- Joined
- Wednesday August 26, 2009
- Location
- New Forest, England.
Canuck said:Why the negativity? I'll try to answer that for you Peter... There's lots of reasons to dislike United, but perhaps the biggest is the approach of some of their fans, manager, and even some ex players when it comes to slating other clubs and upholding various myths, they can be very much the underhand spin machine at times. They're usually the first club to criticise other teams over various issues where they're on shaky ground to start with, I'll give a few examples:
1) Cantona recently criticised City and Chelsea, stating that United build up a squad from the youth programme whereas teams like City and Chelsea merely buy the best players. It's patent rubbish as both blue clubs have strong youth programmes (City's academy beat Barca's academy last week). United's youth set up is excellent, but with the hype from Cantona et al, you'd think 5 of any starting 11 were United youth projects when it's nearer 1 or 2 depending on selection.
2) You'd think that with this youth squad myth that United have never spent a penny. United's starting 11 against Tottenham cost 4 million pounds more than City's starting 11 in the same fixture. Again, the Old Trafford myth machine swings into action.
3) They're massively in debt yet (again) criticise other clubs for spending too much money.
4) The public press manipulation. Ferguson's BBC ban, the Chilean miners visit, Ferguson criticising the FA and referees at every chance he gets (which ensures he gets treated with kid gloves)... more spin than a labour Government. I see Dalglish is trying the latter tactic now as well.
Speaking of spin, United fans were recently very vocal about City not selling out their first Champions League fixture last week, when in fact City very nearly sold out, the 1000 or so empty seats were made up of Napoli and UEFA's allocation that were not taken up. United by the way had embarrassingly low Champions League attendances for their first year in the competition, but their fans are somehow in a position to criticise. (35,000 for United V Honved in 1993 when the Old Trafford capacity was 45,000). The PR machine rolls on.
As I say Peter, there are lots of reasons why not everyone shares your love of United, hopefully that gives you a snapshot of a couple off the top of my head.
I'll balance this by saying that Ferguson IS a master tactician and United are an extremely good footballing side that seem to have a certain aura about them that is hard to take down, so whereas I admittedly hate the club with a passion, I respect the current team and the manager.
antdad said:Hernandez and his father are national heros in Mexico, why the gripe about the visit? Sure, good PR for United but a chance in a lifetime for the miners, surely as a bitter blue you can't begrudge them that?
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