Strange date ever normal with Trapattoni.

Spring was most definitely in the air. The sloping splendour of the AVIVA stadium shone ever brighter beneath the clear blue sky. Poland and the Ukraine were inching closer over the horizon, it was February 29^th and Giovanni Trapattoni had taken a leap into the known with his team selection.

It was ever thus. Despite the incessant calls for James McClean to make his international debut and despite the remerging claims of James McCarthy, Trap stuck to what he knew. Only injuries deprived him of his chosen eleven with Leeds’s Darren O’Dea coming in for Richard Dunne and Shane Long deputising for Kevin Doyle.

Robbie Keane’s role was slightly altered. The manager once again compared him to Francesco Totti in the build up to the match and believed the Tallaght man could control the game in the traditional number ten role. Shane Long had edged Jonathan Walters from the starting eleven as Trappatoni believed the West Brom man’s pace would be important in stretching the Czech back four and opening up pockets of space for Keane to operate in.

Ireland began brightly. The party atmosphere of the home crowd extended to the pitch where Keane in particular flashed some moments of magic. Glenn Whelan and Keith Andrews were snapping into challenges while Duff and McGeady were running hard and direct at their opposing full-backs. Then Ireland reverted to type.

The Czech’s started to weave little patterns and Ireland began to cede more and more territory. The Czech ten in particular Jiri Stajner began to find influence in front of Ireland’s back four. The home side were hardly stretched and the Czech possession game was pretty but not effective. The Group C opposition will merge the two though.

Milan Baros broke his international duck with the opener five minutes into the second half. It was an exceptionally poor goal to concede with John O’Shea of all people only having eyes for the ball. Ireland rallied somewhat after the goal with substitutions playing a part. As ever with Trapattoni though, you must query the thought process behind the switches.

We are all footballing plebs bowing to the senator that is Trap. He probably actually has forgotten more about the game than any of us at a keyboard know. That however, makes the decision to send Paul Green on instead of James McCarthy even more ridiculous. Green is a middling player, a poor man’s Glenn Whelan. McCarthy if certain people are to be believed is being tracked by the biggest clubs in the Premiership. He possesses a sureness of touch that would find a happy home at international level. Keith Andrews and Glenn Whelan are deserving first choices; Andrews in particular looked sharp last night but McCarthy must be first reserve.

Trapattoni handled James McClean perfectly though. There is now an absurd level of expectations placed upon a kid who didn’t enter most people’s thoughts as recently as December. The Aviva shook with the roar that greeted his arrival. The slumping shoulders of the press box sprung up and everyone’s eyes were drawn to no: 26. His arrival along with Jonathan Walters and Simon Cox had a galvanising effect, and Ireland deservedly snatched an equaliser through incisive, clever work from Cox.

Cox is fast becoming another Trapattoni success story. He is genuinely different to Ireland’s other strikers and how many marked him out as a potential international starter before Trap? He took a chance on him and it paid off, but why doesn’t he take a chance on what seem sure things. Seamus Coleman is a regular Premiership starter. He may not possess the defensive nous required at right-back but he has the capacity to be a force as a right winger.

We go to the championships with a first eleven set in stone. Utterly unmoveable yet we face opponents who will demand change, demand innovation. There is merit in having a settled team and what Trapattoni has done in that cannot be argued with. A small flourish now though, of youth and vitality could give us a genuine shot. McCarthy not Green, Coleman not Hunt.

All those loyal Trap lieutenants packed their bags after Estonia though. The team for Croatia may as well be named now. The rocky road to Poland is smooth sailing all the way; Don Gio though, could use a little leap in the unknown.

Case for the defence.

Attack sells tickets, defence wins titles. That is a re-working of an old American sports saying because nobody on this side of the Atlantic can say “offence” without scoffing.

United under Sir Alex have been built on defence. The surging, surgical strikes of the ’94 side were backboned by the most resolute of back fives. Their names were in bold, carved in stone. Schmichael. Parker. Bruce. Pallister. Irwin.  They were a comfort blanket when you scanned the team sheet.

Any successful back four needs to know each other inside out. Van der Saar. Brown. Ferdinand. Vidic. Evra. Fergie chopped and changed plenty on the way to Moscow but that back five was set. There is a collective understanding that develops throughout a season when the defence settles. Runs are covered, calls are understood, and little nuanced movements are immediately accounted for.

This season’s vintage have never come close to developing that kind of telepathic understanding. Injuries have destroyed any fledgling centre-back relationship’s while for a good while now we have treated right-back as a hole to be filled.

The loss of Vidic was a savage blow. Rating players on a world stage is mostly a waste of time but any list of the world’s best centre-backs would have to include the Serbian. Perhaps he wouldn’t be the all conquering general in Spain where his footwork might be tested more, but in England, as a penalty box defender of committed intelligence, he has no equal.

The season long injury deprived us of our voice and leader at the back. Vidic was always the steel to Ferdinand’s silk and the steel was needed more than ever this season with a new goalkeeper being ushered in to replace the safest of hands.

The goalkeeper is the new wedge driven between United fans. You are either De Gea or Lindegaard. Nail your colours to the mast now because there is no middle ground here. The Spaniard has undoubtedly suffered physically with the volley and thunder of crosses raining down on him. That was to be expected, more so when you consider he hardly ever had Vidic or Ferdinand in front of him, never mind the two of them.

The raw gifts shown off so spectacularly at home to Newcastle and away to Chelsea hint at a special keeper on the cusp of developing. Some have questioned his temperament, his lack of character. You know, he’s not “barmy” like every keeper. Because Edwin was a nutter wasn’t he? “I don’t tremble” was a quote I remembered our No: 1 saying in a summer interview. That will do. I don’t rate the Dane by the way.

It’s been a season defined by youth in the defence. Phil Jones arrived with a big reputation and then somehow enhanced it with his early performances, leading some to compare him with Duncan Edwards and Roy Keane. It was hard to not get carried away. The boy just careered through challenges and effortlessly met any new demands made of him. Then came something of a slump.

The constant rotation of his starting positions won’t help his development as a centre-half. Is that his position though? When you see him stride through midfield and his composure when getting chances to shoot, you wonder if he is the lung-busting player United have missed since Keane. A decision needs to be made there before we see him in goals at Spurs.

There is no disputing where Chris Smalling should play and it isn’t right back. He has sustained his excellent level from last season and is emerging as a defender of real stature. The next stage of his development will hopefully see him boss the back four.

Jonny Evans has seen his stock dramatically rise with reds from outright distain to murmured appreciation. He looks as if he believes he belongs in the United team at the moment and it’s heartening to see.

Right-back remains an issue but it won’t be if Rafael stays fit. He spoke recently in an interview of learning to time his challenges better. He was told that the yellow cards would have to stop. Much like De Gea and crosses, this will fade and a gem of a right back will develop. He can do everything and as witnessed whenever he plays at Anfield he has the balls to back it up. His brother isn’t half bad either. If only he was left-footed because our current left-back often forgets he is playing left-back.

In a constant state of injured flux, United’s defence has by and large, coped admirably. Young players of enormous talent continue to develop while a title bid is sustained. Some silly goals have been conceded by that youthful talent but not enough to de-rail us yet. The back five might not be the comfort blanket yet but if they seal 20, their names will be set in stone.

This article first appeared in Red News fanzine.

Tom Brady and laughing in your face.

Let me tell you about my first Tom Brady experience. I am sitting in a van that is churning through a road in Hyannis port, Massachusetts. I am perspiring quite heavily having bared the blistering heat that rained down on me all day. To my left is Mike. Mike is not perspiring.  All day we have dragged, pulled, dug and planted in stony silence. The one time Mike talks to me, he asks if I know any Frenchman. I reply I don’t and ask why. “Pussies, the lot of them, they let us down”. I laugh into his face and the silence resumes.

We are nearing home when I spot a Brady 12 shirt. “So what’s the deal with him?” I ask, “He any good?” Mike laughs into my face.

He then fills the rest of the short journey home with a play by play of Brady’s last season and promises me that the guy is the best ever. I’m sceptical, but the notion of him as a living football God is confirmed by my landlord. Peyton Manning isn’t clutch, he’s arm isn’t all that and he can’t handle the rush. I didn’t ask about Peyton but it was good to know.

The following season I followed the Patriots. I had watched the NFL as an interested bystander up until that point always lamenting the fact I didn’t have a team. The fact I now supported the best one was a happy coincidence. The Pats went 16-0, marched to the Superbowl and met Eli. The rest is history. I was left stunned by the loss. A lot like growing up and learning about Muhammad Ali and learning he lost a fight. It was like seeing some no mark like Damon Hill beating Michael Schumacher or Blackburn bloody Rovers beating United.

Something snapped in Brady that night. The ultimate defeat in the ultimate game of his life. That shroud of invincibility that surrounded him up until that point was whipped away. We learned he could lose. He learned he could lose. Everyone else learned he could lose.

Sunday night was the night he could recover all of that. He had led the Patriots back for revenge. It was the Giants again, it was Eli again and Brady lost again. His first play of the game was a safety and it smacked of a nervous man. The fact he marched the Patriots ninety six yards down the field for a touchdown, tying a SuperBowl record will be forgotten, as will his sixteen consecutive completed passes, another record.

The story book images of this game from Brady’s point of view will be the safety, the interception and the Wes Welker drop. Eliminate any of the three and most likely Brady is wearing a fourth SuperBowl ring.

Such are the inches in defeat. Mike Carlson made the point in the BBC studios on Sunday night that he would like Brady to play more off the cuff, that his precision offence is just that; precise. If that radar wobbles any bit then the game at this level is lost. Brady shook off the pass rush in third quarter and heaved one downfield. You don’t get a more off the cuff play, Rob Gronkowski had hobbled down field, the ball arched away from him and Chase bloody Blackburn came up with it.

Brady will shoulder the blame, that’s his nature. He demands perfection firstly from himself and when that eludes him, he holds his hand up. The reasons for the defeat Sunday night vary from poor clock management to the three plays outlined above but ultimately the Giants made more plays.

Brady will get another shot at immortality. It is quite likely that it will be next year. The Pats have two first round picks in this year’s draft and they will surely be used to shore up a leaky secondary. A deep threat wouldn’t go amiss for Brady either. Their division is hardly taxing, and Brady along with Bill Belichick is a quick learner. They will have a shot for four. Both are cast iron certainties for the hall of fame either way and Brady’s place in the pantheon of quarterback greats is secure.

Oh, and if someone tells you Eli Manning is the better quarterback right now; laugh in their face. He is clutch though, I don't think even my old landlord would dispute that.

Well, in three years time...

Palace at home was a grim sight. A disappointing loss in the Carling cup is usually water off a duck’s back to reds and when one considers the limp exit to Coventry back in 2008 and the image of Michael Mifsud tearing Gerard Pique a new one then we know things can change. Where will the boys of Palace end up?

Ben Amos: A steady Eddie. A couple of years of Carling cup ties awaits followed by a loan followed by a move. Secretly delighted about this year’s Europa exploits. Get the passport out lad.

Rafael: A year of hamstring injuries, followed by shoulder problems followed by dislocated fingers and rounded off with growing pains despite the fact he will be 25. His injuries are maddening because he is the business.

Chris Smalling: A permanent fixture at centre-half please boss. Stop messing him about at right back. That stop gap measure seems to be becoming an every week thing. Was so far ahead of every other player in red against Palace it was almost an embarrassment.

Jonny Evans: I like Jonny and I ain’t afraid to admit it. He gets some ridiculous stick but I’ll wager in three years he will still be here and we will say he’s the type of player every successful club has in their squad. He will then move to Sunderland.

Fabio: See Rafael.

Antonio Valencia: We can thank the boss for shattering his confidence early this season with an ill-advised stint at right back. Needs to return to the chalk on boots- knock it past the full-back-get the cross in player we love. He will still be around.

Darron Gibson: Well it was a shock that he stuck around, not as much of a shock as the crowd yelling shoot every time he got the ball against Palace. In fairness he wasn’t our worst player on the night and he gets some desperate abuse but he isn’t up to it, simple as. Let’s hope Martin O’Neill continues Sunderland’s policy of taking our cast-offs. He Northern Irish too, Martin.

Ji-Sung Park: It would be great if we could hang onto him and bring him out every time we play Arsenal. It would be better if we didn’t have to use him in central midfield. Won’t be here in three years as he will literally run back to Korea Forest Gump style. Cracking song though.

Mame Biram Diouf: The mini Drogba remember that? He always looks decent in the reserves but truth is he was brought here to beef up his CV and then move him on for a tidy profit. In three years he will be playing five a side with Misfits United alongside Tosic, Manucho, Dong and Liam Miller. That or he will be at Sunderland.

Dimitar Berbatov: It’s hard for a committed Berba fan such as myself to face the facts. It just hasn’t happened. He contributed hugely and should always be remembered fondly for his contribution to nineteen and moments of sheer beauty. Let’s hope he quits the game, moves to Paris and writes that 18^th French noir novel he’s been itching to start.

Federico Macheda: We’ll always have Villa Kiko, but we had such high hopes. He was cumbersome, slow and downright rubbish against Palace. He then missed from a yard out in Basle. Fergie seems to like him so maybe he has the inside track on some Italian stallions. A steady descent from Serie A to C awaits.

Ravel Morrison: Column A: A world class midfielder player, with vision and poise and one capable of adorning any team in the world. Column B: The Daily Mail’s front page. No one wants to go there Ravel. Knuckle down kid.

Paul Pogba: Well he mightn’t be here next month unless he gets paid. He deserves a massive wage hike given his vast contribution to the first team. That unfortunately is the game these days and considering how we swooped in on Le Harve we shouldn’t expect sympathy. He isn’t that good anyway. Will doubtless end up bossing Barca’s midfield.

Zeki Fryers: A good lad, tough and quick but his poise in possession doesn’t half need work. Too soon to tell but Sunderland isn’t a bad fall back.

This first appeared in Red News.

Some memories from 2011.

Yesterday, appropriately enough, I read Julian Barnes’ “The sense of an ending”. Among many things it deals with is the diluting of memory.

One character quotes Patrick Lagrange when explaining history “History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation”

Sport it can be argued is the counterpoint to this, though not perhaps the inadequacies of documentation bit. We all remember down to the smallest of details where we were when the most seismic of sporting shifts occurred. A moment shared by millions reduces itself into the most personal of experiences and as 2011 ticks over to the sporting monolith that will be 2012, here’s a few that crossed my mind.

To those of a red persuasion each time you wonder up the great citadel of Old Trafford melts into one memory. A great throng inches its way up past the swag sellers and sadly now, more and more walk past the fanzine sellers who bellow out their names. I’m proud of my own contribution to one such fanzine however small and it is one match day experience that should be treasured and protected.

Last February during the derby day the nerves that beset me were such that if the statue of Sir Matt Busby was a lot lower I may have planted a kiss at his feet a la Oliver Reed in Gladiator. Bring me fortune indeed.

I spent the next hour or so in a perpetual state of nervousness not helped by Wayne Rooney’s ineptitude. I was pestering a friend of mine to the right that he had to come off. His touch was wayward, his passing was abysmal and I failed to see what he was offering the game. Then it happened.

There is a millisecond after something extraordinary happens in a stadium where everyone confirms it did just happen before the carnage ensues. To be in line with Rooney that day as he arched his body back and hung in the air was to be blessed. To see the ball slam emphatically into the net as it did and to share in the collective ecstasy that followed was to know you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world at that moment. Unless you wore blue and were stationed to my top left. Apparently they gained some measure of revenge lately but alas, my short term memory is imperfect.

I think I have successfully managed to tell everyone I know or everyone I have ever had any communication with that during the summer I covered my first and so far only match as a football writer. Forgive me but starting out at Manchester United v FC Barcelona at FedEx field in Washington was a little thrilling.

I dressed up and stayed quiet the first day as Sir Alex and Patrice Evra took questions. I leaned in a bit too much as Paddy Crerand and James Cooper from Sky Sports were discussing transfers though. Xavi Hernandez shook my hand as he left their press conference. It was an honour despite him torturing me at Wembley in May. Dimitar Berbatov raised a hand in an apology when a stray shot nearly took my head off in training. I wish it hit me.

Gary Neville told me to sod off when I asked him for five minutes of his time while I was ringside as Fergie and his hairdryer launched a seek and destroy missile at a Daily Mail scribe. It was nice to see at half-time too that I can take a better penalty than Kobe Byrant.

The day after the match I sat in the impressive surroundings of Nationals Park to watch the home team beat the Mets. It is easy to see why some of the best sports writing is about baseball; there is a slow brooding intimacy to the sport. Jason Werth was having a hard time during the game and during the season and wasn’t being helped by one spectator in front of him. He didn’t convey the look of a man ignoring the heckler well and when he reflexively plucked one ball out of the air in the fifth inning he marched towards the bullpen and the spectator and had eyes only for him. The heckler averted his elsewhere.

A misty night in November under the floodlights at Thomand Park will forever leave its mark too. The terrace moved as one that day as Munster churned through those forty phases. It was like watching a horror movie at times as some watched through their fingers fearful of the seemingly inevitable knock on that would end the game. When the ball was finally worked to O’Gara he still had it all to do but that red man writes his own script and Thomand yelled as one when the ball split the posts.

That’s just a few memories, most definitely imperfect and doubtlessly inadequately documented but its how I remember them anyway. 2012 will have to go some to dilute them.

Stuck in the middle with who?

“He can play there” has replaced “No value” or “I’m not getting into that” as the catchphrase during the Boss’ weekly press conferences.

Phil Jones can play there, Wayne Rooney too. Ji-Sung Park can play there while Ryan Giggs now calls it home. Yes it’s the middle of the United midfield otherwise known as the hole to be filled by any fit player in red who may possess the ability to trap a ball and occasionally pass it.

The mere notion that an injury to Tom Cleverley would cause a ripple of panic amongst reds would have seemed ludicrous last season. That is not a slight on the youngster who has displayed dynamism and a committed intelligence in every one of his performances so far in this campaign.

That Cleverley has emerged central to United’s game-plan is not a knock on the slightly altered way we are playing either. The ponderous passing of last season was swept away at the beginning of this in a tide of devilish triangles and physical pressing. There was pace to everything United did and a brashness not seen since ’08. Cleverley was often the tip of the triangles until a crude challenge from Kevin Davies put him out of the game, and knocked United’s rhythm.

The holes started appearing. The upgraded Anderson reverted back to the leaden one footed model we are all so accustomed with. Darren Fletcher has had to fight serious illness and with it weight loss and his form has suffered accordingly. The Scotsman has never been the all action figure that reds have yearned for anyway. He is a shuttler in the Ramieres mould. A man capable of covering a vast amount of space but ultimately one incapable of dominating in a two man midfield.

Michael Carrick seems unable to start a season in any kind of form. Sir Alex has mentioned before that the Geordie hits his stride in the winter and we need him to. He remains a polarizing figure amongst reds. Both sides are too extreme in their arguments. Carrick is a facilitator, a delivery system between attack and defence with the positional poise to protect his centre halves. If he gets over his autumnal blues then his restoration should be the starting point.

Then it becomes a numbers game. The sizzling form of Javier Hernandez has demanded that two strikers play but do United have the personal now for a two man midfield? Even if the Dutchman who shall not be named landed at Old Trafford it is difficult to imagine the midfield would have been transported into a Barcelona style carousel. It simply doesn’t work like that.

Perhaps that is the problem. Barca are the benchmark and we have to eclipse them yet the feeling is we have to eclipse them by playing like them. We can’t. Their philosophy is their own just as ours is. Barcelona at their best cut you with a thousand passes, United at their best need only three. It’s a high intensity, high pressure specialist way of playing. It requires a dominant general.

We have been raised under Fergie on a staple diet of Keane and Robson and maybe despite the incredible success enjoyed since, we have never really recovered from the loss of the former. The double of ’08 was formed off the back of the best centre half pairing in the world and the goalscoring of the best player in the world. Three were deployed in the middle, the passing of Scholes, the positioning of Carrick and the lungs of Hargreaves held the fort and got the ball as quickly as possible to the devastating trio upfront. In the absence of two of that trio and with the fading of that central defensive partnership, cracks have emerged.

People can point to last season’s success as proof that the middle cannot possibly be as weak as it is perceived and perhaps they would have a point. Having to continually rely on another Indian summer from Ryan Giggs though is surely not an option United can continue to countenance.

Perhaps Cleverley will continue his progress and United will join the latest trend across Europe and plum for a diminutive playmaker. It’s a snarling beast we need though. One mixed with skill and stamina with balls to boot. Who is that to be? Who knows, but we will know we have him when the gaffer stops saying “He can play there”.

This article first appeared in Red News fanzine : http://www.rednews.co.uk/ 

Time for Real to deliver a Barcelona moment.

The late novelist David Foster Wallace once wrote an essay on Rodger Federer entitled “Rodger Federer as a religious experience”. In it he defines what he describes as Federer moments. He explains “These are times, as you watch the young Swiss play, when the jaw drops and eyes protrude and sounds are made that bring spouses in from other rooms to see if you’re O.K.”

In the midst of Barcelona’s five goal trouncing of Real Madrid last November Wayne Rooney admitted that his wife ran into his living room to see what the commotion was about. Rooney was on his feet clapping; having a Barcelona moment.

We have all been there. No side has delivered moments of mesmerising motion with such regularity as the current European champions. They have done so despite their eternal foes Real Madrid figuratively and sometimes literally, poking them in the eye.

Tonight though, might very well see Real and Jose Mourinho landing a knockout blow in the fight for the La Liga title. Should Real win, they will go six points clear of Barcelona with a game in hand. A possible nine point gap should not be insurmountable at this stage of a season but it will be given Real’s devastating form and the vast chasm that separates the top two from the rest in the league.

Mourinho’s side are experiencing second season syndrome under the Portuguese but it is the sensational kind. They are on a winning streak that now stretches to fifteen games. Hardly any have been close. Real’s matches are now defined by a wave of white shirts descending on the opposition with an almost violent glee.

Cristiano Ronaldo was often called upon last season to pull Real out of the fire, now he is merely the tip of the sword. Xabi Alonso is controlling games from his quarterback station. Karim Benzema said this week that Mourinho has turned him into a lion. Sami Khedira is flourishing; Gonzalo Higuain is scoring and Real frankly, have been better than anyone on the continent this season including Barca.

The Catalans have been brilliant at home, mediocre away. A perfect Camp Nou record has been balanced with only two wins away from there, both by single goals. Their dependence on Lionel Messi is starting to mirror Real and Ronaldo last season.

That said, they remain the benchmark and in a lot of ways remain Real’s Everest. It has been three and a half years since Madrid won a clasico. They have been humbled in a few of those. Barca’s possession game is a nut that Real have yet to crack and it will be fascinating to see just what Mourinho has in store tonight.

Everyone knows how Barca play but hardly any can stop it. Despite Pep Guardiola experimenting with three at the back this season, the fundamental way they play has not changed. Their two major summer signings Cesc Fabregas and Alexis Sanchez are a tad more direct and the latest star to roll off of the La Masia production line; Isaac Cuenca is also more of a classic winger. But they are merely strings added to the bow. The blueprint has not altered; it is up to Jose to finally crack it.

Last summer yours truly had a personal Barcelona moment. Standing pitchside at FedEx field in Washington, I was mere yards away from Andres Inestia and Xavi as they started pinging the ball to each other. They were soon joined by Sergio Busquets and Jonathan with the unfortunate youngster tasked with the impossible job of trying to win the ball. His effort was astonishing, and in this simple drill the Barcelona success story could be mapped out. Effortless one touch passing and a relentless drive to win the ball back.

Mourinho tried going toe to toe with them last November with ritual humiliation the result. He deployed Pepe as the cat amongst the pigeons in the champion’s league last March only to see the cumbersome centre half sent off and the two legged tie settled in the first.

Real’s assistant manager Aitor Karenka faced the media in Mourinho’s place this week and said they do not need to change anything and he may well be right. Real counter attack better than anyone and should their runners isolate Barcelona’s defenders than it could be a long night in the capital for the champions. That said, Real will need to be quick. When Barca hunt for the ball they do so in packs and high up the field. If however, the first pass is quick and accurate, away from that pack then space will open up, space that Real above all can exploit.

Pep Guardiola likes to spring a surprise in the clasicos and what that could be is anyone’s guess. Perhaps it will be that Barca will sit deeper without the ball. Real need space to power into. Barca could be content to keep the ball and work for a single opening instead of inviting the greatest counter attacking force in the world on them.

Of course many games of this importance are settled by a moment. Genius from Messi, or perhaps a Madrid sending off. There have been many Madrid moments in the recent history between the clubs. Pepe or Ramos being sent off, Mourinho poking Tito Vilanova in the eye. But now is the time for another Madrid moment.

One that will make or jaws drop and eyes protrude and one that has Wayne Rooney clapping in his living room.