Wayne Mark Rooney. Captain. Leader. Legend. 250 goals scored in a United shirt to take the record out of Sir Bobby Charlton’s skeletal grasp. To put that in perspective: If he played for another 36 years he’d have 1000 goals. That would almost make me forget about the two transfer requests. Almost. The problem is that, at his current rate of decline, in ten more years he’d be less useful on the pitch than a potato (mashed or jacket, your choice).

All joking aside, it truly is a fantastic achievement to become the all-time leading scorer for both your club and country, so our top football correspondents at Bifurcated are here to celebrate the Roondog’s milestone in our own inimitable fashion. Unbelievable stuff. Especially the two transfer requests. Cunt.

 (@Benglorious)

Favourooite Wayne:

Sleep.

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 (@tom_mcghee)

Favourooite Wayne goal moment: 

That one where he did that boxing celebration after. Lovely sense of humour.

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Favourooite Wayne goal: 

That one where he chipped it.

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Favourooite Wayne Quote:

That one where he threatened to put himself to sleep (little girl)

That one about the Everton the beatles come together leg

That one when he realised Whitney was gone.

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Favourooite Wayne hairline:

2004.

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Favourooite Wayne transfer request: 

Chelsea. Cunt.

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 (@bifurcated_utd)

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Favourooite Wayne goal moment: 

Scoring on his debut for Beijing Guoan in July 2017.

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Favourooite Wayne goal: 

The one where we were all like ‘lol @ Rooney’, and then he did a kicked it in the nets and we were all like ‘lol @ Rooney’.

FIN

not by Rooney

As promised, us the real heroes, have got the hot scoop (old newspaper term) on the most recent club leaks. Obviously as superfans we’ve long been privy to the club’s inner workings but think the time is right to tell you, the reader, what we’ve learnt. Learned? Learnt? (These are alternative forms of the past tense and past participle of the verb learn. Both are acceptable.)

Anyway, onto the cold hard facts we haven’t made up or heard second-hand (our source is a senior member at the club but to protect his identity, we’ll call him Bryan Figgs)

Us: Yo B-Dogg, whassup?

BF: Shouldn’t that be R-Dogg?

Us: You’ve fucking ruined your anonymity, Ry… er, Bryan.

BF: This bird’s gonna fly. (It was at this point Bryan jumped through our window. He’s almost perfectly fine – we’re poor so there’s no glass. However, we are on the third floor.)

Fearing for our exclusive, we had one last throw of the dice. Luckily, Brett went to Borstal with let’s call him Dwayne and the two have kept in touch with hand-written letters, mostly in crayon and/or blood. What follows are excerpts from these letters:

(October 28th 2015)

‘….Anyways, I turn to Loony Van Gaal and say “Eh boss, do we have to eat these placentas la?” and he was like all “Yesh, more plashentas means more irons, now look at my genitals….You ever shee balls like that Wayne?” I had to be honest: I hadn’t.’

(January 12th 2016)

‘He’s really getting us down now, Brett… This morning, at training, he made us wear different animal outfits. Which was fun but then we had to simulate sex acts with each other and describe what the resultant offspring would look like and the pros/cons of attempted cross-species breeding. And I had to ride a bike. I’m in no shape to be riding a bike’ Dwayne mumbled through a mouthful of Haribo.

(February 22nd 2016)

‘….came into today and he was just sitting there, wearing a nappy, drinking Old Spice and quoting N.W.A. lyrics.’

(March 1st 2016)

We were compiling the above excerpts in our bustling newsroom when the door buzzed. It was Dwayne with a tall man whom we instantly recognised as a colleague of Dwayne’s.

D: All right, la. You know Mic…

Us: CODENAMES, WAY.. er, DWAYNE!! 

D: Oh, yeah! He turns to his companion: “Told you they were pros, “Lichael Larrick”. Wink.

LL: Did you just say “wink”?

D: I don’t think so.

LL: Pretty sure you just said “wink”.

D: I DON’T KNOW HOW TO WINK, OK? I’ve spent my whole life perfecting my first touch and just never had the time.

He breaks down. Lichael hugs him but rolls his eyes at us over Dwayne’s shoulder and mouths “first touch lol”.

Us: So lads, what can we do for you?

LL: Captain Tubs here mentioned he’d been corresponding with an old cellmate, and I just wanted to make sure that anything he’d said couldn’t be traced back to us. We have to be very careful these days when we’re playing at “sources”. You understand, right?

Us: Of course, er, Lichael. Please feel reassured that we never use names, we change quotes just enough so that they’re untraceable as well as throwing in the odd red herring so that our readers have to take everything with a pinch of salt.

D: That makes me hungry.

LL: We’ll stop at Maccy D’s on the way to Darrington. 

D: Oh.

LL: (sighs) And KFC.

D: (grins) Boss.

Us: So Lichael, do you believe that nothing you say about the club, good or bad, will ever get attributed to you by our three readers, all of whom are in this room right now?

LL: Yes.

Us: In that case, why don’t you tell us about the current malaise at the club? Maybe throw in something about negative training methods, how the Glazers are just using United as a piggy bank, or even the ineptitude of Woodward? The fans love all that stuff.

LL: Van Gaal is a cunt.

FADE TO BLACK

D: Nice article tags, tags.

Tim Sherwood walked into the dressing room. Louis van Gaal’s reign had been a disaster, with United failing to make the Champions League, or even the Europa League. There had been an outcry among the papers, and, in their infinite wisdom, Ed Woodward and the Glazer family had decided a domestic manager was the best option.

Sherwood’s run at Aston Villa at the end of the 2014/15 season had been as successful as Van Gaal’s had been a disaster. Under him, Villa had played 16, won 13, lost three, and United fans had to endure the sight of Tom Cleverley lifting the FA Cup.

The Villains’ victory over the Red Devils at Old Trafford had been cited as the beginning of the end for the Dutchman. His side never recovered their lost confidence, and he had been ignominiously sacked, and taken over as David Moyes’ assistant at Real Sociedad.

Sherwood had engineered a simple-but-effective counter-attacking performance. That had lodged itself into Woodward’s mind, and the former Tottenham Hotspur man’s chummy bravado had won United’s Chief Executive’s affections.

“Right lads,” said Tim, “here’s the philosophy…” He had accompanied that much pilloried word with air quotes, of course. The dressing room erupted with laughter, as Tim grinned broadly.

“Show ‘em Les.” Les Ferdinand, standing by Sherwood’s side, dramatically flipped over a page of flip chart paper. On it was printed huge number “4”. “Four!” exclaimed Tim. Ferdinand flipped over another page. Another “4.” “Four!” yelled Sherwood, “say it with me lads…”

The players, led by Wayne Rooney, mostly joined in with a hearty “two!” as Ferdinand flipped another page to reveal exactly that.

There were cheers around the dressing room, as players who had been forced to adapt to a 3-5-2 system that clearly did not suit them were delighted to be freed from complex tactical thinking. Daley Blind and Michael Carrick looked a little put out, but in general the mood was buoyant.

“Tim Sherwood thinks you’re all great players,” said Tim Sherwood, speaking in the third person, as Tim Sherwood is wont to do.

“If you follow Tim Sherwood’s instructions, you’ll be just fine. First of all, you have to think like Tim Sherwood. Get it and give it. Run the channels. Passion. Lots and lots of that. It’s very important.”

“Who are we marking at corners, boss?” asked Rooney. “Call me Tim, Wazza. And call yourself Wayne Rooney, that’s very important too. Shows ‘em you mean business and know your stuff.”

“Wayne Rooney wants to know who he’s picking up at corners,” said Rooney, slowly, practising this new form of speech.

“Phil Jones is in charge of that. He’ll tell you,” replied the manager.

“Phil Jones will tell you!” yelled Jones, pumping his fist in triumph.

A few months later it was all over. After a great start, as excitement and passion carried United through, Sherwood’s tactical naivety was cruelly exposed. He was replaced by Pep Guardiola, in what was universally considered to be history’s oddest managerial succession.

Sherwood took over the reigns at Villa again, kept them from relegation, and was rewarded with the Chelsea job after Jose Mourinho left to take over at Bayern Munich.

Back to Reality

Of course, in reality, Sherwood is not the caricature painted above. His managerial career is fledgling, but he has had some success. Whilst his “win ratio” may have become a meme, he did reasonable work at Spurs, and is off to a decent start at Aston Villa.

However, he is a long way off proving himself at an elite level.

On Saturday, he will be hoping to engineer an upset against a Van Gaal side that, in reality, is in excellent form. That in itself is a long shot. The idea of him taking the hot seat at Old Trafford?

The odds on that would have to be second-to-none.

Trees – the lungs of the planet: the perfect accompaniment to a park, a woodland walk, or an illustration of a grassy hillock. What’s not to like about trees? But, what happens when trees get ideas above their station?

Humans have been passing themselves off as trees ever since the olden days, adopting tree-like characteristics to avoid paying their TV license, parking tickets, or to get through airport security undetected. But reports suggest there’s a huge underground network supporting a growth in trees … that are pretending to be humans!

Though this level of treachery from the natural world is rare, there is already real evidence to suggest an infiltration of the footballing sphere. In the 70s it’s widely speculated that a haunted tree took the name of Mark Lawrenson and tried to pass itself off as a Liverpool player and, though nothing was ever proven, experts have been investigating transfers and keeping an eye on the trees ever since then and recently these bore fruit when one Marouane Fellaini was brought to their attention … if that’s his real name!

He’s going to be “unavailable” through late autumn. How very tree. Look out for him being “all better” by the Spring. Like a tree.

He grew up in Belgium. A quick internet search reveals there are trees growing up all over Belgium.

Have you ever seen Fellaini in the same room as another tree? No? Well, you wouldn’t have – trees are very territorial.

His favourite position is midfield. Classic tree.

Branches have also been referred to as limbs or arms. He’s got two limbs or arms. Textbook tree.

There are a variety of sources on the internet that cite his age as 25. There’s no way you could be that accurate with a person’s age, unless, of course, you’d chopped him open width ways with say a big axe and I dunno … counted his rings!

I think you’ll all be familiar with the cliches about trees:

Money doesn’t grow on trees: Interesting how, with that in mind, his price tag has been so hard to come to terms with for some of us. We haven’t got used to it. His price tag, if anything, is less becoming of him than it was.

The acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree: Have you ever seen anyone drop an acorn next to him? No, well I’m guessing it would bounce no further than five feet away – no distance at all.

If a tree falls in the woods and there’s no-one around to hear it, does it make a sound?: He clearly knows the answer to that one – what with him being a tree – but no doubt he’s banned that question from being asked in interviews and press-conferences, and that’s why you’ll never hear him being asked it! 

And there’s more:

He asked to leave Everton, he also said when he arrived at United that he wanted to emulate Roy Keane, and reading between the lines it’s clear that what he was attempting to communicate was his wish to take a leaf out Roy Keane’s book. Leaves are a strong motif for trees. If he wasn’t a tree he would have simply asked for a transfer, and he definitely wouldn’t have been insinuating he wanted to take any leafs out of any books. Freudian clues. Standard for a tree.

Moyes said when he signed Fellaini: “He was someone who we pencilled in for a position here at Manchester United right from the start. We felt we could do with adding numbers.”  Pencils are made from trees and you can also count trees using a standard numerical system. Someone will have definitely told David Moyes this. Why would he say what he said, if Fellaini wasn’t actually a tree? Another freudian slip of tree-sized proportions (a really big tree, like one of them red ones). Moyes is in on it too! We’re being managed by a tree sympathiser!

How far does the tree conspiracy go?

Sepp Blatter was recently asked about it during a tour of the rainforests of South America – as part of the World Cup preparations – but fielded the question, replying, “Planky twig sap, log-loggy-log-log, root-wooty-woo!” Sadly, proving inconclusive – he’d obviously been tipped-off and briefed. Oh, he’s good. He’s very good.

It’s no use going to the papers, they’re inextricably linked to the tree industry!

You can put a veneer on it if you like: we’ve got ourselves a tree.

Tom Cleverley is fertile ground for cynics, and it would be reasonable to assert that he’s invited this upon himself in apparently choosing to embrace narcissism where authenticity would have served him better. Cynics are, after all, hopeless romantics with cripplingly high moral and ethical (and mostly hypocritical) standards, that the modern footballer couldn’t possibly hope to live up to. But aligned with this cynicism aimed at Tom Cleverley, often comes blame; blame for United’s current plight, seeded within the lack of a midfield of note – which I think is unfair. It’s true that the emotions which accompany any loss creates scapegoats and there isn’t much that still hurts United fans more – in a footballing sense – than the loss of Roy Keane (especially as the club outright refuses to adequately replace him, and the more protracted the non-attempt becomes the worser it gets). It’s instinctive to lay blame, it’s overwhelming, and whether appropriated correctly or not  – with the Glazers, who we know are ultimately responsible, appearing deaf to the noise – it’s almost the only relief from those emotions. But because, as football fans, we never really stop blaming (the referee, the fourth official, the rules, the weather, a dodgy pint, a butterfly flapping its wings, a pube on an ice-cream) we never allow ourselves the time to stop and realise just how irrelevant it is. It ushers in a failure of sympathy towards players – players just like Tom Cleverley.

One of the things repeatedly levelled at the modern footballer, of which Tom Cleverley is very much one the last time I looked, is that “they’re getting paid X-amount of money, so should be playing an F-load better”. This suggests that what any given player offers at any given time is finite (that they’re nothing more than vending machines): a flawed concept – it doesn’t take into account the unique circumstances any one individual inhabits.  For example, Tom Cleverley’s ‘breakthrough season’ at United was dogged by injury, making it difficult to carry through any kind of form, or develop.  Tom Cleverley has also recently become a dad, shifting the priorities in his life (at least you’d hope so). He plays for Manchester United, a club that currently has a real problem with the concept of midfield, a club that have let down all of their playing staff with its lack of serious and considered intention to improve where it is failing. A club now going through a lot of change, which effects everyone.

You can try and star in midfield, but you cant do it on your own; players need to be coalesced. As gifted as the players we’ve had (and there have been plenty better than Tom Cleverley) in the past twenty years have been, they’ve still needed Eric’s poise, or a Roy Keane thrust to get them a result. A team needs these sorts of players, these ‘leaders’. Tom Cleverley is not a leader (in the old fashioned, yet still important sense), none of the midfielders in the squad are (Carrick is a leader by example; Fletcher too). The only perceived leaders left in the United side have their own problems: Evra, Rooney (leader lols), Vidic, who’s running down his contract, Rio’s limping down his.

Fergie said lots of things that we don’t need to remember (unless we’re remembering in order to enable the forgetting), but he did once say that nostalgia plays tricks on us* (*that’s some irony). Nostalgia would have us believe that Roy Keane would be eyeballing Vieira in the tunnel before every game, not just the Arsenal ones, or dragging us through to the Champions League final even when we were playing in the second round of the League Cup against York City. Scholesy would be volleying in from corners against Barcelona every week, and celebrating whilst hitting a player on the head who’s having a piss by a tree on the other side of the world. These moments, that encapsulate what these players came to represent, inform how we remember them. These things weren’t happening all the time and there were periods with these two in the team when we weren’t winning, and weren’t dominating. And though achieving just half of what they could do, and did do, on the pitch would make you some force, they weren’t, in every instance they took to the pitch, the Roy Keane and Paul Scholes that we compare the likes of Tom Cleverley to. It’s only on reflection, after a reasonable period of time, that we can really assess any player’s contribution (see also: Darren Fletcher).

I’ve seen Tom Cleverley when playing instinctively – not just in the past, but this very season – and his ability to shift a ball around is enviable, and something that very few players I’ve seen are capable of doing at the pace he does, and so I find it a little premature to be writing his United obituary just yet. However, when given time on the ball, habits of an altogether different nature surface: at times when Tom Cleverley passes the ball, he really passes it. He wants you to know he’s passing it: “Look at me passing this ball in that direction” the follow-through and accompanying body language shouts. This, for me, isn’t about technique, ’tis mere trompe l’oeil; style over substance. Just ‘cus you look like you’re passing it doesn’t mean you’re actually passing it passing it. When he does shape his body in this more affected way he tends to make a right mess of it. Superficial affectations like these continue to creep into the game: where once players were primarily concerned with playing good, they are now compelled to want to look good doing it; and they perhaps end up playing a role, and forget to be it.

There’s no doubt that narcissism has warped ambition: ‘I want to play at the top level’ becomes ‘I want to be a top level player’. The latter entails an image of what being a top level player looks like, the former is prepared to work hard, to persevere (different to Van Persievere, where you try quite hard for a bit to win something with one team and then switch club when you’ve had enough of the trying quite hard, and win something with another team), to recognise weaknesses and work on them, use them as a source of strength; they set themselves personal goals so that the application of their talent never lacks ambition. Perhaps the latter, the one who wants ‘to be a top level player’, having already won the Premier League winners medal and gotten himself into the England team – more than most players achieve – sees that as enough? I think he needs the club to invest in some proper players to help him decide.

I was thinking about an adage that I like: “the problem with going on holiday in order to ‘get away from it all’, is that you take yourself with you.” This is pertinent when we think about football, as football is something we mostly like to think of as an ‘escape’.

I was thinking about Wayne Rooney and about how much I really, really don’t like him anymore and also about how much I used to really, really, really like him. How I liked him then because of what he represented: an unaffected, honest talent; the swashiest of swashbucklers. How I don’t like him now because his body language has become affected, he is – in my eyes – dishonest; his swash has buckled.

I was thinking of an equivalent player – from within my not-so-complicated heirarchy of favourite players – and then thinking, if it were say, Patrice, or perhaps Rio, who’d not actually put in a transfer request, not just the once, but the twice, if I’d feel the same sense of indignation, the same malcontent, the same amount of grumpy?

I was thinking about Danny as the antithesis of Rooney: a team player who hasn’t vocalised his likely disappointment at being asked-slash-forced-slash-for the good of the team, to play out of his preferred position. A player who seems to genuinely enjoy being a professional footballer, in the way I would if I were one. A player who absolutely wants to be a United player. A player who is easy to love … in the way I would be if I were a professional footballer. What?!

I was thinking about what draws me to certain players – what makes them my favourites – and it’s the dichotomy of relatedness and Otherness. I like players whose behaviour most mirrors what I think mine would look like if I were to swap lives with them. It might be something expressed physically, but definitely anchored within their mental approach; it might be apparent in the type of shot they shape for, or the sort of pass they favour, or the way they hold themselves in an interview – the details of them I think that only I notice. However, it is also definitely about their Otherness, the preternatural; their ability to do the things with a football that most of us couldn’t muster without Dali taking up residency in our frontal lobes.

I was thinking about the ubiquitous-slash-tired question: Messi or Ronaldo? How Ronaldo embodies a version of the ‘modern footballer’, caricatures it even, and Messi, another.

I was thinking about this quote by George Orwell in a book I was reading: “If thought corrupts language, then language can corrupt thought.”

I was thinking about how Rooney is generally portrayed in the press and that. How the language used is based largely on his physical appearance, with the subtext being that he is a ‘chav’ and then the class politics attached to that term with an asterisk. How attitudes spread through the media, whether we realise it or not, whether we accept it or not and whether we like it or not.

I was thinking about how much value is placed on the superficial, how we still need to start seeing individuals for what they are: individuals. How a superficial attitude propagates societal ills.

I was thinking it was just about football.

I was thinking: is it ever just about football?

I was thinking about cutting Rooney some slack.

For a minute back there, I thought we were going to be treated (for treated read: not at all treated) to front row seats as David Moyes’ private fantasy – of running a team with Rio and Vidic at the heart of the defence, no matter what – played out all over our goal difference for the remainder of the season. Not that I’m not going to miss Vidic desperately dispersing his (and his opponents) limbs about the pitch, or Rio’s #silks, but of all the items Moyes has on his growing to-do-list, our central defence is not one them. Luckily for him, and us, we’re full up with young talented central defenders, primed to be gradually phased into the first team; and luckily for me too ‘cos I don’t have to talk about it. Defence is not my thing.

There are more myths in football than I’ve had hot dinners, oh no, wait – sorry – that’s cliches. Well, anyway, there’s lots of them. There are some garden-variety football fans who take great pleasure in nil all draws (it even sounds wrong) and would have us believe that there is nothing more valuable in the quest for silverware than a solid defence. They argue that there is an actual art to defending and revel in their favourite exponents of the “craft” chucking their faces in the way of stuff. “Defending’s in his blood” I’ve heard said – like it’s in anyone’s nature?! Yuck.

If you were to set up an experiment in a playground by placing a football in the centre circle and asking a group of children of indeterminate age (to the power ‘X’) to start playing, how many of them do you imagine would instantly rush to the edge of the area and shove his, or her arm in the air to appeal for offside as his, or her classmates made their way towards goal? It’s none. The answer is zero. No, they would all, without exception, descend on the ball, kicking air, shins and anything else within their peripheral boundaries in an attempt to take some sort of control.  Without the budget or relevant paperwork to undertake this trial, you’ll have to just take my word for it that the only conclusion we can draw is that there is no such thing as a natural defender.  If, as part of the research (lets go crazy with this!), you asked any professional footballer what they had dreamed of when they were growing up, do you think the answer would be: a goal in a cup final and/or perhaps in front of their home fans, or kicking the ball into Row Z down by the corner flag? It’s the former. The answer is the attacking one.

Defenders are the misfits: the children who were just about good enough to become professional footballers, but lacked the physical dexterity or creative capacity required of an advanced position.  Centre-backs are the children that were too tall and/or big and/or slow and full-backs* are the children who were closer to the ground than to the crossbar, when teams were being picked – both sets of children possessing more than a passing macabre interest in the sadistic.  There are of course anomalies: Peter Crouch, for example; he’s just too, well, Peter Crouchy, and there’s a few more besides – but no science is exact, just a collection of theories as yet unproven.

(*Left-backs are an altogether different breed.  If you are a left-footed child, then ninety-nine thousand times out of the number one digit above that, you will be made to play at left-back.  That’s why nowhere in the history of football will you find any evidence of one displaying any defensive qualities, and why they are almost always one of the most talented players in the team.  They weren’t all supposed to be defenders, they’re victims of appendagism – so, you might want to leave Patrice alone!  The rare ones that slip through the left-back net, go on to become the most mesmeric of preternatural attacking footballing creatures that you are likely to see.)

As for the ‘art of defending’, the way I see it, there are three constituent parts to the skillset required in the making of a good defender, seperate to those required of other positions: absolute concentration (yawn!), subordination (boo!) and the ability to cheat like hell, without ever being found out (boo! hiss!).  As far as I’m aware, none of these attributes require even a modicum of genuine artistry to acquire them.

What about things like tackling and heading (I’ll ask on your behalf)?  Well, these, as far as I’m concerned, are basic essentials in any footballer’s toolbag, regardless of position.  I’d also argue that throwing your legs in the direction of the ball when you are without it, is hardly an expression of your technical ability.  Granted, there is knack to the timing, but physics (and luck) play just as significant a role in getting a tackle absolutely ‘spot on’ as an individual’s judgement does. The real aptitude of a defender is in the denial of his, or her own ego: putting the team above oneself and putting duty above personal distinction. Coupled with this, the very fact that it’s unnatural, and not to mention the crippling boredom of it all, make defensive positions an utterly unenviable set of roles to play and ones that only very few can do very well at the highest level.

The evidence in the Premier League over the past few seasons is that proper defenders have had their day.  Players who now occupy the back-line are foregoing the pretence that they give a hoot about anything but gobbling up some of the glory for themselves and the chaos that has ensued has been nothing short of brilliant – a buffet of buffoonery for the eyes.  Amongst the wreckage there are still a stubborn determined few, hell-bent on ruining all the fun, and I suppose I will reluctantly admit that I sometimes fleetingly admire what they occasionally do … sometimes.  However, you will never convince me that you can find wonder and joy in the maneuverings of these artificially created, automated agents of negativity; a lump is not a diamond, and I will never celebrate a nil all draw.

Just imagine if defending was something I’d wanted to talk about – if it was ‘my thing’. Fingers crossed Moyes doesn’t get twitchy and renege on the introduction of Phil Jones and Jonny Evans (and Smalling), for all of our sakes.

This post was originally featured on By Far The Greatest Team.

We sometimes find ourselves saying things like: ‘If only RVP had been available for the derby.’ Or, ‘if only Fellaini was any one of a whole rake of other players who you care to mention.’ Or, ‘if only Ashley Young had legs that fit right, and were on the right way round.’  Or, ‘if only Wayne “I weally, weally, weally, want to pway in MY pwosition” Rooney loved us more than any one of a list of teams who play in blue.’ Or, ‘if only Shinji was free.’ Or, ‘if only when Moyes opened his mouth, the right shaped words would come out.’ Or, ‘if only Eric was still here. And Scholesy. And Roy. And JOS … whoops, how did that get in there?’ These, and miriad examples like them, are all what I consider examples of, ‘present absence’.

Though none of those examples represent an absence of any one particular thing, what they all do represent in essence is an absence of trust. We miss RVP for the bigger games because we don’t trust anyone else to score the goals necessary to come away with a result. We don’t trust that Fellaini was who the club really wanted, and in turn, trust he’s good enough. We don’t trust Ashley Young has the ability to improve the team (and not to mention the fact that he’s potentially stolen someone else’s legs). We don’t trust Wayne “a wittle bit selfish weally” Rooney, full stop (still never sure if you have to put a full stop after writing that). We don’t trust Moyes’ apparent shotgun assessment of the ability of Kags above our own, well informed one, because he’s wrong, obvs. We don’t trust Moyes to say something good, because he appears to prefer not to. We miss players like Eric and Scholesy and Roy Keane because we had developed a relationship with them over time, and so we kind of knew where we were with them, what they were about; they were familiar – so we trusted in them and/or what they represented. Trust happens to be quite important – who knew?! It’s implicit in all relationships, at least if we want them to work out relatively well for both parties.

Modern football is naughtier than we ever even knew. It plays tricks on us, and when it’s taking a break from playing tricks on us, it’s playing even worse ones. One of these tricks is periodically presenting itself as the Ballardian playground, full of one-dimensional cowards, cheats and hustlers sleepwalking their way to extinction. When, in fact, it’s mostly about real relationships between real human beings, built on trust – a microcosm of the real stuff that happens to all of us outside of Saturday afternoons, only more fickle, on account of the inherent detachment from reality. Within football, one week we can really not like Anderson because he plays like the version of Anderson we don’t like, and then the next we can really love Anderson because he plays like the one we do. However, outside of football we don’t throw our scalding hot boiled egg and soldiers in our mum’s face and tell her, ‘I didn’t ask to be born!’ simply because she didn’t spread the margarine to the edges of those toasted slithers, like we like, like she did the week before (I hope).

Without doubt, the present absence prevalent at United right now is  – understandably – the Fergie shaped hole right at the centre. It stands to reason that different people have different ways of addressing it. Some people say, ‘In Moyes We Trust!’ (and words to that effect), one of football’s one-liners; some people don’t. I’m one of the ones who don’t. For me, these things jar with what’s actually happening. I think that unless a trusting relationship has had time to develop then arrangements of words into affected sound bites like these are nothing but vacuous platitudes – expressions of misguided hope. That’s not to say I think hope is a bad thing, misguided or otherwise, but neither do I think you should use your hope as a stick to beat others with.

If you choose to trust in Moyes based on the evidence of his first few months at the club, maybe coupled with what you already knew about him – his experience and that – and maybe because you interpreted what Fergie said at the end of last season – about getting behind the new manager – as an unequivical call to invest unwavering trust in him (because perhaps you were also one of those people who said, ‘In Saf We Trust’), then that’s cool. The opposite is cool too. I think most people would probably subscribe to the idea that how much trust you invest in someone, or something, within this footballing microcosm is personal to you: it’s a reflection of the ethos by which you live your life outside of it, in the real world.

We are all different, therefore the same. Trust me.

For the first time since Michael Owen, Manchester United are starting a season without a player wearing the number 7 shirt. In the end it took a neat side-step from Antonio Valencia (which is funny, ‘cus he doesn’t do that anymore) to consign the shirt to Albert Morgan’s sewing box for the foreseeable future. There it lays in unexpected, sacrosanc hibernation, all set to rise forth from it’s tomb into Albert’s thimbled grasp, thence to be emblazoned with the name of a maverick superstar of mythical repute, when the transfer window next creaks ajar (which is funny, ‘cus that won’t happen) (none of these things in brackets are funny).

Fans of certain clubs, like certain numbers: Newcastle fans like 9s because of the finest player to wear the shirt, Andy Cole and some others – much less interesting – I’ve never heard of. Southampton fans like 3s because of Franny Benali. And Liverpool are just way too easy a target for these shirt lols.  The list goes on and on, I’m sure – if you can be bothered to look. At United though, all of our shirt numbers have been worn by the best players that have ever played, so all are special: all could be retired in honour of any number of players. However, provided we conveniently forget the number 22, it’s the number 7 with which we are most enamoured.

In the days when players were more than just a number, it was George Best who originally made the number 7 a star. No longer would it represent a point in a numerically ordered list of names selected to take to the field for their club on a given match day, and simply denote the position traditionally referred to as outside right, and then latterly right winger, which eventually became more commonly regarded as the right midfielder –  it now was George Best, a metaphor of sorts, or is it an anthropomorphism? (as long as there’s long words in here, the accuracy of the meaning is perfunctory – I’m a blogger, that’s what we do)

Via lots of other players that no-one mentions, and Steve Coppell and Bryan Robson, the number 7 completed its spiritual journey when it came to rest on Eric’s changing room peg. The timing of this celestial alignment – as sweatshop polyester entwined with dark, steely tendrils of gallic chest hair at just the same time as the Premier League first introduced the squad numbering system – meant Eric would become the first player to officially claim ownership of the number, and own it he did.

Once this line was drawn, the number 7 became a strong motif for a new generation of football fans and David Beckham was keen to deflect in this glory: he took the number 7 after having decided the ’10′ he swapped for his ’24′ wasn’t the right fit for his pretensions. What David Beckham understood though, as a fan of the club, was ‘what it was’ to wear the number 7, and that made it alright. Fergie also understood the thing about the ’7′, and also understood that the CR7 branding would work less well in the future if Ronaldo would insist on wearing his preferred ’28′, and so shoved him into the shirt kicking and screaming (that’s funny ‘cus, etc…).

On the flipside, Fergie also oversaw Michael Owen’s sullying of the scared garm (perhaps pointing to an expectation that Fergie had in Owen that was never realised) and Valencia’s self-appropriated failure to live up to expectations – real or imagined.

There’s something, I think, that all the players who played in the number 7 shirt under Fergie have in common: Eric, a player with a disruptive reputation, joined off the back of a chance phone conversation; David Beckham was one of the collective youth that Fergie put his faith in; Ronaldo, a ‘light-weight show-pony’, was bought hurriedly after the United players wouldn’t shut up about him and other clubs had got wind; Michael Owen was a punt (I said punt) on an out-of-contract, out-of-form, ‘has-been’; Valencia was a relatively little known player from ‘lowly Wigan’, charged with replacing one of the best players in the word. In one way or another, they all represented something of a gamble (beyond the usual risk involved in the transfer of players). The successful outcomes though far outweighed the not so, and as Fergie himself recently noted (in the Harvard interview), his gambling instincts have played an integral part in his success at the club.

And so, when Moyes – coming a little out of leftfield – offered Nani a new long-term contract, I was excited. Not because of any lingering affection I have for Nani particularly (though I do have a bit), but because to me it represents a risk; taking a chance on a player whose bags were already in the taxi, backing a player who kicks all the right notes, just in the wrong order, a player – it would appear – Moyes has boldly chosen to believe in (at least for the immediate future). It’s a positive move, and at odds with some of the less inspiring (bordering on maddening) manoeuvres Moyes and the club have made during this, the gestation period of ’the new era’. Moyes has certainly not been given the job off the back of his reputation to roll the dice, and it’s hardly cause to ‘strap ourselves in’, but I think it provides an indication, a shaft of light, that he’s not entirely risk averse – which I was beginning to wonder about.

For now then, the number 7 needs some bedrest, some time to erase the trauma of the last few years. Then, when Moyes has got a season under his belt and developed his card game sufficiently, he can continue the legacy of the number 7 in the proper manner … by handing it to Adnan (that’s Januzaj to you non-United lot. Get used to hearing that name. Yeah, that told yer).

This post was originally featured on By Far The Greatest Team

I was asked a couple of years back which other player Danny reminded me of the most and, without pausing for breath, I replied: “Henry” because he did … a little bit. It was met with such unexpectedly high levels of derision that, to save face; to pretend I wasn’t wounded – and that in fact I felt I should be the one laughing at them, not the other way around; that they were the ones who’d gotten it so catastrophically wrong – I had no choice: no choice but to forego my usual equanimity.  From that point onwards, where Danny was concerned, I went dark; darker even than that: fluorescent dark, I’m talking real messed up. I trained myself to make reference to Danny’s similarities with Henry whenever there was the slightest hint of one, and especially where there wasn’t; the obscurer the better. I was the saline drip (Oi! Who said without the saline?!) of the Welbeck Trust, slowly administering the comparison into their bloodstream. The problem was, these other people were armed with antibodies and things; things like facts and evidence and strong opinions and relatively well articulated arguments, not to mention bitterness, bad manners and I’m pretty sure I saw all of them steal from the ‘dogs for the blind’ box at the bar – and so you see, being as I am, oil to their water – armed with only love and hope – I had no choice.

If anyone so much as owned, let alone raised, an eyebrow when Danny was unfortunate enough to have mistimed an attempt on goal on account of all that overt dynamicness (“scuffed a pea-roller harmlessly wide from eight yards”), they’d have me coming at ‘em like a distressed seagull (only with a beard and therefore more handsome): “YOU REALLY THINK HENRY SCORED EVERY TIME HE TOOK  A SHOT?! WELL DO YOU?! ANSWER ME?!” I’d say, but cleverer than that and with some longer words in it, I don’t remember which ones, it’s not important. Friends. Family. Children. Pets. Inanimate objects. Objects. Lists of objects. No-one or nothing was gonna have a bad word to say about Danny with Henry getting away with it. All the time I was crossing my fingers under the table – hoping that I just had to wait it out.

Loving Danny is easy, ‘cus he’s beautiful. I love Danny to bits. Loads of United fans do. Some don’t, but that’s something they’ll grow out of, so long as they can outrun the released hounds. It’s a no-brainer. He’s stockpiling boxes for us to tick as we speak. However, it’s not traitorous to note that his finishing has lacked the consistency we’d all perhaps wished he’d have by now and that when in full slalom, the ball occasionally intertwines itself betwixt his feet more by happy accident than design. When you’ve fallen in love with someone though, these little things are nothing more than adorable idiosyncrasies: “It’s no biggy Danny, we still love yer,” we whisper into our cups of tea.  Besides, we’ve all seen enough of Danny’s finishing, when it is more instinctive, or of confident mind, and enough penetrating runs with the ball absolutely in control, to recognise these as mere wrinkles that he’ll iron out over time, rather than something terminal.

Those people I used to hang out with have since moved on to sit at a different table in the pub, and so with Danny in the ascendancy, and receiving praise from all corners this summer, I thought I’d reiterate my feelings regarding the Henry comparison on Twitter, to see if I could recruit some digital allies. The abuse was swift, stealth like; amongst it a couple of death threats (hastily retracted) and some jip from United fans: “#Idiotz lik u giv us a bad gnome…”, etc. My tweet went something like this (actually, this is it verbatim): “Danny is better than Henry was when he first moved to Arsenal. Henry moved to Arsenal when he was 22 years old.”  The implication being, that, in my opinion (already implied in being posted from my Twitter account), Danny is better than Henry was – and this is the key part – when Henry FIRST moved to Arsenal. Also implicit in the comparison, is that the two players’ ages are the same, at the point of their respective careers being referred to: Danny now, Henry then.  So it’s not entirely impossible for me to stretch my imagination and picture Danny getting somewhere close to achieving the amazing things that Henry has. It was a compliment to Henry. Of course, we don’t see tweets as they are, but as we are.

Inevitably I was also inundated with more of those ‘things’ – all up in my chops again. The things like facts and that. So, I thought I’d try some of that there research myself; yuck. And yet. And yet…

Y’know, it turns out, Henry scored just three goals in sixteen games for Juventus, the season before he joined Arsenal, after being asked to play ‘out of position’ as a winger (sounds familiar). Combining this with his scoring record for Monaco – and therefore encompassing his professional career to that point – his goals tally was just above one in every five games. So, if we then cross-reference this with Danny’s goal tally up to this point (not including the two against Swansea) it’s … oh … wait … just above one in five. There’s more … the internet stores this stuff – who knew?! Just before moving to Arsenal, Henry had broken into the French national side and, on his first appearance at a major tournament, finished as their top scorer. Danny happened to make the ‘step up’ to international level much earlier in his career than Henry, relatively speaking, and … oh … wait … also became his national side’s top scorer in his first major tournament. Hey, that wasn’t so bad.

With regards to Henry: I wasn’t that convinced by him at first, and I know that Arsenal fans I was friends with at the time (reluctantly and probably under duress and certainly never in public places), felt the same. He was seen as something of a ‘poor man’s’ replacement for he-of-the-upside-down-smile, who was Real bound having burned Wenger’s cookies once too often. He proved me, and a lot of other people, wrong. That first season he went on to score 26 goals, no mean feat; especially in light of the fact that he initially took time to settle. The rest is Premier League history. I think, scooched in next to Eric, Scholesy and Giggsy, Henry rightly takes his seat in the pantheon of Premier League stars.  I would have absolutely loved him at United. The point being though (it’s in here somewhere), that a career viewed retrospectively, with the benefit of hindsight, does not my comparison quash.

Course, it’s not that I really think Danny is the new Henry: Henry is Henry, Danny is Danny. When I first made the comparison, it was to do with something about the way they both collected the ball – with a similar physicality – and shifted it on; something about the positions they took up; something about the runs they made; something about the types of shots they shape for. But more, it was something about wanting Danny to realise his potential and become one of the best players the Premier League has ever seen, and that is what it’s always been about.

I’ve put a bet on Danny winning Player of the Year, not because I necessarily think he will – though I do necessarily think he will – but because he makes me feel giddy; he gives me hope. As I’ve written before, hope is seen by some as a negative, as delusional, but I see hope as a catalyst, a stimulant, that inspires to better things, and so, I really hope that in fourteen years time we’re talking about Danny Welbeck in the same breath as Thierry Henry.