Vocalizing Sport

The news of Owen Hargreaves’ recovery from surgery setting him back until the end of the season will add more sorrow to United fans as the news is announced on Remembrance day, a day that celebrates all those whose efforts are so appreciated during war.

While Britain were fighting Germany, Japan, Austro-Hungary, Italy, North Korea, Argentina, Iraq and Afghanistan in different wars throughout the 20th and 21st century, Owen Hargreaves was fighting for United’s cause, of trying to retain their Barclay’s Premier League Crown, and to win the UEFA Champions League, a trophy which United haven’t won since their famous 1999 Treble season. With United being successful in both of those challenges, everything seemed to be rosy at Old Trafford, however at the start of the 2008/09 season, the midfield misery began. With Anderson away on Olympic Duty and Ronaldo having been injured during the summer at Euro 2008, United would not have wanted anymore injuries to occur to their midfield, however injuries to Michael Carrick and Owen Hargreaves meant that United’s midfield started on the slippery slope, with Paul Scholes to pick up an injury which has sidelined him until Christmas.

Injuries to Carrick, Hargreaves and Scholes along with Anderson being away on Olympic duty has meant that United have used Giggs and Fletcher in the middle of the park, and although its not the centre midfield pairing everyone would choose as 1st choice, its done its job, with Fletcher having scored 3 league goals so far this season.

But now to concentrate once again on Hargreaves and the news of his set back. He has been plagued with injuries since joining from Bayern Munich, with the tendinitis in his knee causing the problems. Many will believe that the Scholes/Carrick pairing is perfectly good enough to cope with the pressures of the Premier League, but with Scholes also how for a long period of time, a player with the experience of Hargreaves would be useful to United, with Anderson being talented yet seemingly inexperienced. Hargreaves has won 2 Champions League trophies, one with Bayern Munich and one with United, 4 Bundesliga championships, one Intercontinental Cup and one Barclay’s Premier League and this has provided him with beneficial experience that has helped him to win 42 caps for England.

Last season Hargreaves showed his versatility, having played at right back for some of the season and he proved successful in this role, with some fans suggesting he could solve the now defunct problem at right back. His holding midfield role also brought praise but perhaps the event that most fans remember Hargreaves for was the free-kick winner he scored against Arsenal on the 13th of April, which was his second league goal of the season.

Hargreaves need not prove anything to United fans even with his injury prone knee, having won so many honours at Bayern Munich and already two honours at United in his first season.

With Manchester United looking to sign Carlos Tevez on a permanent deal at the end of the 2008/09 season, after a two year loan spell, for a reported £32million, I wonder, roughly how much is he worth?

His story in England began on the 31st of August 2006, when in an astonishing move on the final day of the European transfer window, he, along with fellow Argentine Javier Mascherano (now of Liverpool), moved from Corinthians to West Ham United in what was a very controversial transfer.

During the 2006/07 Carlos Tevez played rarely under the management of Alan Pardew, the then manager of West Ham, however when Pardew was sacked on the 11th of December Carlos Tevez criticized his management and he was surprised Pardew had lasted as long as he had done. Later on that month Alan Curbishley was appointed manager and after this, Tevez was to be used more regularly.

Making 29 apperances in all competitions for West Ham that season, and scoring 7 goals, Tevez was praised as being a hero, mainly because those 7 goals, which were all scored in the league virtually saved the Hammers from being relegated to the Championship. The most important of those goals was netted on the last day of the season, and away to the newly crowned Champions, and Tevez’s future club, Manchester United, to win the match 1-0, a result that West Ham needed in order to remain in the Premier League for the next season. By staying up, it meant that Tevez almost single handedally earned the Hammers around £25million which was the amount that teams earned for avoiding relegation.

During the summer after the 06/07 season, there were many teams reported to be interested in signing Tevez, as it emerged West Ham had not bought the players outright. During the summer Tevez rejected a move to Inter Milan, and instead later opted to move to Manchester United, with talks beginning on the 6th of July, even though West Ham claimed that they had not given permission for United to talk to the Argentine forward, even though Tevez’s agent Kia Joorabchian claimed quite the opposite.

After many court appearances between United, West Ham and Kia Joorabchian, West Ham agreed to release Tevez’s registration for £2million to MSI, the company who owned Tevez’s registration. Once his registration was released by the Upton Park outfit, United were given a clear path to discuss terms to join them on an initial 2 year loan, with the chance to purchase him at any point, whilst having first refusal.

During the 2007/08 season, Carlos proved to be an instrumental figure in helping United to win the double in the Barclays Premier League and the UEFA Champions League, a tournament that United hadn’t won since their famous 1999 Treble winning season. Scoring 19 times during that season, with several important goals in the Premier League, with the winner against Liverpool at Anfield, the equaliser away at Spurs, and the equaliser at Ewood Park against Blackburn.

So to decide as to whether Tevez is worth the reported £32million, one has to consider what he has achieved since moving to England and the Premier League in 2006. During his time with West Ham, he virtually single handedally saved them from relegation, and as I know through a friend of mine, who is in fact a West Ham fan, what Tevez did is priceless to them. Moving on to what he has achieved at one of the greatest teams, if not the greatest team in the world, Manchester United, 1 Charity/Community Shield, 1 UEFA Champions League and 1 Barclays Premier League, in which he so often saved us points that we could’ve so easily lost, with the likely end result of Chelsea lifting the glorious Premier League Trophy.

For all that he has achieved since moving to West Ham in 2006, it suggests just one thing to me and that is that he is worth £32million, in fact I would go as far to say that he is worth so much more, he has earned both the Hammers and ourselves so much money through avoiding relegation and winning tournaments, and for that I think we, as West Ham and Man Utd fans should be eternally grateful for what he has done.

Whether or not you agree on whether he is worth that amount, I don’t know as you may think that how much he is worth is determined by other factors, all I know is that in my eyes, he is a fantastic player, that I’m sure other big teams would be happy to pay that amount for, and I for one don’t want him to be wearing another club shirt for a long time, and when he does, I hope it is the shirt of Boca Juniors.

Last time I checked, the new owners of Manchester City wanted a “Top Four finish this season”, however, with their recent results including defeats to Bolton and to Tottenham and a draw at Hull, I feel it is all too clear that City aren’t ready to challenge for a Top Four spot at the end of the season.

City fans were cheering for joy when they discovered that they had new billionaire owners on the last day of the transfer window, which ultimately led to the British transfer record signing in Robinho from Real Madrid for a reported £32.5million and also challenging City rivals Manchester United to the signing of Tottenham Hotspur’s Dimitar Berbatov.

With new signings Robinho, Wright-Phillips, Jo and Kompany among others, all was looking well for City, however so far this season they have only won 4 of their 13 league matches, and have lost 7 of them, leaving them with just 14 points from of a possible 39, and it leaves them 18 points behind the joint leaders Liverpool and Chelsea.

With a goal difference of just +4 and with City conceding quite a lot of goals its not looking too positive for the owner’s ambitions of achieving a Top Four finish, and earning the right to play in Europe’s best competition, the Champions League. However on a more positive note, the number of goals they have scored is impressive, 26 goals in 13 matches, something which City fans should be pleased about, seeing as the number of goals they have scored is more than their City rivals Manchester United, who have netted 25 times in the league, even with their new £30.75million signing Dimitar Berbatov although the fact that United have played one less game than City is something that must be considered.

Even though Manchester City only had the last day of the transfer window to splash the cash for the Autumn/Winter part of the season leading up to the next transfer window, in January, you would’ve thought that with the owners wanting a Top Four finish, they may have wanted to strengthen the team just that bit more in order for that goal to seem a bit more achievable. They may have bought several quality players, but to be honest, only Robinho, Micah Richards and Wright-Phillips are good enough to be a part of a Top Four team. Having said that Joe Hart, Vincent Kompany, Valeri Bojinov, Nedum Onuoha, Michael Johnson and Kasper Schmeichel all have the potential to become great players, good enough to play for a Top Four team, which could be City in the future.

City fans shouldn’t start worrying just yet, as there is plenty of time to recover, however they will need to buy players in the January Transfer window if they are likely to challenge for a Top Four spot. The thing that should be worrying City fans is that if they fall behind any further in the league then it may be almost impossible to break the stranglehold of the Top Four, even with Superstar signings in January.

Englands failure to reach Euro 2008 with former manager Steve McClaren will surely be bad news for teams like Russia, Turkey and Romania, who would have liked an easy victory during the group stage to help kick start their campaign. The big European guns of world football were expected to destroy the minnows in their groups, however the finalists of the 2006 World Cup, France and Italy in group C, were perhaps the biggest flops of the tournament, with both nations struggling against minnows Romania, and both losing heavily to the surprisingly in form Holland, thus it came down to a deciding match between France and Italy, whilst Romania could still qualify if they had beaten Holland. However after the final whistle was blown in both games, it was the World Champions Italy who emerged as the group runner up behind the group winner Holland.

Spain and Russia qualified from group D at the expense of the then current Euro champions Greece, and Sweden, who with a seemingly easy group would’ve expected to have qualified ahead of Russia. Spain would prove to be a team that surprisingly was in form, for they and Holland have so much talent in their squads, however they have never utilised that talent in international tournaments.

Group A would see the player that is a part of the biggest transfer saga of the century, Cristiano Ronaldo, who would try and find the form that he had throughout the 2007/08 season with his current club Manchester United and help his Portuguese comrades to their first ever major international cup. Portugal were favourites to qualify top of the group, and didn’t disappoint, winning 2 out of a possible 3 games, losing 1 match to one of the hosts, Switzerland in their final game, but having already qualified, the then Portugal Manager, Phil Scolari played what could be described as a 2nd rate Portugal side. The main fight would be for the other qualifying spot, between the Czech Republic and Turkey, and leading up to the final match of the group, both teams had a chance of qualifying, and with the final match being between these two nations, it turned out to be one of the matches of the tournament and a candidate for match of the century. The Czech Republic took the lead after 34 minutes, and would double that lead in the 62nd minute, it looked like it was the end of Turkey’s tournament, however they started their amazing comeback in the 75th minute, and would then go on to add 2 more goals in the last 5 minutes of the match, making the scoreline 3-2 to Turkey however there would be one more twist in the match, when Turkeys goalkeeper Volkan pushed the Czech’s giant striker Jan Koller, earning him a red card, which would then lead to this match being his last of the tournament. Even though Turkey were down to 10-men, they held on to win 3-2 and would claim the 2nd qualifying spot behind group winners Portugal.

Group B contained one shock when the team that knocked England out of the qualifying stages, Croatia, beat the pre-tournament favourites, Germany 2-1. Many supporters expected the pre-tournaments favourites to finish ahead of Croatia, Austria and Poland, however Croatia’s 2-1 win meant that they finished top of the group, with Germany qualifying as group runner up.

The 4 quarter final matches provided only 2 shocks however all 4 of the matches were entertaining, with Germany overcoming the Portuguese in what was billed as a boring match, however the poorness of 2 fullbacks led to many opportunities during the match. Phillip Lahm of Germany and Bayern Munich was disappointing during the match, however it will be Chelsea fans who will be most disappointed, as their new Right Back signing Bosingwa of Portugal showed very little defensive talent, but plenty of attacking talent.

Spain and Italy failed to score in both normal time and extra time, so the excitement was provided in perhaps the cruelest method, the penalty shootout, and with Italy having a more positive experience of penalty shootouts, one couldn’t be blamed for thinking that they would triumph over the Spanish, however they failed to add another positive result in a penalty shootout and lost 4-2 on penalties.

One of the shocks of the quarter finals happened in the match between the seemingly in form Holland, winners of group C against the runner up of group D, Russia. The Dutch had demolished both World Cup Finalists in the group stage and were expected to demolish the Russians, however it was the Russians who provided a shock when they turned the tables on the Dutch, and demolished them 3-1.

The other shock of the tournament in the quarter finals happened in one of the most exciting, yet extraordinary matches ever seen. For a whole 119 minutes there had only been opportunities to score, without either side being able to break the deadlock. In the 119th minute, Croatia striker Ivan Klasnic, who is the first ever player to have come back to play a professional match after having kidney failure and a kidney transplant (he is also the first ever player to come back after having 2 kidney transplants after his body rejected his mother’s kidney but accepted his father’s kidney) scored a goal which looked to have booked Croatia a semi final place, however controversy would strike, when in an additional 2 minutes of time after extra time, Croatia signalled that they wanted to make a substitution, which was just moments before one of the Croatian players gave away a free kick for being offside, and the referee never allowed the substitution to be made, which may well have been a deciding factor of the match, as the free kick that was taken by Turkey’s Goalkeeper Rustu would lead to Turkey scoring an equaliser, and would turn out to be the final kick of extra time, leading on to a penalty shootout. Turkey, who are a side who are known for complaining about losing in controversial style were on the winning side of a controversial match, as they beat Croatia 3-1 on penalties.

The semi finals of an already entertaining tournament would add to the entertainment as the two semi finals featured a quality match between Turkey and pre-tournament favourites Germany and a Spanish demolition job against Russia. During the tournament Turkey had made so many great comebacks, however the efficient Germans would end this run with 3-2 win over Turkey. With 5 minutes remaining of the 90, Turkey and Germany were deadlocked with the score at 2-2, but then a moment of genius from the player that had been in poor form for most of the tournament, Phillip Lahm scored in the 90th minute, ending Turkey’s hopes of trying to emulate Greece’s unexpected success in Euro 2004. Elsewhere Spain demolished Russia once again by another 3 goal margin as they had previously beaten Russia 4-1 in the group stage, only this time the score line was 3-0, but still an emphatic win for the Spanish.

The final was between the Spanish and the Germans, and what was expected to be a great match with plenty of goals disappointed many neutral fans as the Spanish grabbed a 1-0 win over the Germans, with Liverpool’s Fernando Torres grabbing the winner in the 33rd minute.

The neutral, non-English fans would perhaps call this tournament one of the best ever, however the chances are that the English will say that the best ever Euro competition will be the one that England will win.

Since their triumph in the Champions League final over league rivals Chelsea, Manchester United have had a period of distress as the ongoing transfer saga involving Manchester United, Cristiano Ronaldo and Real Madrid looks set to continue as the player has yet to come face to face with his current boss Sir Alex Ferguson and has yet to hand in a transfer request.

Manchester United completed a domestic and European cup double after they pipped Chelsea to the Premier League title and also beat their Premier League rivals on penalties in the UEFA Champions League Final. Ronaldo was a large contributor to United’s double cup success scoring 31 league goals and 8 Champions League goals and these impressive statistics for a winger have only helped Real Madrid in making the decision to make the highly-rated winger their number 1 transfer target for the summer.

Spanish Newspaper Marca have reported that Real Madrid have signed Ronaldo and he will join their ranks on July 28th, however Marca has been known to be a pro-Real Madrid sports newspaper and they have been known to talk utter tripe, one of their reports also quoted Ramon Calderon, Real Madrid’s current President as saying that he expected Cristiano Ronaldo to stay at Manchester United for the upcoming season, thus contradicting Marca’s other reports.

Although it has been Ronaldo’s dream to play for the white of Real Madrid, there have been plenty of ex-Manchester United players that have spoken out, with Andy Cole, who scored 93 goals during his 6 year spell at Old Trafford being the latest ex-Red Devil to tell Ronaldo that he would be making a mistake to join Real Madrid. David Beckham who made a similar move to Real Madrid in 2003 urged Ronaldo to stay at United and develop his game before moving on to his dream club.

Most recently FIFA president, Sepp Blatter made controversial remarks over the most widely talked about transfer saga by advising the Red Devils to sell their pride asset and remarked that “I think in football there’s too much modern slavery in transferring players or buying players here and there, and putting them somewhere” and these comments have been widely condemned, and one man who feels that Blatter’s comments were innapropriate is Mick McGuire, the PFA deputy chief executive who told Sky Sports News “It is so inappropriate that he loses any credibility in his argument, there are some words that should never be used in such a context. The word ’slavery’ gets people wound up and destroys any argument that he has.”

It is widely believed that Blatter, FIFA’s president is biased against English Clubs, as he criticized English football, when 3 Premier League teams reached the semi-finals of this years Champions League competition, which then led to the first all English Final, however he failed to criticize the Italian clubs and Italian League when 3 Italian sides reached the semi-finals of the 2002/03 Champions League competition. It is also believed that a man in his position has no right to comment on this transfer saga especially as he has had no player or management experience in the game.

Raul has been one of several Real Madrid players to comment on the ongoing Ronaldo transfer saga, however unlike his teammate Fabio Cannavaro who said “When you sign something, you should fulfill it,” Raul’s argument had absolutely no credibility when he said “Playing for Real Madrid is the best thing that can happen to any player,” and on the surface it appears credible, until you look into Raul’s history. Raul was born in Madrid, and has lived there all his life, and not only has he lived in Madrid all his life, but he has also played for Real Madrid for all 16 years of his playing career, and it looks unlikely to change, and this begs the question, how does Raul know that Real Madrid is the best thing that can happen to a player?, when he hasn’t even experience life at another big club like Manchester United.

The transfer saga looks like it will end as Ferguson and Gill have both said that Ronaldo is not for sale, and that Calderon has said that Real Madrid do not need Ronaldo, and with these latest comments from Real Madrid’s President, it makes Calderon looks moronic, as there shouldn’t be any club in the world who is willing to pay a record fee for a player they don’t need.

NB- This was transferred from another blog, so it was done when the whole saga hadn’t finished.

With Dimitar Berbatov being Manchester United’s new £30.75million signing, you would’ve thought that he would be the answer to United’s apparent problem of last season, which was the lack of a goal poacher who could turn all those chances created by the Manchester United players into goals especially those chances that were created against the teams that United struggled against and sometimes dropped points against, however it seem as if Sir Alex may have bought the wrong man.

Berbatov is a great striker, but during his entire career he has only managed to score over 25 goals a season in just one season and that was during his time in Germany whilst plying his trade for Leverkusen. In the two seasons with Tottenham Hotspur he score a total of 46 goals, 23 in each, hardly what I would call goal poaching.

Manchester United are playing catch up with Chelsea and Liverpool already this season and with Chelsea scoring goals for fun, much last United did last season on their way to winning the Barclays Premier League, United will need to start scoring more than they currently are, and remained focussed in defence to prevent the kind of scare that they suffered at the hands of Hull yesterday, when Hull clawed 2 goals back from 4-1 down to make the score 4-3 with just minutes remaining, meaning both the United fans and Sir Alex Feguson were on edge, biting their finger nails, until they were relieved when the final whistle blew.

There is no doubt in my mind that Sir Alex was disappointed that we let Hull back into the match in the second half, and that we didn’t finish them off with all the chances we created throughout the match, and this is exactly why I question Sir Alex, why spend what is quite frankly a huge amount of money, on a player very similar to Rooney and Tevez, but with just a bit more skill, and a bit taller? Sure he creates many chances, but how exactly did we lack in the chance creating department last season? The fact is, in the games we lost points in last season, more often that not it was because we couldn’t convert enough of our chances, hence why an out and out, goal scoring, goal poaching striker was what United needed.

This is why I question the decision to sign a £30.75million striker, who doesn’t score bucket loads of goals, and doesn’t often take the chances gifted to him by those around him. Berbatov does have a history of being sulky when he doesn’t get his own way, but I know some of you will say “Sir Alex will sort him out if he does”, but if I remember correctly, it was Sir Alex who admitted he has mellowed over the years, and so to me, this problem could well occur, and ruin the team that Sir Alex has done so much to build up over the last few years.

In the end only time will tell as to whether Sir Alex wisely invested over £30million, but right now, I very much doubt that it was a wise investment, and a wise investment would’ve been buying a player who would be able to finish off those chances that we easily create.

The reigning Barclay’s Premier League Champions vs the Barclay’s Premier League New Boys, at one of the greatest Football stadiums in the World, The Theatre of Dreams, Old Trafford.

Billed to be an exciting match between the two sides, mainly because before this match Hull City were sitting above Man United in the table, but with the talent of Geovanni that Hull have at their disposal, and with the vast array of attacking talent that United have at their disposal, it was sure to be an attacking game between the two sides, and a match that should entertain all football fans.

Less than five minutes into the match Manchester United broke the deadlock with Cristiano Ronaldo scoring, and when a team like Man Utd score after just three minutes, everyone was expecting them to destroy the new boys, however twenty minutes later Hull equalised with ex-Rangers striker Daniel Cousin scoring a header from a freekick.

The Red Devils only had to wait six minutes before recovering their lead, with Michael Carrick scoring in the 29th minute, and then Cristiano Ronaldo scored his second of the game, just before Half time, and it seemed as if Hull City were already doomed to lose when the Half time whistle did go, and the Champions were leading 3-1, with the 42 goal hero of last season seemingly back to his best.

The second half started with Manchester United seeming the brighter of the two sides, and about ten minutes into the half Nemanja Vidic scored a great volley from a Wayne Rooney corner, which extended United’s lead in the match to three goals.

With the Old Trafford giants seemingly in control of the match at 4-1, Hull started to battle back, and in the 69th minute Bernard Mendy lobbed the giant United keeper, Edwin Van Der Sar to score Hull’s 2nd goal against the Champions, however there was a possibility that after lobbing Van Der Sar, Vidic may have cleared the ball as it may not have gone behind all of the line. The referee and the linesman both had no complaints against the goal, and it stood.

Manchester United dominated most of the rest of the match, however in the 81st minute Rio Ferdinand gave away a penalty allowing Geovanni to convert it, and therefore he has scored atleast one goal in each of the last three games that he has played United, having scored for Benfica, United’s neighbours Manchester City and now Hull City.

United were on edge for the rest of the match, and the fans were clearly excited by what they were seeing, and who could blame them, they had just witnessed the Premier League new boys battling back against the Champions at Old Trafford to now only need one goal in order to grab a point off of them.

United did manage to hold on to win 4-3, and jump above Hull into 3rd place in the Premier League, behind new leaders Chelsea and the late kick-off team in Liverpool,  Hull drop down to 6, but are still having an impressive debut season, with 20 points from 11 matches.