Tuesday, August 21, 2007

a few words for Mr Mourinho and Sir Alex

Expect a lot more posts over the next few weeks as my workload lessens. First, the rare Premier League-related comment from yours truly.

Re: Mourinho's latest comments
"My players? I think I have a naive team," he said. "They are naive because they are pure and they are clean. We don't have divers, we don't have violent people, we don't have people with nasty tackles or people diving into the swimming pool. Chelsea are a pure and naive team."
(It almost stands on its own, doesn't it? Just stand back and marvel.)

Oh, Jose. How I have not missed your delusional, barely coherent and occasionally entertaining ramblings and no doubt superb skills of motivation during the off season.

(Also, stop banging on about the goal Luis Garcia scored in the Champions League semi-finals of 2005. The referee was right, and you sound like a conspiracy theorist everytime you bring it up.)

Dear Sir Alex:

I do not presume to tell a man as successful as you have been in the world of football what to do. But surely you - along with every other pundit around - have noticed that your team currently lacks a cutting edge up front?

Whatever the answer is, it's definitely not playing Carlos Tevez at center forward. Carlitos is many things, but a number 9 he is not. Give him a strike partner to play off and he'll perform for you.

By the way, it simply boggles my mind that within United's collossal squad there's not one fit recognised center forward you can play. That can't be right. Frankly, this is getting a little painful to watch, even for this neutral.

Sincerely,

Linda


Next, a few words on the Spanish Super Cup.

8 comments:

Greg Leon Guerrero said...

With no La Liga action, my attention has shifted to the EPL--for now. Good comments on both counts. Mourinho. What we say that he hasn't already? I swear the man should be God. As for ManU ... I don't want to be 'Ruud', but they had the perfect finisher, and let him go.

Linda said...

Greg: Yeah, I just want competitive football now, and the EPL is as good as anything else.

I find it very difficult to like Mourinho, but I do admire him in a roundabout way. (His comments about young players being like melons was brilliant, though.)

Re: Ruud, yeah, how ironic is that?

Linda said...

Although, on second thought, I can see the rationale in letting Ruud go, which was having a more mobile striker who would participate more in approach play (Saha). Personally, I certainly prefer a 100% fit Samuel Eto'o to even the lethal finishing of van Nistelrooy. But I think the complete lack of a target man makes things, if not impossible, then certainly difficult.

Anonymous said...

I can hardly wait for this weekend! I've been watching quite a bit of the Prem lately too.

Striking options are so painfully few for Manchester United and, more importantly, Tevez: Rooney? Injured. Saha? Horribly inconsistent and injured. Solskjær? The type of striker best reserved for the bench, but injured as well. Dong Fangzhuo? 22 year old Chinese international, but unavailable until early September due to--you guessed it-- injury! As you say, they need a centre-forward type- they still haven't replaced Ruud's position. It certainly doesn't help that Ronaldo will be unavailable after receiving a straight red last weekend.

Tevez should come through, though: if he can work his magic at West Ham, surely he can do the same for Utd.

Linda said...

atleti: yeah, it'll be good to get the proper football started in Spain. Although the drawback to that is that I'll start getting worried and stressed about results again, but that's the price we pay for being obsessive fans, I suppose. :)

I'm kind of reminded of the scramble Barca had last season when Eto'o got injured. But as I said in my post, United's squad is absurdly huge compared to your average La Liga squad, so you'd think there would be someone who could come in. Perhaps their tour of Asia and busy pre-season was ill-advised, given their current injury list?

I'm sure Carlitos will win everyone over eventually, but the current expectations of him as a center forward are completely unrealistic.

Anonymous said...

Ahhhh - José, it's good to have you back. I, on the other hand, have missed Mourinho's ramblings without which the Premiership would be so much poorer. Surely someone must be collecting the "words of the prophet" in a blog somewhere?

Still, he heasn't yet managed to beat Lord Ferg's (as the Fiver calls him) psychological demolition of Kevin Keegan in the run-up to the 1996 title. The top managers (Ferg, Wenger and Benítez) are probably all too canny to be riled by him (although Benítez does seem to rise to it sometimes and gives as god as he gets).

Anonymous said...

By the way, Linda, what happened to "hate all Real Madrid presidents" on your profile? You seem to have extended it to the remainder of Spanish club presidents.

;)

Linda said...

Gonzalo: I think Who Ate All the Pies had a list of Jose's 10 most arrogant quotes a while back - it was a great read, very amusing.

With the recent dominance of Chelsea, I've almost managed to forget just how good Sir Alex is at the psychological game and how disingenuous he can sometimes be. That was a job well done on Keegan, I have to say.

I quite like Benitez when he rises to the bait, although Rijkaard is pretty funny on the rare occasions someone gets him angry - usually Mourinho, or Schuster, the latter being one reason I'm so looking forward to this season.

You're right about my profile. It was far too specific, and the current state reflects my opinions better. After all, it seems poor form to pick on Real presidents when most of the rest are just as bad, although I have to say, Calderon...I get embarrassed for him, and I'm a Barca supporter.