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Why the hell do we get these Premiership teams in the FA Cup while Chelsea and Liverpool get teams like Burnley or Huddersfield Town from 2 divisions below ?
No matter...BRING 'EM ON !!!
We'll beat them at home and we'll beat them away
We'll kill any b@stards that come in our way
Worried u cant hand a bunch of kids that arent even able to celebrate with proper alcoholic champagne )legally) if they win the cup?
typing that has taken 1 minute of your life that you will never get back. Typing this only took me 20 seconds because i have been on a touch type course
haha, hey I don't like Liverpool, HATE Gerrard and Carragher. But you know what, I like Torres, Torres is an amazing player.
And btw I tried to pm u regarding tm shirts and spain shirts but ur inbox is full, my spain shirt im slling for 3000, and i have ran out of TM. But I have a MOM badge up for sale ! Offers welcome !
haha, hey I don't like Liverpool, HATE Gerrard and Carragher. But you know what, I like Torres, Torres is an amazing player.
And btw I tried to pm u regarding tm shirts and spain shirts but ur inbox is full, my spain shirt im slling for 3000, and i have ran out of TM. But I have a MOM badge up for sale ! Offers welcome !
well, I dont like man u, HATE alex ferguson and Nani. But you know what, I like Ronaldo, he's incredibly good looking and not too bad at football either... about the shirts, thanks but i managed to get one. If I ever want another though, i'll be sure to come 2 u
The news that United were facing Arsenal in the 5th Round of the FA Cup was met with a cheer over at RoM. If you want to show yourself as the best, then you have to beat the best of the rest, and with the home advantage, I really fancy taking on the Gooners.
I’ve said for some time I prefer us to get drawn against top flight teams because we tend to do better in the competition when this is the case. We have to play our first team and we cannot afford to underestimate our opposition. It’s the Burton Albions and Exeters that have caused us to stumble over recent years.
It got me thinking about just how many Premiership sides United do get drawn against in the Cup though. We had a clean sweep of Premiership teams last season, all the way up in to the final, and have had only Premiership teams so far this season.
Looking at the past ten years, I’m sure you’ll be amazed as I was to see just how many tough draws we’ve had.
1997-1998: Chelsea, Walsall, Barnsley
1998-1999: Middlesbrough, Liverpool, Fulham, Chelsea, Arsenal, Newcastle
2000-2001: Fulham, West Ham
2001-2002: Aston Villa, Middlesbrough
2002-2003: Portsmouth, West Ham, Arsenal
2003-2004: Aston Villa, Northampton, City, Fulham, Arsenal, Millwall
2004-2005: Exeter, Middlesbrough, Everton, Southampton, Newcastle, Arsenal
2005-2006: Burton Albion, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Liverpool
2006-2007: Aston Villa, Portsmouth, Reading, Middlesbrough, Watford, Chelsea
2007-2008: Aston Villa, Tottenham Hotspur
In the last 39 matches United have played in the FA Cup, 30 of them were against Premiership sides. Now of course, you would expect that the longer you go on in the competition, the more chance there is of you playing Premiership teams. However, does that account for the fact that 77% of the opposition United have faced in the past ten years have been Premiership clubs? I’m not suggesting that it’s fixed (although the footage showing our 3rd Round draw this season was shady to say the least), rather that United are very unlucky (or lucky, if you’d prefer) to face so many top flight teams every season in the Cup.
Now, just to get a better idea of whether it’s the norm for teams who are successful in the Cup to play so many Premiership sides, I’ve looked at Arsenal in the same time period.
1997-1998: Port Vale, Middlesbrough, Crystal Palace, West Ham, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Newcastle
1998-1999: Preston NE, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Sheffield United, Derby County, United
1999-2000: Blackpool, Leicester
2001-2002: Watford, Liverpool, Gillingham, Newcastle, Middlesbrough, Chelsea
2002-2003: Oxford, Farnborough, United, Chelsea, Sheffield United, Southampton
2003-2004: Leeds, Middlesbrough, Chelsea, Portsmouth, United
2004-2005: Stoke, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Sheffield United, Bolton, Blackburn, United
2005-2006: Cardiff City, Bolton,
2006-2007: Liverpool, Bolton, Blackburn
2007-2008: Burnley, Newcastle, Manchester United
So, in the same time period, Arsenal have played 44 teams in the FA Cup, 27 of them from the Premiership, meaning 61% of their opposition is from the Premiership, some 16% less than United.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. We have been to four FA Cup finals in that ten year period, despite playing a ridiculously high number of Premiership sides in our Cup runs, and long may that continue. However, you might find these stats rather useful to point out the next time United are drawn someone easy and the rival fan next to you roles their eyes!
I am really pleased with the depth in the squad we have to more or less cover all bases - well apart from the odd clumsy moment by Wes Brown when playing in centre whenever Nemanja Vidic not playing that can be worrisome at times - as this will be the key of keeping all players fresh when it comes to April when the season will enter 'squeaky bum time' as Sir Alex once said back in 2002/03 season.
If United seriously are aiming for Treble Part 2, then they certainly have that depth to pull it off as the team is playing brilliantly as a unit. With a little bit of luck in gritty games, and no injury problems, I am confident we can go all the way this time.
Well, Juande Ramos' side did start showing fight when his training regime worked, and they whooped a decent Arsenal side 5-1 at White Hart Lane, and gave us a problem in the FA Cup at home. So it was always going to be difficult.
It was only when Anderson came on that he actually made us the more dominant force in the last 15-20 minutes. But 1 point is better than 0.
The sad part is that Wayne Rooney and Patrice Evra will now be suspended for the Manchester derby next Sunday that will be our 50th anniversary game for the Munich air crash
Unsurprisingly I had to drag this thread out of the second page to post this comment! Hmmm..... no-one saying anyting about the spectacular derby, are they?
so much manc baiting, so little time,.... SOOOO many things i could say, but i wont.I'll just revel in how incredibly good this feels.... beaten at home to the citeh!
Perhaps the worst home performance, and certainly one of the worst performances in the Manchester derby. The entire team was impotent and lacked the goal-scoring touch today. City's usage of counter attacks allowed first Vassell and then debutant Benjani to score, putting us under tremendous pressure. Then a mixture of a 10 man defence, with their strikers and Martin Petrov giving them a chance to break at United's toothless attacks certainly marred us.
Congrats City. Good solid performance. Shame on United players, talking about how inspiring the Munich tragedy was and how they wanted to repeat what the Busby Babes did, and when it actually mattered on such a special day near the 50th anniversary, miserably failed.
Nani and O'Shea were sh!t. Ronaldo was horrible and Giggs was too poor, Scholes and Anderson tried but they were a tad mediocre. Tevez was all alone and he couldnt do anything against Micah Richards and Richard Dunne. The defence was shaky and stressed out. Rio Ferdinand just gave his worst performance this season.
With Evra and Rooney already missing, that didnt give us the excuse to perform so damn poorly and over-complicate stuff that only wasted time and time again. The team should be ashamed of themselves letting the 73,000 United fans and the millions watching on tv down and made such a day a miserable one for us
Shameful and disappointing
Last time Citeh actually won at Old Trafford was when Denis Law scored his infamous back-heel winner against us in 1974 that doomed us to relegation. The last time Citeh beat us both home and away in the league was in the 1969/70 season.
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