The FOOTBALL Thread (2012-2013)

[big-will 7]

And Rooney handed in another transfer request two weeks ago?

[grungy-gonads 54]

And Rooney handed in another transfer request two weeks ago?

 

He can just go **** right off

[Go Native 70]

[brit-gob 9]

And Rooney handed in another transfer request two weeks ago?

 

And apparently Fergs told him to go sod off.

They should sell if he wants out.

[pie-eater 207]

Rooney wants out to Wigan, it's as clear as can be.

He'd have to pull his socks up though, he hasn't seemed totally into it lately.

 

Looks like Moyes it is then.

Not exciting, he must have large balls though.

[Tubby Beaver 209]

Laudrup to Everton could be a good appointment.....he's done pretty good at Swansea.

 

Rooney's been a bit poor this season eh? (By his standards)

[Go Native 70]

[grungy-gonads 54]

Rooney's been a bit poor this season eh? (By his standards)

 

Definitely.

He's hot and cold.

Excellent when hot.

Frustratingly frustrating when cold.

And there's just too much of the cold of late.

I hope he goes.

[pie-eater 207]

He has never really lived up to his potential has he really.

Probably past his peak as well.

He likes pies too much.

[Go Native 70]

[BagOfCrisps 24]

I'm kind of surprised that Fergie put up with him to be honest.

Especially as he seems to like to play him out of position so much.

[NoFakie 45]

This probably sounds contrarian but I think Rooney is still class and would like to see him playing under say Guardiola, though Munich may have no starting place for him with the players they have and ones coming from Dortmund.

Rooney would start for Real Madrid I think, and quite possibly Barcelona.

 

When he was young, Rooney had a potential Brazilian Ronaldo in there, the same explosiveness, but that's been coached out of him in favour of all round awareness and team play. If he sticks around, he'll still smash Shearer's record for most Prem goals though.

 

Moyes' new job will become way harder if he goes. Unless its for a chunk of the money needed for Gareth Bale. Rooney out for the same money paid out to get Leighton Baines would be madness.

[grungy-gonads 54]

Over the course of a lifetime, we're touched by many things, but only one is mandated to remain with you from the moment that you're born until the moment that you die: your football team. Accordingly, only a football team will necessarily chart your life from beginning to end, and it's only a football team whose history necessarily becomes your history.

 

So memories that mean something – births, marriages, divorces and deaths, friendships, fallouts, blackouts and revelation – are all tracked by football, just like the ones which mean nothing at all. It's why nothing else provokes comparable levels of lunacy and nothing else takes the same peculiar hold over the psyche and the soul of so many apparently sane people.

 

For almost 27 years, Alex Ferguson has inhabited, directed and dictated the lives of Manchester United supporters, and consequently, the days of his life are the days of my life. It's not easy to accept the fact that a man you'll never meet has improved your existence immeasurably and unfathomably, but it's also unarguable: being me is better because of Alex Ferguson.

 

And it's not simply a matter of success; though success is pleasant, humans are not obsessed by it. We're obsessed by stories, and we're obsessed by happiness, and Alex Ferguson has provided indecent amounts of both, such that listing the bare facts of his achievements, however impressive they are, would be completely to miss his measure. The numbers are simply an aspect of the attributes that make him such a compelling and extraordinary character.

 

When he arrived at United, he found a club in decay. Slowly, and with ruthless toughness and love, he rebuilt – not solely in his own image, but with sensitivity to his place in history, committed to the exhilarating beauty of youth and rebellion, football taught by Matt Busby.

 

Anything you might demand from a Manchester United side, Fergie's teams have had it: enterprise, intensity and creativity, aggression, testicles and zest, qualities not just to respect, but to imitate. Deliberately gathering genuine and disparate characters, men that only he could sculpt and control, his ability to appreciate, motivate and agitate egos is unrivalled; as with the finest politicians, actors and writers, his talent is underpinned by an instinctive understanding of humanity.

 

But like most geniuses, and like most people, he has a dark side; he can be stubborn, selfish, avaricious and duplicitous, and there are some things that it's tricky to forgive. And yet, without those elements, he'd be a different man, a different man who might never have introduced the same wonder to the world. Among those to have worked with him and competed against him, there are plenty who have fallen out with him, but of that group, there are remarkably few who feel lasting antipathy and many more who have admitted their culpability.

 

Accordingly, his retirement is a loss not only to those with an affiliation to United, but to almost all who share the football obsession – even supporters of his club's greatest rivals will feel differently in his absence. This is because Fergie is never boring; he never lets us forget that we're alive, because he never forgets that he is.

 

And this gift extends far beyond football. He has a majestic turn of phrase, a wide and deep range of interests, and perhaps the most absorbing, rhapsodic, infectious, enormous smile in the history of faces. No one enjoys joy quite like him, and this, above all else, is his eternal lesson: the buzz of being alive is a good one; be damn sure to make the most of it.

[grungy-gonads 54]

 

 

Yeah, right.

[pie-eater 207]

13 Across is 'Dennis'.

 

[Tubby Beaver 209]

16 across is "Exact"

[Tubby Beaver 209]

 

 

[pie-eater 207]

9 Accross "Far", I think.

 

So, Moyes it is.

Excite!

Hope he realises what he has taken on!

[Alexander L 80]

The ex-pope was shocked like the rest of us.

 

[Alexander L 80]

Hope frizzy joins Man U. Felliani or something like that.

[pie-eater 207]

His real name is Linkin Park guitarist.

[pie-eater 207]

The inevitable Hitler reacts clip

 

[pie-eater 207]

After deleting his "Manchester United player" thing from his Twatter account (one month ago apparently, but let's not reduce the sensationalism), Rooney continued eating donuts.

 

[Alexander L 80]

[grungy-gonads 54]