The Show Must Go On!

Dear Fellow Manchester United fans & Blog lovers, 

It pains me to write that this will be my last blog post for a very long time. That's write, your very own TRDS (The Red Devil Spot) is temporarily discontinuing from publishing content about a topic that unites us all - Manchester United.

At the time same, my sincerest apologies to y'all for not keeping up with  you recently. It feels proud to admit that we published 365 + articles over a period of 8 years! It's been a wonderful journey and we have witnessed some extra-ordinary achievements of this great club. However, lifting the Champions League trophy was one check box still unticked.

Let's start off by talking about how Manchester United has progressed ever since the Great Sir Alex Ferguson has retired. In short, we are still in a transition phase with Managers coming and as if Sir Alex's hair dryer is still operational. A total of three managers have arrived at the club. They survived an average of 18 months. Our current manager - Jose Mourinho has been the most successful so far winning three trophies out of the possible five.

A total of 18 players have been added to the senior squad with few of them even breaking the International and the British Club Transfer Record.

Despite the club's expensive signings, United has struggled after SAF's departure.

The club recently broadcasted that Wayne Rooney will be re-joining his boyhood club - Everton. It appears that the Merseyside born, ex club captain has started off just the way he finished his first spell at Everton. Wayne has already scored a dream (second) long range debut goal today in a friendly game against Tanzania's Gor Mahia. You can watch the goal below :-

  

With Michael Carrick announced as the next club captain, the club is in safe hands. Not only Michael offers solidity and a rigid structure to the midfield, but has out-lived his senior peers at the club.  Michael's fitness and contribution will be under a heavy scrutiny. The Englishmen recently played in his Testimonial game at Old Trafford. This year will be undoubtedly be his last club at the club and hopefully he can sign off in style with the Premier League Title in his hands!

During the 2017-18 season, the club has so far signed the 24 year old Belgian Centre Forward - Romelu Lukaku from Everton on a record £75m transfer (potentially reaching £90m including add-ons). 
The other addition to the squad has been the Swedish defender Victor Lindelof from Benfica at a fees of £31m. The 22 year old is 6 ft 2'' and a lethal centre back. He also has experience at playing at the Right Back position.

The Show must go on at the Theatre of Dreams, so here I am signing off for good. 

Thank you for your support and reading this blog! I can be contacted on my personal email address maheep.91@gmail.com, should you wish to have any comments or suggestions about how this blog should be preserved in the future.

What Really went Wrong?

Summary of the game

Did NANI deserve to be sent off?

The stage was set. A 1-1 draw at the Bernabeu was in some ways a superb result, but a monumental task lay ahead. With Real Madrid hitting 'Form' right at the crucial time, the signs for united were anonymous.

But as Sir Alex mentioned, one should not overlook the threats posed by the excellent United attack amid all the hype surrounding the 'los galacticos' , especially the return of Uniteds prodigal son - Cristiano Ronaldo.

As the team news filtered out, the first shock of the night arrived. No Wayne Rooney. How? When? Why? Manchester United without Wayne Rooney? Especially after his cracking strike over the weekend? what was Fergie thinking? were some of the queries that jumped into mind. But the blind faith built up into United fans that anything Sir Alex does is correct, silenced these questions. After all he is the 'Boss'. The 'special one' himself was a bit coy, talking about his future and other stuff that makes the British media swoon around him like flies near a defecating horse. Oh well.

Kick Off arrived. Old Trafford was like a cauldron filled with red hot fire. The atmosphere was electric, the fans were jumping, flags, mosaics.... it was a sight to behold. No wonder every footballer who has set foot in Old Trafford talks fondly about it. The stadium was rocking. The stage was set.

The match followed a familiar pattern. United sat deep, allowed Madrid to attack. When the play broke, the trio of Nani, Welbeck and Van Persie caused havoc. With Carrick and the excellent Giggs orchestrating the play, United looked a real threat whereas Madrid's attacks pattered out without any fire. The first half ended with United having the front foot, but not having scored the deserved goal. The crowd were getting a little uneasy, but the game so far had shown that United could progress. and that was proved right shortly into the second half. Again havoc was caused inside the Real Madrid penalty area, with Van Persie and Welbeck having shots saved, but Nani recovered the ball and swept in a cross, which, via double deflection off Welbeck and Sergio Ramos, went into the net. United were all set to book a place in the quarters, with an excellent attacking and containing performance. Then pandemonium struck.

The turning point of the game                                    

The ball was cleared and Nani, innocuously looking over his shoulder, ran into Alvaro Arbeloa, who dropped like a hand grenade. foul? a talking to? a yellow maybe? Straight RED. Ah well. Flashback to the Rafael red vs Munich? What followed was astonishing. Sir Alex could not believe it. He barged into the fourth official, who had no explanation. Above all, regarding Nani, I don't for a second believe that he meant to kick Alvaro Arbeloa. What he did was reckless and dangerous and without doubt worthy of a caution, but he did not have any thought along the lines of 'I'm going to hurt someone here'. Not thinking about what you do and actually hurting someone is practically a definition of the word 'reckless.'

Even if referees - and refereeing bodies - feel that this sort of thing is worthy of dismissal, I honestly think they are missing a trick by not involving players in the discussion. You can tell by their body language that no Real Madrid players were expecting nor demanding a red card. Players think differently to referees - in fact they also think differently to fans - and they have an instinctive feel for fair play, for the most part. I feel certain that if 1,000 players were polled, from all corners of the earth, that at least 90% would say this deserves a caution at most. And the surprising bit was the Turkish referee (Cuneyt Cakir), when looked up at twitter, followed only Real Madrid and Barcelona. And, this is the same guy who -

· Showed John Terry Red card vs Barcelona

· Showed John Terry a red vs Barcelona

Does this mean the referee did that on purpose? I'll leave it up to you to decide.

The result? United lost, even after a great push towards the end.
Did United deserve to lose? No.
Did United deserve to win? We will never know.
Did Real deserve to go through over the two legs? No(opinions may differ).
But in the end, it shows that no matter how much you prepare, if it isn't meant to be, then it wont happen.

The feeling of being hard done by will always prevail, but we are United. We will come back stronger and better. Believe.

Hope Dortmund go on to lift the Champions League.

                                

--

Aby

Will the real slim shady please stand up?

It's time to BEL4VE

The stage is all set for the legends to rise, 

history will be written, 

some fantastic football will be played,

may the better team win!

(Do you know the answer already?)

ManUtd vs RealMadrid, bring it on!  05/03/2013 (Photo: GETTY IMAGES)

Who is going to be the next Emperor?

Manchester United, a club, which has more fans than football itself!

A Theater of Dreams! Who doesn't dream to be a part of this prestigious institute of glory?

Therefore when it comes to the leader of this religion, the person becomes nothing but the emperor of this world!

Sir Alex Ferguson's 24 years of his life have been star studded with superstars. He has been the Godfather of the most successful Manchester United team. More than that his services have earned him a Knighthood!

Thus as he hints, he is coming close to call quits, a war has started amongst the possible heirs!

So many names have been sprinkled so far, Ryan Giggs, David Beckham, Jose Mourinho, etc!

After being highly praised after the 5-0 riot, Barcelona manager Pep Guardiola is the latest in the list.

With nothing certain as of yet, we can just wait for a worthy successor to EPICNESS!

What do you say?

Jose Mourinho will come back for Manchester United job

JOSE MOURINHO: The next United manager?

JOSE MOURINHO has targeted Manchester United as the ideal venue for a return to English football, and is optimistic that Sir Alex Ferguson will recommend him as his successor when he retires. Mourinho is in his second season at Internazionale, but does not see his long-term future in Italy, where the sport’s hierarchy has proved unreceptive to methods that have brought him five league titles in the past seven seasons.

Mourinho recently signalled his intention to return to English football given the right opportunity, stating that the Premier League is the place best suited to his style. “I am thinking about the future in terms of youth development and the age structure of my first team,” he said of his work with Inter, “but Italy is not the country for this. England is the country. And my football is English football.”

His prime target is the United job. Mourinho developed a strong personal relationship with Ferguson and has been given reason to believe the Scot will play a significant role in appointing his successor. While Ferguson, 67, has set no firm date for his departure, there have been indications that he will go after winning one more European Cup. He has said he will not be doing the job after the age of 70.

The only thing stopping from joining United for Jose is that his contract runs until 2012.

Mourinho’s interest in taking over United has affected his thinking on managing Manchester’s other club. He was asked twice last season if he would be prepared to replace Mark Hughes as the Manchester City manager, but declined both times!

The other strong contenders of the post are

1) Roy Keane- A strong push for promotion in his first year as manager with Sunderland the respect he commands in the Manchester United dressing room gives Roy Keane a good chance.

He lacks the experience though – should that count against such a distinguished and capable individual?

2) Carlos Queiroz- He is Ferguson’s right-hand man at Manchester United and the closest in terms to the players. He has the necessary experience (the Real Madrid experience shouldn’t count against him) but do the fans trust him, and does the board want stability instead of the chance to bring in a manager who will improve as time goes by at Manchester United?

Do make your opionion heard via the Poll created on the right gadgets panel and post your lovely comments as always :)