26 March 2011

Owen Hargreaves suffers another injury blow (shoulder)

Hargo is injured again, this time it's his shoulder
TheReDevilSpot learns that Owen Hargreaves injured his shoulder while training yesterday (25/03/2011).

Owen, who had been training continuously for 2 weeks, certainly looked in contention to help United win the treble by playing the last remaining games. But now it's highly unlikely for the 30 year old to play another game for Manchester United as his contract expires this June. United would be keen to allow him to be out as a free-transfer which allows the devils to reduce their weekly salary bill too.

The latest shoulder injury would keep Owen out for at least 4 weeks on the fringes and after that, it's all about how he recovers. Owen is no doubt a soldier when it comes to fighting against injuries. We've seen that for the last two and a half years (the time since he last played a full game). The Canadian born just wouldn't give up which is great for him and the ethos of the team. Owen Hargreaves is indeed a role model.

We have been constantly tracking Owen's recovery, but this is a major setback for one of the world's finest defending midfielder. It was rumoured that Hargreaves might make a come-back against Bolton to try and rescue their defensive problems due to so many injuries lately. But indeed, it was a plain rumour.

It seems like oWen is a bad oMen for England as well as Manchester United as both our Owens (Michael Owen and Owen Hargreaves) are too easily injured. They are the fragile elegance of our team.

Owen Hargreaves is soon going to be a forgotten man but surely he isn't amongst the hard-core United fans like yourself! So let's all pray for the lad and hope he makes a miraculous come-back in a month or so!

Glory Glory Man United!!

19 March 2011

Match 30: Owen Hargreaves to make a surprise appearance against Bolton?

Manchester United vs Bolton Wanderers 
3.00 PM GMT KO
Old Trafford


I was chatting to a friend a month ago and discussing the chances of Michael Owen featuring in the upcoming fixtures. He jokingly said "Hargreaves has better chances!" Well it seems likes the funny comment may turn into reality tomorrow as Sir Alex is preparing to gamble the precious England and United midfielder to play as a right back in tomorrow's game. According to The Sun, Hargo played as a right back in the final training sessions at Carrington.


Wishing Hargo all the best!
Owen Hargreaves, who recently returned from a rehab programme in Germany, has only played about 6 minutes of club football in 2 and a half years after he was crocked with a horrible hamstring injury while playing against Chelsea.

Hargreaves has started only 25 games for United since an £18million move from Bayern Munich in July 2007.

The last game he featured in was the home victory against Wolves in which he only lasted 5 minutes. Hargreaves was then seen walking through the dugout holding his hamstring as if a serious trouble is upon him. I really admire athletes like Owen Hargreaves - he's a true never-give-up character and will keep fighting till he starts playing again which I'm pretty sure he will. Before the Wolves game, Owen has been spending time with a world-famous Orthopedic surgeon - Dr. Richard Steadman in the United States.

Hargreaves has been training with the first team this entire week. On Monday, we saw him working separately with Park Ji Sung who is also suffering from a calf injury setback. However, it is reported that later in the week he started working with the rest of the squad and looks fit to feature against Bolton Wanderers.

The Guardian (link) has named Owen Hargreaves, Michael Owen and Taigo Bebe on the bench. Hopefully both the Owens will feature. Also there are high chances of Bebe being given another chance after one more impressive Reserves game! 


In days like these, when United squad is plagued by injuries, especially in the defence, Sir Alex Ferguson would fancy picking Owen Hargreaves. The Calgary born defensive midfielder can then help to rescue the sinking United defense and make sure the treble is ON! Sounds kind of ironic, but will Sir Alex risk playing a partially injured Owen to decrease our defensive worries? Well time will tell and hopefully Hargo serves more than 5 minutes this time!

What do you think?

18 March 2011

Watch Chicharito's Coke advert (video)




At one point, Coke Zero must have feared about their popularity in the wake of Rooney's private life exposure which I WON'T talk about (consider it to be equivalent to Sir Alex's media blackout!). As a result of this fear, the American owners of Coke decided to take the ambassadorship away from Wayne Rooney early October and remove his image from any Coke Zero cans left in the stock. Arguably, it was a bold step.

Now Javier Hernandez has effectively replaced Wayne Rooney in the Coke advert and done his Mexican fans proud by featuring in a Manchester-based filmed, Spanish spoken advert which is now ON AIR in Mexico (Do enlighten me if it's elsewhere too - leave a comment or two!)

(The following video is taken from Manchester Express).
On 27 February, I announced that Chicharito will be featuring in a Mexican Coke advert. Now here you go, WATCH IT for yourself!


In case you're wondering what Chicharito is talking about, then here are the translations: (courtesy: TheRepublickOfMancunia.com)
Translation: I arrive at Manchester, and I knew I had to start at the bottom… soon everything began to change, why not try new things, why not make my parents proud, like I’m proud of them, why not lose that fear to lose, well why not.



Please recommend this article to any Red Devil you know and especially any Chicharito fans in Mexico, I'll take care of England!

16 March 2011

Chicharito's 16th goal of the season ensures United's European progression.. HD Highlights

MANCHESTER UNITED 2-1 MARSEILLE 

Hernandez 5' 75'  Brown (O.G.) 82'


Watch both of Chicharito (Javier Hernandez's) goals against Marseille in this blog post.
Amamos Chicharito

Manchester United 1-0 Marseille
Hernandez's first goal against Marseille in HD. An easy tap in, Rooney's wonderful assist


Manchester United 2-0 Marseille
Chicharito's second goal against French Marseille, this time it's Giggs' who assists Javier Hernandez to achieve his 15th goal of the season.. a master goal from the little pea




16 goals for the no. 14
Manchester United are through to the quarter-finals of the UEFA Champions League and a big thank you to the little pea who contributed both goals of the game which came through some brilliant team play. Full credit goes to a rejuvenated midfield after enough criticism and a sharp attack lead by Wayne Rooney, Ryan Giggs and Valencia after the 60 th minute mark.

Overall, there were bad news on the defensive front as both O'Shea and Rafael caught hamstring injuries. Wes Brown FAILED... he actually played so under-par that he scored.... AN OWN GOAL. Brown will surely be under severe scrutiny from the boss and let's see if he gets another chance in the future. I won't be surprised if Fergie some one from the reserves the next time he plays a lower rated team. Vidic and Ferdinand are still injured and not ready until the international break. United has ony Bolton to face until then. So hopefully things should be on track from the month of April. But defensively, the game was a major concern.

A quick player rating section below:
VDS - 8- decent
Fabio/Rafael/O'Shea - 7
*Smalling*- 9 - loving him day by day
Evra- 7- ran a lot and led counter-attacks
Brown - 5 - a game to remember for Wes
*Carrick* - 8.5 - star man of the game - wonderful passing rate surprisingly, hope he maintains this
Scholes-8- a usual Champions league performance
Nani - 6.5 - came out of injury and proved his worth selfishly
Valencia - 8- really affective winger
Giggs - 7 - a bit shaky in the beginning, but then he showed his silver hairs
**Rooney** - 9.5 - Brilliant performance, though couldn't score, but just look at his tackele on the right!
**Hernandez** - 9 - Made brilliant runs. Formed great partnership with Rooney and proved destructive!


In case you have any comments PLEASE feel free to use the comment box below and make your opinion heard.

Till then sing along, GLORY GLORY MAN UNITED... THE TREBLE IS ALL OURS OURS OURS!!!
Please recommend this article to your loved Red Devils!

12 March 2011

The two bullets that killed off Gunners (Fabio + Rooney in HD)


MANCHESTER UNITED 2-0 ARSENAL!
Fabio and Rooney inspired a fledgling United squad to an encouraging FA cup victory over arch-rivals Arsenal after facing tough defeats at the hands of Chelsea and Liverpool last week. Sir Alex placed a weird side with 7 defenders featuring in the starting XI. Read how our players fared against the gunners HERE.

The outcome: Arsenal and Arsene Wenger are out of their 3rd football competition in two weeks. That's a big insult on the Gunners' face.

Celebrate the elimination of Arsenal from FA Cup by watching the two goal videos in HD. Hope you will like them and please share with your fellow RED DEVILS.

Fabio's 28th minute stunner


Rooney's 49th minute header

szólj hozzá: ---

PLEASE RECOMMEND  this blog post to your friends and relatives if you appreciate the HD goal videos. Simply push the RECOMMEND button. SIMPLES...


FA Cup 6th round: Manchester United 2-0 Arsenal (Player Ratings)

United destroyed Arsenal at Old Trafford!
United started off with a rather weird formation as that Fergie placed SEVEN defenders in the starting XI.

So here goes the Player ratings of the FA Cup tie..

Van Der Sar 10/10 : A Remarkable player, denied about 4-6 excellent goal scoring opportunities from the Gunners. Had Van Der Sar not been picked, United could have been easily a couple of goals down. Van Der Sar was also the E ON man of the match..

Fabio- 9/10 - Opened the scoring by scoring his 2nd goal of the season, a brilliant hit into the goal.

Wes Brown - 7/10 Solid defending!

Vidic - 8/10 Heroic performance today

Evra - 7/10 did his job fairly well

Paul Scholes - 9/10 Came on for last 15 minutes, got a yellow card, had argued with the referee.. Made 3 awesome long ball passes to Rooney which should have really resulted in at least 5-0 to United.

Smalling 9/10 - Lead by example, the 21 year old did a brilliant job. Showed confidence, has fit into Rio's shoes very well

Rafael - 7/10 - Had a decent game, did nothing wrong in particular. Showed a lot of motive and zest

Gibson - 6/10 Semi-decent display from the Irish man. Was only good at short-passing, something that is expected from defenders.But he's clearly showing signs of improvement!

O'Shea - 6/10 Contributed to the sluggish United midfield.

Hernandez - 6/10 - Decent show tonight, made some poor crosses which were all over the place

Rooney 9/10 - Brilliant passer of the ball, showed excellent vision, scored a lovely headed goal - something seen regularly till last season.. Scored his 6th goal in 8 games.. Rooney is definitely hitting on an interesting run of goals in a crucial time of the season.. Made a poor finish in extra time which should have been an easy goal.

Antonio Valencia 9/10  - Barely looked like an injured player. Came on at half time for Fabio. Valencia's runs were great to watch.. His crosses were nearly perfect but I'm sure we'll see him getting better and better in the future.

05 March 2011

Match 29: Kenny Dalgish (60) vs Sir Alex (69)

Kenny Dalgish (Liverpool manager) set to lock horns with old foe Sir Alex at Anfield
Liverpool vs Manchester United
Anfield (Scouser Land)
When: 13.30 GMT
Live on Sky Sports 1 & Sky Sports HD

After facing nuisance refereeing at the Stamford Bridge, the stage is set to know the fate of Liverpool vs Manchester United at Anfield. It promises to be an exciting fixture as United faced a defeat at the hands of Chelsea on Tuesday - 1/03/2011 and they're renowned to never lose two back-to-back games.


After games like  the one we had on Tuesday against Chelsea, every United fan hopes to have a referee like Gary Neville

This is the third time the Red Devils will face the scousers, first time at Anfield and 2nd time under the leadership of King Kenny. First Liverpool lost 2-3 to a Berbatov-run Manchester United when the Bulgarian scored three beautiful goals. Then Liverpool visited Old Trafford again to get knocked out of FA Cup (and soon Arsenal will kicked out too - 12th March that is guys!)

Wayne Rooney, who has been in a patchy form this season is glad to know that his fellow mid-fielders (Carrick and Fletcher) have signed contracts till 2015 and said "It's always nice to see players sign new contracts because it's a big boost for the team". Here's a funny fact, Wayne has scored 5 times in the last 5 premier league games where all the goals have been quite nicely scored and against difficult opponents. The question to be asked is, will Wayne make it 6 in 6 games at Anfield?

Liverpool will be obviously be without Torres who United only faced 4 days ago at Stamford Bridge, so they've already faced the music and Nemenja Vidic is already red carded! This is the first time Nemenja Vidic has been not red carded against Liverpool interesting enough! However, his scare against Torres carried on although this time, Torres played no part in getting the Serb sent off. It was a mere out-of-the frustration second booking against for fouling Ramires at the Bridge and the refeee was too kind to get him sent off.

Another cause of worry of United is that they will be without Rio Ferdinand as well as Vidic. Now everyone knows, one reason of losing so less games this season is the fantastic evergreen partnership of Vidic-Rio in the heart of United's defence. However, that won't be the case as United travel to the Mereyside team. Wes Brown is all set to partner with an impressive Chris Smalling. Evra is expected to be fit for the clash, oh well, he's a French warrior afterwards!


Ji Sung is nowhere near to make a comeback, Michael Owen remains a doubt whereas Anderson will take another couple of weeks to make a comeback

Other injury news for United is that Valencia is inching closer for a come back which may come in the 2nd leg of the Champions League clash against Marseille at Old Trafford.

From the liverpool bench, Andy Caroll is ever close to make a first appearance for Liverpool and he may not get a better opportunity to face a United squad lacking both Rio and Vidic, so all eyes on the £35 million signing from Newcastle United.

After this game, United will face Arsenal at home followed by Marseille. So tough games are to come! But a defeat in this game will definitely see United's chances decrease even though Arsenal blew up the chance of coming 3 points closer to one point after drawing to a thundrous Sunderland team! Well done Steve Bruce, you're a true Red.

To wrap up, if some one asked Sir Alex about who'se gonna win at Anfield on Sunday, then this is how he'd react: (IM SURE!)


Thanks for reading and please don't be upset about the Stamford Bridge game, this happens with big teams and there are reason to be happy as the Devils hope of lifting three trophies this season! BEL19VE!!


Glory Glory Man United.

02 March 2011

Match 28: Chelsea 2-1 Manchester United (Video Highlights)


Martin Atkinson
A look at all the goals from the dirty game at the Stamford Bridge where Manchester United were let down by the match referee Martin Atkinson on various grounds.

1) David Luiz not sent off despite the fact he made 2 clear cut yellow card offences
2) Penalty decision too harsh for United
3) Poor decisions have resulted in losses for United for the past 3 years!

Damn you referees, will you never let us win at Stamford Bridge since 2002?



The positives out of the game:
1) Rooney's lovely goal. Oh boy, he brings FIFA 11 skills to the ground. Has scored 5 goals in the last 5 premier league games and it would be safe to say now that he's kicking on some good form with some important fixtures coming up.
2) Nani is proving to be lethal match in match out.
3) Smalling is holding up the defense really well. Who needs Rio Ferdinand in such circumstances?

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