Wednesday 3 December 2008

This Week's United Reader

I've been away for a while, and have therefore been having to feed my United addiction by means only of my RSS reader. Here, then, is an extended list of the things that I have enjoyed reading the most recently, and which I urge you to go off and peruse for yourselves.

EDIT: Please also note the new "You should read" box in the sidebar, which will serve as an ongoing, constantly updated way for me to point you in the direction of the best United and other football content I come across on the web. More detail to follow in a separate post shortly.

1. Enjoy a fortifying dose of Schadenfreude by reading this Chelsea fan's lament about why Fergie was right. I particularly want to compliment the measured, objective tone of the author - these are qualities which I really value in the often unbearably tribal world of football blogs and forums, and when I want an opinion on something Chelsea I will look there first in future. (Hat tip: Scott at RoM)

2. It appears I am not alone in championing Michael Carrick - Stretty Rant is of the same view.

3. Against my better judgment, the game of "what will happen when Fergie goes" is one of my favourites. So I particularly enjoyed this piece, again from Stretty Rant about whether he should stay in an upstairs capacity.

4. Ronaldo wins Ballon d'Or special:

a) Barney Ronay at the Guardian summarises my view of Ronaldo perfectly, and should be read even by those who are less than impressed by his antics.

b) I also detected some welcome thawing towards Ronaldo from two other presitigious United bloggers, Scott and Red Ranter.

On a personal note, I have made my position on Ronaldo clear before (here and here) and I am delighted for the boy - on the field, he was without question the best player in the world last season, and it would have been a scandal if anyone else had won this award.

I also happen to agree entirely with Ronaldo's comments, quoted in Scott's post, about the effect of the media - as always, it has been build 'em up, tear 'em down, and stamp on them harder if they're foreign. Although I also agree that, by teasing the media and trying to use them for his own ends over the summer, Ronaldo has brought a lot of this on himself. A truism of dealing with the media is that the media hate being manipulated - no matter how clever you are, if you try to use them they will have their revenge, redoubled in spades.

5. Finally, Danny Taylor (also at the Guardian, which happens to have been on good form recently) gives some very welcome press coverage to the way the City fans (who exceeded all expectations at the Munich anniversary game last season) reverted disgustingly to type at the weekend.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

welcome back penguin, hope u r here for a while now..

and really like the u shud read box, nice addn

Anonymous said...

Where have you been? Been checking your blog and very upset that you haven't update your blog. It's unforgivable!!!

Write us something next few days and we will talk about your forgiveness. ;)

Anonymous said...

Whilst Barney Ronay wrote a decent article, Paul Doyle wrote a retarded piece on why nothing is right with the world following Ronaldo winning the Ballon d'Or.

And regarding my thawing over Ronaldo, I have always rated him as a player and will continue to do so. It's his attitude that stinks, and his continued petulance of late does me no good. He'll have my full support as long as he's a United player, but that's about as far as I can go at the moment.

Anonymous said...

I want to ask how do you get that box?
I saw one of my posts 'the last word' on it and i am now wandering how to get that on my blog.
To see it click on my name!
Thanks

Anonymous said...

do you ever make new posts? all i see is apologies

Anonymous said...

Penguin where are you???
It's been painfully long...

Anonymous said...

is this blog dead???where r u penguin??????????

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