Dong In. Rossi Out. Could Life Be More Unfair? …
When United striker Dong Fangzhou is introduced to the crowd during today’s match with Shenzhen FC, he will be greeted as the great Chinese hope for the future.
Sir Alex Ferguson encourages expectation with every compliment to his international forward. “Dong is a good, young player,” he said last weekend. “We have big hopes for him.”
It was yet another back slap from the manager for the striker who arrived in England last December after an unremarkable loan spell in Belgium.
Contrast the warmth of Sir Alex’s regard for Dong, with the words of cold comfort he showers on Giuseppe Rossi, his Italian Under-21 international forward.
“We have had offers for Giuseppe, which puts us in a bit of a situation,” he said forlornly. “I have to look at United in terms of how we improve. When someone like Tevez comes along, it makes it difficult for people like Giuseppe.”
Indeed. Who would codemn Rossi if he behaved like the Harry Enfield character ‘Kevin the teenager’ and complained loudly that “life is so unfair?”
Rossi, 20, had a glorious start to his United career as the terror of reserve team football before coming unstuck when he made the step-up to Premiership action with Newcastle. However, Rossi did all that was asked of him on loan at Parma and might have expected that his close season return to Old Trafford would be the occassion for more than just final farewells.
Parma are impatient to sign the £6.5 million rated striker but must wait until Sir Alex’s return. “The situation is stopped at the moment,” Parma president Tommaso Ghirardi told E’TV.
“We met Rossi’s agents but Manchester United are engaged in a Korean tour and until their return, it won’t be known what will happen. Should will be able to bring him back we will be happy, otherwise we will wish him a lot of luck.”
It would appear that outrageous good fortune belongs solely to Dong. Sir Alex’s reputation and restored eye for a player entitles him to a fair hearing when he says that Dong, 21, will come good. In spite of the strong commercial pressures, it is also unlikely that Ferguson would accept a player who was patently lacking in ability.
Yet, after having exorcised the ghosts of Djemba Djemba, Bellion, Miller et al, the manager summons a few old anxieties with his enthusiasm for the Chinese forward. The striker was laughably poor in his only run out last season against a disinterested Chelsea. Dong was supposed to take centre stage at Stamford Bridge last May but looked dreadfully unrehearsed, unable to make any headway against John Terry and stand-in centre half Michael Essien.
“Dong had nothing to sing about on his first-team debut and was befuddled by the task of mixing it with Terry and Essien,” AU reported. “It seems mighty unfair to write off the player after just one appearance but as first impressions are lasting, Dong looked out of his depth in this class of football.”
As Sir Alex has said, United is a bus that waits for no-one. Nor should it carry passengers. Unless there has been an Evra-like improvement over the summer, Dong is ill-equipped to contest a first team place next season. If Tevez is signed and Alan Smith leaves, United would boast three international strikers plus Ole. If the manager considers that one of his remaining strikers should depart, form, talent and preparedness suggest that Dong should be the player to make way and not Rossi.
Such a prospect is unlikely. United will sell Rossi without giving him a real first team chance. It is strange indeed that the man rated by Wayne Rooney as the second best finisher at Old Trafford, should pass on his way out of United, a markedly inferior striker who looks well short of the required United standard.
Life really is unfair.
