Please, say 'no' to Riquelme.

It was rumoured that Fergie was eyeing Riquelme as the answer to our midfield woes. After catching both Villarreal Champion League semi games against Arsenal and both our group matches against them last year, I would like to, for the record, say 'no' to Riquelme ever wearing a Red jersery.

I hope Fergie saw the game a couple of days back and drop whatever lameass ideas he has on bringing the Argentine over. Here's a summary of what happened. Villarreal was one goal down on aggregate and with 2 mins left on the clock, got a penalty. Riquelme stepped up and missed the penalty. I'm fine with him missing the penalty, however his reaction right after that miss was simply disgraceful. He simply stopped playing despite the fact there were 2 mins left, excluding whatever the referee would add for injury time. He showed absolutely no will, and not willing to take the responsibility upon his shoulders to fight it out for whaever time remaining. In short, he's not a fighter and definitely not a winner. Not a Manchester United player.

You would never see someone like Rooney or Neville react like that. Sure there would be disappointment but our players would be desparate to take it upon themselves to make things right. They would feel it is their responsibility to make up for the mistakes. Even Ronaldo has shown in during the 9 game winning streak that he was willing to track back whenever he lost the ball. In fact I think all but one of our players have that characteristic in them, even the much maligned Evra.

Which brings me to Rio Ferdinand. He has all the skills in the world, but he lacks that special passion. He's like Riquelme, just another player who plays for his wages. If he showed a tenth of the kind of passion shown by Rooney or Giggs, he would probably forever live in our hearts as one of the United legends.

Funny how this entry came one whole round just to make a dig at Rio. Anyway shame on you, Riquelme........and Rio!

New Link
Added a new link called 'Salted Fish United'. It's a blog site for my soccer team. Unfortunately the webmaster is a lazy git, hence hardly ever updated.

The Kimchi Gift (Spurs 1 - Manchester United 2)

The game started with a bang and ended with a wimper for us. Rooney scored twice in the first half to give us a narrow victory. The winning goal was a gift from Spurs left back Lee Young-Pyo, allowing Park to poke the ball away from him onto Rooney's feet for an easy goal.

I caught the game with Cow and Kentona, and we all agreed that Park probably owes Lee a kimchi meal for that piece of sloopy defending. Spurs played really well and probably deserved a draw for their efforts. Good thing I was watching and chatting most of the time and not concentrating on the game much. Spurs were easily the better team, by far.

Don't get me wrong, I've never really liked Spurs as a team. The reason being, it's my elder cousin's favourite team. Although we never clashed much as soccer fans, it's sort of a sibling rivalry thingy. Another reason was that I always liked Arsenal more in the 80s than Spurs. I mean any team that had Tony Adams was worth a laugh or 3 then. Not to mention that Michael Thomas goal that denied Liverpool the League Championship in the dying seconds of the last game of that season.

However, I'm impressed with what Martin Jol has done to team. He's bought young players into the team, played an attractive brand of soccer and more importantly built (or is building) a team with young English men as the nucleus or backbone of this team. You've got to admire that in a foreign manager.

At the end of the day, it was a good victory. Although by no means convincing, it still helps us consolidate the 2nd position. We probably need one more victory in the next 3 games to make sure of that, since we have a superior goal difference to Liverpool.

Goodbye Sunderland, You Sad Bunch of Pussies (Manchester United 0 - Sunderland 0)

The entire world expected us to beat Sunderland and put pressure on the much hated Chelsea. Unfortunately Sunderland suddenly decided to play defense. The result officially relegates Sunderland. Hopefully we'd NEVER ever have to play this bunch of pussies in the league again. If these bastards played the way they played the entire season instead of just this game, they wouldn't have been relegated. Yes, I'm pouring the hate on them, something they thoroughly deserve.

As for our performance, well....we were too one-dimensional. We kept playing right thru the centre, and kept over complicating our attacking play. There was hardly any width despite playing two out-and-out wingers, and one pretender in Giggs in the centre of midfield.

Speaking of Giggs, he should never touch the ball unless it's in a deadball situation. I do not have the statistics with me, but it seems like everytime he attempts a pass, it goes awry. We badly need a midfielder.

Everyone else played pretty well this game, except for my favourite whipping boy, Evra. I've realised his best position is on the bench where he can't do any damage. He's utterly pathetic. Twice in the game, he held on to possession for too long and when he finally made the pass, he put in a teammate in trouble, almost resulting in a Sunderland goal. As mentioned time and time again, he's not a footballer.

Probably the only good thing out of this game is that Ole is back. I honestly thought his United careers was over. Good to see him back. The other bright spots were that Heinez and Fortune were also on the bench.

And finally we can put all that silly title talk behind us. Now we wouldn't have to read the stupid papers or the soccer related sites of us challenging the title anymore. Let's concentrate on consolidating that 2nd spot and preparing for next season. I would be really pissed if Liverpool pip us to that 2nd spot.