I find this guy hillarious. I don't remember him, but can somebody tell me if he was a good player in the 70's? <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laugh Out Loud]" />
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DR McMONKEY'S POST MORTEM
So its all over and we've won dick-all. Not nice is it? Not nice watching another team take the glory, not nice watching our team trudge off the pitch, heads bowed. Not nice having to listen to Gooners crawl out of the woodwork and spout on about how good they are and how they're going to take over as Kings of the fecking world. Sadly if you want to win stuff you have to be prepared to lose it once and a while. If you can't accept that then feck off and support Arsenal or Real Madrid, because United don't need you. If not, then read on as Chief Coroner McMonkey puts on his autopsy gloves and examines the tattered body that is Manchester United's season.
Firstly, I'm not even mentioning the "defensive troubles" crap as its been done to death. I won't be doing the no-brainer slag-off Fergie routine either, I mean, change the record you bunch o'twats. Of course Fergie made some mistakes but when they say his tactics are not the best I ask what manager can take scrutiny from the magnifying glass of Mr Hindsight?
I seem to recall Gerard Houiller made a huge blunder against Leverkusen taking off Hamman. Weren't Liverpool outplayed by Barcelona at Anfield? Wenger's Arsenal were out-thought and out-played by Deportivo La Coruna then beaten by a second string Juventus - good thinking Batman!!!! The great Fabio Capello of Roma? Stuffed by Liverpool when they only had to avoid losing by 2 goals, Doh!!!!!
And what about Sven "I'll just get this World Cup over then I'm back at Lazio" Eriksson? When he was chief noggin in Rome he took his team to Valencia for a Champions League Quarter final, the result: Valencia romped to a 5-2 victory, Doh!!! Doh!!! Doh!!!! As England boss, Sven then thought he could play upfront in Ulrikka's penalty box and the media in Britain wouldn't be interested - Slap that forehead and go Doh a hundred times!!!! Any toss-pot can be a tactical expert the day after a bad result can't they? Fergie played with 4-5-1 in Europe and it got the team to the semi-final where they lost on away goals - better than any of the top bosses in Europe. That's not too shabby is it? So Fergie canny be that bad can he?
The main stinker was at Old Trafford, Theatre of Nightmares. We only lost 3 games away and they were to the other title contenders: Arsenal, Liverpool and Newcastle - so no shame there. But at home United were unable to break down teams who took the lead. Middlesbrough, West Ham, Liverpool, Arsenal all won 1-0 and Bolton 2-1. In the past United would have been capable of equalising in at least three of those games and then go on to win them.
What happened here (Leverkusen away game also) is there was a total lack of "cutting edge" (© Big Ron) about the team. No creative genius or inspired moments you need to unlock defences when things go wrong. Veron was bought to do the genius bit but he failed miserably. For the first part of the season Scholes and Beckham had a crisis of form. Most worryingly Giggs was poor when it mattered at the end and Forlan had a 'mare that's lasted 5 months. Only Van Nistelrooy, Solskjaer and Keane consistently did what was asked of them.
Not having a fourth striker to liven things up didn'thelp either. Missing out on Di Canio seems not so clever now does'nt it, Peter "We can't afford 3 million quid" Kenyon. Against Arsenal we didn't even force Seaman to make a save. What happened to the United of old creating 20 chances in a game, battering teams into submission until they could take no more? They didn't appear very often did they? Why did we fail in Europe? Look at my graph and you'll see the answer is simple - Bloody Germans. United's record is rubbish against them, the only time we've beaten them was in the Nou Camp and that took a miracle. Germans have knocked us out 3 times at critical stages. They bombed Old Trafford during the war and United have never, ever had a German player, which is quite amazing considering all the foreigners in British football.
The team also relies far too much on Keano. I remember what happened when Bryan Robson used to be missing - we won dick-all then too. It is too much to ask of one man to drive the team on every single time but that's the way it looks to me. Some players don't want to take the responsibility and get stuck in. Beckham needs to be captain when Keane is'nt playing and we need more leadership at the back, somebody to shout and bawl at everyone like Schmeichel and big Brucie used to do.
If Forlan's shot had been headed into the net we'd be looking at a place in the European Cup final, if we'd beaten Arsenal and not dropped 2 points at Derby we'd be Champions again. The dividing line between success and failure is smaller than the part of Nicholas Anelka's brain devoted to the concept of loyalty.
Winning nothing means the players will find the hunger again. They've won the league far too easy the last couple of years and this is a wake up call. The fans and the players of Manchester United have been spoilt by success. When we won the League last season there was few celebrations, next time we win it you'll be dancing for joy like mad nutters, they way it should be.
A DOZEN THINGS TO CHEER YOU UP
1) The Champions League is really, really, really difficult to win. Just ask Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Juventus, Inter Milan, Deportivo, Liverpool, Arsenal.....
2) We lost nine games in the league this season - it won't happen again.
3) The home record was terrible - 6 defeats? Bloody hell, that won't happen again.
4) Arsenal had a freakishly good away record and run of victories - it won't happen again.
5) Fergie will fix the defence.
6) The team won't be side-tracked by Fergie retirement plans.
7) Beckham/ Neville got injured at crucial times - the right side of the team was shafted.
8) Veron will be better next season / or sold at a profit and new stars brought in.
9) Several of Arsenal's most influential players (Adams, Keown, Seaman, Dixon, Bergkamp) are getting too old.
10) Vieira will go to Real Madrid.
11) In 1995 United won nothing, the following season they won the double.
12) in 1998 United won nothing, the following season they won the Treble.
WORLD CUP MEMORIES 1978
The Far-East football-feast is almost upon us and I reminded of my own adventures at the Argentina 1978 finals. Playing up front for Scotland, we had qualified in a blaze of glory under the inspired leadership of manager Ally McLeod. Ally's Army had high hopes of winning the tournament, it all went wrong of course and the team returned home in total humiliation. However, I can now reveal the real story behind the failure.
Ally wanted us to get acclimatised to the hot conditions so naturally we left for South America a month before the first game in June. The lads were settling in well at our Buenos Aires hotel, the drink and friendly senorita's were flowing like fine Scottish whiskey down a Scotsmans beak. Then one night, we toured the bars of Avenida 9 de Julio.
It was somewhere about the Plaza de Mayo, but I was absolutely hammered and wandered off from my friends, Gordon McQueen, Joe Jordan and Alan Brazil. The streets were a blur, but my eyes were drawn to a curious looking shotgun-wielding midget in a cowboy hat. Standing outside a seedy looking bar down a dirty back alley he beckoned me in. It was filled with heady, exotic smells, drunken shouting, loud music...lots of nudey women. So, naturally after a wee while I was giving it the whole Latin Samba beat bollocks and all that.
After about many hours, the midget approached me "Buenos Dios, Senor McMinkey of Scotland and Manchester, I am Miguel, try some of our finest produce". So, Miguel the midget and hands me this bloody big pipe. Naturally being pissed off me face I gave it a huge puff. Hours or days might have passed as I lost my mind in a drug-fuelled trip but next thing I know its chaos all around me. Sirens are going, people screaming, gunfire everywhere, then the cops bust in.
Turns out I 'd stumbled into a Columbian drug den and the American CIA drugs police had busted it. At the time I had a good suntan and been growing my moustache to blend with the locals, so the cops assumed I was one of the banditos as well!!!! Next thing I'm handcuffed and smacked over the head.
I awoke on a plane chained to Miguel alongside a whole lot of other prisoners whist armed US marines stood in the aisles. Next thing, BOOM, an explosion rocks the plane, we're going down!!!! Suddenly a group of armed bandits storm the plane, "A rescue, we are saved!!!" exclaimed Miguel. A raging gun battle ensued between the Marines and our rescuers for several minutes, all the time the plane roaring earthwards, eventually I passed out.
Next thing I know I'm in the back of a jeep with a bunch of Mexican-type bandits racing down a dirt-track road. About an hour later I arrived in the Columbian drug-cartel city of Medellin. In a darkened room I met the cartel kingpin known only as "El Twattos". "We set you up with a good village Pedro, you serve us well against the Americano pigs" he says. Now, I don't know who the hell Pedro was but they obviously thought I was he. ⌠El Twattos■ wasn't the sort of beak you'd argue with, so I kept me gob shut.
So I'm whisked off to the small village of San Amigo del Torquedmada La Coruna on the borders of the Amazon rainforest. I'm told to run their "Operation" there. Miguel, whom I appoint my right-hand man midget informed me this involved primarily: grow'in, pimp'in and kill'in. Naturally, at first I was repelled by such criminal acts but I realised I could be a force for good. I focused our crop output on soft drugs and less on the hard narcotics such as Crack, Cocaine and Heroin.
After a week the money from pimping had also proved quite the little earner. I tried to adopt a family atmosphere in the village, my bitches were well treated and no-one was to be murdered unless they posed a direct threat to my leadership. After two weeks my job was done, the shanty-town was making a tidy profit and "El Twattos" was happy at a well run supply-racket.
But felt I needed to get back to the World Cup, I'd been missing nearly a month and Scotland were due to play Peru. I decreed Miguel take over my position as village Overlord and left in dead of night, flying a light aircraft. After crashing briefly in the Amazon, where I befriended the Ingweedo rainforest tribe who repaired my plane, I touched down on the motorway adjacent to the Estadio Cordoba but was too late. The game was near over and Scotland where 3-1 down to a rampant Peru.
I made my way to the side-lines where a raging Ally McLeod turned the air blue and said I'd never play for Scotland again, that I was a disgrace, a loser etc etc. Being used to that sort of talk every week from the Stretford End, it was all water off a ducks back to me. But the most shocking site was sitting on the Peru bench. It was Miguel, the mischievous midget. Smoking a huge cigar and with a big smile on his face, he was laughing and joking with the Peru team staff.
Obviously he had been in league with the Peruvians all along and the whole adventure had been an elaborate ruse to disrupt Scotland's World Cup plans. As I made a violent lunge for the pesky pigmy he vanished into the crowd shouting "Adios Senor McMinkey, until we meet again....■ Had I been playing who knows what could have happened? I was in a rich vein of form at the time and could have scored many goals. Such was the level of drugs in my body I was unable to play until the final game, by which time Scotland were already eliminated. So the moral of the story is....well I don't really know, I suppose its "Don't trust South American midgets, they're a shower of scheming bastards". Until next time then, where I'll be no doubt giving-off about the World Cup, adios amigos........
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DR McMONKEY'S POST MORTEM
So its all over and we've won dick-all. Not nice is it? Not nice watching another team take the glory, not nice watching our team trudge off the pitch, heads bowed. Not nice having to listen to Gooners crawl out of the woodwork and spout on about how good they are and how they're going to take over as Kings of the fecking world. Sadly if you want to win stuff you have to be prepared to lose it once and a while. If you can't accept that then feck off and support Arsenal or Real Madrid, because United don't need you. If not, then read on as Chief Coroner McMonkey puts on his autopsy gloves and examines the tattered body that is Manchester United's season.
Firstly, I'm not even mentioning the "defensive troubles" crap as its been done to death. I won't be doing the no-brainer slag-off Fergie routine either, I mean, change the record you bunch o'twats. Of course Fergie made some mistakes but when they say his tactics are not the best I ask what manager can take scrutiny from the magnifying glass of Mr Hindsight?
I seem to recall Gerard Houiller made a huge blunder against Leverkusen taking off Hamman. Weren't Liverpool outplayed by Barcelona at Anfield? Wenger's Arsenal were out-thought and out-played by Deportivo La Coruna then beaten by a second string Juventus - good thinking Batman!!!! The great Fabio Capello of Roma? Stuffed by Liverpool when they only had to avoid losing by 2 goals, Doh!!!!!
And what about Sven "I'll just get this World Cup over then I'm back at Lazio" Eriksson? When he was chief noggin in Rome he took his team to Valencia for a Champions League Quarter final, the result: Valencia romped to a 5-2 victory, Doh!!! Doh!!! Doh!!!! As England boss, Sven then thought he could play upfront in Ulrikka's penalty box and the media in Britain wouldn't be interested - Slap that forehead and go Doh a hundred times!!!! Any toss-pot can be a tactical expert the day after a bad result can't they? Fergie played with 4-5-1 in Europe and it got the team to the semi-final where they lost on away goals - better than any of the top bosses in Europe. That's not too shabby is it? So Fergie canny be that bad can he?
The main stinker was at Old Trafford, Theatre of Nightmares. We only lost 3 games away and they were to the other title contenders: Arsenal, Liverpool and Newcastle - so no shame there. But at home United were unable to break down teams who took the lead. Middlesbrough, West Ham, Liverpool, Arsenal all won 1-0 and Bolton 2-1. In the past United would have been capable of equalising in at least three of those games and then go on to win them.
What happened here (Leverkusen away game also) is there was a total lack of "cutting edge" (© Big Ron) about the team. No creative genius or inspired moments you need to unlock defences when things go wrong. Veron was bought to do the genius bit but he failed miserably. For the first part of the season Scholes and Beckham had a crisis of form. Most worryingly Giggs was poor when it mattered at the end and Forlan had a 'mare that's lasted 5 months. Only Van Nistelrooy, Solskjaer and Keane consistently did what was asked of them.
Not having a fourth striker to liven things up didn'thelp either. Missing out on Di Canio seems not so clever now does'nt it, Peter "We can't afford 3 million quid" Kenyon. Against Arsenal we didn't even force Seaman to make a save. What happened to the United of old creating 20 chances in a game, battering teams into submission until they could take no more? They didn't appear very often did they? Why did we fail in Europe? Look at my graph and you'll see the answer is simple - Bloody Germans. United's record is rubbish against them, the only time we've beaten them was in the Nou Camp and that took a miracle. Germans have knocked us out 3 times at critical stages. They bombed Old Trafford during the war and United have never, ever had a German player, which is quite amazing considering all the foreigners in British football.
The team also relies far too much on Keano. I remember what happened when Bryan Robson used to be missing - we won dick-all then too. It is too much to ask of one man to drive the team on every single time but that's the way it looks to me. Some players don't want to take the responsibility and get stuck in. Beckham needs to be captain when Keane is'nt playing and we need more leadership at the back, somebody to shout and bawl at everyone like Schmeichel and big Brucie used to do.
If Forlan's shot had been headed into the net we'd be looking at a place in the European Cup final, if we'd beaten Arsenal and not dropped 2 points at Derby we'd be Champions again. The dividing line between success and failure is smaller than the part of Nicholas Anelka's brain devoted to the concept of loyalty.
Winning nothing means the players will find the hunger again. They've won the league far too easy the last couple of years and this is a wake up call. The fans and the players of Manchester United have been spoilt by success. When we won the League last season there was few celebrations, next time we win it you'll be dancing for joy like mad nutters, they way it should be.
A DOZEN THINGS TO CHEER YOU UP
1) The Champions League is really, really, really difficult to win. Just ask Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Juventus, Inter Milan, Deportivo, Liverpool, Arsenal.....
2) We lost nine games in the league this season - it won't happen again.
3) The home record was terrible - 6 defeats? Bloody hell, that won't happen again.
4) Arsenal had a freakishly good away record and run of victories - it won't happen again.
5) Fergie will fix the defence.
6) The team won't be side-tracked by Fergie retirement plans.
7) Beckham/ Neville got injured at crucial times - the right side of the team was shafted.
8) Veron will be better next season / or sold at a profit and new stars brought in.
9) Several of Arsenal's most influential players (Adams, Keown, Seaman, Dixon, Bergkamp) are getting too old.
10) Vieira will go to Real Madrid.
11) In 1995 United won nothing, the following season they won the double.
12) in 1998 United won nothing, the following season they won the Treble.
WORLD CUP MEMORIES 1978
The Far-East football-feast is almost upon us and I reminded of my own adventures at the Argentina 1978 finals. Playing up front for Scotland, we had qualified in a blaze of glory under the inspired leadership of manager Ally McLeod. Ally's Army had high hopes of winning the tournament, it all went wrong of course and the team returned home in total humiliation. However, I can now reveal the real story behind the failure.
Ally wanted us to get acclimatised to the hot conditions so naturally we left for South America a month before the first game in June. The lads were settling in well at our Buenos Aires hotel, the drink and friendly senorita's were flowing like fine Scottish whiskey down a Scotsmans beak. Then one night, we toured the bars of Avenida 9 de Julio.
It was somewhere about the Plaza de Mayo, but I was absolutely hammered and wandered off from my friends, Gordon McQueen, Joe Jordan and Alan Brazil. The streets were a blur, but my eyes were drawn to a curious looking shotgun-wielding midget in a cowboy hat. Standing outside a seedy looking bar down a dirty back alley he beckoned me in. It was filled with heady, exotic smells, drunken shouting, loud music...lots of nudey women. So, naturally after a wee while I was giving it the whole Latin Samba beat bollocks and all that.
After about many hours, the midget approached me "Buenos Dios, Senor McMinkey of Scotland and Manchester, I am Miguel, try some of our finest produce". So, Miguel the midget and hands me this bloody big pipe. Naturally being pissed off me face I gave it a huge puff. Hours or days might have passed as I lost my mind in a drug-fuelled trip but next thing I know its chaos all around me. Sirens are going, people screaming, gunfire everywhere, then the cops bust in.
Turns out I 'd stumbled into a Columbian drug den and the American CIA drugs police had busted it. At the time I had a good suntan and been growing my moustache to blend with the locals, so the cops assumed I was one of the banditos as well!!!! Next thing I'm handcuffed and smacked over the head.
I awoke on a plane chained to Miguel alongside a whole lot of other prisoners whist armed US marines stood in the aisles. Next thing, BOOM, an explosion rocks the plane, we're going down!!!! Suddenly a group of armed bandits storm the plane, "A rescue, we are saved!!!" exclaimed Miguel. A raging gun battle ensued between the Marines and our rescuers for several minutes, all the time the plane roaring earthwards, eventually I passed out.
Next thing I know I'm in the back of a jeep with a bunch of Mexican-type bandits racing down a dirt-track road. About an hour later I arrived in the Columbian drug-cartel city of Medellin. In a darkened room I met the cartel kingpin known only as "El Twattos". "We set you up with a good village Pedro, you serve us well against the Americano pigs" he says. Now, I don't know who the hell Pedro was but they obviously thought I was he. ⌠El Twattos■ wasn't the sort of beak you'd argue with, so I kept me gob shut.
So I'm whisked off to the small village of San Amigo del Torquedmada La Coruna on the borders of the Amazon rainforest. I'm told to run their "Operation" there. Miguel, whom I appoint my right-hand man midget informed me this involved primarily: grow'in, pimp'in and kill'in. Naturally, at first I was repelled by such criminal acts but I realised I could be a force for good. I focused our crop output on soft drugs and less on the hard narcotics such as Crack, Cocaine and Heroin.
After a week the money from pimping had also proved quite the little earner. I tried to adopt a family atmosphere in the village, my bitches were well treated and no-one was to be murdered unless they posed a direct threat to my leadership. After two weeks my job was done, the shanty-town was making a tidy profit and "El Twattos" was happy at a well run supply-racket.
But felt I needed to get back to the World Cup, I'd been missing nearly a month and Scotland were due to play Peru. I decreed Miguel take over my position as village Overlord and left in dead of night, flying a light aircraft. After crashing briefly in the Amazon, where I befriended the Ingweedo rainforest tribe who repaired my plane, I touched down on the motorway adjacent to the Estadio Cordoba but was too late. The game was near over and Scotland where 3-1 down to a rampant Peru.
I made my way to the side-lines where a raging Ally McLeod turned the air blue and said I'd never play for Scotland again, that I was a disgrace, a loser etc etc. Being used to that sort of talk every week from the Stretford End, it was all water off a ducks back to me. But the most shocking site was sitting on the Peru bench. It was Miguel, the mischievous midget. Smoking a huge cigar and with a big smile on his face, he was laughing and joking with the Peru team staff.
Obviously he had been in league with the Peruvians all along and the whole adventure had been an elaborate ruse to disrupt Scotland's World Cup plans. As I made a violent lunge for the pesky pigmy he vanished into the crowd shouting "Adios Senor McMinkey, until we meet again....■ Had I been playing who knows what could have happened? I was in a rich vein of form at the time and could have scored many goals. Such was the level of drugs in my body I was unable to play until the final game, by which time Scotland were already eliminated. So the moral of the story is....well I don't really know, I suppose its "Don't trust South American midgets, they're a shower of scheming bastards". Until next time then, where I'll be no doubt giving-off about the World Cup, adios amigos........
