The Good Ship United

Wayne makes his escape

The first sign of trouble was Ashley Young hitting the deck. Of course, as Robin knew, this on its own was not remarkable; but there was something about the anguished screams of his colleague that suggested all, this time, was really not well. It was then that he felt it. A great shudder as an iceberg carved a chasm in the hull of the Good Ship United, knocking the hapless crew to the deck. As Robin picked himself up he saw water flooding the ship below, as fires broke out all around him. Young had toppled theatrically into the ocean and, with a look of complete serenity, sank meekly into the waves below. The ship was going down; United was sinking. Robin looked in despair in the chaos around him, desperately hoping for a hero in the darkness. Rooney, however, had jumped ship at the first sign of trouble, and could be seen paddling rapidly away in the distance. Robin would have to be the hero himself. He would have to shoulder responsibility now.

Arsene in the Sky with Diamonds

As Arsene slowly worked his way through the mazy corridors of the Emirates, freshly back from the game, he could muse on a strong day’s work against Fulham. It was, he thought, a little bit good, non? His side had purred to victory against the mighty Cottagers, he had finally silenced his doubters; he was right, as he had always known he was. Yet as he took his seat in the boardroom his was met with stony faces all around. Kroenke, Gazidis and Usmanov met his gaze sheepishly; an elephant hung in the room. “Arsene”, stammered Stan, “we need to talk. One victory doesn’t make a season, we still must strengthen”. Arsene, as was his apt, looked perplexed. “What are you saying Stanley? My boys were a little bit perfect. They have the quality non?” he said, as Carl Jenkinson tripped over a step outside the window. “Yes, but Arsene, we need a defensive midfielder, we need steel at the back”. Wenger paused to fill his small glass with absinthe, and as he drained it a thin smile crossed his Gallic lips. “Say no more monsieur, we will make an offer for Cabaye in the morning. 10 million and un, of course”. Stan glanced at Ivan, who took up the theme with desperation in his voice. “No Arsene, we don’t need any more mercurial attacking midfielders, we need a centre back, a leader”. Wenger looked quizzically at his chairman, before reclining in his seat with a knowing nod. “I see. Gourcuff it is”. Silence hung in the air. At last, Usmanov chimed up in what I can only assume are heavy Uzbeki tones. “Arsene you are not listening. We have plenty of inconsistent forwards, we need a goalkeeper, we need structure.” Wenger put down his glass and looked straight into Usmanov’s eyes. “Gentlemen, I hear you. We must change, that I now understand. Get me Perez on the phone, I’ll make a derisory offer for Di Maria right this second”. No-one spoke as Arsene zipped up his puffy coat and strode out of the door, doubling back on himself when he realised he had gone the wrong way.

Football, bloody hell.

Someone asked me recently what my life philosophy was. The temptation was to cite Dre: I’m simply representing all the gangsters across the World. Instead, after some thought, I said that I’d prefer to follow the advice Paul gave to Jude, “it’s a fool who plays it cool, by making his World a little colder”. I soon realised, however, that this is quite the opposite of how I live my life. Of course, my friends would interject, I have no problem not being cool, my penchant for 80s music and University Challenge putting paid to any hopes of have of being street. I do, however, have a tendency to be disaffected to the point of aloofness. It is a trend that has only increased with my latest life malaise, an existential crisis born from my newly single, newly graduated and newly impoverished status. My angst has only made me more hollow; my World is certainly a little colder. In light of this realisation I have mused long and hard on a way out of my downward spiral. A job has escaped my clutches, and I don’t fancy my chances of picking up a girlfriend in the apocalyptic nightclubs of Oxford. Instead, I have decided I must follow the words I stumbled across. I must not play it cool. I must come out and finally say what I have realised in my sleepless summer nights. I know what is missing from my life. Or rather, I know what my life is. It is a ball game, the most beautiful one of all.

Ferguson: The Official Trequartistas Response

The old man knew it was time to go. His mind was willing but his flesh was weak; decades in dogged pursuit of his goal left him exhausted, nearly broken. There were those who implored him to stay, to fight one last fight and give all a proper chance to say goodbye. After all, he had been dismissed as old for years, but a dogged, fervent belief had kept him far elevated above his peers. A relentless pursuit of what he saw as right, trouncing his frailties with a fire which burned deep within him, a pure, white hot hatred for his enemy. His was the will which could not be dominated, which flickered the same whether in the depths of defeat or the dizzying heights of victory. His departure was predictably greeted with tears and despair; boundless misery at the passing of a giant, whose demise surely signalled an inevitable end, a crushing defeat. They, of course, were wrong. In his absence he became stronger than they could possibly imagine. Obi-Wan Kenobi lived on. Alex Ferguson will do the same.

The Good, the Bad and Chelsea Football Club

Bad guys rarely know that is what they are. It is only with the benefit of hindsight that the moral arbiters can assign them their status; history is written by the winners, said Churchill, and those winners are very rarely labelled ‘bad’. Good and bad are the most subjective, even nonsensical of concepts in some ways. Where one man may ardently pursue an ideology he sees as right, another may view him as morally misguided, even evil. So I write this article today with a caveat. The following conjecture is just that; the opinion and moralising of one man, who may himself inadvertently be the bad guy in the tale he is about to unfold. Yet, that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be said. “All that it takes for evil to triumph is for a few good men to do nothing”, said someone, perhaps Andy Townsend. And while Chelsea are far from evil, and their fans far from bad, it is surely time to confront head on a club spiralling away from an illustrious history into a place only a few clubs can claim experience: near-universal disdain.

Manchester United vs Real Madrid Preview II: Let the Battle Commence

Over 2000 years ago, as the Romans conquered much of the globe, their entertainment came in the form of gladiatorial battles. Fights to the death as two skilled warriors battled it out in search of glory and honour in front of a crowd of thousands. Today these gladiatorial battles no longer take place within the walls of the Colosseum, but on immaculately maintained pitches in glittering stadiums scattered across Europe. On Tuesday night, Old Trafford becomes a Colosseum fit to host a battle of epic proportions, as the gladiators of Manchester take on the Titans of Madrid.

The Lone Rangers

The words 'team', 'one' and 'man' can be arranged in two ways in the popular football lexicon. The first is a form of praise; there is no higher title of admiration than to be labelled a 'one team man', a player who has stayed at one, and only one, club throughout his career. He is supposedly a worthy throwback to a bygone era of men who put the club above themselves, loyalty above glory, and fans above finances. Jamie Carragher, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs are much discussed as bastions of fidelity, although the latter admittedly only when on the pitch. The second arrangement is the 'one man team', and here we hit upon far darker connotations. It is thrown as a dirty smear from the terraces and twitter; the notion that without that one star the team would be abject, that he alone holds the others on his shoulders, catipulting them to whatever glorious victory they have achieved this week. Bale, van Persie, Suarez are supposedly the only thing that stands between their clubs and oblivion. Even Barcelona suffer mutterings about the overhwleming value of Leo Messi, the greatest player in the greatest team that has ever played the game (which despite losing to the most expensively XI on the planet they remain). Whatever happened to players being great in and of themselves, as opposed to the only worthy thing in successful sides? The truth is they, of course, still are: the notion of 'the one man team' is as redundant and vacuous as the 'one team man' is exceptional and praiseworthy.

Arsenal: Les Miserables

A few weeks ago Gunnerblog posted a video of staggering brilliance on Youtube. In it the usual suspects of transfer deadline day belted out One Day More from Les Miserables, a musical I have inexplicably become obsessed with. Redknapp, Fellaini and, of course, Jim White were played to perfection, but it was Arsene Wenger as the cycnical, villainous Javert who stole the show. In the light of Arsenal's implosion against Bayern last night the image of Arsene as Javert seems all the more fitting, his side rapidly becoming the eponymous miserables of the musical as he skulks in the background, desperately clinging to his dignity and his misguided principles. Javert ends the film staring down at the Seine, lamenting his regrets as the murky water swirls below, inviting him to oblivion. Wenger now must be contemplating a similar doom, fallen from heady heights to desperate depths with all veneer of heroism destroyed, now cast as the villain in the story in which, not so long ago, he had dreamed the most wonderful of dreams.

Challenge Accepted.

Should we feel sorry for Harry Redknapp? Beloved good 'ol fashioned English manager with no regard for fancy opta statistics, numerous sport scientists or even just sophisticated tactics. Hailed as the king of man management, dealing with egos, motivating prixmadonnas and charming the media, yet since his sacking from Tottenham last summer, his crown as the darling of English managers finally appears to be slipping.

New wine in the old bottles: Manchester United vs Madrid Preview

Whatever the outcome, Sir Alex Ferguson is going to be wining and dining on the finest food and drink money can buy after tonight’s game. Jose Mourinho holds the man he calls 'the Boss' in an unswerving high esteem, and the pair have traditionally shared a post-match Port ever since the Special One’s Stamford Bridge days in the mid noughties. On the pitch, however, fans can expect to see a football that falls into a new vintage – one that owes nothing to the past. Manchester United take on Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabeu tonight in a ‘clash-of-the-cash’ that seems certain to get the LED screens humming from here to Hong Kong. The stadiums are the same, the kits have hardly altered, but the modern Manchester and Madrid teams look set to offer up a game shorn entirely of throw-backs to ‘the good-old days’. Ladies and gents, we’re now in store for something completely different.   

Class Warfare: Bad Form

Mark Writes, Rises

Where did we go? The sudden absence of The Trequartistas, once a stronghold of conjecture and dubious predictions, sent ripples through the football blogging world. "Is this the end?", solemnly pondered The Guardian. "TREQUAR-LEFT-US", screamed The Sun, as The Mail suggested our apparent unwillingness to work should be no surprise given several of our members have immigrant roots. Yet, as Cate Blanchett whispered in The Fellowship of the Ring, they were all of them deceived. We were dormant, not extinct. Our silence, far from unexpected, was part of a greater plan. For we at Trequartistas Towers were working on a piece of meta-journalism so ironic, so dastardly, so downright radical that even we sometimes forgot what purpose our secrecy served. We left so that we might return. We left to prove that most ancient of old adages: While form is temporary, class is permanent.