Stand Up If You Hate Man U!

Well, I don't hate that barbarian lot from the North. The side I support plays more beautiful football than they do and at a considerable lesser cost. With the exception of Paul Scholes and Rio Ferdinand, they do not field anyone I would immediately play on the first side. But the Ferguson mob does do something I wish Arsenal could do, and that is to consistently score from plays originating from the right side. There are signs that AFC might be starting to do this with the emergence of Kolo Touré at RB. What they need is a striker who can score with his head to capitalize on Kolo's crosses. A Brian McBride type would do.
Anyway, back to ManU, most of the "hatred" towards them is just jealousy. It's easy to hate a club that consistently shells out the money to get top players and uses its position of strength to its advantage all the time. Wait and see how little time Rio actually does for infringing on FA rules. Its ubiquity as the result of having the greatest sports merchandising machinery in the world rubs many people the wrong way.
Although it took Ferguson 7 years to win the league (compare that to what AW has done with Arsenal in his first 6 years), once they reached the top spot they rarely relinquised it, and this is due to the atmosphere of professionalism AF has imbued on his side. They're ruthless and I commend them for it. Once in a while they forget their class and it shows when they play AFC (I am a gooner, people), but that is understood. MU gets the best and worst out of Arsenal, and Arsenal is the only true competition to them domestically so they get a bit nervous/pumped up/motivated when they play them. Ask Neville.

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1. Only 2 of our starters homegrown? Gary & Phil Neville, Ryan Giggs & Paul Scholes comes to four... correct me if I'm wrong on this. O'Shea & Fletcher are also used in squad rotation and are future stars. Also, when he's back fro minjury, Wes Brown will get a lot of startign time due to Rio's suspension... that amounts to seven players in total. Yes, some teams have more than that, but some also have less than that.

2. Because ONE of the players from our "golden era" has left, that entire generation is now gone? Only an Arsenal fan could use this logic. By the way, Keane was bought from Nottingham Forest in 1993, and you are the first person I have heard in months call him over the hill (I figured he had put that to rest this season, what with outplaying Vieira on both occasions and all).

3. Yes, Rio and Ruud were extremely expensive acquisitions, indeed. I think if a club makes it's own money (and isn't given it by the government) it shouldn't be ridiculed for spending it.

4. This new line of attack? More like a line of defense. If ManU fans should be attacked by other fans just because of who they support, what should we do? Just sit around and go "oh, well, you know we only want in for the glory". Yes, we have some gloryhunting fans, but so do Arsenal, Chelsea, Real Madrid, etc. There are fans like Motterman (1981) and myself (1990) who have been supporting ManU through bleak times, who have stuck with them and come out on the glorious other side. There are then fans who may never get the chance to see other teams in action, and who may have seen ManU much more than other teams and thus support them (part of the reason I am a Packers fan is that I saw their fantastic overtime victory vs. the Falcons last season in the first NFL match I ever watched). There are fans who are fans because of family ties (not me, I'm from a Leeds family... it's been a fun year). Everybody has their reasons, and some of them may point to gloryhunting, but I have had just about enough of this "You're all gloryhunters" nonsense.

If I call them on "buying success" I've gotta be honest here and delcare some jealousy over...

Geremi
Crespo
Mutu
G. Johnson
Bridge
Duff (!)
Makalele
Joe Cole
Veron

Well, maybe not Veron

Even if they don't win anything this year, just watching these players from the stands will be a LOT more interesting than it was in previous years. It has to be said that ManU and Chelsea play the most "beautiful" games in the country.

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That may be one of the best "snipits" of a post I have ever read at BigSoccer. It puts this whole "ManU buy titles" "well Chelsea are buying but we're still top" endless saga of crap to bed.

I agree with this. I love seeing Man U. do well as much as the next fan/supporter. And I love it when they meet up with the likes of Arsenal, Leeds, Chelsea. There isn't any other footbal in the world that is more exciting. But I don't love the fact that there are 3 sides literally running away with the top three spots in the English freaking Premier League.

Sadly, there doesn't seem to be anything "Premier" about that.

I'm not going to attempt to get into the reasons why the league has reached this state. I'll just say that it isn't healthy and I don't see how it can go on for too much longer. I guess we'll see.

I met a guy last night while out with Mrs. Toon for NYE. Although he's lived in the States for 27 years, he was born in Manc and is a diehard ManUre lover.
However, he said he cannot stand Sheepboy Alex.

Once again CrewToon adds something meaningful to the conversation!

AW said a few weeks ago that in monetary terms there isn't much of a difference between Arsenal and Sp**s, and I tend to believe that. Taking that thinking to its logical extension, the EPL chasm should be between the sixth and seventh team, Newcastle, Liverpool and the Scum rounding the top six. God knows which club didn't outspend Arsenal during the summer, its only transaction being a million pound (dollar ??) signing of Lehman.
So, what's wrong with the EPL picture? I think it's a question of bad management from Houllier, Robson and whoever is at White Hart Lane at any given moment. The only club in England that would provide support to the idea that money brings consistent success is ManU. Chelsea, for all its expenditures, is going to be another also ran like Inter, and Arsenal, for all its greatness, is not quite yet a rich club.

Worst Newbie post ......... ever. I hope this wasn't your first post.

You seem to be a confused tapeworm dangling from a librarian's rectum that thinks it's a bookworm. Go take some time off, will you?

Shucks, spurs look like they won't win the title in my lifetime. i guess i'll take a leaf from the chelsea fans' collective book and stop turning up until some tycoons pump a lot of money into the club in an effort to win trophies, when i'll suddenly remember that i'm a diehard fan and start mouthing off to all and sundry.
I find it amusing you can say the answer is a resounding no anyway, since i would have thought a chelsea fan more than anyone would be aware of the totally arbitrary nature of the way things can change in football. did it look like chelsea would ever challenge again in the pre matthew harding era? no, and no-one would even have bothered asking because chelsea had even less historical precedent than us for winning titles. but what, 7,8 years later you all seem confident it'll happen in the next couple of years. all we need is a quasi-criminal billionaire or two and we'll be away..you should remember that you new-found status as title challengers could be swiped away from you just as quickly and randomly as it has been given.

Manure smell of wee and stale biscuits.

Someone said it best earlier in the thread -- isn't there a premiership rivalries board somewhere?

As far as ManU goes, I can't say I outright *hate* them, but there certainly is no love lost, and I'd be the last to cry if they never won another trophy again ever.

With that said, there are a few players on their squad whom I've always respected as players. I have to mention Ryan Giggs as being at the top of this list. The man is pure class. And if you've seen the series of "Giggs at Home" commercials/adverts that were shown during WC2002, you'll know he has a healthy sense of humor as well.

In one of those sentences, he was lying

Ah, a cracking defence of your carefully considered views

I'm not standing.

Honestly Clan, that is pretty weak. Earlier you were insulting somebody for coming back at you with a short post that had no point behind ("you're an idiot"), and then you respond to Joe with this? Slightly weak...

About half as tired as I am about responding to "all Manchester United fans are gloryhunters"/"Let's all hate Manchester United" threads?

*Yawn* "We're the biggest the club in the world" TM.

The mind numbling boring/stupid hype is my only major gripe with United.