A Year Gone...What About Manchester United?

(ONLY FOR FOOTBALL FANS, ESPECIALLY MANCHESTER UNITED ONES - AT LEAST THOSE WHO CARE FOR THE OPINIONS OF A FELLOW FAN)

Well, it's now exactly a year since I started off on this little thingy called Blogger. Well, I'm not really going to go all bleary-eyed and rant about whatever I've written over the past year. No, not at all!

I'm just going to write on a topic that was also the subject of my first post - Manchester United Football Club.

Last time I wrote about United, we were at the top of the Barclays Premier League, chasing a title that we once considered ours by right but one which we hadn't been able to claim for the last four years. This time, the time of the year is the same...the number of games played by each club in the league is the same...only United is going for its tenth Premier League crown.

So, with half of the season gone, I thought let me take a look (as a fan) at what all United have done (or not done) during this campaign.

1. Barclays Premier League: We currently lie second in the table, two points behind the leaders Arsenal. Not bad, although the loss at West Ham United might come back to haunt us. Still, with as many as 18 games to go, it's a long race ahead. Only, Arsenal don't seem willing to let the lead slip (unlike Chelsea who were quite charitable during the festive season last time around)
2. FA Cup: A 3rd round tie against Aston Villa beckons.
3. Champions' League: The team did brilliantly to make light of a potentially tricky group to qualify on top. Lyon in the pre-quarters will be a completely different proposition (in a difficult sort of sense) but man for man, it seems like Lyon should be more afraid of United.
4. League Cup: Another early exit meant that questions were once again raised about the quality of United's youngsters. Okay, I might not be an authority on United youth teams, but I reckon we are expecting too much from the club's youngsters. The specter of the Class of '92 hangs over these lads and that probably, is the reason why the pressure is getting to them.

Overall though, the team is looking good. The new boys Tevez, Nani, Anderson and Hargreaves have settled remarkably well. Ronaldo is still in awesome form, and the defense looks good too. Fergie too seems quite ready for battle and even more glory, despite being 66 years young as a man and 21 years old as a manager. So, I guess there is only one thing left to say: "Go For It United."

Here's a list of some of the best action of the season thus far according to me:

BEST MATCH: Definitely a toss-up between the match against Aston Villa (away) and the match against Middlesborough (home). Will probably go for the Boro match, since the one against Villa ended up with United against nine men.

BEST PLAYERS:

1. Christiano Ronaldo : 18 goals. Enough said.
2. Nemanja Vidic : Best defensive record in the league. Enough said again.
3. Anderson : I never thought I'd say this, but at last United seem like they've got a genuine contender to replace Paul Scholes after he retires. If only he adds an added dimension of scoring regularly to his game, Anderson could be United's midfield lynchpin for the future.

GOALS OF THE SEASON:

1. Carlos Tevez against Birmingham City (H)
2. Carlos Tevez against Middlesborough (H)
3. Nani against Tottenham (H)

Vacationophobia

Vacationophobia
n. euphoric state attained due to excessive enjoyment of vacations

Well since I googled this word and found no word to match this exactly, I reckon Abhinav and I have indeed invented a new word. All we now need is three more people using the word on a regular basis, a writer who includes the word in his/her new book and lo! Thou shalt have the latest entry into the dictionary. ;)

Okay that was incredibly cynical of me, probably a bit conceited (don't ask me the history of this word's association with this word, it would take the story of the entire semester to do justice to the explanation) but still incredibly true.

Meanwhile, I am still suffering from a severe case of vacationophobia (the suffix phobia is quite misleading here, it seems) and reveling in the frustratingly blissful yet disturbing inactivity.

It's almost one year since I started blogging and the change in the frequency of my posts says everything about my desire to express. And let me tell you one thing. If you want to blog more frequently and have a mind that works like mine, make sure you have fewer wing debates. The act of saying or writing the same thing twice is too cumbersome for yours truly.

And amidst all the incessantly unnecessary ramblings that I'm spewing out like…well, I'm feeling too lazy to either cook up or find any simile…so I'll just leave it at that.

Last word: While you surf the net, those of you who've not seen Vineet's team up message, do check it out here.

Hatred

Hatred is such a strong word.

Wonder what it really implies though.

I mean, you hate many things around you but all those things seem to be the things you actually can’t do without. Like when you hate yourself for forgetting the birthday of your best friend of ten years, or when you begin to avoid the company of another of your pals just because you feel you’re being looked at as ‘one’ entity – always seen together, celebrating together, joking together – and you don’t want to lose your individuality.

Maybe it is bitterness at what you’ve become yourself – an image of someone you neither anticipated nor desired to be. Or maybe it’s just a simple hatred of yourself because you think you’re wasting your time - that you should be doing more revolutionary things, more radical things than blogging on the eve of a comprehensive exam. Or maybe it’s just frustration at your inability to come up with an appropriate title for the blog post you’ve just typed and anger at the fact that you just want to post it on your blog at the soonest, so you just post it under the heading of the first word of the post.