Man Utd Thread:

[EC Unique]

Not a serious question, of course, but if Madrid offered you 30 million for Rooney in the morning would you take it.

Given that Andy Carroll made 35m. No.

[Minder]

Not a serious question, of course, but if Madrid offered you 30 million for Rooney in the morning would you take it.

Given that Andy Carroll made 35m. No.

f**k that was some signing on fee.

[thejuice]

I noticed that O'Neills are doing the Football Club United of Manchester jersey. Is that club still amateur or was it ever?

[TacadoirArdMhacha]

I noticed that O'Neills are doing the Football Club United of Manchester jersey. Is that club still amateur or was it ever?

Don't think it was ever amateur, the players are paid I believe but any profits are ploughed back into the club. The key element is the fan ownership model. Their next big challenge is building their own ground.

[Dinny Breen]

May have just been a bad photo of Rooney.

Roos4life, you are a laugh on here, I can just see the steam rising from you anytime anyone says anything bad about United.

Don't know what you talking about  BTW good memory Dinny, the final three fixtures in a season United won the league in April & beat 2nd place Arsenal 6-1.

Na it comes it up every so often, just remember it was 2001, the first google brought up the other set of results..

[sammymaguire]

Will Fergie put out his full strength team today or chicken out?? Fergie never chickens out!

[Minder]

The Observer - Rob Smyth


Sir Alex Ferguson powerless to stop Manchester United empire crumbling

It did not take a couple of spineless defeats to Blackburn and Newcastle, or a reminder of the apparently inexorable breakdown in the relationship between Sir Alex Ferguson and Wayne Rooney, to confirm that Manchester United are on their knees ahead of Sunday's FA Cup tie at Manchester City. The defeats and the latest Rooney story barely registered. After a while, you stop noticing the nails going in the coffin.
There is a perception, born of ignorance or sandyheadedness, that United fans complaining about the state of the club are just spoilt brats who can't handle the odd bad result. Poppycock. You would be surprised how many fans welcome defeats, even humiliations, on some level, because they hasten an industrial cleansing of the club that has been necessary since United embarked on the road to ruin with the Glazers on 12 May 2005. The sooner United hit rock bottom, the sooner the club can regain its identity.
Every significant aspect of the club is decaying. The squad is riddled with uncertainty. The star player, Rooney, has gone from having a sulk every football season to a sulk every calendrical season and seems certain to have one fallout too many with Ferguson sooner rather than later. The fans have been replaced by consumers, people who see no contradiction in draping a green-and-gold scarf over a replica shirt and who seem to take their attitude from Nirvana: here we are now, entertain us. The wall of silence against Blackburn was a shocking nadir.
The Glazers are siphoning money in such staggering quantities that, in the past three years, United's net spend is lower than that of Hull City, Blackpool and Burnley. There are now rumours of a move for Frank Lampard and a return for Paul Scholes. Lampard, Scholes, Ryan Giggs, Michael Owen and Rio Ferdinand. All hail the geriátricos.
Then there is the manager. In terms of results, Ferguson has arguably never been better than in the past few years, manipulating limited resources and imposing his obscene will to stunning effect. Last season's title was almost entirely down to him. Ferguson is a miracle of longevity who has emerged triumphantly from deeper holes than this in the past, and may do so again. Yet all genius is finite. It is not just all political lives that end in failure.
Ferguson has looked weary in the past two games, slumped passively in his chair when before he would have prowled the touchline, liberally applying the fear of God. His often eccentric selections have started to verge on the wilfully perverse. He is also picking more fights than usual, almost bringing to mind the last days of Tony Montana and Tony Soprano as they burned bridges with humanity.
Ferguson often says nobody is bigger than the club, yet there are signs that he has started to believe in his own omnipotence. His greatest strength – the absolute conviction that no challenge is too great – may become his defining weakness. It's a textbook tragedy: a genius unwittingly presiding over the excruciatingly slow ruin of the empire he created. United may beat City on Sunday and go on to do the Double; it does not matter. There can be no happy ending here.

[muppet]

Reminiscent of Brian Clough's second last season with Forest.

[Bingo]

FAO EC

Paul scholes back for united, been rumoured since start of weekend but obviously you didn't see it on any Liverpool forums.

PS you are playing your noisy neighbours today in the cup

 

[midLouth]

At last a proper midfielder!

[Jonah]

FAO EC

Paul scholes back for united, been rumoured since start of weekend but obviously you didn't see it on any Liverpool forums.

PS you are playing your noisy neighbours today in the cup

 

[EC Unique]

FAO EC

Paul scholes back for united, been rumoured since start of weekend but obviously you didn't see it on any Liverpool forums.

PS you are playing your noisy neighbours today in the cup

 

I don't read Liverpool forums.

Welcome back Scholes. 

[Lecale2]

He's on the bench for todays match.

[Square Ball]

glad to see wee ginger back, but its only papering over cracks imho. Does this mean that fergie wont be given any money to buy in the transfer window?

[brokencrossbar1]

No comment on Rio's chef being an alleged drug dealer and his restaurant being busted for drugs and bags of dope being lifted out of it?