Wednesday, September 01, 2004
Rooney a Red...
Man Utd sign Rooney
Well, they went ahead and did it. Wayne Rooney, who Fergie calls "...the best young player [England] has seen in the past 30 years," signed for Manchester United from Everton for £27 million, a British record for a striker and teenager. ManU now has two of the four or five best teenagers in Europe in Rooney and Portuguese winger Cristiano Ronaldo.
So great -- they have a good base for the future. But what about today? Arsenal isn't going to disappear, neither is Chelsea (unless Abramovich gets bored and buys a cricket team or something). As it stands, I don't think they have the defense of Chelsea or the attack of Arsenal. Here is what we're looking at right now (my starters in bold):
GK
Howard
Carroll
Ricardo
DR
G. Neville
P. Neville
Brown
DL
Heinze
P.Neville
Fortune
DC
Ferdinand
Silvestre
O'Shea
Brown
Keane
Heinze
MR
Ronaldo
Bellion
Fletcher
ML
Giggs
Ronaldo
Richardson
MC
Keane
Scholes
P. Neville
Fletcher
Djemba-Djemba
Kleberson
Miller
FC
van Nistelrooy
A. Smith
Rooney
Saha
Solskjaer
I imagine Rooney will play every other game or so for the next couple years, leaving the heavily in-form Smith (who I imagine would be a better partner for Ruud anyway) a good shot at a consistent run in the first team.
Well, they went ahead and did it. Wayne Rooney, who Fergie calls "...the best young player [England] has seen in the past 30 years," signed for Manchester United from Everton for £27 million, a British record for a striker and teenager. ManU now has two of the four or five best teenagers in Europe in Rooney and Portuguese winger Cristiano Ronaldo.
So great -- they have a good base for the future. But what about today? Arsenal isn't going to disappear, neither is Chelsea (unless Abramovich gets bored and buys a cricket team or something). As it stands, I don't think they have the defense of Chelsea or the attack of Arsenal. Here is what we're looking at right now (my starters in bold):
GK
Howard
Carroll
Ricardo
DR
G. Neville
P. Neville
Brown
DL
Heinze
P.Neville
Fortune
DC
Ferdinand
Silvestre
O'Shea
Brown
Keane
Heinze
MR
Ronaldo
Bellion
Fletcher
ML
Giggs
Ronaldo
Richardson
MC
Keane
Scholes
P. Neville
Fletcher
Djemba-Djemba
Kleberson
Miller
FC
van Nistelrooy
A. Smith
Rooney
Saha
Solskjaer
I imagine Rooney will play every other game or so for the next couple years, leaving the heavily in-form Smith (who I imagine would be a better partner for Ruud anyway) a good shot at a consistent run in the first team.
