SoccerBlogs

Shinji Kagawa of Manchester United celebrates scoring with team mate Wayne Rooney (Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images)

On March 5, 2013, Manchester United will host Real Madrid in the second-leg of their Round of 16 Champions League tie.

The first leg ended in a 1-1 draw with United manager Sir Alex Ferguson deploying slightly defensive minded, yet highly effective tactics.

adidas libera el nuevo Predator® Zonas Letales
Evento en vivo con futbolistas probando sus habilidades en una actividad conformada por cinco retos mortales.

HERZOGENAURACH / MANCHESTER, Reino Unido – 1º de mayo 2012 – El día de hoy adidas realizó el lanzamiento de la bota Predator® Lethal Zones; el nuevo calzado fue liberado en un evento único, reuniendo a los mejores jugadores del mundo compitiendo entre ellos en una actividad conformada por cinco retos mortales, diseñada para probar cada aspecto de las habilidades que debe tener un jugador.

Manchester United's 4-4 draw against Everton this weekend has simply set the title race back on again especially if Sir Alex Ferguson's team got beaten by Manchester City in the upcoming Manchester Derby.

This tricky situation is acknowledged by United's Portuguese winger, Nani, but he is confident that his side can provide a quality performance at the Derby, bouncing back from their disappointment against the Toffees along with sealing the premiership title.

Manchester United's luck seems to switch around in the Derby as they get their revenge over Manchester City with a 3-2 victory in the third round of FA Cup with Wayne Rooney bagging two goals.

The Red Devils victory was however filled with a little bit of controversy as Man City were forced to play for pretty much the whole match with 10 men after Vincent Kompany received a pretty harsh straight red card.

Controversy, bad luck and marvelous defensive play denied Manchester United a victory against Newcastle United on Saturday as Sir Alex Ferguson's side only went home with a 1-1 draw despite playing at Old Trafford.

The result obviously disappoints the Red Devils a lot as they could lose more grip in the title chase with Manchester City, should their city rival managed to grab all three points in their weekend game on Sunday.

Manchester United still kept their current undefeated record in the league after managed to steal a point from their fierce rival, Liverpool at Anfield with Javier "Chicarito" Hernandez acting as the savior for Sir Alex Ferguson's side.

Although a draw isn't a maximum result for Ferguson but it can be considered an important point since the Red Devils haven't won a single match at Liverpool ground in the last three seasons.

Just as last season, Manchester United's winger, Luis Nani, had a promising start into the season, becoming one of the most influential players for Sir Alex Ferguson's team especially in the premier league, where they managed to keep a perfect record so far.

This good condition encouraged Nani to dream big this season as he is eying to become the best player in the world, but before achieving that ambition, the Portuguese winger understand that first he needs to provide more titles for his club.

So, what about midfielders. After all, they are usually the most important choices to be made in your fantasy premier league team. Many seasons have shown that the players who collect the most points in fantasy premier league are almost always midfielders. The reason of course being that they get points for just about anything, 5 points for a goal (that's 1 point more than attackers get.

By Chris Wright

There we go. For what little it's actually worth, the 'first blood' bragging rights are United's as far as 2011/12 is concerned with a slickly-taken brace from Luis Nani ensuring United got their clammy hands on the Community Shield at Wembley earlier today.

Manchester United continue their successful U.S. Pre-season tour while having a ‘mini-revenge' at the same time after defeating Barcelona 2-1 in a friendly game at Washington DC as Luis Nani and Michael Owen scoring the goals.

The victory didn't really give that much joy though for Man United as not only because it was only a pre-season friendly, but the fact that the Catalan didn't include several of their star players and even played a make shift line up in several position simply making the victory kind of lack something.

Becoming a new addition at Manchester United surely brings a pressure for any players including for the Red Devils' latest signing, Ashley Young, who is well aware at the competition he will get there just to secure a starting spot.

However, just like many ambitious talents, instead of dropping his confidence, the tough task that Young will face at Old Trafford is being seen as a big challenge by the winger that will improve his quality even more.

Manchester United's dream of following Arsenal's path in winning the Premier League undefeated this weekend in a rather unpredictable scenario as they were surprisingly beaten by the league's bottom table, Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Making the scenario more unexpected, Wolves actually have to come from behind before taking and holding a 2-1 lead against the current table topper that were undefeated before this game.

Manchester United's dream of following Arsenal's path in winning the Premier League undefeated this weekend in a rather unpredictable scenario as they were surprisingly beaten by the league's bottom table, Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Making the scenario more unexpected, Wolves actually have to come from behind before taking and holding a 2-1 lead against the current table topper that were undefeated before this game.

Manchester United grabbed another victory in the league this midweek against Stoke City, aside from keeping their position at the top of the table, that win also keep holds of the Red Devils' unbeaten run in the league for 20 games.

Although it's still early, it seems that this current record gives lots of confidence for United players, including Luis Nani who now has another hope beside winning a title this season, which is to keep the unbeaten record until the competition ends.

Smug; but has a reason to be

"Nasri is the most important player in the Arsenal team." Those were the words of Luis Nani, and indeed, he couldn't be more correct at this moment in time. Even if Cesc Fabregas was to roll the most dramatic of dices and somehow make the squad against Manchester United on Monday night, it is all about one man.

Ahead of Manchester United's big game against Arsenal on Monday, the Red Devil's winger, Luis Nani had nothing but praise for their future opponent claiming that the Gunners will be United's biggest thread this season instead of Chelsea.

The Portuguese international believe that Arsene Wenger's side this season have more that it takes to challenge for the title while the Blues are not looking so well especially since Carlo Ancelotti's boys are having such a bad run in the league recently.

Getting an important victory in a game can sometime become a costly affair for a team especially if what the club lost are key players that have to come of injured and automatically will be absent for quite a while.

This case is pretty much what happened to Manchester United on their latest Champions League fixture against Bursaspor, as their comfortable 3-0 victory is being paid with the injury for the Red Devil's two stars, Luis Nani and Darren Fletcher.

Let it be known that I'm not one to freely subscribe to the received wisdom that Harry Redknapp is some kind of roguish impling that should be cherished for his pithy remarks or Cockney chirruping (a fact that I may have previously alluded to on the odd occasion), but that's not to say that I don't wholeheartedly agree with his predilections from time to time.

It was the summer of 2007. Rumours were rife about the Sporting Lisbon winger. The deal was then sealed. In a transfer worth £30m, including the switch of Anderson from Porto, Luis Nani joined Manchester United and donned the #17 jersey vacated by Henrik Larsson the previous March.

Nani had been hailed as the next Ronaldo and a whiz kid and he showed this sporadically during his maiden season with the English club.

There's something about Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp that just makes him so intrinsically hard to love.

It may very well just be the fact that his face looks like four lungs wrestling for position in a plastic bag, or that he constantly seems to evade any form of karmic footballing retribution despite his recklessly myopic quest for instant gratification regardless of the financial capabilities of whichever club he pitches up at or maybe, just maybe, it's because of his particularly repetitive brand of blame resistant buck-passing.

Corks are a poppin' in the Nani household today after the Manchester United player announced he and his longtime Portuguese girlfriend, Daniela Martins, are getting married.

This may not come as a shock to those who saw the pap pics of Daniela wedding dress shopping yesterday. While she left empty-handed, leaving the wedding day level of blingtastic opulence mystery unsolved, Miss Martins is guaranteed to be WAGtastically done up.

Edwin Van der Sar, one of the greatest Manchester United goalkeepers in the club's history, has said that if his old club are going to be able to defeat Barcelona then they need to change their style of play in midfield. Van der Sar has said his old team need 'to have more touches, be a little less direct, and more intricate in their play' if they are to challenge, get closer and eventually beat Barcelona.

A tribute to Sir Alex Ferguson's 2010/11 "non-vintage" squad





High point: Wayne Rooney's bicycle winner in the 78th minute of the Manchester Derby


Honorable mention: 24 match unbeaten streak in the Premier League
Honorable mention: 4-1 record vs.