But Manchester United’s form over the same period, now THAT was painful.

In Europe and on the home front we have been getting spanked harder than a politician in a dungeon with a safe word.

This needs sorting now. I’ve been quirky, I’ve written the sarcastic and while no-one should be seriously shouting sack Fergie, sell Rooney, or anything near, one truth remains; if we don’t fix it soon there will be no season to save.

A lot of Manchester United fans are spoilt, we have only known success and the downtimes we have experienced are, in the context of the football club, not even a blip on the failure radar. It’s not like we have a team on the verge of the fizzy league (or whatever sponsors the first division…Endsleigh? Pontins? Coke?). Yes we are spoilt but I refuse to apologise for my birth certificate and regardless of whether these truly are dark times in context; they are the darkest times I am prepared to put up with. Newcastle? Blackburn? City at the top of the league… that’ll do now; it’s time to get up, I didn’t hear no bell.

Getting Paul to return isn’t a hard chat to have; it’s less Eric in France and more Mike Phelan getting a second helping of cake. Do you fancy it? YES!  Easy!

The league gap is surmountable and league business is behind us this weekend so let’s treat this as the one off game it is and go out and give it a go. Everyone needs to be pulling in the same direction though and we need to seriously think about the transfer market after it. I have some Christmas money I am willing to send David Gill, it may help. If The Sun is to be believed (I know, I never thought I’d write that either, I blame morphine), Paul Scholes may be up for returning. Getting Scholes to put on the United shirt in anger again has to be one of the easiest conversations Sir Alex will ever have. It’s less Eric in France and more Mike Phelan getting a second helping of cake. Do you fancy it? YES!  Easy!

We can’t rely on plasters to fix massive gaping wounds but I fear we will have to look in Archie’s direction. David Gill will like it, we’re already paying him so if he can just tippex his job description it’s that old chestnut of being “like a new signing”. Arsenal re-signed Terry Henry, all the cool kids are doing it now. And that lot darrrn sarrrf are even more pikey than Gill and Glazer. Dusting off an old classic, saves money, very in nowadays.

The current situation is entirely our fault; in Europe and on the home front we have been getting spanked harder than a politician in a dungeon with a safe word.

Let us get radical, throw stuff at the walls and see what sticks. Here goes…

Anders Lindergaard shouldn’t let three goals against Newcastle dent his confidence. He did well but at the moment even the warriors are looking human, Vidic is out, Phil Jones is human and handicapped by playing in midfield because there is no one else; Tom Cleverley can only do so much when he returns from injury. On the opposite end of that scale, Michael Owen probably won’t do so much. Hernandez won’t always work as super sub and Wayne Rooney needs to start looking like he gives a shit. Fergie called out Rio Ferdinand in large part to see how he responded: well that worked well didn’t it? What’s the name of that knackered old horse they sent to the glue factory in Animal Farm, or the old geezer in Of Mice and Men… I don’t know what made me think of those two. I always rated William Prunier.

Cleverley’s return would at this point in time be like bringing a knife (albeit a good knife) to a gun fight; at least Scholes would be a 44 Magnum with solid steel cast. In the blessed name of Elvis, we could just let him blast if only for a half a season. Or, throw caution to the wind; call time on Kiko and give him to Italy permanently, say Inter Milan, for a carton of ribena, a starbar and another crack at talking to Wesley? Anderson seems to have gone to that wise seat once occupied by a form troubled Jordi, Poborsky and Forlan – the barber’s chair. GTS expects the new hair to inspire world class performances soon.

A few years ago many were saying that Darren Fletcher was good, but not United good. Too normal, too pedestrian, not really United but does the job… til we get someone better perhaps. We didn’t get someone better and Fletcher won people round to such an extent everyone to a man is gutted he isn’t going to be around. There is always Michael Carrick. Erm… Is Neil Webb still around? When he was kept away from England duty he did alright…

I don’t know if he would be the answer but the Gary Cahill deal has reached a sticking point; The Sun is yet to confirm to GTS whether that has anything to do with John Terry’s usual initiation of defensive partners… but by the time this goes onto our website he is expected to be wearing blue and earning a big wedge, maybe keep your home in the North West though lad, and maybe tell your wife to stay there.

This has been fun, the pain in my foot has gone for now thanks to kick ass medication – thankfully it helps me realise that the pain in my ass caused by my football team is not mine to solve – the responsibility for that lies with David Gill, in whom i have no faith, and Sir Alex, in whom I have lots of faith. History tells us he can be steadfast and stubborn and this may need to change this month. Please God, something must change.

I was kidding about William.

THE match reaction from GTS included comments from Michael Owen made to Rollin Reds magazine and as such the article has been taken down because Given to Score “is not always presented in the way that the club would want us to behave as their representatives of MU disabled supporters so it will need looking into.”

We are currently in contact with the editor of the magazine to see if we can put the material back up but people have spoken and for now it is gone.

We sent the article to the staff of the magazine. Two days later, MUDSA confirmed it was better to “err on the side of caution” and pull the use of the Michael Owen comments. We have decided not to re-publish the article without them. It’s a fast paced world and though the article was good and deserved to be read, it’s yesterday’s news and we can and will write better in the coming months.

All that remains is this lovely view of the Stretty End from my seat inside the Theatre of Dreams. This picture is now the most viewed thing in the history of Given to Score - thanks to you all and especially Claire.

 Sorry.

GTS Team

Photography © C. Lindsay 2011. Used by permission.

We need a different kind of result now, yes we need to win and frankly another clean sheet would not be a bad thing, but I’d quite like to see us absolutely muller Otelul Galati. The strong, assured, 1-0, professional performance is all well and good but Basel and that derby thing hurt. Someone has to pay, Aldershot doesn’t count, destroying them anymore than we did would have been like shooting Bambi’s mum. Tonight we should be able to do our job and still manage to put them to the sword.

Who cares if a 4:0 victory gets newspaper journo’s giving a rather ‘meh’ reaction. So what if it isn’t one of our big clashes? Yes this is for European points and all that but please can we, just for tonight, face a team we should
hammer and actually hammer them? Destroy them for the United fans that watch the game! The ones in the ground, the ones in front of the telly, the ones half way around the world even. We watched that monstrosity, we all had to go out
into the town, face work colleagues or whatever on the back of that abysmal affair and I hope that everyone on the pitch that day in red felt every minute of it. We’ll get to that lot next year, we’re already back on the horse in the League and it’s steady as she goes…

Sorry, Otelul Galati, you have to lose heavily for us tonight. That isn’t directed at any particular player on that team don’t worry I haven’t put any money on own goals…

Sir Alex should say the right things to the boys, don’t Basel it up again, basically. He will say the right things, he has been doing that for 25 years, he’ll do what is right and he will bollock them when it’s going wrong but from a fan, from the bottom of my red heart, with as much sincerity as I have ever typed on this website…

For our sanity, win boys. Win and win big.

When you look at his career, goals for Liverpool and good standing with the fans, goals for Real Madrid (eventually) and apparently a good reputation with the Madrid fans as someone who was there when called upon to put the ball in the back of the net. There was a lot of noise made up in the North East about his move to Newcastle and his goals continued but it wasn’t so much his goals to games ratio as his games to injuries ratio that made the headlines. Rumours flew around that the chairman didn’t like him. At different times during his stay on the Tyne loyalty was demanded from him by the Chairman Freddy Shepherd. Before arriving there had been rumours that Liverpool fans wanted him to return but the Liverpool management were against it. That wonderful man Mr Shepherd again apparently told some Liverpool fans that they could have him back gladly. At the time he left St James’s Park, Newcastle had been relegated. Manchester United came knocking on his door, “out of the blue”, of course he would say yes. Who wouldn’t?

Gordon McQueen said once that 99 percent of players would love to join Manchester United and the other one percent were liars. There is a lot of truth to that. Whether certain players would allow themselves to move in our direction is open to argument. There are some players who say they wouldn’t entertain a move to Old Trafford, and we can believe them. Robbie Fowler, Jamie Carragher, various players spring to mind. Steven Gerrard probably wouldn’t sign for Manchester United, but had no problem entertaining a move to Chelsea until other alleged factors came into play or Steven discovered a sense of loyalty he had momentarily misplaced as kerching sounds deafened him. Alan Smith told the world he would never sign for Manchester United, and did. Now it seems that he is under the impression he did so to save Leeds, as he had to be sold to the highest bidder which was us.

Michael Owen has been criticised for appearing happy to sit on the bench and collect his money. He has gone out of his way in the wake of his performance against Leeds, to suggest that is not the case at all. When it comes to taking easy money, I’d much rather have a player dying to come off the subs bench than one who is seemingly never off the treatment table. Owen Hargreaves may be moaning now about his stay with the English Premier League Champions, but I don’t see him writing a cheque to the good folks on Sir Matt Busby Way refunding the wages they carried on paying him when he was in the never ending rehab!
To be fair he has every right to be defensive and suggest he could play an important role. Others have suggested he needs to do so at another club and this may come to pass but if it doesn’t so what? To not want to leave Manchester United is no bad thing.

Brian McClair is a striker who sparked similar intrigue from the press in his last few years with the club. Journalists would often write about him moving to this club or that club and would ask why he continued to stay at Manchester United. Michael Owen is younger than Brian McClair was when these questions were being asked but the parallels are there. McClair scored 35 goals in 44 league appearances for Celtic and won numerous trophies for them before joining United and continuing to score goals. It was, after all, McClair who was the first since George Best to score more than 20 league goals in a season.
Yes, his slipped down the pecking order with the arrival of bigger names but he was willing to play his part. Whether you come as the top dog and get nudged aside or there are already other dogs in the yard when you arrive as in Michael Owen’s case, you still represent Manchester United.

Brian McClair wrote:
“All the time you have to think: what are the positive things about staying at United? What are the positive and negative things about going somewhere else? Commentators used to say I could walk into most of the other teams in the Premiership, remaining at United was a token of my ambition and not a sign of the lack of it.”

‘Choccy’ McClair is a Manchester United legend. He stayed at Old Trafford and contributed to the football club for 11 years as a player and continues to do so on the staff. That does not happen by accident and players like McClair are few and far between. No-one is suggesting that Michael Owen is anywhere near that stature, and you have to be honest and think that if one day it suites either Michael or Manchester United to part ways then it will happen. Maybe it’s naive to think that there isn’t part of him just collecting his money, but that cannot be all there is to it.

McClair wrote that his job was to “get on with whatever the job is, to be fit and ready to play when I have the chance”, even if that is “the last 10 minutes of a Premiership game”. It sounds a lot like Michael Owen’s comments after the Leeds game. Journalist Brian Reade might believe that “to accept playing fifth fiddle at 31, when you believe you’re still capable of scoring goals at the highest level, is an insult to everything you have achieved”

That fifth fiddle is at Manchester United, if Michael Owen believes he is capable of more then he needs to take the chance when he is given it. It needs to be said that Brian McClair wrote these comments in the 1996-97 season, one year before leaving to play for Motherwell (a playing career that ended 6 months after joining them). He was around the same age Michael Owen is now.

Joining Manchester United is rightly the pinnacle of a club football career, whenever in that career in arrives. It’s not to be walked away from lightly. In closing we must disagree with the respected Mr Reade, choosing to contribute to Manchester United Football Club is at no point, ‘an insult to everything’ in a football career.

Brian McClair’s book / diary… ‘Odd Man Out’ is still available from all good book shops and a few bad ones, use your head it’s been out a few years but is well worth a read.

Manchester United 3 Tottenham 0 Premier League, Old Trafford. Monday 22nd August 2011.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS, EVERYBODY’S WATCHING YOU; and on Monday night they were. Tottenham came to Old Trafford and although a lot was made of their poor record at Old Trafford, Harry Redknapp has always had this knack of being a bit thorny in our side when we least need it. Tottenham were impressive at times last season, and looked like they would give our team a real run for their money. With the team’s average age lower than the Whoops discount shelf at Tesco, big things are expected and so far they have indeed been hitting the marks. Monday was no exception.

If I am being honest, I expected more of Spurs. They gave us a game for a while perhaps but they didn’t offer up much and when the cracks appeared the resistance fell away quickly. United can only play the team that is in front of them and they dealt with Spurs well. I expected a lot of Brad Friedel and for a long time in this match,  he delivered. He has denied us many times in the past and tried in vain to do so this time.  Tom Cleverley tested him early with a quality shot and he was instrumental in the goal too with a gorgeous cross just begging to end up in the back of the net, thanks to Daniel Welbeck it did. Last time GTS saw Welbeck it was against Wolves (check the Fledglings category to read what we had to say then), he is only going to thrive in a team that is learning and growing together in front of our eyes every week. For confidence, see the overhead kick and the back heel into Anderson’s path for his goal.

“Anderson: trust us to sign the least Brazilian, Brazilian player ever. We should take him and Welbeck off about 60 minutes, early in the second half.” Andrew: GTS Assistant

For a lot of the United team this game at home would have come at exactly the right time. After fighting back and showing their quality and promise in the early outings away from home  it was right for them to show us. A game at home is equally as welcome if you have had a bit of a mauling for your performances so far.  Everyone, without exception did just that. Anderson was very impressive, a quality performance from him and a classy finish for his goal. More of that please. It was important to get David De Gea out there too, he needed a game like Monday night in front of us. Where a clean sheet would be a bonus but more importantly, the majority of those watching would have been supporting him. In the end, he stood up to Spurs well, literally too, at one point. Moments like that are good to see, because he has taken a lot in only a few games and he has come back to be counted each time. The confidence he will gain from that performance will be valuable to the team when the season gets interesting.

David Jones needed to experience playing at the Theatre of Dreams and he handled the tempo well but that wont surprise anyone because every member of this team is experiencing the ups and downs together. Being there in person you really get a sense that we are indeed blooding something new. Jonathan Evans is giving us the performances we expect from him after taking a holiday from consistency last season. Players like Chris Smalling are growing in to their roles and being the dependable United lads we need to replace other dependable former United lads currently swaying for the cameras on Sky Sports (and building environmentally friendly houses). The job is not done, but the kids are alright and with Javier Hernandez back and the injury list getting shorter, it feels right to be ending on these words…

Bring on Arsenal.

In a bit… GTS

West Brom 1 Manchester United 2 Premier League, The Hawthorns. Sunday 14th August 2011.

WEST BROM  is never an easy place to go any point in the season but maybe earlier was better because the team seemed to take the confidence from Citeh game into today. Their early play was bright and their passing was fast and inventive. Ashley Young should be exciting every Manchester United fan out there, he has taken to life at the club brilliantly and he’s already got the confidence to boss the wing, take a shot or two and give a little flick around a defender to start an attack (even when the defender in question decides to block him). England will never get a lot of credit on GTS but I think the national side deserves some credit here. The fact that Ashley was around a lot of the squad before he arrived will have helped him. The struggles of former reds like Forlan and Veron won’t be an issue for Ashley, for a kick off there is no language barrier (except maybe in winter when Sir Alex hits the scotch on cold training mornings, although to be fair he talks just as fast sober). He’s getting a kick out of playing with better players on a regular basis and we are seeing the benefit of that.

Tom Cleverley is another who is growing in front of us and hopefully will continue to do so. His passing was superb and he wanted to get involved. Paul Scholes wandering off into the sunset seems to have come at the right time for Thomas, as he seems eager to help the team every time he is on the ball. Sir Alex Ferguson is showing again that if you grasp your chance when it is given, he’ll largely stick with you. This summer was a far cry from the outrage at the departures of Ince, Kanchelskis (one year after my Dad paid for his name on the back of my shirt), and Hughes; but O’Shea, Wes Brown and Paul Scholes are no longer around. OK it may not be to the scale of that summer day at Villa Park but the baton has been handed to Evans, Jones, Young, Cleverley and Fabio and Fergie’s going to see how far they can carry it.

David De Gea will make headlines for his role in the West Brom goal. Big deal. Do you remember Les Sealey? Blimey he had me stressing on more than one occasion let me tell you but there was no question he was a good ‘keeper. Peter Schmiechel didnt exactly have a great first game with us either. David is 20, it’s too early in his football career and his United career to say these things shouldn’t happen. Shouldn’t is a word that ought to be removed from the dictionary, it puts pressure on whenever it’s used. To say He shouldn’t be making these errors is simplistic and wrong, it would be better if he didn’t make these errors, better? Of course we’d like no problems at all, to be world-class from debut and forever onwards. That won’t happen. He is 20 years old. He is playing for the best team in England and for once, unlike with VDS, we got him when we should have. Given what happened to David today, it’s perhaps a bit ironic that in the West Brom goal was last man the media knocked during his time in the United net. The difference being, that time, they were correct to do so.

Of far greater interest should be the injuries to Rio and Nemanja. Even two games in, there seems to be a pattern of the young un’s growing into the spaces in the first team. This trend will have to continue with the absence of the two men in the centre of defence.

In a bit… GTS

SEBASTIAN LARSSON used to play for Arsenal. Let’s gloss over that though, because Arsenal did. They sent the fella on loan to Birmingham and that lead to photographic gold like >>>> that.

Long story short, many a Birmingham City fan fell out with the lovely Seb. Diddums. We never would, have you seen that body? We feel like we should be applauding him. And what does that tatoo say?

Just when you think Seb Larsson could not get any hotter he does. He scores on his debut for Sunderland at the weekend he scores, pulling off a gorgeous volley and making many a Scouser cry into their wheelie bins. (Which, by the way, are purple).

Seb Larsson for being a stone cold hotty, pulling off THAT volley and doing it against Liverpool to boot, YOU become the first GTS Weekend Pull Out. Yum.

FOOTBALL is back and so are we. We wanted to add something new and we were sat there watching all the very serious analysis on the telly. God bless ‘em they do a great job and Given to Score is the place for that as well. But let’s face it, sometimes when you watch on a Saturday night or Sunday morning you have to hold your hands up (ooooh errr) and admit, football has some hotties. Sometimes even better than that, the hotty you are watching does something totes amazeballs and you worry that the Perfect Storm of gorgeous player vs gorgeous skill might be too much for the world to cope with.

Fear not, for we at GTS are here to capture those moments in full glory. Because this is the beautiful game!

Phwoaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar – GTS

The ball is behind you, much like your United career!

The GTS offices have been buzzing recently, happily getting the site back up and running and enjoying the win over Man Citeh. We got even more happiness coming our way with confirmation of Gabriel Obertan’s departure from Old Trafford.

Obertan, who joined the Premier League Champions from the cutbutter world of French football two years ago, has somewhat struggled to make an impact on the team. That’s putting it politely.

If only the size of his talent matched the size of his head, alas it was not to be and Alan Pardew, Newcastle United manager and top of the GtS christmas card list swooped to buy. Pardew said recently that he has been watching Obertan since he joined Manchester United. Despite that he was willing to part with actual money for Gabriel’s services.

On exiting Old Trafford, Gabriel says that our strength in-depth was a hurdle he could not get over: “It was a bit difficult with the competition and I really needed a club where I could play more games”. That’s French for ‘I wasn’t good enough for Manchester United but Newcastle are a bit crapper and I’ll be good enough to play most weeks if I’m not injured.’

Given to Score would like to wish Gabriel every success in whatever he attempts next, even playing football.

Manchester City v Manchester United Community Shield, Wembley Stadium (that London). Sunday 7th August 2011.

This game had everything. It had the new signings, it was a friendly but it mattered, it was against that lot from across town; we were down, they were smug. We’ve read that script before.

City fans were always going to make something of this game. This would be their chance to show us that they were indeed the team about to eclipse us. Well if it was, the blue side of the city can consider themselves put in their place, for now anyway.

Sir Alex Ferguson does not need a hyped up friendly to show him anything about his side. He knows as well as we do that they will never ever stop trying. It is Manchester United’s way, it happens too often to be a fluke and it’s going to happen again in more important match situations over the coming months. I don’t think we need to know if ‘this team’ can gel either, he knows what he has bought in David De Gea,  Ashley Young  and Phil Jones and he knows what he has brought back in the shape of Danny Welbeck and Tom Cleverley. Let the guy in the other dugout worry about temperament, togetherness or whatever. When you plonk that much ‘talent’ together on a whim you are within your rights to go off your nut when one of them continues to show himself and your club up. Not exactly super, Mario!

De Gea Now, You're An All Star

David De Gea had an interesting game. He will want to forget the City goals. In the efforts to replace the Great Dane, we had to endure the Bosnich, the Taibi, the Barthez. As is now, when replacing a certain Dutchman we shouldn’t expect miracles straight away. He is far from the low confidence levels of Kevin Pilkington, his second half performance was much better. Johnson and Richards can back that up. Let’s call a spade a spade, he had a dodgy few moments in a pre-season friendly so even any ‘give him time’ talk may be a bit of an overreaction too. Play himagainst West Brom and take it from there.

Ashley Young looked bright, form shown by the majority of the United team. United’s play, passing and fitness are indeed reasons to be cheerful. It was Nani that put the big shield in the front of our team coach though, owing to a massive up and under from the United defence clearing a City attack (and also to Vincent Kompany skilfully cacking himself when having to deal with a bouncing ball and an onrushing Portugese attacker).

The Community shield belongs to Manchester United, and the Manchester community is happily divided once again. We can look forward to those youngsters who did so well in other team’s shirts last season, shining in our red this. We didn’t learn that from this game, we already knew they were  quality, but it’s nice when they show it and shut Man City up at the same time, isn’t it?!

In a bit…. GtS