I’ll get Villarreal stuff out of the way first off, to clear some space for a proper rant.
Arsene has lamented the loss of Gael and Djourou, so it looks like Gibbs and Silvestre in defence tomorrow night. He mentioned that Diaby was back, which struck me as something of a non-sequiter in relation to our crisis of defensive absenteeism. Anyway…
His other option would be to start Eboue on the right and switch Sagna to the left. This would give the team-sheet a more experienced feel, but can Eboue remember how to defend (if he ever really got the hang of it in the first place) what with all his exciting attacking fun this season? A toughie.
Marcos Senna’s absence is really big news for us, a player of top-class pedigree who can really dominate big games and (obviously) carries a goal threat too. Much has been made of his apparent dissing of Adebayor. Actually, all the poor bloke seems to have said is that he isn’t as good as Thierry yet and hasn’t done as much in his career, which is a pretty fair shout, I’d say, though if you’re reading Ade, you should take Senna’s comments as a major attack on your manliness and prove him wrong tomorrow night by miraculously scoring 150 overhead-kicks in one game to prove Senna wrong and eclipse Thierry’s scoring record.
Marvellous.
Trembling with excitement about our imminent quarter final clash as I am, I still cannot resist moaning about the sheer idiocy of the shortlist for the PFA Player of the Year award, released today.
For the main award: Giggs, Ronaldo, Vidic, Van der Sar, Ferdinand, Gerrard
For the young ‘uns award: Agbonlahor, Young, Lennon, Ireland, Evans, da Silva
Now, of course, part of the reason for this shameless Man United love-in is that voting took place feckin ages ago, and clearly on the understanding that United were unstoppable. Now it just looks stupid, frankly, rewarding a 1 point gap (with a game in hand) with an astonishing 5:1 ratio in favour of United over Liverpool in terms of players shortlisted.
If it looks stupid, that’s because it is stupid. I mean, it’s not as though counting the votes takes such a long time that they had to poll in January or whenever in order to get the shortlist together for early April when… oh… the season still isn’t really very over, is it? But at least we know which players were flavour of the month half-way through the season.
And Chelsea, a massive 4 points off the pace? No outstanding players whatsoever then. Giggs,having completed a whopping 7 games all year, is preferred to Lampard.
Unprecedented is the presence of so many defensive players from one team on a shortlist meant to recognise outstanding performance across an entire league. United have both centre halves and their goalkeeper shortlisted, and another centre half and a full-back in contention for the Young Player award. Pretty much everyone except the hapless Neviller and Evra then. This could only be on the basis of having a defensive record which is vastly superior to anyone else, surely?
Not so. United have conceded 21 goals this season, Liverpool also 21, and Chelsea only 20.
Can anyone explain this cock-rot to me? Certainly not “MN” who sent a message to 6-0-6, which the BBC have hilariously pull-quoted in their lead article on the shortlist. His analysis?
“I think Gerrard might win it. It all depends on how the votes are cast”
Pretty much, yeah, seeing as it’s a vote and all.
No place for Kevin Davies, a dreadful man to be sure, but one who has outscored almost all the flashy forwards in the top 4 and got plenty of assists, all while being played in a strange, Kuytish wing position for a pitifully poor football team.
And while you’re busy lavishing your rancid approbation all over anyone who’s been near United’s defence this season, just ignore any of the Fulham defence that have conceded just 28 goals so far, a mere 7 more than United and without anything like United’s kind of firepower, which tends to mean almost all the game is played in the opposition half, anyway.
Doesn’t it make you mad?
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