Antonio Valencia

Antonio Valencia today signed a four year deal with Manchester United for an undisclosed fee (likely around £16 million).

Comparisons are bound to be drawn with Ronaldo simply because he is likely to be operating on the right wing and already people are pointing to his comparitively poor goal-scoring record for Wigan (6 goals in 47 appearances last season) but his all round play and ability should fit in very well for us.

I think it’s also worth bearing in mind that he is still only 23 (will be 24 when the season starts, however) and there’s plenty of time for improvement and he’s now at the best place to make that improvement.

I also have little doubt that playing for United, if he gets the games, he will score more than six goals in his first season with us.

One thing I think we will see from Valencia that we never got from Ronaldo is a bit of tracking back, tackling and a defensive shift now and again.

All in all, I think Valencia is a very good signing and I hope this is the first of at least three before the season starts.

I must admit, I have a grudging respect for Manchester City over the last six months or so.

They have been bought out by a bunch of Arabs so rich that they make Abramovich look skint but they are trying, trying to play on roughly the same playing field as everyone else.

They apparently offered £100 million for Kaka earlier this year and offered him a salary that would buy him every bible in the world but something “weird” happened… he turned it down!

Over the last couple of days, the news that Eto’o was about to become their next major signing has reached fever pitch.

To Man City’s credit, they have at least been on the mental side of sensible with their offer of £25 Million for a 28 year old striker with behavioural problems but their reported offer of a salary of £250,000/week has sort of blown any credibility on that front out of the window but still, I must respect them.

Why?

Because, let’s face it, when your owner is worth more than most smaller countries, it would be a right laugh to just offer £100 million here there and everywhere for all the best players and offer them £1 Million/week wages.

It would make for a brilliant experiment.

Let me just think here, with my calculator at the ready…

23 players… £100 million each = £2.3 Billion

Wages over 1 year = £52 Million x 23 = £1,196,000,000.

We’ll just forget the wages for the second year which would be just over £1 billion again.

So, this little ruse would cost around £3.5 Billion which is little more than the owners of Man City earn just for getting out of bed in the morning for a year and represents less than 10% of their wealth.

But somehow, despite having more money than any one person could ever hope to spend in a lifetime, they have somehow resisted the temptation to press ahead with this ridiculous scenario. And here lies my respect.

Funnily enough, so have the players.

Kaka turned them down and all the signs suggest that Eto’o looks like doing the same.

Moral of this story: Money doesn’t guarantee success.

Tevez has spoken today about the reasons why he left Manchester United and he cites the main reason as being Berbatov.

I already knew Tevez was a manipulative munchkin but this just confirms it.

There are already a lot of Manchester United fans that haven’t taken to Berbatov, Tevez would have known this so citing him as the reason why he “had” to leave is just a little below to belt to my mind.

It will just make the Tevez fans more anti-Berbatov when what Berby needs right now is 100% support and backing, he is the Manchester United player, Tevez isn’t and never really was.

Tevez says, “I did not feel supported after United signed Berbatov because I was the man for the job he was bought to do.”

Umm… no… Tevez and Berbatov are chalk and cheese, Berbatov was bought to do everything that Tevez could NOT do. Similarly, Tevez was in the squad to bring something different to the table that Berbatov could not provide.

He continues, “When I arrived I had to fight for a place like any other player. My first season was good. I was a starter or a substitute, but I respected that. But in my second year, after the match against Liverpool [on Sept 13], the coach started to overlook me.”

So, he was happy to fight for his place when he had no competition but he is admitting that he couldn’t compete with Berbatov.

Sir Alex Ferguson has never been one to keep faith with a player just because he cost a lot of money and he would have had no qualms about dropping Berby if it meant silverware.

The fact of the matter is that Tevez actually played more minutes last season than Berbatov did, he was never overlooked, he was given his chances in many important games, he was just a member of the squad and he was expected to fit into the rotation policy that Fergie has operated for well over ten years now.

As an indication of just how much Manchester United REALLY valued Tevez, they offered the full asking price of his owner and offered to make him one of the best paid players at the club.

Tevez turned it down.

It didn’t come “too late”, it wasn’t about other players that United had signed, it wasn’t that Tevez didn’t “feel loved”.

He just received a better offer from elsewhere and I wish Tevez would just come out and say this instead of putting all the blame on another player who is guiltless but under enough pressure to perform without an ex-teammate sticking the boot in on his way out of the door.

Git.

Carlos Tevez - Ver Dificul

The Red Devil: So Carlos, did you enjoy your two years with Manchester United, during which time you have won a Champions League Winners Medal, a Champions League Runners-up Medal, two Premier League Champions Medals, a World Club Championship Medal and a League Cup Winners Medal?

Carlos Tevez: Ver dificul.

TRD: Your owner says that you never felt part of the family here at Old Trafford. How did it feel to you when the fans pleaded with you not to leave and chanted Argentina whenever you played, despite the fact that England and Argentina as nations have, shall we say, a colourful history?

CT: Ver dificul.

TRD: I wonder if you feel that you weren’t given enough playing time during the 2008/09 season despite the fact that you played for 3,352 minutes which actually compares quite well to, for example, Wayne Rooney (3,449 minutes) and Dimitar Berbatov (3,239 minutes)?

CT: Ver dificul.

TRD: Just as an aside, you scored 15 goals whilst Rooney scored 20 goals and Berbatov scored 14 so, do you think you were given a pretty fair crack of the whip?

CT: Ver dificul.

TRD: If you were to move to, for example, Manchester City, do you think you would win more silverware?

CT: Ver dificul.

TRD: After three years in England, have you learned any English whatsoever?

CT: Ver dificul.

TRD: OK. Here’s an easy one for you. Are you and your owner motivated by footballing success or money?

CT: Show me da moneee, ver dificul… spondoolix, how you say, brrmmm brrrmmm Ferrari, Manchester City, I love you, I run run run all day long, ver dificul you know. I try buy Ferrari with Champions League Winners Medal, they say, “ver dificul”. I ask Manchester United for more cash, they say, “ver dificul”. So, ver dificul.

TRD: Do you think that a few years from now, you will regret not taking the five year contract at Manchester United as one of their highest paid players with a 90% chance of playing for silverware every season?

CT: Ver dificul.

TRD: No, sorry mate, it’s a no brainer from where I am standing and I’m asleep right now.

CT: Ver dificul.

£80 Million you say? Sweet!

Rudyard Kipling once wrote a poem. You might have heard of it. It is called, quite simply, “If”.

The opening verse is basically this:-

“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating.”

And ends thus:-

“Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!”

According to some, with the loss of Ronaldo and Tevez, the world is about to implode as far as Manchester United are concerned.

We can never replace them. Between Ronaldo’s preening and Tevez’s headless chicken impersonations, they managed to fit in about 40 goals between them yada yada yada.

And where was Sir Alex when all around him were losing their heads?

Chilling on a beach in the South of France, catching some rays, sipping on a cold one, no doubt doing a spot of bird-watching when the missus was having forty-winks.

His holiday is now over and things will get moving now that he is back, fully recharged. He has never really been one to go berserk in the transfer market during the summer. His quick-fire spending spree a couple of years ago when he brought in Nani, Anderson, Hargreaves and Tevez (the latter two admittedly took a bit more wrangling) was the exception, rather than the rule and took everyone by surprise.

Targets will have been identified months ago. Manchester United don’t sell anyone without a clear idea of who is going to replace them and in the cases of Tevez and Ronaldo, neither departure will have come as a major surprise to Sir Alex.

There’s around seven weeks until the start of the new season but we start our pre-season matches in around 4 weeks time and I am almost certain that at least two new faces will be introduced before we head out to the Far East.

More may well come on board and one or two may well depart but this will have all been decided months ago.

While the press are all regurgitating the same old names, it would not come as a major surprise to me if Sir Alex, whose network of scouts extends beyond the local boozer, brings in at least one player who is merely greeted with, “Who?!” (Solskjaer) or, “Well, I didn’t see that one coming!” (Cantona).

These golden nuggets out of left-field have been the hallmark of Fergie’s reign at Old Trafford and it wouldn’t surprise me to see him side by side with another OT Legend-in-the-Making before the month is out and it WON’T be a name that the press have even mentioned.

That’s why us mere mortals write about what he may or may not do whilst he actually goes out and DOES it… year in, year out – as well as, if not better than, anyone else.

Keep the faith!

A Sneak Preview of the 2009/10 Home Kit

Nike today released some deliberately darkened images of the new Manchester United Home Kit that will be worn during the 2009/10 Season.

It can be pre-ordered from today and will be officially unveiled on 1st July but it won’t be available to buy until July 16th.

Although the images released by Nike have been darkened, by increasing the brightness (as I have done with the one in this post) it is possible to make out some features, the most notable of which are the round, black collar trim and black V shape across the chest.

The 1908/09 Kit - Image Courtesy of TOFFS

I believe the strip commemorates 100 years of Old Trafford and is a nod towards the strip that Manchester United wore when playing in the FA Cup Final in 1909^* which was white with a red V across the chest.

I’m sure the kit will look great and fans up and down the country will be wearing it with pride – now if only we knew what name to have printed on the back…

(^*Incidentally, we won the FA Cup that day – the first of many – with Alexander “Sandy” Turnbull scoring the only goal in a 1-0 win against Bristol City.)

Dave Whelan Remains Tight-Lipped on the Subject of Antonio Valencia

I have had to smile at some of the comments coming from Dave Whelan about Antonio Valencia over the last couple of weeks.

“I think Antonio is the best wide right player anywhere and that includes Franck Ribery. If this lad goes to Man United he will be a sensation there“, hinted Mr Whelan recently.

“At the kind of money that’s been talked about for Antonio he’d be an absolute steal. United appear to be getting £80m for Ronaldo and they would be paying out a fraction of that for Valencia, so it would be great business because this boy has got immense ability“, he continues in similarly guarded fashion.

In Retrospect, We Should Have Spotted the Clues Earlier

Short of parading Antonio Valencia up and down outside Sir Alex Ferguson’s house with a neon “Buy Me” sign strapped to the lad’s back, I don’t know what more Dave Whelan can do to orchestrate this move.

And I don’t know how much Valencia is paying his agent but I think he should sack him.

With a Chairman like Dave Whelan, who needs one?

Ronaldo Doesn't Get It

Ronaldo has admitted that he decided he wanted to leave Manchester United after the Champions League victory against Chelsea.

He hasn’t seemed totally “there” for a lot of this season, particularly at the start, although he seemed to come alive a bit more towards the end of the season when the scent of silverware and individual honours was at its strongest so this admission doesn’t come as a great surprise.

Here’s the quote:-

“After we won the European Cup I thought there is no more I can achieve here. And when you have done all you can, you know it is time for a new challenge. I stayed one more season and it was nice to make it three titles in a row, but it was my dream to play for Madrid.”

Fair enough and that is one of the most lucid comments Ronaldo has made in the last three years. But he continues:-

“Of course, I have not gone for the money. To go down as the greatest. It will take lots of work, but that is my target. If you go down as the greatest at Madrid it means you are one of the greatest of all time.”

Actually Ronaldo, it will not take quite as much work as you imagine. Here is my formula for your success…

1. Carry on playing with the bravery, the skill and the determination that you have shown throughout your career so far.
2. Stop diving.
3. Stop sitting on the floor, waving your arms in the air for two minutes after the referee has turned down your appeal for a free kick because you got tackled or just lost the ball.
4. Get up on your feet and show some willing to win the ball back when you have lost possession.
5. Show some humility from time to time.
6. Appreciate that your team mates need a pat on the back from you from time to time and not always the other way round. Their hard work allows you to strut your stuff, safe in the knowledge that if you don’t quite pull it off, one of them will pick up the pieces.
7. Accept that sometimes, for the benefit of the season as a whole, you will be substituted and that this will come higher up your manager’s priorities than you being able to give your visiting family a good show. Leave the field with good grace and set a good example to your young fans.

Basically, it won’t take “hard work” for Ronaldo to move closer to becoming “The Greatest”. The things that let him down are amongst the easiest to put into practice.

Ta-ra Tevez

A statement posted on Manchester United’s website this morning reads:-

“The Club agreed to pay the option price of £25.5m and offered Carlos a five-year contract which would have made him one of its highest paid players.

Disappointingly however, his advisors informed the Club that, despite the success he has enjoyed during one of the Club’s most successful periods, he does not wish to continue playing for Manchester United.

The Club would like to thank Carlos for his services over the last two seasons and wishes him good luck for the future.”

In other words, someone else (probably Manchester City) have offered more money and that seems to have been the only thing that has motivated Kia Joorabchian and the “Tevez Project” since his strange arrival at West Ham in 2006.

I know Tevez was a massive favourite with the fans, mainly because of his work-rate and he did score a few very important goals but I was never quite convinced that we were looking at a real top class striker.

There’s no doubt though that this departure on the back of the Ronaldo departure leaves us with a rather large gap to fill and it’s going to be fascinating to see how we do it.

Real Madrid Didn't Like This...

When we lost to Barcelona in the Champions League Final last month, it was obviously a major disappointment but we were beaten fair and square on the night.

Besides, two finals and one win in successive seasons is not bad going by anyone’s standards, it’s not like us United supporters are greedy or anything…

So, with our season over, thoughts turned to next season. Who would United sign in the Summer to ensure that we didn’t fall short at the final hurdle again next season?

It was all sort of taken for granted that we’d get the necessary player(s) and have a better crack at it next year.

However, there were people who weren’t even involved in the Champions League final that night who were looking on with, I would guess, absolute rage.

These were the people at Real Madrid who a couple of weeks earlier had been thrashed 6-2 by Barcelona – and at the Bernabeu. They might have finished second in the League but a nine point deficit does not even constitute a challenge.

...Or This...

They then had to sit back and watch the hated Catalonian upstarts win the Spanish Cup and the Champions League to complete the biggest treble achievable by a Spanish club.

I can almost hear the gnashing of their teeth as I type.

Reports today are suggesting that Real Madrid have been extended lines of credit totalling £800,000,000 (yes, that is eight hundred million – enough to buy an entire team of Ronaldos if such a thing were possible!)

This money is there for them to buy whoever they want and, if the conspiracy theories hold any substance, these loans will be made available at interest rates lower than any other football club in Spain could obtain them for and if the whole thing goes belly up, the Spanish Government will bail them out.

When Barcelona picked up that Champions League trophy, it tipped Real Madrid over the edge and they have now declared footballing war on them.

What does this have to do with Manchester United?

... And this really pissed them off...

Well, the loss of Ronaldo is the first thing. Real Madrid didn’t just lodge a decent bid for him, something to give the Old Trafford hierarchy something to think about, they made an unconditional world record £80 Million bid. They’re not messing about here, they mean business.

They had already signed Kaka a few days earlier for £59 Million (another world record at the time).

And what are we seeing now?

Well, it would seem that the players who we might have had in mind to strengthen our team for next season’s assault on the Champions League are also being targeted by Real Madrid.

All of these names are mostly speculation at the moment but Real Madrid and Manchester United have been linked with them all – Antonio Valencia, Franck Ribery, David Villa – to name just three.

David Villa has apparently said that if he were to leave Valencia, his choice of destination would be Real Madrid as opposed to Manchester United or Chelsea (who were also thought to be interested).

Bayern Munich have apparently said that Franck Ribery won’t be going anywhere unless a club “does something crazy” i.e. puts in a crazily massive bid. Real Madrid are reportedly preparing a £70 Million offer – something we would not even want to compete with, even if we could.

If we were to go head-to-head in a bidding auction for Antonio Valencia with Real Madrid, there could only be one winner there too.

What this also means is that the top talent is once again seemingly heading for La Liga as opposed to the English Premier League which has been proclaiming itself to be “The Best League in the World” for the last few years.

That claim is going to sound a bit hollow when all the best players in the world play in Spain.

Only time will tell how successful “The Galacticos Mk II” will be and only time will tell what effect it will have on the rest of us but I fear that even if Real Madrid end up with golden eggs on their faces, it will be the rest of us that are left picking up the broken shells.