Saturday
Thursday it was Bryan Robson’s turn in the muen to have a pop again telling us to stick to our principles. What the f*ck does he or any united person know about principles?
Yesterday was a busy one – dropped the Us and Them books off at Kitbag in Chadderton, picked KK196 up from the printers, dropped some off at Aleef in town, then got most of the subscriptions into the postboxes in Leigh and Culcheth (which are big enough to take A4 envelopes) in between singing Day after Day, Heart of Gold and You Got it on karaoke!
Fergie’s coming out with some vintage selective rag memory shite, also threatening us with Keano - have you ever met Andy Morrison boys!!!. No wonder everyone hates them.
He conveniently forgets that Wigan had a player sent off v rags, later rescinded. Rags won 5-0 but what score would it have been if the player had stayed on?
Newcastle’s penalty? What about the free kick that wasn’t from which the rags scored?
Fulham’s non penalty? Now am I missing something here and Sky have contributed to this but aren’t we talking about non decisions at O/T instead of the penalties the rags have been awarded? Don’t forget that West Brom were denied a nailed on pen recently.
As for City and the Balotelli non sending off it’s never been proven as a stamp, nevertheless that could have lost us 2 points, but check out all the other games previously listed in KK – united Lg and FA Cup, Bayern, Fulham, Liverpool (Lg and Lg Cup, Chelsea, West Brom, Sunderland, Wigan, Everton, Swansea, Stoke – where decisions have not gone our way – as Cityblue pointed out there’s a lot of evening up to do between now and the end of the season.
Anyway Sunderland today, here the it’s A Fix extract from KK 196 : GAME 31) SATURDAY MARCH 31ST SUNDERLAND (HOME) KO 3PM
Promoted in 2007, so this is their 5th season in the Prem. (this time!) Last Pot F A Cup 1973. Most recent connections : Martin O’Neill, Wayne Bridge, Niall Quinn, Marlon Fulop. 122nd league meeting.
This season so far at the SOL on New Years Day it was that excruciating last minute 1-0 loss after battering them all game. Dong –Won scored the offside goal in front of 40,625 with 2101 Blues in a reduced allocation.
Currently they’re in 8th place with 40 points from 30 games and 4 wins 3 draws and 8 losses away from home.
In the Carling Cup they went out 1-0 at Brighton in the 2nd round aet.
In the FA Cup they beat Peterborough away 2-0 in the 3rd round, Middlesboro in the 4th 1-1 home then 2-1 away in the replay, Arsenal 2-0 in the 5th at home and Everton away in the 6th a 1-1 draw with the replay just played which they lost 2-0. Personally I was hoping they’d get to Wembley (twice!)
At home to Sunderland At COMS last April it was a 5-0 City win, goals coming thick and fast from Johnson (9),Tevez (15pen), Silva (63), Vieira (67), and Ya-Ya (73) Crowd was 44,197 with 1896 Mackems. Which made it seven wins out of the last seven.
Comment : As we found out to our cost in January, Martin O’Neill has inspired a massive recovery and they’re no longer the pushovers of the rag manager flops Keane and Bruce. Other Fergie flops are O’Shea, Campbell and brown. Let’s hope the cup replay has taken it out of them. No Aguero though and time for the others to step up.
WTWTWShite : Avd 13,601 in 86/87, and this season their average home att. is 38,689.
Dave
Yes, yet another rag telling us the same bleedin' thing. Why don't we have any ex players who are pundits or media darlings. Oh, I forgot we have Peter Reid who in this morning's Sun newspaper reiterated what Robson said. With regards the game, Sunderland played well, looked dangerous everytime they went forward and defended well. We have looked clueless away from home for three months or so now but thankfully our home form has kept us in it. We all knew that eventually we would produce a stinker of a preformance at home and for 60 minutes, this was it. I do feel a little sorry for Mancini as he's had to fight the media, UEFA and the FA. He's also had the Tevez situation leaving him a forward short, losing players to silly suspensions and some important decisions going against us at important moments. For me, it was the Cheslsea game where we where coasting 1-0, making chances and denied a penalty to make it 2-0. Now, just when we needed a full squad to choose from, we lose our main centre backs and our top scorer. United have had injuries for most of the season though and we can't use that as an excuse. Whatever the reasons, we look nowhere near the same team we did for the first part of the season. Will Mancini be sacked? Much will depend on Mourinho's availability. If he wants to come, I'm convinced the Sheikh will hire him, if not I can't see the point in changing Mancini for say Hiddink. Mancini deserves another season but he needs to replace Tevez, Dzeko AND Balotelli, get rid of Kolarov and Savic and find top class replacements for all five
ReplyDeleteHave to agree with all the above, especially after a pretty inept performance against Sunderland. Yes, a brave fightback to grab a point, but thank God QPR did for Arsenal otherwise they'd really be breathing down our necks with the visit to The Emirates next week. You'd certainly expect 13 points to be enough for 2nd, but the title is surely gone now.
ReplyDeleteMario slept walk most of the match, yet pulls out a goal as good as he did. Still, that's his first other than pens for ages, do it earlier in the match for Christ's sake!
Tevez on for Silva? with Dzeko staying on? Surely there's more chance of Silva finding a pass than of the hapless Edin finding another goal this season. Against Arsenal, they have to start Tevez and leave Mario and Edin on the bench or in Manchester if Sergio is still unavailable. Also, let's hope Lescott is back next week (there's a thing I wouldn't have ever expected to say), as the thought of Kolo against RVP, Walcott, etc is very worrying.
Defensively we looked all over the place today and far too casual further up the field. Presume Richards injured, but why move Milner to right-back rather than like-for-like swap with Zabaleta? Johnson should have started and Pizzaro would have been better replacement for De Jong. Kolarov, for all his defensive frailties put some great crosses into the box.
ReplyDeleteUnless Manyoo implode, which I can't see, City title prospects ended
Alex
Bit negative, Alex. LOL.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, agree with all of the above comments. Balotelli's goals should not camouflage another unacceptable performance and Dzeko is simply a waste of space. Nasri being injured was sickener for me and I certainly hope he's fit for Arsenal, where I'm sure he'll be keen to stuff the gooner's taunts down their throats.
Biggest mystery to me this season is NDJ. What's happened to him? I thought he was atrocious on Saturday.
He was no different in the FA Cup derby. He stood and watched waiting for the ball to drop to exactly the right height before clearing it. Meanwhile Danny Wellbeck decided to strike it whilst it was half way down with NDJ ball watching.
ReplyDeleteAt this stage of the season, is this holding midfielder going to help our cause? Why not go for broke and attack, maybe have Barry as a bit of insurance but players should be able to track back and help if needed without using ones as deliberately negative. So maybe dispense with NDJ now and use Pizzaro or even stick Kolarov out as a left winger with Cliche behind, start with Tevez and Aguero and no more Dzeko or Johnson, possibly keep Mario as a sub. Maybe play Milner in the position he excelled for at Villa.
ReplyDeleteI'd rather not win the title having a go, rather than lose it with insipid performances against the likes of Stoke and Sunderland where we've only woken up and gone for it when it's almost too late.