Tuesday, 24 April 2007

The bare bones and the obese

Howdy folks,JJ here

Well it’s happened, it’s here, it’s upon us… John O’Shea and Wes Brown in defence. Together at last.

Imagine if you’d been knocked into a coma towards the end of the 2003 season and were only waking up now to read United’s team sheet for this evening. You’d be confident that the two best young defenders in Britain could contain anything Milan could throw at them.

When somebody explains the previous three years to you though, you might begin to feel faint. John O’Shea’s extra pounds, lost pace and lumbering style have replaced that amazing promise. Wes Brown has done little except grow, and then shave off, a ginger afro in between playing the odd game and looking like a poor man’s Rio.

Despite the fact that I have no problem in saying I hope it’s a Liverpool v Milan final, I don’t think United fans should be all doom and gloom. As long as their defence plays a half decent offside trap against Inzaghi they have a good chance of surviving. Their midfield is different with Gattuso needing to be bypassed at all times, if he makes Carrick his bitch early on you’d suspect by the time that 90 minutes comes around, the former Spurs man will be fetching tea for Gennaro in between telling him how his beard is “like soooooo hot right now”.

I don’t want to talk about Ronaldo or Rooney anymore. If they perform, fine. If they don’t, I won’t be surprised. Just so long as I don’t have to hear the RTE panel talking about them for half an hour and ignoring the brilliance of Pirlo and Kaka

Milan are looking strong in their league but hey have been powered up the division by the cup-tied Fat Ronaldo’s goals and are a long way off being one of their great sides.

Basically, just because United have their entire defence out doesn’t mean they’re gonna be hammered. In 2005 Liverpool often had to play with the legend that is Djimi Traore (see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7fdJWap2ks ) in their back four so if they can do it, John O’Bese and Wes could just hold out.

Great game ahead, I will talk about the Pool (and my growing, scary confidence over the tie) tomorrow.

3 comments:

Mark V
said...

the teams haven't been announced yet, but hopefully Evra will come in making:lb: evracb: heinze, brownrb: o'shea

However, if I was Fergie, I'd be telling Rio (& Saha) - 'here's a painkilling injection, I don't care if you tear your groin, or break your ankle, you're making 120k a week, so get the fuck out there, ya bitch' and then kick a football boot in his face, or do the old Cloughie punch in the face (on Keane-o, back in the day).

After all, they have the summer to recover, and Ferdinand can surely be sacrificed tonight and wait for Vidic to come back in a week or so. Or maybe I just hate Rio

Was thinkin Heinze might go in but I think United should be more worried about Kaka switching from side to side than Pipo down the middle. And yes, Rio should stop being a baby, this is the man who gets injured when watching telly so we should hardly be surprised.