Tag: Manchester United

Manchester United & The Filleting of Louis Van Gaal

Manchester United & The Filleting of Louis Van Gaal

Posted by | May 24, 2016 | , | 0

We’re all detectives this morning, trying to figure out who is leaking stories from Old Trafford. Within an hour of the end of Saturday evening’s FA Cup final, the news that Louis Van Gaal’s time as the manager of Manchester United was coming to an end became public knowledge, followed nanoseconds later by the unofficial confirmation that Jose Mourinho would be replacing him. Since then, the first half of this story has come to be officially confirmed, and it’s likely that the second part will be in the next couple of days. The British press, which has been openly...

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The 2016 FA Cup Final: More By Accident Than Design

The 2016 FA Cup Final: More By Accident Than Design

Posted by | May 22, 2016 | , | 0

In the space of four minutes at Wembley Stadium yesterday afternoon, we saw a microcosm of Alan Pardew’s managerial career. There had been the solid adherence to an unadventurous plan which had worked reasonably well. Then there was a moment of fleeting success, which was followed by a show of hubris that bordered on the ridiculous, and then the puncturing of that hubris, swiftly followed by a low national snigger. It wasn’t that the neutral hates Crystal Palace, more that Alan Pardew being there makes loving them less than as straightforward as it should be, especially when they’re playing...

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Video of the Day: The 1995 FA Cup Final

Video of the Day: The 1995 FA Cup Final

Posted by | May 20, 2016 | | 0

The 1994/95 season was not especially kind to Manchester United. Having won the league and cup double at the end of the previous season, they started as the favourites to regain their crown, but a financially plumpened Blackburn Rovers pipped them to that particular title with a team led by Alan Shearer and Chris Sutton which could even afford to lose their last match of the season as Manchester United also lost theirs, at West Ham United. With the League Cup having been won by Liverpool, who had beaten Bolton Wanderers in the final of that competition, this was...

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Video of the Day: The 1983 FA Cup Final

Video of the Day: The 1983 FA Cup Final

Posted by | May 19, 2016 | | 0

Younger readers of this website – presuming there are any, and there may well not be – could be forgiven for wondering why those of us in our forties or over get so misty-eyed about the FA Cup final. After all, this is just a domestic trophy. It doesn’t carry the pan-continental gravitas of the Champions League or the marathon-esque slog of the Premier League – why should they care about a trophy that seems to belong in the last century? This evening’s FA Cup final is an attempt to explain. The FA Cup final was an event, and...

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Video of the Day: West Ham United vs Manchester United, April 1992

Video of the Day: West Ham United vs Manchester United, April 1992

Posted by | May 9, 2016 | | 0

West Ham United finally say adieu to The Boleyn Ground this week, and they do so with a home league match against a team from the other end of the country against whom they have had more than a few tete-a-tetes over the years, Manchester United. There was a period when West Ham seemed to delight in denying Manchester United major trophies, and perhaps one of the most famous victories of this period came at The Boleyn Ground at the end of April 1992. It had been a quarter of a century since Manchester United had last been the...

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