Hello and welcome to my blog.
Over the coming weeks and months I will be posting my observations on the, always emotive, world of football. English football teams have already served up some quite astonishing events this season and last night was no exception. Man Utd's highly entertaining capitulation at the hands of Champions' League also-rans FC Basel and Carlos Tevez's alleged refusal to come off the bench for Man City in their 2-0 defeat to Bayern Munich to name a couple.
We'll begin with Man Utd's somewhat embarrassing match against FC Basel. In most seasons this would be the most bewildering game to date but the total humiliation of Arsenal over the August bank holiday weekend claims that accolade. Man Utd almost stumbled into a 2-0 lead thanks to the ever growing in stature and confidence of Danny Welbeck. Unfortunately this was not the tonic they needed as chances continued to arrive for the visitors. The hosts became complacent and in the end were fighting to save their unbeaten Champions' League home record, which has stood since November 2009. Plucky Man Utd earn a point against the mighty FC Basel.
This is a wake up call for United, they have been poor in defence and midfield in the last 3 games, their passing has been sloppy and they have lacked concentration at times. Luckily they have been irresistible in attack and in Ashley Young, a real star in the making. Against Chelsea, they were poor in the first half but were somehow 3-0 up. This was mainly thanks to the brilliance of David De Gea. This was a fantastic performance from the 20 year old Spaniard after the battering he has taken by the British media. They ground out the result against Chelsea though as all good champions do and even afforded Fernando Torres the freedom of the box to put forward his contender for miss of the decade.
In United's defence, they have been ravaged by injury, with Vidic missing since the opening day of the season, Rafael out all season and Rio in an out of the team with a hamstring strain. Hardly the bedrock for which to build the confidence of a young goalkeeper. Phil Jones, Jonny Evans and Chris Smalling have all been magnificent in filling in for their more experienced counterparts and until recently, United's results have not suffered. Consistency is what United need now and with the international break looming, a chance for Fergie to patch up his squad in preparation for one of the most difficult games of the season, the visit to Anfield.
Now onto Tevez's alleged refusal to come off the bench for Man City. Mancini's interview afterwards was sensational, to come out and say that he's finished and that he will never play for him again beggared belief. Tevez is now saying it was a miscommunication and not a refusal to play, I find it hard to believe that a 27 year old professional footballer was suddenly unaware of what his job consisted of. What did he think Mancini wanted him to do, it was farcical and so are Tevez's post match comments.
Tevez has been widely lambasted by several sections of the media and quite rightly so, it is only a few who are privileged enough to play the beautiful game at the highest level. City must have seen this coming though, he handed in a transfer request in December of last year and again this Summer. It says a lot about the man that he has lived in England for 5 years now and still cannot speak English. Controversy is something he courts and one could argue, he even craves it. Picture the scene, the last game of the Argentine 2003-04 season, River Plate vs Boca Juniors for the title. A riot is sparked by a goal celebration from a 20 year old Boca Juniors' player......Tevez has come a long way since then but as we know now, controversy is never far behind.
So what now for the £250,000 a week man? Well City have suspended him for 2 weeks while they work out how they can get rid of him, without losing a potential £40m transfer fee and suffering the ignominy of having to pay out the rest of poor little "Carlito's" ridiculous contract. It is certainly proving a very expensive way of giving the red half of Manchester the proverbial finger. To some Blues fans though, I imagine they will think it was well worth it.
