Manchester United Blog | The Stretty Rant

One thing that winds me up is the old ‘lucky Man United’ tag that gets labeled at any fortuitous event that surrounds the club. Whether it be a refereeing decision or a scuffed shot that hits a pigeon and rolls in past the keeper – United are generally perceived as a side that have the Gods looking down on them. It amazes me that tag has been around for about eighteen/twenty years – its interesting the Gods have stayed around for so long! So to Paul Scholes’ superb ’shinner’ against Milan on Tuesday night – big fat piece of luck? Or what goes around comes around?

Continue reading Paul Scholes lucky goal against Milan – remember Porto?

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Wolverhampton Wanderers were today fined £25k for fielding an understrength side against United back in December. Wolverhampton Wanders lost the match 3-0, however made a number of changes from their game against Tottenham Hotspur the previous weekend for the clash against Manchester United. Mick McCarthy obviously felt that he should rest his side for the match against Burnley after United – a match that Wolves won 2-0. The Stretty Rant feel that the Premier League are demonstrating complete double standards on this issue.

Continue reading Wolves fined £25,000 for fielding weakened side against United

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If you’re a regular reader of this blog or our forum then you’ll know nothing gets my goat quite like an idiot journalist; following our recent exhibition at the Emirates I wasn’t surprised to see people concentrate more on Arsenal than United. I was surprised how quickly they would forget however and how quickly said exhibition would be translated by a journalist on Football365.com as a “one dimensional”, “counter attack” philosophy.

Continue reading F365 re-writes United victory against Arsenal

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With the doom and gloom of the financial crisis and unethical ownership of Manchester United being the main talking points at the moment, its great to finally receive some good news – Wayne Rooney commits himself to Manchester United long term. There was talk that the Premier League top goal scorer would pack his bags and join Ronaldo in sunny Spain to help fund the Glazer debt, however Rooney has stated he ‘is a United player and is happy here’.

Continue reading Wayne Rooney denies transfer talk

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15 years ago today Eric Cantona smashed into an abusive racist in the Selhurst Park crowd. Eric was banned for nine months and returned, and scored, in the 2-2 draw with Liverpool the following October. What embarked on Eric’s return was nothing short of unbelievable and was the influence behind the double win in 1996. Today we can take out hat off to the greatest foreign player that ever graced this land. Eric, we salute you and will never ever forget you.

Continue reading Remembering Cantona kicking racism out of football

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Where are United headed; are our players really that bad compared to Liverpools and Arsenals?

Everyone has said Chelsea are unstoppable and once again waxed lyrical about Arsenal and wrote off United. United have underachieved but are still arguably in a stronger position than this time last year. Yet again, the knives are out, and the idiot fans are in their droves to tell us that these United players have no talent and Liverpool’s and Arsenal’s are suddenly better. This is a Manchester United crisis that has yet to see us sink to the trophyless days of those two clubs.

Is it that United were so incredibly underrated despite their incredible success in the last few years that we now are panned for only performing a bit better instead of comprehensively better than our rivals in Red?

Continue reading Crisis at Manchester United? It could be worse….

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I wrote yesterday regarding Derek McGovern of the Daily Mirror and how he is the worst journalist in the UK.

Today he cemented the position in his latest column by declaring in all seriousness that both Tottenham and Wolves have better teams than Manchester United. That’s Premier League Champions Manchester United, League Cup holders, Champions League finalists and (for the moment at least) World Champions.

Naturally, something had to be said because presumably whoever is in charge of editing at the Mirror is either missing McGovern’s rabid scribes or is being slipped a crafty tenner. So, we emailed them.

Continue reading Stretford End writes to the Mirror about the baffoon McGovern

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I’m no great fan of the tabloid media. Last weeks blog where I voiced dismay over the way Joe Public lapped up the woefully inaccurate judgment of players ability depending on what club they played for (perfectly illustrated by the responses we got) and that followed me emailing the Sun Chief Sports Idiot Steven Howard (to no response, must get a lot of those emails!) but step forward Derek McGovern of the Mirror, who in two fell swoops has made the once respected profession of journalism look like the career of choice for those who couldn’t even arrange the letters “GCSE” in the right order let alone sit the exams, his latest excuse for an article details how he’s been frothing at the mouth over the Ryan Giggs BBC award after he believes the United legend has done “nothing” this year.

Continue reading Liverpool loving Derek McGovern is the worst journalist in the UK

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The ridiculous rumour linking Manchester United with former Tottenham, Arsenal, Portsmouth and, ahem, Notts County defender Sol Campbell was finally quashed today by Sir Alex Ferguson who claimed he had ‘no idea’ where the story came from.  United’s recent defensive injury crisis would have started the rumour mill but could a player that was playing League two football earlier in the season step up to playing top European Football?  No way.

Continue reading Fergie denies any interest in over the hill defender

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It’s been quite a week – if anyone had told you back in May that in December you would be celebrating a Michael Owen hat-trick in Germany for the club and that Sir Alex Ferguson would describe the possibility of playing Michael Carrick at centre back against Villa as “good news” you would have either carted them off to the loony bin or checked their pockets for a copy of  Grays Sports Almanac.

Continue reading Defeat hailed better than victory – ask the British press

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