The old Man Utd Thread

[fatbob]

I'm getting tired just reading all these posts, FATEone, your head must be well sore by now.

[bradigor]

We weren't good enough this season. It is as simple as that. Any other year with a season haul like this season's and we would of won the league. The fact remains though that United managed to get 4* points more than us across 38 games. We accept that, we look at where we dropped points, what caused us to drop points. We pick ourselves up, we dust ourselves down and we prepare for next season and another 38 games to try and get more points that the other 19 teams.

18 other teams in the league would gladly swap league positions with us, we fought all the way, something we haven't done in the last 19 years. We have to build on that and we will.

*could be more, could be less, personally I see it being 2 points come Sunday evening.

(Summary post after all of the debate about 'deserving')

[phresh]

I wouldn't even deny that you haven't been good eough to win the league, it's just that results aren't always as good as the performances and that has been your problem to some extent.

[bradigor]

I wouldn't even deny that you haven't been good eough to win the league, it's just that results aren't always as good as the performances and that has been your problem to some extent.

The difference between us and you at that time was.... You would shoot from all angles, just get the ball fired towards goal. You never know what could happen. We however seemed afraid to shoot, unless the chance was likely to be a shot on target. We changed that later on in the season and reaped the benefits of it.

[Poppalarge]

What makes me laugh is that, before least season when United won the CL and the League title, everyone was going on about how its nigh on impossible to Win the league whilst competing in all other competitions.

So Liverpool were the better team this season? Except they've not won a thing, and they've only come second in the league. There were other english teams "ahead" of Liverpool in ALL competitions.

[bowser123]

Personally don't get why people are responding to Jimmy Tarbuck, nor the whole notion that they were somehow the better team.

What I do know though is that before Saturday, Utd had played 20 league games post returning from their World Club jaunt. Of those twenty league games they won 18 and lost twice. 54 points from 60.

Out of interest, when was the last time Liverpool went top? I don't mean like in early May when they played a few times before us and went top, I mean with equal games played. Like if Japan hadn't have happened and all games were played in the same weekend and had the same result. That'd be, what, January time roughly?

If that's accurate, what with being top for 5 months and all in mind, I'd say the best team won. I mean it's been Ferguson and his fans that have been eagerly hoping and praying for dropped points for over 2 months, wasn't it?

[Marzipan Travolta]

We weren't good enough this season. It is as simple as that. Any other year with a season haul like this season's and we would of won the league.

No you wouldn't.

Assuming you finish the season with 86 points and a goal difference of say 50 then that would have been enough to win the league in 2000-2001 and 2002-2003 but at no other point in the last decade.

[bradigor]

No you wouldn't.

Assuming you finish the season with 86 points and a goal difference of say 50 then that would have been enough to win the league in 2000-2001 and 2002-2003 but at no other point in the last decade.

Really? I misunderstood what was said by a commentator in our last game then. Accept my humble apologies.

[phresh]

I'm hoping that Fergie plays all 4 front guys against Barcelona - really take the game to them. I'm not sure how Barca's defence would be able to cope with Ronaldo, Rooney, Tevez and Berbatov bearing down on them at the same time.

My Choice:

-----------VDS

O'Shea Rio Vida Evra

---------Carrick

Ronny Scholes Rooney

--------Berb

-----------Tevez

Or something. Although I'm expecting Ronaldo to play up top with Berbs and Park on the wing.

Either way, I'm pretty confident that we can turn them over.

It would make for probably the most entertaining game of football ever, but I can't see it. Anderson is nailed on for a start too.

[Eats hoops and leaves]

I don't believe you. I want FACTS.

[Reynard]

God, look at the mess in here. I haven't visited for a couple of days and came back to this!

I dunno who it was, but it was a few posts up, suggesting that L'pool fans are all claiming that they deserved to win it more - I honestly haven't heard much of that. We need to look at ourselves and our own performances for why we didn't get more points.

I do think you lot *might* have picked up some extra points due to dubious reffing, but that's so subjective as to almost not even bother mentioning (and biased!). And you always remember the decisions which went your rivals' way, but not the stuff that went against them.

We got a lot of Alonso-inspired sending off incidents, but (and I'm really trying not to be biased here) I'm hard-pressed to think of (m)any that weren't justified (dodgiest one I remember being Valencia at Anfield? Oh, and the Cahill one would've pissed me off if I was an Everton fan, but he was acting like a prick). I also don't know how many results it affected, but it definitely turned a few games around and earned us points we might not have otherwise had. It does slightly irk me when people accuse Alonso of being a cheat when a player's just gone through him - I reckon that he appears quite slow and challengeable, but can also move the ball on very quickly, which might deceive some of his opponents.

With regards to Europe, I do think that you got an (relatively) easy route to the final, but you can hardly be blamed for that.

[George Clooney]

Nah, there have been a few that have said they think they deserved it more, some in a rather veiled manner, but most have been quite gracious about it. Hopefully we'll get the same again next year, but with Chelsea mixing it up more as well. Having said that, if it they'd had Hiddink all season, it could have been very different. Apart from the odd one or two fans, since its been settled its been remarkably civil.

Then of course you have FATEone who is just hilarious. You can just imagine him down the pub talking to a gang of guys - "Yeah I was like on the internet last night and I was telling all these ManU cunts that Liverpool were better and they just couldnt say anything about it. So they were just cunts like, but i called them out for being cunts - thats what I do with cunts you see, I call a cunt a cunt. And they just said nowt because they were cunts and couldnt take all the facts I was throwing at them. And then I was just like "You're all CUNTS. FACT!". And they just couldnt beat my logic. So then they made me king of the internet. True story".

[phresh]

Our route through the CL, although 'easier' in some respects will look impressive on paper if we win. We'd have beaten the champions of 2 of the top 3 leagues in Europe as well as the champions of Portugal and season before lasts finalists. Doesn't get much more 'Champions' than that.

[a big boy]

I'm hoping that Fergie plays all 4 front guys against Barcelona - really take the game to them. I'm not sure how Barca's defence would be able to cope with Ronaldo, Rooney, Tevez and Berbatov bearing down on them at the same time.

My Choice:

-----------VDS

O'Shea Rio Vida Evra

---------Carrick

Ronny Scholes Rooney

--------Berb

-----------Tevez

Or something. Although I'm expecting Ronaldo to play up top with Berbs and Park on the wing.

Either way, I'm pretty confident that we can turn them over.

They'd dominate possession and tear you apart

[choddo]

oh right ok, I was completely unaware that football manager was around 20 years ago.

http://blog.kevintoms.com/

[McFly]

You gonna say that shit again yeah. I don't dislike Man Utd, I dislike Man Utd fans like you who come across as arrogant, and don't say anything worthwhile.

My mate lives in Salford after moving from Aberdeen and he supported Utd but now he says he finds the fans to be exactly as you say and generally twattish.

[phresh]

I think that is fairly common for most clubs, the 'locals' are often the worst.

[ckny]

What?

[McFly]

Yeah it was the same when i loved in Glasgow with the old firm.

[phresh]

The people who live closest to the club can often be the worst (as in arrogant/cuntish). Certainly been my experience with Swindon and Oxford fans down the years, although in all fairness you don't get too many fans out of the towns themselves in those cases.

[Reynard]

I dunno - I've come across some bad ones round here (OT is just about walking distance), but generally not in the arrogance stakes. I find the locals to be more aggressive towards anything L'pool in general in a very hateful way, but you'd get exactly the same if you switched all that around as well. That doesn't mean to say that I don't know loads of arrogant United fans, because I do and that's still my core impression of them, if you'd forgive such a massive generalisation.

Saying that, I find a lot of our fans really annoying as well.

[Trigg]

Every club will have twatish fans, its not exclusive to certain clubs.

[bradigor]

I dunno - I've come across some bad ones round here (OT is just about walking distance), but generally not in the arrogance stakes. I find the locals to be more aggressive towards anything L'pool in general in a very hateful way, but you'd get exactly the same if you switched all that around as well. That doesn't mean to say that I don't know loads of arrogant United fans, because I do and that's still my core impression of them, if you'd forgive such a massive generalisation.

Saying that, I find a lot of our fans really annoying as well.

I moved to Liverpool from Essex in February of 2005. I am shocked how some of our fans are. Many of them seriously do have a "If you're not a Scouser, your opinion doesn't count' type of attitude.

[fatbob]

Personally, I don't think proximity to a club mean much when it comes to this. People are people, some are tolerant some are narrow minded. There are plenty of nice and respectful people who live near their club on this forum and plenty of arseholes who preach narrow minded bullshit who live nowhere near.

The only difference is that the people who think you need to be bron within the shadow of the ground to be a fan of a club and not a glory hunter who live there themselves can make their opinions known without comeback, so can be more vocal than those who don't live there. But again, thats hardly a hard rule.

[Reynard]

I moved to Liverpool from Essex in February of 2005. I am shocked how some of our fans are. Many of them seriously do have a "If you're not a Scouser, your opinion doesn't count' type of attitude.

Totally - if you don't have the accent, you're not 'qualified' to offer an opinion. That happens here as well with the Mancs and, like Trigg says, probably everywhere, although I personally believe it only happens with the bigger clubs.

[JLR]

Totally - if you don't have the accent, you're not 'qualified' to offer an opinion. That happens here as well with the Mancs and, like Trigg says, probably everywhere, although I personally believe it only happens with the bigger clubs.

In most cases, yeah - though I feel it's more specifically to do with how big the town/city is than the club itself. It's about identity.

[Reynard]

I think that's partly it. I can only really speak about the L'pool side of things regarding this specific subject - a lot of 'local' fans see the 'OOTs' ('Out Of Towners') as being the reason why they, as 'real' fans (due to their locality and ancestry) can't obtain tickets for games. It's really short-sighted, as they don't appreciate that a large, world-wide fanbase brings in a lot of money, allowing the club to buy better players, etc.

[McFly]

I think that locals are more possesive of "big teams" like Man Utd or Liverpool cos they feel they've been taken away from what their roots are. So i can kinda understand it to an extent but it is as said short sighted and justa bit knobbish really.

And i see Utd are getting slagged to bits already for something thats not even happened yet in the supposed team to play Hull. Particularly on Talksport this afternoon

(Ian Wright was sticking up for us) was saying its not fair on the other relegation teams if Man Utd play a weaker team against hull, those teams are down there cos they are shite nothing to do with United. Its up to them to save themselves and fuck all to do with us, Utd have done their job, maybe they should have played better but hey thats just me, i'd prefer Hull to stay up over Noobcastle or Middlesbore though

[phresh]

Yeah, the mrs was telling me about it. Bloody stupid, do they honestly think that United should field a full strength team 3 days before the CL final purely for the benefit of someone else. What about clubs fielding weakened teaams before the CL knockout stages, isn't that the same? Maybe they should question why the FA/UEFA were unable to realise that with the probability of an English team reaching the final quite high, that this is exactly the kind of thing that could happen.

I can't see Newcastle winning anyway, even against a Villa team playing poorly so I expect it to be a moot point but it is still frustrating that we'll be seen as being unfair by trying to win the biggest trophy in club football.

[Reynard]

It's absolutely ridiculous. Why would Man United give a shit about any other team's predicament except their own. A meaningless (for them) game just days before the biggest club game you can get.

You probably know about the very similar situation with us and Sheffield United (well, Neil Warnock); we fielded a weakened team against Fulham and lost. I can't even remember if that result directly sent SUFC down, but he blamed us, and still holds a grudge to this day.

EDIT: Ah, it wasn't as high stakes as yours, which makes Warnock look like even more of a tool (Wikipedia): "Warnock has repeatedly voiced his dissatisfaction with the fact that Rafael Benitez fielded a weakened side against Fulham at the end of the 2006/2007 season (Liverpool FC at the time had nothing to play for in the Premier League, and were preparing for the Champion's League Final). Warnock felt the resulting Fulham win caused Sheffield to be relegated to the Championship, even though Warnock himself subsequently failed to win Sheffield's final league game, which would have helped them stay up eventually. Even a year later, Warnock has failed to put the incident behind him and stated that "he wished that Benitez never won anything while at Liverpool". It is notable that Liverpool played a number of second choice players in both fixtures between the clubs that season."

Point's still the same, though: it has nothing to do with anyone else if a club fields a weakened team for their own reasons.