Villa in the past

But first here are some points from SAF's press Conference.

• Hagreaves Still not fit to play, also a doubt for the midweek game against Kiev.
• Neville needs more games before he returns to first team
• Hopes Giggs plays longer than the 1 year extension that he signed
• Villa are always hard to play but United have a good record there
• Vidic is fit to play
• All 7 players returned from International duty unhurt

Our Record against Villa in the past

Premier League - Played 30 Won 21 drawn 7 Lost 2(Both Away) average of 2 goals per game.

Overall - Played 166 Won 83 Drawn 35 Lost 48

Last year we completed a hatrick of wins over Villa, two in the league and one in the FA Cup. The last time we didnt get 3 points against Villa was on the 26th October 2002 at OT with a 1-1 result.

As SAF has said "We have a good record against Villa, we don’t take that for granted and we know were going to have to work,"

Score Prediction 3-1 United

GGMU

???

Plenty of United fans would think that I am a nutter saying this and a lot will be in agreement with me.

JOSE TO UNITED.

I think that Jose would be the perfect replacement for SAF. Yes there are others out the like Capello and Ancelloti but how long would they take to adapt to the English game? Jose has had three years in England and not one has gone without reward. Jose is arrogant and he will defend his team no matter what.

SAF or Mourinho?

I don’t know who I would have next season, not that SAF has lost it or anything but Jose has the potential to go the distance like SAF has and I don’t want to loose out on an opportunity like this. It’s like been stuck between a rock and a hard place. It’s SAF for 2-3 more years or Jose for the next 20.

Imagine who is calling Jose and offering him a job as I am typing this, AC, Real, Barca, Juve and the list goes on.

Let’s have a look at his stats.

2002/2003 Portuguese Championship, UEFA Cup, Cup of Portugal
2003/2004 Portuguese Championship, Champions League, SuperCup Cândido de Oliveira
2004/2005 FAPL Champions, Community Shield, League Cup
2005/2006 FAPL Champions
2006/2007 FA Cup, League Cup

After looking at this I don’t think anyone wouldn’t want him in charge of their team.

GGMU

What is it that makes a team? What is it that separates the winner from the rest? As all footy fans know the answer to this is consistency.

United it found hard to find their feet in the first couple of games this year. My last topic was ‘another 1-0’ but at least it was a win. Our team has finally showed their potential and gave us fans a convincing 4-0 win on the weekend and it could have been more. We had injury issues in the first half of the game losing Vidic and O’shea early but that did nothing but give new boy Simpson some 1st team game time as we handled the back quite well.

When you look at Liverpool and how they started the season you have to say they looked good at challenging us for the title but now they seem to have fallen back into the river of inconsistency and haven’t won in four games, their last win been the 6-0 thrashing of Derby. Yesterday should have been there first loss if it wasn’t for a Torrez header in the last minute of the game.

The team that is now ahead of us, and everybody wrote them off at the beginning of the season, is Arsenal. My word how we all keep on questioning the Manager that has given SAF headaches since he came to the FAPL. Wenger has once again put a team together that can really push ball. We haven’t seen them play one of the big teams though and have to wait and see how the youngsters BMT hold up.

United have won their last six FAPL matches and need to keep a clean sheet against Villa to match our record for consecutive clean sheets in a league. Two time FA Cup medal winner Gary Bailey is a presenter on Supersport here in South Africa and said after the game that we now may been seeing the start of the world best striking force in Tevez and Rooney and I have to agree with him. This looks like the partnership that will give us what Cole and Yorke did. Tevez played brilliantly on the weekend, now we just need SAF to let the partnership grow.

GGMU

Welcome Back Gunners

The first few months of this season have seen a return to what for a long time used to be the standard situation in the Premier League, United and Arsenal occupying the top two places on the table. And I for one am quite happy about it. In fact, anyone who has only followed United/Arsenal or Football for the last 15 years or so could be forgiven for thinking that theirs was the biggest rivalry in England, and not that of United/Liverpool.




Now I am not an Arsenal fan, far from it. There has been far too much rivalry and controversy for that to happen. In fact I hate losing to them almost as much as I hate losing to Liverpool. But I will admit to being a very big admirer of Arsene Wenger and the way he sends the Gunners out to play. And in my opinion, if you do not admire the way they play , then quite frankly, you should not call yourself a football fan. This is not the first season where I have found myself flicking over to their game for a few minutes, even when watching United, I find them that enjoyable to watch.




They have undoubtedly been United's most consistent main rival in the 11 years that Wenger has been there. Historically it has been Liverpool, but they have flattered to deceive for too long now, and on current evidence, this is not about to change. I know Liverpool fans will jump up and down at that statement, but the facts do not lie. Pointing to the FA Cup or Champions League trophies will undoubtedly be one of their responses, but every Liverpool fans knows (or at least should know) that the league title is valued above all others at Anfield, and the fact that it has been close on two decades since they last won it hurts more than many of them care to admit.




It is far too early in the season to be handing out any awards, but I reckon if Fabregas and van Persie can stay fit they will certainly be in the running come player of the year time and in Bacary Sagna, Wenger looks to have uncovered another gem. Comparisons with the "Invincible" Arsenal team are also coming way too soon, but as far as potential goes, I think they might be be better. As far as young talent is concerned, Arsenal and United certainly seem to be in pole position.

However , the true test of this young Arsenal team will over the rigorous Christmas period and when they lose a number of players to the African Nations Cup in January, but I for now am relishing watching as a very familiar battle re-commences. ( And the football is certainly better than watching Chelsea)

Another 1-0

I didn’t get to watch the game on Saturday but I did watch the Roma game. All Tommy Smyth (With a Y) was mentioning all the time was how United doesn’t look like the same squad we were last season. The reason he was saying this is because we have won all our games 1-0.

Yes I agree with him, but we are pulling off these wins without our team clicking yet…Imagine when we do. As long as we win these games while we are still trying to find our feet is 100% ok with me. As a devout United fan I can’t wait to watch them play and get that feeling of when we score a goal. It would be fantastic if we could win all our games by putting three or four goals away but getting the three points is what puts you on top of the table.

As long as we not conceding we only need to score one goal don’t we. We have only conceded 2 goals at OT and that was that dismal game in the carling cup to Coventry City. In all other competitions we have had a brilliant back line (which has looked shaky once or twice I must admit) but this isn’t school boy football, all the teams that we play press hard and will make defenders crack at one point or another. To alleviate this problem we need to score more goals obviously but when our forwards will be up to that task I don’t know.

Tevez v Crouch

Me and my mate ripping each others team off.

Gloomy rant.

I’m sitting here listening to the United v Coventry goal and City just scored, now they just hit the post. Thank God its not on TV I would have broken it by now.

Going back to Sundays game and there were some debatable decisions by the referee but SAF came out and said that the decisions were balanced throughout the game. I don’t want to get involved in this debate, all I can say that we got the three points and we deserved them because we dominated the game. Grants first game in charge was fantastic, I bet Roman is scratching his head thinking what he is going to do know. Rumors on the net today say that Chelsea approached Van Basten to join them but a statement from the club says this was not true.

My fantasy team has been dealt a major blow this week. 8 days after I put Owen in my team Newcastle come out and say he needs to have surgery again, there go another 4 points to transfer him out. I feel sorry for Owen he is a good player that has been plagued by injury for the best part of his career.

First half over. United 0 -1 Coventry.

I bet SAF wishes he had Rooney on the bench. He must give them a good talking to during the break.


3 minutes extra time called and united trail 2-0, the Coventry fans can’t believe what’s happening and neither do I. How can we lose to them at home? From the sound of it United had 2 good chances in the game and that’s it. End of the game and end of this post I’m going to sleep my depression off.