justkunmi:

@toshmann
u mean the game against liverpool??
that would be a crunck tie, manutd is going into the game with so much confidence. with rooney's resurgence, the return of giggs, ronaldo, heinze and neville, liverpool will have their hands full.
and don't forget the ever present threat solkjaer poses, that guy can be very terrible,
lookin forward to the tie.

ONE UNITED

I love you man co's you are a die hard Manu fan.
just like me.
keep it up.

Calm down RED DEVILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
United have a crunchy-tie UEFA match tomorrow and that match is very important.
Man U must notch the first 12 points to secure qualification and 2mrw's match should not be overlooked.
Lets scratch off FC Copenhagen before thinking of the Scousers.

Man Utd V Liverpool will definitely live up to its billing.
The arrival of Neville, Heinze, Giggs and Ronaldo and the sudden re-awakening of Wazza should bring something special.
UP UNITED.

SO PROUD TO BE UNITED!!!!

smith is back,

UNITED FOREVER AMEN
MAN-U 3 COPENHAGEN FC -O WE ARE MANCHESTER UNITED FULLSTOP

Another victory but NOT a vintage United performance.
I hate watching crappy goals and all the goals scored yesterday were crappy with the exception of Scholesy's goal.
I'd rather had seen the chances watsted turned to goals than seeing O Shea's effort and Richardson's fluke turn to goals.

Saha had to be the most UN-clinical striker in the Premiership.
Wazza's inch-perfect pass in the 1st minute saw Saha with only the goal-keeper to beat but he blasted the ball against the goalie like an amateur.
He had anutha chance again and he just struck the ball like an idiot without any intuitons of a good striker.

United needs to do more to challenge for the Premiership title.
I am sick and worried about Saha's composure in front of goal.
Liverpool will defintely be handful and Saha must get it right on sunday to give United 3 points.
He is not always sure 'bout what to do with the ball and indecison seems to be his greatest concern.

Hopefully, we shall have Giggsy, Ferdinand, Gary Neville and Gabby Heinze back on sunday.
Patrice Evra and Vidic have settled well and things are a bit bright in the defence department.
The midfield seems to be the problem with John O'Shea and Michael Carrick still struggling to impress.
I think the Gaffer should slot Smithy back to the midfield to throw in the tackles.
Carrick considers himself too big to tackle and his turkey-ish movements in the middle of the pack is grotesque.

Rooney, Ronaldo and Giggs should be handful upfront with Saha and Solskjaer coming in as subs.
Saha definitely needs some rehabilitation courses to improve his finish.
Ferguson should deploy Rooney and Solskjaer on sunday as those two seems to have a good understanding.
UP UNITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

saha is really annoying sometimes. so many chances he wasted in the game against wigan. he scores difficult goals and just wastes clear cut one on one chances. one on one chances dont come that easy so he should learn to utilise every chance, he should not let manutd fans regret selling ruud. I think the resurgence of Alan Smith would make him sit up since there's someone waiting to take his place.

the game against liverpool would surely live up to its billing. neville, heinze and giggs would be available. smith too. twould be nice to see smith score against liverpool, more like a revenge for his injury.

Err Oga JK

Revenge For whom

Nobody touched him

He should take revenge on his Shoe makers for his boots inability to hold his frame
He should take revenge on the groundsmen for making the pitch so hard for him

or do you mean

he should take revenge on the pool fans for taunting him

ok then

The crowd should throw pies at the Gary vulture face neville for his celebrations sometime back when Man United beat them

But think of it, that would be a nice title.

MAN UNITED VS THE POOL. THE REVENGE OF SMUDGERS

Has a nice ring to it does that

GOONER 89

it amazes me the way people just talk, sorry, write. u should have said he should take revenge on the ball itself
mr loyika,,,, where r u comin from

Oga JK

It is official, "NIGERIANS DO NOT GET SARCASM"

But now to get serious with you, please tell me once again, Who is he getting his revenge against again!?

JK no one touched him, he jumped to block a Free kick by JA Riise and landed awkwardly. So who is he going to blame for the injury. The only thing he could be angry about is the taunting of the fans (like i alluded to in my posts) or the way some stupid fans reacted when he was being taken to hospital in an ambulance.

Let me refresh your memory of the incident in case you have forgotten

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/m/man_utd/4731224.stm

Any way JK my statements were made in good faith and "tongue in Cheek", thats why i gave the match the title of "THE REVENGE OF SMUDGERS" (which is Alan Smith's nickname)

Please do not behave like some people i know and turn this into more than what it is, a humourous response to your post.

Hope i have calmly cleared the air (besides Jk taking revenge on the ball could be a good idea!? I can see smithy now with Pins to burst any balls after the match )

GOONER 89

@loyika
nice on clearing the air,
but i only reacted to wat i read or wat i tot i read from your reply,
its all good , air cleared.
and i'll like to see him take revenge against he ball, not with pins but by blasting it into the net.
lookin 4ward 2 the match

Justkunmi, how did you miss that? Quite unlike you

@kitaun
maybe i wasn't seeing clearly,  lol

@ Justkunmi,

Man Utd faces Liverpool on Sunday and this is going to be another acid test for United.
I am very happy the bulk of the team is back with only JS Park and Silvestre still down and out for months.
United must beat Liverpool at home and winners of big matches like this always claim the Premiership.
Fergie stuttered against Arsenal and he should not allow it to happen this time around.

Gary Neville, Ferdinand, Vidic and Gabriel Heinze.(Evra will be too light-weight to contend with Crouch and Bellamy)
I will prefer Smithy playing in the middle of the pack and pairing with Scholesy with Ronaldo and Giggs running the wings.
Carrick and John O'Shea should take a breather.
I am yet to see Carrick make a decent tackle on any player although his passes are very precise and spot-on.
His big boy attitude worries me and he needs to get dirty as a midfield player.

United's attack without a doubt should be Rooney and Solskjaer.
Saha is another bug in United's software.
He wastes chances and he must do more to stamp his authority at OT.
One-on-one chances should be giving him goals easily and not just blasting balls like a mongolian idiot that he is.
United shlould nick all the points on Sunday and i hope Pompey will neutralise Chelski.
UP UNITED.

@jackal
united should do well, every department is really doing well except for saha's inconsistencies with clear cut chances. O'shea is really doing well. that guy works hell like a machine. ronaldo is having the form of his life. he'll surely be handful for liverpool defenders. and never forget the ever present threat solksjaer poses, rooney to has resurrected. manutd would have a full house on sunday. would not miss that match for anything, manutd should be clearly ontop of the league by the end of this weekend's matches,

UP PORTSMOUTH
UP UNITED,

Ok guys

Two views

[b]Why 4-4-2 must be the Ferguson formula
Sunday's match with Liverpool will tell us whether Manchester United are equipped for a serious title challenge.

Rob SmythOctober 20, 2006 12:34 PM

When Sir Alex Ferguson took over at Old Trafford in 1986, matches against Liverpool defined Manchester United's season. United couldn't realistically challenge for the title but they could, and did, bloody Liverpool's nose with dizzying consistency. It became the club's badge of honour. Twenty years on, United's meeting with Liverpool at Old Trafford this weekend should also define their season, but for entirely different reasons. Sunday's game - and particularly Ferguson's team selection - will tell us whether United really are equipped to challenge Chelsea for the title, or whether they are just bluffers waiting to be exposed.

Certainly, things are going Ferguson's way. Chelsea aren't at their best, his correct but controversial decision to offload Ruud van Nistelrooy has been emphatically vindicated, and old friends like Paul Scholes, Ole Solskjaer and, in particular, Ryan Giggs are playing better than anybody could reasonably have expected. But what Ferguson really needs is an even older friend by his side: 4-4-2.

For the last five years Ferguson has been increasingly sniffy towards 4-4-2, preferring umpteen variations on 4-5-1 in a bid to go the extra mile in Europe. The problem is that he has taken United backwards both domestically and overseas. And never can the argument for going back to the future have been more compelling than at Wigan last week. In the first half United played 4-5-1, with Wayne Rooney on the left wing, and were disjointed and deservedly a goal down. In the second half, with Rooney back up front and Ryan Giggs on in a 4-4-2, they murdered Wigan with a wonderful performance of passing, movement and freedom. They were partying like it was 1999 all over again.

The choice is a no-brainer to everyone, it seems, except Ferguson and his much-maligned assistant, serial failure Carlos Queiroz. Playing 4-5-1 with this collection of players is like putting a suit on a slacker: observers realise it is painfully inappropriate, protagonists feel self-conscious and constricted. They simply can't be themselves.

The switch is all part of Ferguson's bid to bring continental sophistication to the club, but the suspicion remains that, for whatever reason, Queiroz is the one pulling the strings. When United sneaked an undeserved 1-0 win in injury-time against Liverpool at Old Trafford last season, Queiroz beamed proudly that "our intention was to score one goal". It was a chilling insight into the ethos of the new United. And it is completely flawed: British footballers - and Ferguson's teams will always have a British core - just cannot do cute and crafty. Most probably think catenaccio is an exotic dish. Asking them to play that way is like asking Kelly Brook to star in Amelie.

In a sense, the state of mind, the catenaccio, is even more important than the formation. United's current take on 4-5-1 is almost identical to Barcelona's: a multi-faceted, perpetual motion striker, two of the world's brightest talents roaming from the wings, with an enforcer and two passers in midfield. But the devil is in the detail: Ronaldinho never bothers to defend in what is a genuine 4-3-3; Rooney often ends up at left-back in what is undeniably 4-5-1. By the same token, United played 4-4-2 against Arsenal last month but were so meek and deferential that it was only a matter of time before they conceded. United are just no good at trying to play cagey and pickpocket teams; they need to go for broke from the off and to hell with the consequences. Besides, it's high time Rio Ferdinand started earning his wages.

It is a dangerous thing to mess with the DNA of a football club. Arsène Wenger did it for the good, overturning the image of Arsenal, but very few others have managed it successfully. And certain clubs - United, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Ajax, West Ham - have values that are passed down through generations, not to be compromised. Ask Dave Sexton. To most people in football he is one of the most erudite coaches English football has ever produced. To Manchester United fans he is a villain, the scholar who tried to impose defensive football on United and became reviled as a consequence. The fact that Ferguson is now often referred to as Sir Alex Sexton says it all.

It was not always so, of course. Around the turn of the century United played some of the most thrillingly, quintessentially British football imaginable: a furious concoction of skill and strength that very few clubs could live with. But the events of April 19 2000 changed everything. Ferguson was hit brutally hard by the defeat to Real Madrid that stripped United of their European crown. After a 0-0 draw in the first leg, United were picked off at Old Trafford, going 3-0 down before saving face at 3-2. Ferguson swore blind that, had United been cuter tactically, they'd have gone through.

But they should have gone through anyway. United absolutely battered Madrid in that game - Iker Casillas made five outstanding saves; Raimond van der Gouw hardly touched the ball except to pick it out of the net - but something in Ferguson died that day, chiefly his belief in swash and buckle, and his sense that it was time to fundamentally change United's modus operandi was confirmed a year later when, again playing 4-4-2, they were quietly battered by Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals. There is compelling evidence, however, to suggest that that defeat was more attributable to the declining effectiveness of his forwards, Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole, rather than the declining effectiveness of 4-4-2.

Either way, Fergie would not be shaken, and in came Juan Sebastian Veron and a switch to 4-5-1. In a bid to justify such a fundamental change, he has tried every single variation on that basic formation over a five-year period. At first the changes were ostensibly minor, with Scholes replacing Yorke as the drop-off striker, but it meant that he could drop into midfield at every opportunity and give United nine behind the ball. It was a disaster: United lost 10 games before Christmas and, even more significantly, their aura of omnipotence. Only a switch to a full-on 4-4-2, with Van Nistelrooy and Solskjaer up front, almost rescued their season.

In 2002-03, Scholes and Van Nistelrooy had the seasons of their life, and 4-4-1-1 was an undoubted success as United romped home in the Premiership. It was no coincidence, however, that United's electric surge in the final months came at the same moment Veron got injured, and forced Ferguson to go back to a higher-tempo game.

Then, with Europe in mind, Fergie switched again to 4-2-3-1, bringing in an extra defensive midfielder (Phil Neville) to ape the formation used by the Real Madrid side that ransacked United in the quarter-finals the previous season. After a miserable campaign, he shifted again in 2004-05, this time to 4-3-2-1, with an extra pair of legs to keep Roy Keane in the team, before switching back to 4-4-2 when Keane left. The moment Ferguson did, United went on a storming run that almost hauled in Chelsea. It cannot be a coincidence. Seven titles in nine years with 4-4-2; one in five with 4-5-1. Next stop, rocket science.[/b]
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2006/10/20/why_442_must_be_the_ferguson_f.html

and Lawro's prediction

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/eng_prem/6050692.stm

Anyways i wish you guys the best of luck, cause losing to one of your rivals at home is not a crime. But repeating it again with another, Well now thats Bloody Hilarious

May the Best team Win (like Lawro i see a draw written all over this, but hey what do i know , shrek might decide just to show up, and we know what that means )

GOONER 89

hnmm thats in depth, mr loyika.

looking at this match critically without the manutd influence, manutd is more equipped to win.

1. They are at home (might not count these days)

2. They got back their full squad in Gary Neville, Gabriel Heinze, Alan Smith, Ryan Giggs.

3. They've had a very impressive run so far losing once (unfortunately) and drawing once unlike liverpool.

4. And most importantly, they have more to gain if they win the match.

4-4-2 and we tonk the Scouse bitches.
4-5-1 and we scrape a draw

the problem is not with the 4-4-2 formation, but with the kind of players available. You need the right players for that formation.

As far as i am concerned carrick is not a holding midfielder and that is where smith comes.

With so many midfielders available playing 4-4-2 will only upset most of them

Congratulations, y'all manutd fans

a lacklustre performance by liverpool again,

its good, to keep the pressure up on chelsea,

but believe me, the decider is going to be manutd vs chelsea,

lets wait till then,

@Lordimpaq

Long time no see.

The decider is not really United VS Chelsea.

It is going to be those 4 matches within few days in christmas.

Then the boys will be separated from men

Maybe so

man utd 2 liverpool 0
Rooney will be so proud of Rio's strike

@bami,

wats there to be proud of, rooney would do better than that lucky strike of ferdinand

he wasn't even looking at the goal when he scored, he just kicked the damnn ball,

watch his feet movement pro-ball, he didn't kick it the way he intended to, if he did, he would have blasted it wide,

@ Lordimpaq,
Stop hating.
Rio meant every inch of his moves and u have to commend him for doing a striker's job.
Teary Hunry would green with envy seeing such skill coming from a centre-half.

Anyways, United won and they did with style n grace.
U cannot but admire Man U's quality and a lot of players got me biting my upper-lip.
Darren Fletcher, Patrice Evra and especially Louis Saha were too awesome.

UP UNITED.

@Nutter, where the heavens have u been?

Vidic and Ferdinand are a dream pair and their defending is pure master class. That man from Serbia and Montenegro is something else.

lordimpaq:

@bami,

wats there to be proud of, rooney would do better than that lucky strike of ferdinand

he wasn't even looking at the goal when he scored, he just kicked the damnn ball,

That is because he can score a goal without even looking. Rooney has been looking at the goal without scoring, maybe he should look at somewhere else.

@ bami,
Vidic is a die-hard player.
He was among the famous four of Serb and Montenegro team b4 the world cup.
Maybe Fergie should get the remaining 3 players in that defence line cos all of em work as a complete unit.
Had he played against Arsenal he would have kept Adebayor mute all day long.
U gotta admire his passion and work-rate when wearing a United shirt.
Evra, Smith and Heinze also belong to that class of tooth and nail these days.
They will give anything for United.

Serbia did really miss him in the worldcup. Imagine a country going into the worldcup with the most greedy and toughest defence with only one goal conceded in the qualifiers from more than ten matches becoming the most charitable and softest defence in the worldcup conceding ten goals in three matches.

Exactly.
One defective unit out of others is capable of making a system non-functional.
No other player could replace Vidic and that was the crux of the Serbian issue.
Serbia leaked in many goals because of Vidic's injury and that was sad for the young football nation.