Countdown To The Season …
Soon the waiting will be over and United will, at last, have the chance to make good the optimism born of an excellent pre-season. Yet rarely can a team boasting reinforcements worth more than £20 million have generated less enthusiasm among the faithful. Media pundits talk of the end of an era. Fans fear the spectre of a 1990’s Liverpool.
The Merseysiders had by then lost some of their sheen as the most formidable set of trophy collectors the country had seen. The team could raise its game but did so infrequently. Ever greater excuses accompanied ever falling standards, both on and off the field. Managers came and went, their reputations shredded by the weight of expectation and the volume of footballers lacking the right stuff.
With this in mind, United fans stand ready to tick the boxes of decline - sub-standard, first-team players, managerial instability, over-reliance on stars, important defections, inadequate recruits and indifferent league form camouflaged by the occasional cup success.
United diehards are faced with the prospect of a team deemed ill-equipped to take on Chelsea, managed by a 64 year old legend for whom the next season is considered a last throw of the dice.
By common consent, United’s owners would find it difficult to resist a change at the top if the team again limped out of Europe before Christmas and ran up the white flag before Easter to Mourinho’s Chelsea or Benitez’s Liverpool.
Chelsea have the glamour of a Galactico transfer policy. Liverpool have iron and Gerrard. Arsenal are flushed with youth and can count on the undisputed class of Thierry Henry and the considerable football intelligence of Arsene Wenger.
And what of United? The calm efficiency of Edwin Van Der Saar’s goalkeeping, the World Cup rebirth of Rio, the rugged reliability of Gabriel Heinze and the decisive impact of United’s talisman Wayne Rooney, are seemingly underestimated in the rush to crown the saviours of London and Liverpool.
Add a fit-again Paul Scholes, with much to prove, the desire of Michael Carrick to merit his £18 million price tag, the maverick talent of Ronaldo and a sprinkling of youngsters keen to make their reputations and United ought to possess the wherewithal to be strong contenders this term.
This is all the more so as Sir Alex Ferguson might now be having flashbacks to the last time United were so brusquely dismissed. Patrick Vieira may have been lost to Arsenal through injury but it was Ferguson, using all the nous gained in 40 years at the top of football, who hunted them down to claim the Premiership title in 2003.
And in 1995-96, when conventional wisdom had it that United were broken by the sale of their better players, there was Ferguson again to show he knew more than his doubters.
It may well be that United are derailed by a shortage of goals, a raft of injuries or the remorseless excellence of other teams but surely when so little is expected, so much stands to be achieved.
Come on United. AU
© Copyright: Absolutely United 2006
