Our youngsters are still keeping busy after the long taxing EPL season.
Chicharito for one has carried his fine scoring form into the Gold Cup where he's currently the
top scorer with 5 goals from 3 games. For a player who was supposed to be eased into the rigors of
the English game and pegged more as one for the future, he played in well over 40 games for us last
season.
As most of you have probably heard by now, the Phil Jones debacle has finally drawn to a close.
There appears to be conflicting reports on the final agreed upon fee that we paid to Blackburn.
Some are saying that we compromised and arrived at a figure close to 20m so as not to draw this out
longer than necessary.
So..it looks like we've made no further progress in regards to our bid for Phil Jones.
Soccernet is reporting that while we've agreed to personal terms with the player AND met the
buyout clause in his contract, the most important thing hasn't been resolved. And that would be the
actual transfer fee to convince Blackburn to sell him to us.
Will he or won't he?
That was the big question throughout the day that marked the (at time of posting) potential
transfer of Phil Jones to United. If you followed it unfold as avidly as I did, the whole debacle
could be summarized in this way:
Breaking news Phil Jones has snubbed some of the other big clubs to sign for
United.
We knew this day was coming. We knew it was going to happen sooner rather than later. The ending
of a storied and illustrious chapter in United's history.
Perhaps the fact that Scholes hasn't featured as prominently in the past couple of months has
made the announcement easier to stomach. Yes, we're losing a legend.
The future of our Bulgarian goalscorer seems to be shrouded in mystery. Will he stay with us or
will he demand a transfer after being slighted by the manager at Wembley? After finally hitting the
sort of goalscoring form that United fans had been craving for his first couple of seasons, could
we now be losing him after his most prolific season in a red shirt?
It wasn't the fairytale ending we were all hoping for. But for any fan in red to argue that we
deserved something out of this game would have been a serious disservice to the way the Spanish
champions dominated us.
We fared better than our showing from 2 years ago. But that wasn't exactly very difficult to
do.
It was great to see Becks, Butt and Phil putting on that jersey again. It felt like they never
left.
Becks looked like he's still got it. His delivery was exceptional all night long and his hustle
for the 90 minutes reminded everyone why we loved him and how like Giggsy, he's expanded his game
to extend his playing career.
Cup final's are not unfamiliar territory for Manchester United as a club, but for this year's
crop of fledglings it was the biggest night of their lives so far so they could've been forgiven
for having nerves and feeling the pressure. For one last time this season they lined up knowing
that this was a straight forward knockout, winner takes all situation and an opportunity to carve
their names into the history of United, or as Sir Alex likes to describe it as 'the fabric of the
club'.
Our 2 primary concerns coming into this game was firstly, to ensure that we put out a strong
enough squad and performance so that our selection would not come under FA scrutiny. Secondly, we
needed to ensure that our key players would come away from this weekend's encounter injury free and
ready for Wembley.
So? What did we learn at Bramall Lane last Tuesday night? Well, I think we learnt that after
disposing of Aston Villa in the semi-final we were right not to underestimate Sheffield United's
young Blades. Did United's players underestimate them? I don't think so. But, I do believe they
were a tad shocked when they woke up from the dead after thirty five minutes!
The most startling stat surrounding the 1st leg of this FA Youth Cup final is that more than
29,977 expectant fans turned up to watch the match. The attendance is even more startling given
that it's Sheffield United's highest gate of the season (yes, including all competitions at all
levels) beating the previous highest by fully 6,000 (cue the chant "Come to see United, you've only
come to see United.
Saturday 14th May 2011 saw Manchester United overtake Liverpool as the most successful domestic
club in English football history.
In 1990 Liverpool won their 18th title and were sitting pretty on their perch, 13 titles ahead
of arch rivals Manchester United.
19 years later Alex Ferguson and his list of successful players had equalled Liverpool's haul of
18 titles.
It's here, and it's not going unnoticed despite being surrounded by other events and
achievements gained by the club's more illustrious and decorated first team squad. There's a
certain hype about this year's FA Youth Cup final, nothing emphasised this more than the 24,000
tickets that had already been sold by Wednesday last week, Bramall Lane holds just shy of
33,000.
There were undoubtedly numerous turning points in our season that we can point to as the
moment(s) when we got our act together and started playing like champions. There have also been
some tremendous individual contributions that put us in the position we were in heading into
yesterday's game needing only a point to clinch the title.
