Have I Told You How Much I Hate van Gaal?
The
single most enjoyable result of last season was winning at Old Trafford.
It’s great because you know that they eyes of the plastic football supporting
world are on you and gnashing their teeth as you have the impertinence to go to
Old Trafford and leave with 3 points. You know that no one is going to
acknowledge that you deserved to win and you know that all the coverage will
focus on United and if your team could be edited out altogether, then they
would be. It was absolutely brilliant to beat them up there for the first
time since 1988 and I don’t want to be greedy but I want some more. We
seem to always find a way to make a mess of the home game against them so this
will have to do.
Considering
that they are the biggest club in the country, if not Europe in terms of
revenue and expenditure, the Manchester United of this season have been
absolutely shite in terms of entertainment and style of football. It’s
been hilarious watching Louis Van Gaal spend £250 million and totally fail to
mould all their ridiculously expensive signings into a cohesive unit.
There was no thought when recruiting of what style of football the manager
wanted to play and they just spent money and loads of it when they could,
horribly over paying more often than not. Nearly all of their
post-Ferguson buys haven’t been great. Even Morgan Schneiderlin has spent
most of his time on the bench and he’s not been the worst of the
signings. Darmian has been woeful, Depay has hardly set the world alight
and Martial has been shunted out to the wing to accommodate a clearly past-it
Rooney. Don’t get me wrong, he’s still a decent player but he’s not top
level and isn’t good enough for a team who has designs on winning things.
As he gets older, the grannies he hangs around in become more socially
acceptable as conquests though.
Talking
of old - they’ve still got the pedestrian Carrick, they’ve signed the clearly
unfit and immobile Schweinsteiger who still has the laughter of Bayern Munich
ringing in his ears as they took however many million of United’s money for
him. Also, United have still got Plan B Fellaini, the haircut who
they can smash the ball up to. Phil Jones unbelievably still gets a game
when fit and Daley Blind is towing a caravan and a bus and a lorry at the same
time. The joke is that they’re currently 5th in the table despite all
this.
We
play them at a time when their results have picked up, much like
ourselves. They went through a crap run at the same time we did but
three of their last four games have resulted in narrow wins at home to a
freefalling Swansea, at home to League 1 Sheffield United with a last minute
penalty in the cup and a spawny as you like one-shot-on-target win at
Anfield. The one entertaining performance was at Newcastle when they
proved they couldn’t attack and defend in the same game in a 3-3 draw.
Their results may be holding up but they really are nothing to be scared
of. Having said that – they have only lost once at home in the league
this season.
Saints
should be going into this game with confidence and the main question is what
formation Koeman will go with, with the 3-5-2 bringing the two home wins.
I’m expecting the same formation and the same starting XI as last week but
could well be wrong. Last years win there was built on a solid defence
with Big Vic and Morgan ruling the midfield and Pellè battering them up
front. Maybe Romeu will be selected with Vic. I do feel though that
with the slow Blind at centre half, Mané and Long will give them more problems
than Graziano. The more pace we can get in the side today the
better. Then of course there’s Charlie Austin who is apparently fit and I
imagine will be on the bench.
When
the United team was announced, I was delighted to see Fellaini in it because
he’s shite. If he’s playing you know that a large part of the United
tactic is going to be to lump it up the field which will play into the hands of
Fonte and van Dijk. In the last few years against United we’ve had to
worry about Robin van Persie who always scored against us and was genuine World
Class but this year we’re up against Jesse Lingard who looked average playing
in the Championship for Brighton. Morgan is playing, probably due to the
absence of Schweinsteiger and Carrick so that’ll be an interesting battle with Big
Vic. There is a surprise in our team in that Steve Davis isn’t fit and is
replaced by Tadic. JWP has also returned to the bench despite his two
goals last week and Clasie is back. It looks like a subtle change in
formation then as I can’t imagine either Mané or Tadic playing the midfield
role like Davis does. Charlie Austin is on the bench, Pellè is nowhere
and for novelty, we’ve gone for our second choice keeper in Stekelenburg for
the bench so Kelvin is now reduced to sitting in the stand wearing one of those
hate with bells on it in his role as Court Jester. Come on Saints, we can
beat this shit.
The
start of the game is a typically cagey Man United home game type of
affair. The ball is not really sticking up front for us and we allow
United a break and the ball ends up with Martial, running at us from the half
way line. As we retreat, Bertrand pulls out a perfectly timed ankle tap
to bring down the one United player I’m a bit worried about and gets away
without a booking. It’s promising that the ref doesn’t appear to be
immediately swayed by where he is.
There
really is not much going on. We look very solid and they don’t look like
breaking us down. As they can’t get past our defence, Blind tries a shot
from 40 yards. It’s a decent strike but straight at Fraser who doesn’t
have to move. We all know Rooney has a slow brain and it seems to think
that he’s 18 again as he tries a long ranger from the left and it nearly hits
the right corner flag. Those used to fly in a decade ago.
Every
United great that there’s ever been must die inside a little every time they
see Fellaini on the team sheet. What’s his purpose? As far as I can
see it’s for de Gea to aim kicks at and he flicks them on. Well that’s
what he does if he wins the ball. If he doesn’t then he elbows people and
there’s a blatant one on Big Vic and the referee who is five yards from it,
does nothing. Not only is Fellaini complete shit, he is a fucking animal piece
of shit as well. Two minutes later there’s a challenge for a loose ball
with Clasie and Clasie ends up with stud marks down the top of his
hamstring. Play on…. And this time Bertrand pulls out a superbly timed
challenge to stop Martial.
Our
best first half chance comes on about 35 minutes as Clasie plays a nice first
time ball up to Mané and he plays a 1-2 with Tadic whose chip back to him is
perfect by Sadio makes a bollocks of controlling the ball coming over his
shoulder and it bounces off his left knee and he ends up playing an air shot as
the ball runs through to de Gea. Falling on your arse isn’t going to
impress the Old Trafford hierarchy is it Sadio?
It
has to be said that Sadio is having a bit of a mare. He’s working hard
and closing United down well but the ball keeps bouncing off him and coughing
up possession. One last bit of excitement for the United faithful before
half time as Lingard cuts in from the right and scuffs a shot which clearly
flicks off of Bertrand and gets given as a goal kick. Excellent – we’ve
got Wayne pulling his vein-popping-forehead thing at the ref. Puce with
rage. Twat.
Half
time and I have never been so comfortable in my belief that United are
incapable of scoring. It would be nice if we could put a bit more
together up front but for that to happen, Mané has to keep the ball a
bit. Our midfield has been excellent so far with Clasie and Big Vic
totally eclipsing Schneiderlin and that Spanish bloke who they paid £30 million
for, whatsisname?
Van
Gaal has decided that the Dirty Elbowing Poodle Twat is an embarrassment to the
United shirt and replaces him with Juan Mata who is a good player and you
wonder how he didn’t get selected in the first place. United start the
second half well and are playing with a bit of purpose. It’s still not
hurting us though and Fraser hasn’t had any dodgy moments at all.
After
15 minutes of mainly United possession in front of us, Mané wins the ball and
runs it out of defence down the right with United players trailing in his
wake. He gets his head up and hoofs a huge crossfield ball towards Long,
Darmian gets up and flicks it away and Shane batters into him. Everyone’s
down, trainers on, Shane gets up and Darmian doesn’t, so on comes McNair, who
is shite.
We’re
not being helped by the ref who is not giving Long anything despite Smalling
and Blind taking turns in sitting on his shoulders when he tries to win the
ball. Shane manages to get a clean jump at a Clasie corner and his header
flicks off a defender and away from another corner. Bertrand’s delivery
from the other side finds Big Vic at the back post who eases Rooney out of the
way and heads a foot wide. Both of these corners feature Virgil van
Dijk’s shirt being pulled off his back by Smalling in full view of the
referee. Last week Smalling gave a penalty away at Newcastle for
wrestling at a corner so you’d think the ref’s would be looking out for it like
they were then Ryan Shawcross got pinged two weeks running for Stoke for the
same thing.
It’s
sub time for us as we approach 70 minutes with Tadic and Clasie being replaced
with JWP and Romeu which makes us more combative in midfield and more dangerous
from set plays. No team looks like creating much in the next 10 minutes
and then the moment we’ve been waiting for as Mané is off to be replaced with
Charlie Austin. Van Gaal has sent on Januzaj, who as you all remember was
going to be the next Pele when he scored on his debut a couple of years
ago. Since then he’s done nothing expect get loaned out to Borussia
Dortmund where he did fuck all and they sent him back as not fit for purpose.
85
minutes and Austin flicks the ball over Blind and heads for the corner.
He holds off Blind before Januzaj comes steaming in and barges him over.
What a fucking stupid challenge as he was going nowhere. Free kick to us
and JWP delivers it, Austin loses McNair and powers a header down into the
bottom corner…. And Southampton go mad. Get the fuck in there. It’s
as amusing as you like as all the Saints players run to the corner where the
away fans are up in the gods and all you can see on the replays is dumb looking
United fans filming the Saints celebrations on their iPads. Arseholes.
There
are three minutes of normal time remaining and we’ve won. Sorry but we
have. They’re shit and even the board going up with 5 minutes on it
doesn’t bother me too much because they’re shit, our defence and keeper are
amazing and it’s over. We create another chance as Austin breaks forward,
finds Shane and the ball bobbles out to Romeu who shoots first time and brings
a decent save out of de Gea. There is time for one minor wobble as Cédric
challenges Rooney for a header and the ball drops to Januizaj but luckily, he’s
shite and his shot goes wide of the far post and Fraser had it covered
anyway. Rooney didn’t see it because he was pathetically arguing with the
referee for a penalty for no reason at all other than that he was losing again,
to Southampton again, at home again.
Game
over – I await in interview with the granny shagger who will no doubt say they
were the better side and were unlucky and all that shit. Bollocks – we
did a job on them pure and simple. Defend properly and they can’t hurt us
and take your chances. Not bad for a game plan and it worked a treat.
I expect Ronald enjoyed that.
It
doesn’t matter how shit United are. When this game is put in a box, it’s
still going to have ‘Manchester United, Old Trafford’ written on the
side. We’ve been dicked many times up there before so to come away with a
win at any time is marvellous. The most predictable thing in the world
now is that for the next three days it will be all about them. We’ll
barely get a mention and whilst that would have boiled my piss a few years ago
– I’m intending to just sit back and enjoy the teeth gnashing, sense of
entitlement and the window licking. Hopefully I’ll get some Twitter abuse
from twats in Thailand, America and Cornwall like I did last year. Louis
van Gaal will get most of the flak and all the focus will be on him which is
somewhat disrespectful for a manager who has won practically everything there
is to win in the game. His arrogance doesn’t help him but it seems to
draw attention away from the players he has – who are shit. I’m sure that
Ronald will feel sorry for his fellow Dutchman, he said sarcastically.
Match
of the Day was incredible on Saturday night in that unless you were
concentrating, you would have wondered who United were playing as they weren’t
mentioned. The papers next day were running a story that Mourinho has
written a six page love letter to United about how he wants the job.
Utter shit, just like the story that they’d interviewed Guardiola last
week. No chance United fan boys, you have van Gaal and shit owners and a
shit CEO who pays £30m for players who are worth £10m. Long may it
continue. Twats.
Anyway,
fuck United. We were the better side out there and played the better
football and when we attacked we attacked with pace and purpose, comfortably
keeping United at arms length and just waiting for the moment. I never
felt for one second that United would score and I thought we were guaranteed a
0-0 at least as the game went on… and then Charlie came on to win a free kick
off the clueless Januzaj and then to get on the end of the cross. What a
debut that is. The keeper and back three were in ‘cigar’ mode today – so
cool and unhurried. As a unit they were superb and if any of them were
ever beaten, then another would cover over and sort it out. It’s no
coincidence that since we’ve had Virgil, José and Ryan as the back 3, we
haven’t let in any goals. Part of that of course has been down to the
return of Fraser Forster who fielded the one shot on target that United managed
– the 40 yarder from Blind that was straight at him and that was it. His
presence is as huge as the effect he has on the defence. Cédric and Targett
both had effective games without being too much involved as United don’t attack
much at all and especially down the wings.
It
was really interesting to see Clasie on the same pitch as Schneiderlin
today. Clasie was brilliant in his 65 minutes on the pitch with his
tenacity and passing and he also threw the old decent corner into the mix as
well. His partnership with Big Vic looked immense today and the two of
them totally ruled the roost against Morgan and the Elbowing Poodle Twat in the
first half and against Morgan and the Invisible Whatsisname Thingy Herrera
after the break. You can say (and I have) that Big Vic plays well against
the big teams because he’s auditioning but just maybe he needs the big games to
truly perform. He was outstanding today, even after picking up that oh so
accidental elbow in the forehead from that useless twat.
Tadic
and Mané flattered to deceive a bit but combined superbly for the chance in the
first half when Sadio played an airshot and Shane Long did his usual and chased
absolutely everything without in truth, looking like scoring. And then
there was Charlie. Any incidental coverage we will get in the aftermath
of the game will centre on him and the fact that fans of other mid-ranking
sides like ourselves, didn’t buy a player who is a proven goalscorer at this
level. It was widely predicted that he’s come on and score and so it came
to pass. The way he found space in the crowded penalty area was key and
gives great encouragement that if we create the chances, he will finish them
off. That’s three games in a row when Ronald has put a sub on and within
5 minutes he’s scored.
3
wins in a row, up to 8th in the league and ahead of Stoke and
Palace who are widely thought to have had good seasons so far. Next up we
have Arsenal away on a Tuesday night and they are attempting to make a mess of
their best chance to win the league for 12 years. It’s the FA Cup next
Saturday which is a competition that we’ve decided to withdraw from this year
so hopefully they’ll be knackered and pick up a few injuries and we can give
them a real run for their money. They’ll be keen to avenge the 4-0 defeat
at SMS but maybe they’ll be scarred by that.
Now to sit back and continue with watch
the media Man United show. Twats.
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