Manchester United Player Profiles : Mikael Silvestre

Mikael Silvestre signed for United on September 10th, 1999 from Inter Milan for a reported 3.5 million quid. Inter were his second club though, having started his career with French first division outfit Rennes. He did not enjoy the best of starts to his United career having a difficult first season but came on on leaps and bounds in his second season here. He made more than 50 appearances in the 2000-01 season as he began making his mark and earned SAF’s confidence.

There was no doubt Sir Alex Ferguson loved Silvestre’s attacking threat as much as his defensive skills. When played as a full-back Silvestre’s speedy run’s and dribbling skills gave United an extra attacking option, most noticeably against Panathinaikos when he ran 50 yards, past two defenders and set up a goal.

His excellent form at both centre-back and full-back attracted the attention of the National team who gave him his first cap for France at the Stade de France against Germany. Mikael even scored for France in Paris against Portugal in April in a 4-0 win. He also deservedly got his first goal for United at home to Leicester in March 2001. In 2001-2002, although the United defence was not the most solid, Silvestre was one of the few defenders who can be praised.

In 2002-2003 he played at centre back for a while alongside Wes Brown and has stated that this is his favourite position. But given United’s massive outlay on Rio Ferdinand, the French star found himself back on the left side when the £29 million man returned from injury. Silvestre had a fine season in 2003 and made his contribution in making sure the Champions had the best defensive record in the Premiership. Alongside Rio Ferdiand, he formed a rock solid partnership as Sir Alex switched Mikael into a central defensive role.

Yet, he ended the 2004-2005 season on an less than satisfactory note. The high point was undoubtedly scoring both goals in United’s 2-1 win over Liverpool but with Fergie often giving Wes Brown preference, there was now real competition for places in the United back-four. The Frenchman could take nothing for granted last year either, with Nemanja Vidic and Patrice Evra arriving to increase the pressure for first team places. However, an injury free season allowed Silvestre to start in 43 games and make 4 appearances as substitute.

Although competition for places at the back is higher than ever, Silvestre continues to be a valued member of the United squad and hopefully a lot more to come from him in a Red shirt.

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Manchester United vs. Everton Review

United eased to YET another win in the Premier League as Everton left Old Trafford with nothing but a sad face wondering what hit them. To be fair, the scoreline does flatter to deceive but how many teams have been complaining of late for not taking our chances and all. Justice is served in my opinion and it was coming sooner or later. The Toffees had it coming to them and we delivered the sucker punch when we needed to.

Fergie did surprise me enormously with the amount of changes he made. We virtually had a second-string midfield out there, not that they aren’t good enough, just that we haven’t had the best of outings whenever they’ve been playing recently. The likes of Richardson,  Fletcher and O’Shea did extremely well to adapt and find their feet soon enough. Although, United were a little slow off the foot but understandably so but like I said, the players settled and we got into our rhythum soon enough.

Ronaldo scored from a piledriver from 20 odd yards out before the break with Evra doubling the advantage after it. O’Shea made it 3-0 at the death, although Toffees did deserve better to be honest. So, the all-important three points in the bag and a trip to the Teeside awaits us this weekend. The Red Army go marching on!

Other Reports: BBC, Soccernet.

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Manchester United vs. Everton Preview

The Toffees come calling to Old Trafford in a mid-week game this week in the Premier League. The Toffees have enjoyed a good spell under the Scot Moyes and have developed into one of the much-improved Premiership outfits in recent times. Moyes, for once, is certainly one of those managers who’re hated in all corners of the country. So does he stand a chance when he brings his merseyside men to the Theatre Of Dreams?! I think not!

United ARE pretty dominant at home and fixtures like this are the perfect opporunity to stamp our authority back on that home record of ours, no disrespect to Everton ofcourse! A good scoreline here would consolodate our position at the top of the table so the ball is always in Chelski’s court in a way.

SAF will have some selection decisions to make, who to leave out and who to replace with and the like. I wouldn’t be surprised to see two or three changes here and there. All in all, a nice outfit that’s more than good enough to beat the Toffees would do.

My Preddy: United 2 - 0 Everton

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Manchester United Memorabilia

Turning our attention to matters off-field, here are some neat little memorabilia about United that are bound to draw your interest:

We start off with the good ol’ eBay! It has always proven to be a good place to look for bargains and items that you might not find anywhere else. A simple search in their ‘Sports Memorabilia‘ category for manchester united yields quite a lot of results. I know the items come and go in a whiz on eBay but the real gems are around for a while and you can take your time weighing in the competition before bidding at the last moment! The link is below.

eBay - Manchester United Memorabilia

Second, we turn to a pretty obvious but nevertheless an extensive resource for memorabilia on United, i.e., Yahoo! Shopping. Besides carrying links to other such resources on the web, they’ve got a pretty lengthy list of things that might be of interest to the potential buyer in you. Do check them out, the link is below:

Yahoo! Shopping - Manchester United Gear and Memorabiliahester%20United

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Reactions from the big game…

The mind games have apparently started already. So much that here I am talking about the reaction from our big game against Chelski once more. While Fergie is busy ruing his missed opportunities, Mr. Mourinho on the other hand has been putting up his usual annoyingly-noticeable arrogance on display for us once again by claiming the result was a positive one for Chelski.

Fergie said: “Between the two of us it is going to be nip and tuck and there won’t be a lot in it,” Ferguson said.

“But we have given ourselves an outstanding chance. It is a fantastic league and I’m just delighted my players have shown that they deserve to be where they are, no doubt about that.

“Maybe we could have scored more goals, but at the end of the day I’m pleased with the performance. I think this performance in such a high quality game shows them that we are probably the best team in the country at the moment.

“Now we have to step forward from that because becoming champions is about beating every team. Consistency is the name of the game.”

Although these post-match comments are more driven to wind the other side up and take the most positives, the fact remains that United held out firm to everything, as ugly as it was, Chelski threw at them. Let’s be clear about one thing though, Chelski played anything but pretty football and with that bugger Cashley Cole being driven mad by Ronaldo on the other end, we nearly scored the winner! So, yes to agree with Fergie, we did infact prove a point but three would’ve been magic.

Nevertheless, there is STILL a long way to go and both teams are likely to falter. The question remains who will falter more … ?

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Post-Chelsea Rant and Thoughts…

Yesterday was a really big day for us all, in terms of getting a fair amount of head-to-head stats on both United and Chelski, the only two sides capable of being Champions this year with Arsenal all but out now. First of all, how well did Saha take his goal?! Quite a brilliant finish from him, a left-foot shot curled across Carvalho and perfectly in the left corner! sublime! He didn’t waste much time getting over his dreadful miss in mid-week, did he?! Hats off to him for that and I sincerely hope he is fit and raring to go, although he did leave the field clutching his hamstring.

For all our early pressure, we failed to convert and although Saha did quite fantastic to hand us the lead, we has other chances to score which we sadly did not take. Their goal could be seen coming as soon as Webb blew for the second half to be honest and a point they did take and a point they did make at OT yesterday. Our lack of cover in the striking department is clearly exposed, with no one to take Saha’s place if he’s injured we need to call Rossi back! or better get Fernando Torres in! (highly unlikely though).

Although Howard Webb did ok yesterday, he did however allow one or two clattering tackles by the blue men to go unpunished although he still booked that diver Drogba, who did his best to take Vidic’s head off with that elbow of his! All in all a satisfying afternoon for the men in red but the time to strengthen is now Fergie! Hope you have some names shortlisted because we need cover bad because I have a feeling that Chelski will be breathing down our necks all the way to the end!

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Manchester United vs. Chelsea Review

So the big game is gone and we stand exactly where we were before, three points ahead of Chelski. I don’t mind that to be honest, given our second-half showing against that lot from London. They did rather well to scupper whatever possession we had after the interval and dare I say it, we were on the back foot!

In short, for most of the game we were made to watch two teams going at it using the physical approach. Although United were the first ones to attack and expectedly but the game soon settled and became a sort of a cagey affair with no real flow. It was a bright start from United, like I said, with Rooney and Ronaldo doing a lot of running initially.

The most telling contribution from Wayne Rooney came from his assist to Saha. A neat counter-attacking move saw Rooney thread an incisive pass onto Saha who, by now, was almost on the edge of the 10-yard box and with two defenders to beat, he took his time and sweetly curled a shot past Carvalho and the diving Cudicine with his left-foot to give us the lead! It was the perfect start and one that we thoroughly deserved having done all the running initially. Although we did come close to scoring on a couple of occassions but hardly tested Cudicini again in the first half.

It was a different game in the second half tbh, a game of two halves a perfect description of this one. Chelski appeared the more dominant side desperate to claw their way back into the game and that they did with Lampard the driving force in their midfield and United being forced to back peddle on occassions. I did not like what I saw but let’s be realistic for a second here, they are the Champions, and as much as I hate them … they are quality. And quality it was that forced United on the back-foot at OT.

Not many teams can do that, not unless you’re in CL quarters and semis. Their pressure did pay off and that bugger Carvalho struck from the corner and although it appeared Van der Sar would’ve gotten to his header had it not been deflected in by Saha, but I doubt he’d have been able to keep it out given the firmness with which Carvalho headed it. United got more of a foothold from there on in, and a number of chances fell to Ronaldo and Saha, but they were surprisingly their unclinical selves in front of goal.

So, a point it was which both teams shared and my prediction was spot on only until their equaliser went in. Nevertheles, Chelski did prove a point that they are no push-overs and they would not be de-throwned easily. Here’s hoping for more strength and depth in United come January!

Other Reports: BBC, Soccernet.

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