Manchester United vs Aston Villa: December 12 2009

Sad! We could have overtaken Chelsea, but its ok. I did not watch the match again. But I did see the highlights. Wish Giggs was better with his ball control when he was free. Also, wish the regular strikers had played! Once again!!! TOO MUCH ROTATION! We must have regulars. We cannot have jack of all trade kind of footballers. It works with weak teams, but not with teams that have a definite structure to their play! I wish Fergie stops doing that. It is only going to screw everything up. It is nice to have a big squad with everyone prepared to play. But it does dilute the effectiveness of the team on the field. After all, at a given time we cannot have more than 11 players on the field! Anyways, I am sure we will be back.

Wolfsburg vs Manchester United: Wednesday 9 December 2009

Happy they won. Very happy Owen got a hat-trick too. He deserves it. A thing about Fergie's selection policies. I know it seems crazy to criticize something that the entire world has always looked upon as great. However, I do feel he makes some glaring mistakes with his rotation policy. And this has been happening a lot over the past 2 years. Mixing up the teams is good. Having all rounders who can play anywhere is good. However, I do believe you must have a fixed best-team lineup. Having people who can play in many positions in good only in crisis situations. But everyone must have a "special" place, where they are trained to fit in that role. And even the formation.

Look at what happened in the final against Barcelona. Anderson and Carrick played together. For quite a few matches before that, I don't think they every played together. Then how can one expect them to bond and gel all of a sudden. You don't experiment during a final. You do all the experimentation before the final. And during the final, you send out your best team possible.

Often, I feel he does the rotation simply to keep all players satisfied. However, he is losing out on players like Nani because of this. Nani needs a run of at least 10 matches. Where he plays close to 90 minutes everytime! And most people need that anyway. Chopping and changing in the name of squad rotation is just not optimal I would say.

And I seriously wish Fergie gets both Fabio and Rafael to play! Otherwise both of them are just going to leave! It is not good to shield them from the big matches. They will learn only when they play in the big matches and maybe even mess up once or twice. I have a feeling that Fergie will keep shielding them and when Neville finally retires (I may be dead by then), he will eventually end up over-paying for a defender from somewhere else.

Manchester United vs West Ham: Sat 05 Dec 2009

Nice performance. Did not watch the match myself but saw the highlights. Giggs is evergreen. Don't know who can ever replace him. Still wish Berbatov/Owen had played though. Nani too. I think he should get a lot more games. He is really a fantastic player, needs more confidence! What about Fabio and Rafael??? Unless they play in the big games, they are never going to get experience. Finally Fergie will end up over-spending on some right back! Hope the youngsters do not get lost!