Red Rants |
- United must ensure fans’ future
- United veteran not frozen out
- “Players want out of United”
- Have United got it horribly wrong?
| United must ensure fans’ future Posted: 04 Feb 2014 02:42 AM PST
The petition has multiple aims, the main one being to allow under 20 to have access to cheaper tickets and to be able to pay for them on the gate, in order to share an area with their peers, rather than being scattered around the ground alongside their families.
Furthermore, by having regular match-going reds together, the petition aims to improve the atmosphere as well as ensuring the future of their fan base whose average age, thanks in no small part to the ever increasing cost of attending a football match, is approaching the 40-year-old mark. MUST have backed the initiative, stating that the rising age within the club fan base is cause for serious concern. "The rising age profile of the Old Trafford crowd is now a common concern for fans and club alike. It undoubtedly already impacts on the atmosphere but also has serious implications for the long term health of the club. The traditional life-cycle, starting with kids coming with their parents, then teens going with their mates and then as adults eventually bringing their own kids, has been disrupted for a variety of reasons,” said MUST chief executive, Duncan Drasdo. “This needs a holistic approach from the club to reinstate this natural fan life-cycle for the benefit of fans and club alike. A crucial first step is to capture the current generation of teenage fans before they defect to alternative activities. If they aren't hooked now you may lose them for life. Therefore a crucial first step is to establish a dedicated section of the ground for teenage fans to attend with their mates. “It's giving the customer what they want and that is what any ordinary business would strive to do and it is in the club's own interest to make this happen. I'm a parent of two teenage boys myself and I know this only too well. Prior to all seater stadia these sections were created by the young fans themselves migrating to areas where they could gather together and build their own thing. It may sacrifice some short term income but long term it pays huge dividends,” continued the Manchester United Supporters Trust CEO. “In addition to the teenage section, if the club really want to reinvigorate and nurture the supporter life cycle it is also essential to look at allowing junior STs in all sections of ground. When young parents want to introduce their kids to Old Trafford they don't want to have to uproot from their friends and move to the family stand or NT3 in order to get junior ST prices but if there are no junior season tickets available in their own section many will end up delaying bringing their kids and if the kids don't get the bug at that young age they may find other interests and be lost to the club forever. “Essentially what we want the club to think about is the lifetime value of a loyal fan and how it also makes business sense to invest resources into maximising junior and teen attendance for the future benefit of the club and fans. To that end the youth section is a crucial first step which could bring rapid returns for fans and club alike." |
| Posted: 03 Feb 2014 11:56 PM PST
Ferdinand has started just seven league games this campaign, but has played just once in the Premier League since September, with Moyes opting to play Nemanja Vidic, Jonny Evans and Chris Smalling at centre-back, while Ferdinand has picked up an injury against Swansea a month ago and hasn’t played since.
However, with Evans and Jones suffering injuries at Stoke on Saturday and Nemanja Vidic available again after his three-match ban, Moyes could be tempted to restore the old partnership at the middle of the back four when United host bottom of the table Fulham on Sunday. The United manager confirmed that Rio was back in training and that he had not been frozen out of the squad. "Rio is back training. He's back and we will continue to use Rio at the right times and the right moments,” said Moyes. "Rio has made a great contribution, especially in the first half of the season. I played him in nearly all the opening eight to 10 games. He was a big part in helping me to settle. He has competition at centre-half but he is very much valued and looked at as one of the senior players." Ferdinand is, however, expected to move on in the summer, with United unlikely to extend Ferdinand’s contract, which expires at the end of this season, and the defender set to bring the curtain down of his Old Trafford career after 12 trophy-laden season and, possibly, seek one final bumper pay-check across the pond in the MLS. |
| Posted: 03 Feb 2014 08:45 AM PST
United might be enduring a torrid season having fallen to their eighth defeat of the campaign on Saturday against Stoke, but being lectured by a man who completed 90 minutes just 19 times in 96 league games for the club is nothing short of ludicrous, as well as being unacceptable.
Having declared at the start of the season that he was “happy to be at the club” even if that meant be on the bench – or terrorising a nearby buffet, presumably – it has taken Anderson less than a week to fire upon his club, after he joined Fiorentina on loan in the January transfer window. “I’m sure that lots of players want out, especially players like myself and Nani who have been in Manchester for seven or eight years,” Anderson said in an interview with the Manchester Evening News. “Manchester United is a huge club, a club that does everything for its players but sometimes a footballer wants to leave just to experience a different way to play football, to learn something as well.” By “learning something” we can safely assume Anderson meant “I fancied a bit of pizza, after devouring Nando’s for seven years and thought I might have a crack at stealing as a footballer in a different country” The Brazilian also admitted he hopes to make his switch to Italy permanent in the summer – hopes which are undoubtedly shared by every Red in the country. “I am grateful to be here to try and win as many titles as I have in Manchester. Definitely I want to stay here [in Florence],” said Anderson. “Playing in Manchester was great, it’s a prestigious club with a lot of history but I’ve been there 7 or 8 years and I’m grateful to be here to show Fiorentina what I can do and fight for a spot in the starting lineup.” You do that, Ando, and good riddance. |
| Have United got it horribly wrong? Posted: 03 Feb 2014 07:55 AM PST
Nine years on, United buckled under Stoke’s physicality, surrendering for the eight time this season without much of a fight, not a whimper of aggression bar for the frantic final ten minutes, during which United never looked like scoring anyway, their unorganised attacks reflecting the terrifying lack of confidence that has crippled the players’ minds this season.
It was, in more ways than one, a new low, with the feel good factor of Juan Mata’s arrival all but evaporated within a week and the hopes of clinching a fourth-place finish fading away as rapidly as the confidence fans have in their team and, more importantly, in David Moyes. The United manager looked like a haunted man on Saturday, not for the first time this season either, and for a lot of Reds his admission that “we don’t know what we have to do to win games” was the final straw. Having been one of Moyes’ staunchest advocates throughout the season, I struggled to find a way not only to defend his latest statement but, first and foremost, to understand it. Hearing the manager of the team we support and care about so deeply admitting that he’s powerless and devoid of ideas when it comes to turn United’s fortunes around is bad enough, but it would have been acceptable had United dominated the game only to be denied by an enormous amount of bad luck. United, instead, were horribly poor. So poor, in fact, that they allowed a side that had lost five of their last six league games to win without almost breaking sweat, our midfield too aware of its own limits to try to overcome them and our defence almost resigned to the fact that, sooner rather later, another goal would go in. What, however, hurt more than the defeat, was the predictability of it all. Having spent £37m on one of the most creative players in Europe, United prodded along in the pedestrian way we’ve become accustomed to this season, the likes of Robin Van Persie, Juan Mata and Wayne Rooney reduced to watch the game pass them by, their attacking instincts stifled by the archaic approach United insist to adopt. I like David Moyes and I’m desperate to see him succeed at United, not only because he seems a decent enough man but also because he’s worked his way to the top in a very dignified manner, but like I did not agree with those who have been against his appointment from day one and did not even afford him the chance to prove them wrong – admittedly, he hasn’t done much to quell their fears since then – I find those who refuse to consider that some things might need to change if United are to regain their mojo, equally disturbing. Is it incredibly easy to criticise the manager from behind a screen, when some of our “fans” have never set foot into a football a ground? Granted it is, and if there’s one positive about United’s current predicament is the numbers of glory hunters and hangers on that we’ve already parted with is only going to increase over the next couple months, but does point out this team’s deficiencies make us spoilt as some Reds suggested over the weekend, their blind faith in the manager becoming increasingly difficult to justify? It does not, particularly as admitting that Moyes seems increasingly out of his depth and needs to ditch the archaic 4-4-2 he insists to utilise is a far cry from wanting him and his staff to pack his bags and leave asap. The transition from Fergie to whoever succeeded him was never going to be easy, even less so considering the shambles that unfolded last summer and the disgraceful lack of quality that was left behind, but Moyes hasn’t made it easy for himself. The cracks Fergie had so brilliantly papered over have appeared all at once, but while Moyes should not be blamed for being left to deal with a mess that has been maturing for the past eight years, the United manager has come across as a man wanting to change things, but too reluctant to do so all by himself, almost as if he needed someone to confirm that the changes he wants to apply are indeed the right thing to do. United looked to have turned a corner last week, Mata’s arrival lifting the club and the fans, but as the £37.1m man cut a forlorn figure on the wing on Saturday, it was impossible not to think that Mata was brought in to fit into a system that quite clearly doesn’t fit him, rather than to be the catalyst leading to a whole new approach being built around him. Ironically, but perhaps not so much considering the circumstances, one of United’s best performances of the season arrived on the opening day of the campaign, when Moyes perhaps had not yet fully grasped the enormity of the task awaiting him and had not yet allowed his mind to be paralised by fear. That fear has grown into a full-scale panic, as United continued to tumble out of competitions like dry leaves off a tree in autumn, while the management neither stuck nor twisted, the change of personnel on the pitch inversely proportional to the change we had hoped to see in the club’s footballing philosophy. Those advocating that Moyes should be sacked, overlook the fact that were United to back him this summer, they could be faced with another rebuilding campaign in 18 months if they decided to sack Moyes. In other words, if Moyes spends this summer and results fail to arrive leading to him being sacked, would the new manager be happy with the players left behind or would the club have to endure more rebuilding? Football, as Fergie showed more than once, is about maximising your strengths, climbing over the wall rather than trying to take it down by banging your head against it, but United have not done so, opting instead to stagger back like a drunken man before charging again towards the wall with less energies and, crucially, a vanishing conviction. Since he took over the club in July, I’ve been hoping to see David Moyes growing into the job, but it’s instead the job of being manager at Manchester United that has grown on him, the crushing weight of the legacy and the dismal results proving too much to handle for him. Come on Dave, prove us wrong. We can live without trophies, but not without a team capable to look their opponents in the eyes and mutter “We’ll see you out there.” |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Red Rants To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
Written by TBMU Admin
We are Manchester United Fan located around the World which provides user friendly, effective and easy to browse info regarding our Team. Each support/info is free. Support us by clicking the ads located in this site. Thanks
Posts
0 comments :
Post a Comment