Well with the finish of the FA Cup final that’s everything done and dusted for another season. I was really hoping that Everton would beat the chavs and bring a bit of silverware back to Merseyside and I was delighted when they scored so early in the game, but ironically that goal may have proved to be their undoing. If the Toffees had managed to keep it score-less than I would have fancied them to nick it late on but once they got the early goal they seemed to start defending too deep and the chavs eventually picked them off. So overall I thought Everton were a little unlucky but it was a great effort by them, particularly in the cup this season.
Anyway that’s the end of what’s been a bitter-sweet week for me. The recession was hit hard at Kopblog HQ and on Friday my job finished up, so I am now as redundant as the mancs open-top bus driver. I’ve known for about 6 months that I would be finishing up but it’s still a real downer when it actually happens and I’ve spent the past week at various farewell piss-ups. But not to worry, unlike Didier Dogface, I’ll get back on my feet again!
On the plus side, work did have this annoying habit of interfering with my blogging so now I’ll have a chance to catch up and now that I have a bit more time I might even give this writing lark a go. That was the bitter part of my week but the oh so sweet part came when I saw the mancs being destroyed by Barcelona in the Champions League final.
There’s no doubt about it, Barca totally outplayed the mancs with some terrific football that was a real treat to watch. Messi in particular was immense on the night and I was delighted to see him cap his performance off with a superb headed goal. His display put some egg on the faces of the morons in the British media who constantly claim Ronaldo is the best player in the world.
Watching them both on the same pitch it was very clear that Messi is a class above Ladyboy. I thought it was very evident during the game that the biggest difference between the two was that Messi plays for his team while Ronaldo plays for himself. But he wasn’t the only manc that got found out on the night.
The game confirmed, once again, how completely over-rated and actually quite limited Fergiescum is as a coach. I thought his tactics in the game were astonishingly inept. The most obvious example was him playing Rooney on the left wing so that he could double up with Evra on Messi, but Messi didn’t play wide left he played in a more central role and ran amok against the mancs for most of the game. It was certainly a clever ploy by the Barca boss but one that could have been countered and yet the mancs boss’s solution was to do nothing.
I don’t want to take anything away from Barca’s superb performance, but the amount of space they were given to play their football was unreal. Obviously I was happy to see this because I wanted Barca to win but from a football point of view I was curious to see how the mancs might adapt or adjust their tactics to gain some control. In the end they didn’t seem to do anything much that I could see and just kept plodding along apparently hoping for the best.
A lot of their players came in for some stick afterwards for underperforming but I thought some of them looked unsure about what they were meant to be doing and were perhaps hoping for some direction to come from the bench but they didn’t seem to get a lot. As I said earlier, I don’t want to take anything away from Barca but in all honesty if we had been playing them I would be very confident that we would have beaten them. Rafa would never have allowed them to have that amount of space to knock the ball about. We would have swarmed all over them in midfield and Gerrard and Torres would have definitely caused their defence all sorts of problems.
I’m not suggesting Fergiescum is a bad manager, in many ways he is very good but he is most definitely not half as good as he’s hyped up to be and this is at its most evident in Europe. Once we went into demise nearly 20 years ago, their biggest obstacle was removed and the mancs have more or less dominated the domestic game since then but they haven’t been quite so successful in Europe.
In the 23 years he’s been in charge of the mancs they’ve been one of the wealthiest clubs in the world and despite his dubious record in the transfer market, he has always had access to unlimited transfer funds. But while they have won a lot of domestic silverware, they have only managed to win the top prize in Europe just twice and in both cases very fortunately. For most teams this wouldn’t be too bad but for a man the British media help to throw knighthoods at and dub the “greatest manager of all time”, it’s hardly eye-catching.
It’s only when you truly look at why he can be so dominant in the domestic game but fail to reach the same levels in Europe that you begin to see the truth behind the hype. In England Fergie has absolutely everything going in his favour both on and off the pitch. First and foremost, with occasional exceptions, he has always been able to outspend his rivals but beyond that he bullys smaller sides, intimidates referees and for good measure he also has manc director David Gill in a lofty position at the FA to ensure they remain on side.
He also enjoys the favours of some of his other manager buddies, as we seen recently with his lap dog Allardyce assisting him in a co-ordinated attack on Rafa, and to cap it all off he also has an adoring British sports media constantly singing the praises of him and his players and seemingly afraid to dare to write a single word of criticism lest they lose their place in his circle of trust. These things have all played a part in the mancs domestic success and if you don’t believe this to be the case then you only have to look at their record in Europe without them.
In Europe, the sides aren’t as easily bullied nor are the referees and Fergie has no “special friends” in positions at UEFA. Outside of Britain the media tends to be a bit more balanced and doesn’t look at him quite so adoringly and he has few if any buddies among the other European managers. So this leaves him with “just” a highly priced team and his ability to manage them and this has led to two fortunate victories in 23 years. Is this the type of record you would expect from a man some people in the media claim to be the “greatest” manager of them all?
As I mentioned earlier, it was our demise as the real force in the English game 20 years ago that allowed Fergie and the mancs to go largely unopposed and dominate for most of the last two decades, but we are no longer in demise. When he arrived at the mancs all those years ago he said it was his goal to knock us from our perch and while he might take the credit, the truth is that due to our own shortcomings we fell from it ourselves. But The Reds are rising once again and Fergiescum can see it happening but can do nothing about it. Now it’s our turn to go knocking people from their perches and for Fergie I suspect the end is nigh!
Anyway, before I go here are a few interesting “facts” about last Wednesday’s game.
Michel Platini has announced that the next time United get to a European cup final, they will play with two balls so each team can have a kick.
For Sale: 30,000 Man United Final flags – good as new – only been waved for 10 minutes
For Sale: 70,000 Man United Champions League Winners 2009 t-shirts. Contact www.overconfidentb*st*rds.com
Doctors are today carrying out tests on Nemanja Vidic by force-feeding him. It’s to see if he only chokes in big games.
Police have confirmed that they have arrested a 27 year old Manchester man on suspicion of fraud. The man named as Michael Carrick is believed to have being at the centre of an £18m scam. The man charged has been masquerading as a top class international centre midfielder for 3 years. Italian authorities have handed overwhelming evidence of the fraud to English police including video footage of his inability to retain the ball, hit long range forward passes and poor defending. An English police spokesman said ‘We are delighted this fraud has been uncovered. We have being following the suspect since similar incidents occurred in Liverpool on 13 September and Manchester in on 14 March’
Italian Police are set to release two suspects detained on suspicion of trespass in Rome without charge. The two men detained, Anderson and Sun Ji Park, trespassed upon the pitch during the Champions league final in Rome on Wednesday night. It is thought that they will not be charged as their presence on the field did not disrupt or impact on the game at all. An onlooker said ‘What were those guys doing on the pitch they ran around for up to an hour each, clearly they were not playing football. They should know that spectators who have paid to watch Xavi and Iniesta should remain seated in the stands’
Former footballer Paul Scholes has been convicted by an Italian court of assault. The accused’s conviction is as a result of a violent two footed lunge at Barcelona’s second choice holding midfielder Sergio Basquets. Unsurprisingly ‘the consistent inability to tackle’ defence put forward by the accused representative Gary Neville was dismissed by the Italian jury. During the trial the Italian courts turned down extradition applications from Spain, Germany, Portugal, France and Holland. Scholes who is known to be a serial offender for these types of assault tackles is wanted by authorities all over Europe. Interpol said today that they would be launching an investigation to determine how Scholes had evaded police for these assaults for so long.
Keep the Faith


I am obviously first and foremost a Liverpool fan but I am also a football fan and in my opinion, Chelsea, its players and supporters are an absolute disgrace to the game and we saw plenty of evidence to support that during the two legs of their semi-final with Barca. I read an article during the week which stated that chelski are not a big club, they are just an average club with a lot of money and I totally agree with that.
The crossbar was their best defender and we hit it so many times that once again the ball had to be treated for woodworm at the end of the game. As for Joey Barton’s cowardly tackle on Alonso, that guy is just a total scum-bag but let’s just hope he learns from his parents mistakes and tries using some birth control! Our little competition in the last blog was also very close but congrats to akka for taking the prize and the Amazon vouchers are on the way to him. There will be more competitions coming up in the weeks ahead.
I was damn proud of the effort put in by The Reds at the Bridge in midweek but it was frustrating to come so close to achieving our objective only to have it slip away from us. The question ahead of the game was whether we could get through the strong chav defence to score the goals we required, and having Steven Gerrard ruled out with injury appeared to be a major blow to our chances. So I think you’ve got to give full credit to our lads for battling away and scoring four goals, a feat many claimed to be impossible particularly without our captain.
As far as I’m concerned all of this rubbish stems from the fact that Benitez has clearly gained the upper hand over the manc boss when it comes to these so-called “mind games”. During these verbal exchanges he has been coolness personified to such an extent that even some of the media have swung just a little bit more towards him and away from the moaning old Scottish git. 


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