Fergie messed up against Coventry / Manchester United can top table on weekend
Not much to say after Manchester United’s defeat to Coventry last night – the Red Devils lost to a better team, at home, so let’s give credit where credit is due.
There are 2 points I would raise though:
The Big Negative
Manchester United’s “youngsters” are going to keep losing like this if they don’t get more first-team exposure / if they are left with John O’Shea manning the midfield (where was Gibson? Injured?). For all of his flabbergastedness, Fergie is joking if he thinks players who don’t see a sliver of Premier League action can be expected to come in and play as a cohesive unit against a determined team in a cup tie. At the very least we could have Carrick starting (Brum away on the weekend, I know, but still) in the middle, Campbell up front from the start and Saha / Nani / Scholes on the bench in case United needed backup.
The numbers suggest that United had an equal number of chances but weren’t able to put theirs away – unfortunate perhaps but something Ferguson should have prepared for.
The Big Positive
Granted, this was a Championship side, but it’s good to see Carrick respond to criticism and get his game back on. It was also good to see the fringe Manchester United players get a game and I hope that they’ll get more chances in the future. Anderson got a full game, which can only be good for his ‘settling in’ period.
I hope that this gives Ferguson a push to use the younger players more in Manchester United’s ‘senior’ matches and blood them more gradually. We’ve been waiting to see Campbell and Pique, amongst others, get more time on the pitch this season and those two are the players I’d expect to get the most time this season out on the pitch for Manchester United.
What’s Next
Steve Bruce rested his players for Birmingham’s Carling Cup tie against Blackburn, choosing to focus fully on their home game against Manchester United on Saturday. Bruce will want at least a point from this game and it’ll be interesting to see whether Brum choose to shore up the defence or go with their strengths (attack). With Rooney, Tevez and Saha available and Ronaldo, Scholes and Giggs due to rejoin Carrick in midfield, I’m confident that Manchester United will beat Birmingham (although it could get tough). With Arsenal visiting high-flying West Ham, there’s an outside chance for Manchester United to go top of the table.
I’d put a tenner on West Ham pulling a rabbit out of their hat, but this is Curbs, not Pards, so I’m still not sure which West Ham is going to turn up and whether they’ll be able to deal with Fab, Hleb and Ade. They’ll probably get a goal from it though, so fingers crossed.
Topics: Alex Ferguson, Carling Cup, Manchester United
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A great night for the 11,000 sky blues packed into OT. I know we shouldn’t get carried away, but for a club living in the doldrums as we do, a big win like this can do a lot to the feeling around a football club.
The Man Utd team may well have been virtually the third string, but when you compare £20mil or whatever it was spent on Nani, with the likes of Robbie Simpson (signed for £40,000 from Cambridge united in the summer [after he finished his university degree]) you can start to appreciate the boundaries within which Dowie has started to build his squad.
My concern were I a united fan would be that a team of players who are inline to inherit the shirts of the likes of Giggs and Scholes can’t beat an average, albeit determined second tier side, at home.
From a city point of view I’m just delirious that we are getting some praise, we aren’t a fashionable club and go unnoticed in most of the newspapers and on ITV week in week out, maybe now they might pay a little more attention. Credit to Dowie for being brave, and for getting his tactics spot-on against the best manager the EPL ever had.
Here’s hoping for Arsenal or Liverpool in the next round.
September 27th, 2007 @ 11:53Quote: “With Arsenal visiting high-flying Arsenal”
-mustave been a late one!?
September 27th, 2007 @ 11:54There is no positive here. We lost to a team who arnt better than us, they just played better than us. Ferguson is the on who goes on about keeping the same starting eleven so they can play as a team and bla bla bla but where did that leave the fringe players? out of the carling cup thats where. You cant expect to put 11 players who have never played together as a team to go out and beat a decent team out to prove a point. It is only Fergie’s fault for not blooding in the young kids. There is a point to wengers and rafa’s tactics you know. They play the fringe players one by one so the heart of the team is still there but others get the chance. So that when the time comes to step up, they are ready. fringe players this season, Pique, evans, jones bardsley kuszack done eagles or campbell have gotten little or no time on the pitch. Now that we are out of the carling cup, the only competition the young guys were going to get a chance to play in, they kids can expect even less pitch time. I’m pissed and Ferguson should not be flabbergasted by the loss, i’m flabbergasted by his tactics.
September 27th, 2007 @ 11:58high-flying West Ham, heh. early morning, rather.
September 27th, 2007 @ 12:48it is true that ferguson should give some of the youngsters an opportunity to play but in the end man utd aren’t in the premier league to win the carling cup, they are there to win the FA cup and the Premier League and Champions league. These cups are way more important and hopefully Man Utd will do well
September 27th, 2007 @ 12:58which man u? let me tell you man u fans there is nothing for you peaple this season, if only they can sack that old fool bcos the man always ganble with man u squad.
September 27th, 2007 @ 15:01up Gunners,
fatai (a.k.a.fatty)
The United youngsters have a lot to answer for considering the hype created around them. It was Coventry at home, ffs! This is so embarrassing for me! When Anderson and Nani were signed, it was portrayed as if we’d signed Maradona and Pele. They were WOEFUL last night. I watched the match, not once, but twice and have this to say: DONT BELIEVE THE HYPE.
Equally embarrassing is the fact that the Arse kids beat a near full-strength Premiership side the night before. Fergie should take a good look at his kids again before hyping them up. And we should probably ask for half our money back on Anderson!
September 27th, 2007 @ 15:51Fatai…Wenger done the exact same thing in the Carling Cup last night, so I really don’t know what you’re talking about.
September 27th, 2007 @ 15:54Conor, but Wenger won the match…
September 27th, 2007 @ 16:15That too with players costing him maybe 20mil in total…
Nani cost that much…
If Sir Alex buys young guys for such a display, he has something to learn from Wenger.
I’ve always felt that SAF is a great manager, I have no disrespect to him, but still, given equal resources, Wenger would have excelled him.
Well done to Coventry!
I did not watch the match, but am shocked at the result. We really needed to stay in this competition in order to blood our youngsters. now, I don’t know what SAF plans to do…perhaps a couple of loan deals in January?
It’s a big loss, but it’s not the end of the world. We still have 3 competitions to gear up for.
Why do I get the impression that the Arsenal fans are starting to sound like the Liverpool fans of a couple of weeks ago? Are you guys that surprised that you’re on top? Don’t worry, it won’t last long
September 27th, 2007 @ 16:25Why the surprise it happens most of the time unless Utd get to the latter stages and decide to take it seriously. Most of the reportedly record attendance for the CC must have known what to expect but maybe just wanted to see what the youngsters had to offer(which turned out to be not a lot), that said I think most of the Coventry fans know this was a very hollow victory. They have had sweeter moments at OT like when they knocked the out of the FA cup in the 80s and that was against the first team. However it is a wonder where the youngsters will get any real experience in the first team. Maybe only if Utd qualify pretty quickly for the next stages in the ECL.
September 27th, 2007 @ 16:33“that said I think most of the Coventry fans know this was a very hollow victory” – Eddie, how much did the team Fergie put out cost compared to Coventry City’s? I would suggest Nani cost 3 times as much as the entire Coventry first team. It was in no way a hollow victory. They outplayed a massively more expensive and talented team. In no way is that a hollow victory. 50% of fans probably won’t remember the 80s (Coventry fans because they will be too young, Man Utd fans because most no longer know anything about Man Utd outside their Champions League third kit design).
West Ham will lose 4 v 2 on Saturday I reckon. Despite our good start we can’t defend against pace… or Upson can’t defend against pace to be more accurate. But Bellamy and Ashton will at least make it interesting.
And we beat the Arse under Curbishley – not just under Pardew…
September 27th, 2007 @ 16:57‘Conor, but Wenger won the match’ Yes exactly, he won it with youngsters against a better team, you’re proving my point, that its not Sir Alexs fault for playing a young team, if we won everyone would be talking about how great our future looks.
September 27th, 2007 @ 17:00Thats crap like, i’m sure Arsenal could have given Arsene just as much money as Sir Alex was given, but the fact is he doesn’t like to spend big money and when he does spend big money it ends up being wasted. He’s not a better manager but anyone can admire the ability of picking out the best of the young ones, Sir Alex has his strengths as well! And you know what I always wondered? Since Wenger has the biggest and best scouting team in the world, if Sir Alex had those very same scouts would he be the one to have all of the best young talent at the moment, you know, what if Wengers biggest strength was all down to his scouts…
‘If Sir Alex buys young guys for such a display’ The only players he bought in that starting team was Nani and Anerson, both who apparently played well, Kuczack(or whatever) who was only bought as a back up because Foster was away on loan and I assume we bought Dong, although I still no nothing about him, and was lloking forward to watching him in the carling cup…And ‘Fifth Column’ shut up and get a better name .
September 27th, 2007 @ 17:08Yes football is awash with plastic fans and yes there are so called Utd “fans” who know nothing of Pre 99. The team who played last night did have expensive individuals in it but they still played extremely poorly and weren’t bothered. In fact most Utd fans have been unimpressed with both Nani & Andy so far. However it must be conceded that some fans are very easy to please, if Sky Blues had lost 1-0 even to that dross of a team they’d still be celebrating. It’s hoped WHU do better than 2-4 against “we’re gonna win the quadruple” Arsenal. Did Parker play against the Pilgrims yesterday? If so I think u’ll have a better chance with him in the team.
September 27th, 2007 @ 17:23FC – I just see Pards as being able to instill more of a fighting spirit into a team than Curbs. I admit that I’m biased, don’t rate Curbs too highly.
2-4 to Arsenal? Possible, but not likely. 2-2 is more likely.
September 27th, 2007 @ 17:29You win nothing with kids, unless of course, sadly, you happen to be Arsenal. Based on what little I’ve seen it appears that Arsenals squad is stronger than Utds – which as a Spurs supporter it pains me to say.
Still, it’s always nice to see the McDevils knocked off their perch from time to time if only to hear the fans bluster…
September 27th, 2007 @ 17:41Last night was an embassasment for MUFC. Youngsters or not, the team let us down….and at home! SAF has lost all credability and should be taken to task for this outrageous result. These youngsters will not play in the senior side this year I feel, there is enough ‘talent’ already there. At least if we went to the next round, these players would have another chance to prove their worth. The future looks bleak for MU !
September 27th, 2007 @ 13:48Arsene bought most of his youth players. Out of our youth players Nani and Anderson are the only notable signings.
Inexperience aside the homegrown talent is far short of that of the Butt/Beckham/Scholes/Nevilles generation.
So it seems we are stuck filling the occasional gaps in the first team with expensive signings and hoping that we don’t hit by injury crises exposing our lack of strength in depth.
Nani and Anderson were a start in the right direction. But far far too expensive. I’d rather we spent our money snapping up hot young talent before everyone else found out about them pushing their price sky high. And that does require improvements in the scouting system.
September 27th, 2007 @ 17:52Conor- What was good to see even though it was a poor performance by the Utd youngsters is that many were English and are being given a chance. Don’t think there were too many English youngsters in Arsenal’s line up on Tues.
Your comments about FC are a little unwarranted though.
September 27th, 2007 @ 17:56Conor, you are actually proving my point..
September 27th, 2007 @ 18:08Whatever thing you judge, you judge it on the basis of input and output. Least input and highest output is the aim always. Even managers should be rated that way. You should not spend more because you have more. To be honest, I never expected this from Arsenal at the start of the season. Still I do not expect them to win the league because in my opinion, Man U will be strong enough to muscle us to second spot. But wenger proved his point to us, the arsenal fans that this team is ready for title challenge.
Conor – “Since Wenger has the biggest & best scouting team in the world…”.
Care to back that up with actual facts? Based on what kind of parameters are you making that statement? Since when has SAF been found second best to Wenger in terms of the calibre of players coming to MU? Every time he seems to be getting the flavour of the month/year into his team. This year its players like Nani/Anderson. A few years ago it was C.Ronaldo.
Given a choice i’m sure a lot of players would still choose MU over Arsenal just given the fact that they’ve had more successes than anyone else & SAF is a legend in the football world.
I guess i should appreciate the fact that you’re admitting that SAF/MU are waaay behind Arsenal in something & are paying a HUGE price for it. The way you said it, SAF bought a bunch of over-priced crap-shit players coz he got stuck with 2nd best (Wenger seems to have gotten the pick of Europe apparently!) & just threw his team out into the cold & hoped that they would gel together well enough to beat a lower division side just by virtue of their price tag. So you’re either saying a) SAF was too stupid b) too arrogant/over-confident or even c) he hasn’t managed to get the measure, or the best performance, out of any of his players yet.
Either way you look at it MU just fucked up, plain & simple. If you wanna explain away MU’s failures recently choose a better argument than the drivel i just read.
September 27th, 2007 @ 18:25Eddie
You’re quite right about the Man Utd team – good they have some English players unlike the Arse. We played Arsenal at Upton Park a couple of weeks after London had beaten Paris to the Olympics. The local Council leader on the microphone at half-time gave a little “hello” and finished with something like, ‘we beat the French to the Olympics, and we’ll beat them again today’… I think he got booed walking out to speak and then got applause going off the pitch.
It is sad people like Upson and Bentley (and others) never got the chance at Arsenal. Bentley in particular always looked like he had the potential. If he had been called Davide Bentle would Wenger have given him a chance?
September 27th, 2007 @ 19:44Spiral Architect – First of all, about MU’s recent ‘failures’, I think we have neither trumpeted we were the best nor I think we are playing excessively badly, only the team is not gelling due to some unfortunate happenings in the beginning of season.. So please fuck off about that.. Last year too, we were not expected to do great and neither we spent loads of money but we did manage to win .. As regards to gelling, soon United will play as they played last year and they play always ; SAF has tried to bring in quality depth to our squad this year and time will be needed to get these guys totally in.. we dont give reasons like ‘team in transition’ like you, we ARE still challenging on all fronts .. so what the fuck are u on about??
September 27th, 2007 @ 20:13@Mstt
“Nani and Anderson were a start in the right direction. But far far too expensive. I’d rather we spent our money snapping up hot young talent before everyone else found out about them pushing their price sky high.”
- Why are you concerned over the price we paid for them? We’re not seeing any of the profits, are we? However, we get to see 2 stars in the making, and more than that, we get to be entertained by 2 exceptionally skillfull players.
- Let’s not forget that Nani and Anderson are ‘for the future’.
I don’t see why we should make excuses for our team’s bad performance (even though I did not watch the game, but ANY loss for ManU is a bad performance), but what I find silly is that people now try to make SAF out for a bad manager because of that???!!!?? Strange?!?!?!
If you want to compare Wenger with SAF’s youth aquisitions, then the proper way would be to compare how many trophies each has won with their youth.
I understand that most people want to see something positive (and therefore statements like superior youths) about something that ‘seems’ a bit negative (the fact that Arsenal simply cannot compete in the transfer market).
September 27th, 2007 @ 20:18This said, I will give Wenger major credit for using what he has to his best ability.
Concurring with the post above, I find it silly about the pricetags of Nani and Anderson being taken-up and questioned again and again. Similar things were also said about Ronaldo as well at some point of time. We have got two undoubtedly talented youngsters and we are hoping that they do their potential full justice in future. Right now, they are just expected to provide strength to the first team by their virtue of top-flight and european experience. They are not magicians that by their just turning up United will win as people are expecting for their prices. Prices are that high these days, plus these prices were release clauses.
September 27th, 2007 @ 20:59United never try for this cup big deal? Frankly i couldn’t care less if Liverpool when it. I will slabber to my mates for the entire week but thats it
The League
The Champions League
The Fa Cup
These are the competitions to do well in its nice to stay in the league cup though Liverpool have really cbought a lot of promising youngsters in the last year. But from an unbiased point of view this is’nt a big loss for United. although i am happy for the coventry fans
September 27th, 2007 @ 21:01sorry mistake
i couldnt care less if liverpool win it
September 27th, 2007 @ 21:02Man Utd used their third string to play this game..and the other supposedly big three (arsenal, liverpoo, chelsea) had some first timers in their squad for the cup tie…
this would have been my tem to face coventry and this is the second squad which do not have regular starters in the UNited squad…let me know if Coventry would have still beaten us with this team
Kuscak
Oshea
Brown
Evans
Simpson
Park
Hargreaves
Anderson
Nani
Dong
Saha
I believe our third string just happened to play a very bad game…which does not indicate our future is bleak…thats rubbish… Lets have this conversation in April next year when we count the trophies that each of the big 4 have won…we will see how big an impact these so called second squad of the big 4 will have at that time.
September 27th, 2007 @ 21:05Raj makes a very good point and Fergie made no mistake in putting on the kids last night, the whole exercise was designed to give th juniors ‘senior’ action, the only problem was that they weren’t up to it or underestimated the difficulty of the task (Coventry, like many other lower division visitors will inevitably turn up looking to scalp us and so they did). At least starting with Carrick, with Brum in mind still, as Ahmed Bilal puts it makes no sense. The implication being that we are firing on all cylinders on all fornts hence starting with as many senior players as possible? No, for United the Carling Cup is a ‘run-out’ tournament for us, if we win it in the process then fair do’s but nothing more guys, so don’t be getting too strung up over this defeat, bares nothing on the season apart from losing out on the opportunity to play the youngsters or injury ‘returnees’. It in fac frees up the fixture list and allows for more effort to be put into the other three, the league, champs league and FA cup. And full circle,Fergie made no mistake and made a point of not making any excuses for the team last night. Another case of sensational article heading to grab traffic… Still no response from Ahmed Bilal about Giggs’s floater in for Tevez’s first in retaliation to his assertion that Giggs is holding back the team with Scholes…
September 27th, 2007 @ 21:58[...] £26 million, more than enough to finance a squad that could return at the first time of asking. Yesterday’s major shock in the Carling Cup, coupled with a few massive surprises in years gone by should stifle the claim that the underdog [...]
September 27th, 2007 @ 22:23KoZ – since you asked…
1) Giggsy cross. Mate, if we’re going to pick out specific incidents I can point you to most of this season and much of the second half of last season when Giggsy was under-par.
My point in the Giggs + Scholes article was that if those two were our first-choice, it would damage our play in midfield and because of that we would under-perform. Giggs is good at crossing and if you remember from that article I didn’t rate Nani as being better than him, I just said that Nani should be given maximum exposure and as a result Giggs could be rotated more often instead of being forced onto the team.
As for Scholes – the point about how he holds our midfield back still stands, regardless of how good he is or how much he helps in winning games.
2) Carling Cup
I can’t believe for an instant that Fergie would accept a home defeat, let alone any sort of defeat, lying down. He trusted the players to do the job and they came up short (more a case of not taking their chances), but to take the exit as a positive sign is to ignore two things:
one, fergie made a tactical error – i love the guy and would pick him as manager everytime, but he makes his share of mistakes.
two, our kids get no where near as much time as they should be getting. You cannot expect a bunch of kids to go up in a competitive game and come away as winners. A more balanced team would have done much better, at least we could have more strength on the bench (yes, I know there’s a home game against Roma in midweek).
I don’t want Manchester United to lose any game, and I do not think ‘its ok’ because it’s the Carling Cup. When United lose, it hurts like hell mate, whether it’s in the league or in the cup.
September 27th, 2007 @ 22:36Look at it this way, apparently Nani and Anderson are crap now because they haven’t settled in in their first 5 games. Just like Vidic and Evra were wastes of money they were complete crap for their 1st 6 months….oh wait they were two of the best signings (if not the best) over the last 3 years. Ronaldo was a waste paying 12m for an unproven player…oh wait he is worth 3 or 4 times that now. So Anderson has played a grand total of 1 and a half games for United’s first team and suddenly he’s crap and Nani is crap despite only playing something like 4 games(during which he scored and made 2 assists)….yes I think so too. Especially when the signing of Theo Walcott for a fee rising to 12m pounds seems to have gone under the radar a bit. What has he done? is he expected to go out every week and score/run the other team ragged. I’m sure all of the Arsenal fans will reply saying’he was bought for the future and isn’t expected to do that now’ but then why should Nani and Anderson be expected to do that every time they step on a pitch. Nani and Anderson have proved themselves in the Portuguese first division, Theo has barely proved himself in the Championship. Both Nani and Anderson have played in competitive senior internationals for their country (Nani scoring 2 goals), Can Theo say that?
As for Arsenal, if Fabregas and Adebayor for example were missing this season like Rooney and Ronaldo have been would we even be having this discussion?
September 28th, 2007 @ 01:19you’l win nothing with kids fergie!!
September 28th, 2007 @ 02:35[...] of debate between football fans this week is the Carling Cup ties- you can read more about that here. Apart from that, there are always things happening in the Premiership- some of the most important [...]
September 28th, 2007 @ 10:15For starters, lets not run down Nani and anderson . Football’s a team game and you play as good as the team. You certainly don’t expect them to score Miracle goals everytime they r on the pitch. They are stars and just need time to get used to ManU style of play. You don’t get into the Brazil/Portugal team for nothing. Why r the Arse fans making so much of noise after winning few Home games. Come April, and u’ll be strugling to be in the top 4.
September 28th, 2007 @ 12:40FC – Thats a classic. Yeah everyones praising Arsenal about this young talent they got and yes they play some great football but it’s not good for English youngsters in general. Utd have bought Nani, Andy & Ronaldo along with others but it’s good that the likes of Bardsley Simpson & Eagles will get a chance but as you stated the likes of Bentley and Upson had to leave Arsenal.
Well here’s hoping that you Hammers will give them a bit of a shock on Sat. As long as you compete and don’t let them get into their pretty patterns like what Spurs and Derby did, you could get a good result.
September 28th, 2007 @ 16:14[...] league team any more we can still pack a punch. I don’t think that Curbishley will make the mistake that Alex Fergusson made of putting out a youth team only to be beaten at Old [...]
October 30th, 2007 @ 22:05