of Saha. At this point I must assume we’re wrapping Saha in cotton wool to save him from injuries in preseason since he’s not featured at all, neither is he on the block.

Lee Martin is a year older and still hasn’t shown that he knows how to play the game. He tends to over dribble and is still unable to pass the ball. I’m frankly very disappointed with him, especially after seeing him last season. Yet another case of being good enough for other clubs, just not good enough to make the cut at United.

Daniel Gibson has played in every single preseason game and I’m frankly not sure why. Other than that one spectacular goal against the reserves of Posh, he’s shown absolutely nothing. He’s anonymous most of the time and when you finally do notice him, he’s either giving the ball away or fouling someone. Kinda reminds you of another anonymous character in midfield doesn’t it?

There were many others that played but didn’t register any impact. Just too many to mention. These three stood out coz they played more.

But all is not lost. There were at least a few youngsters who brightened up my day.

I was mightily impressed with the Brazilian youngsters we brought in. Rodrigo Possebon is a player. Initially I wasn’t too impressed with him when he came on against the Chiefs, but against Posh and Juve, he stamped his authority in midfield. He has a good long range shot and more importantly is a good passer in the Paul Scholes’ mould. In a couple of years, when Scholes retires, I’m looking forward to see him step up the plate alongside Anderson. They could very well be the backbone of the Brazilian midfield in time to come.

Rafael da Silva just blew me away. He is as exotic as his pornstar-sounding name. If there is one young player who will be a future star, he’s the one. And from what little I saw from his twin brother, Fabio, we’re going to be rocking with Brazilian flair. As of now, they are still very young and it will take time before they are ready for prime time.

The Team Going Forward
Back to reality. We struggled without Ronaldo, plain and simple. Against subpar opponents, we controlled the midfield, had loads of possession and basically shut them out. But we struggled to find the net and it’s worrying. Drawing all our games 0-0 will only give 38 points, not enough to mount a serious defense to our title.

While I’m not too keen on Berbatov at the rumoured price, I do believe we need him. Unless Manucho turns out to be a goal machine, we look pretty much screwed. Maybe we can tempt Ole back for a supersub appearance every now and then, afterall he showed a lot more than what all our current strikers put together in that 20 minutes against Espanyol.

In short, we’re looking at a difficult season ahead, especially with the heavier expectations of last season’s achievements.