So we begin our campaign to recapture our title with our shares falling to almost $13, billionaire investor George Soros as an 8% owner of the Club and a 1-0 defeat to the team who came 7th last year. A day in the life of Manchester United.
If we wanted to know where we stand in the European or Premier league pecking order then this game did it.
We learned Antonio Valencia isn’t a right back when the winger doesn’t help him out, Steven Pienaar and Leighton Baines took him apart. Michael Carrick isn’t, never was and never will be a center half. And frankly asking him to mark Marouanne Fellaini at a corner was just asking for trouble.
In midfield Paul Scholes is at the end of his career, one season too many. this may be harsh after just one game but laboring in August is a very bad sign.
Nani is, well he is Nani. The enigma continues!
Shinji Kagawa is certainly impressive, and Nemanja Vidic is back, David De Gea is improving and so it’s not all bad but Wayne Rooney (the man who I thought was poor last season but who scored enough goals to make me look statistically wrong) is unfit, not in form and showing signs that sausages, beer and fags will sap the very best players and make them average.
United didn’t deserve to get anything at Everton and they didn’t. One defeat doesn’t make a season but it’s a setback from the start, all the expectations set aside by a team containing Darron Gibson and Phil Neville which overpowered us in stretches.
This was not Real Madrid or Barcelona. This is Everton, a team assembled for fractions of our budget where hardworking players overcame hopeful ones.
Dimitar Berbatov made it on to the bench raising Javier Hernandez’s issues, the defence is in the sick room and 5 goal Fulham with Moussa Dembele (who I have been screaming at us to get for the last 6 months!) playing for a transfer is what comes next. It could get worse
This wasn’t heartening, it isn’t what we expected, the arrival of Robin van Persie didn’t start well.
The tweets I received included one where van Persie reportedly told Sir Alex Ferguson that he wants to leave because he doesn’t like the direction Man United are going. Very funny but in a sadly realistic sort of way.
The decline of the shares and the decline of the Club could mirror each other unless the players start to see work rate as the way out of poor performances like this.
George Soros (who you will get to know over the coming weeks) knows how to make money and United know how to win trophies, but neither will have seen this day as one that enhanced their reputation.
Nothing is won or lost in August but the longer we are level on points with Liverpool the longer I will worry about the direction of the Club.
Earnings per share, return on investment or short selling stock, the only numbers that really matter are the points we amass. And so far that’s nil.
By Steve Burrows CBE @ifollowsteve
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