Wes Tender

Credit to Cortese for bringing in Markus Liebherr to buy us initially and also credit to him for the excellent progress that we made under him. Bu ultimately we can now see that since he has gone, we have not only remained as good as we were under his stewardship, we have progressed beyond most peoples' expectations. All those in the media who shrilly predicted that Katharina Liebherr wanted to sell the club have egg all over their faces. We owe her a debt of gratitude for the progess we have made under her

Charlie

Surely the vast majority of fans in your Manchester office are City supporters. Most of the United supporters will be in areas like Bucks.

Agreed. The usual analogy that it's a marathon not a sprint hasn't changed. But we're at the halfway mark, just behind the two front runners and moving up the field.

I suspect that he made his own decision of his own volition, which just happens to coincide with yours, rather than agreeing with you. I doubt that he even knows of your existence

Fantastic! Superb tactically from Koeman, who out-thought the supposed maestro Van Gaal. Great discipline from the players, who carried out the plan brilliantly. Good to have Clyne back to balance both sides out wide and deny United the width. Shaw and Valencia are their skilled pacey wide players, but Clyne and Bertrand had the pace and skill to ensure that they were running down blind-alleys. Then they only had the option of attacking down the middle where we had the rocks that are Wanyama, Schneiderlin and Davis. Typically of most United managers who lose to opposition deemed to be well below them in ability, Van Gaal couldn't be gracious and admit that we were the better team, he had to insinuate that they dominated us, despite having no shots on target against us. Usually the printed media and TV pundits would agree, but the tide is turning and they are starting to view us as genuine contenders for a CL place, so instead of concentrating quite so much on what United did wrong, they are beginning to emphasise what we did right. It is being highlighted that we have the best defence in the division and asked what wouldn't Chelsea, United, Arsenal, City, Liverpool give to have one like ours? Although United have one of the most potent attacks in the League with World class strikers, (so much so that one of them had to be left out), that is innefective if they cannot get the service. Looking at it beforehand, it was clearly a case that we had the better defence and arguably the better midfield too, so there was always a chance that we would prevail if we could keep Rooney, Van Persie and Di Maria quiet. Mata was the other threat, but he was contained by Wanyama, Schneiderlin and Davis, who were magnificent. He did come into his own when United had dropped Van Persie and replaced him with the donkey Fellaini and they had to resort to hoofball. Ridiculous to see somebody like Van Gaal and a team like United playing hoofball and a sign of their desperation that they had to resort to it, but it was the most effective they had been and perhaps we were fortunate that Mata's finishing was below par. On the other hand, we did ourselves have a couple of opportunities to have scored and ought to have been awarded at least one penalty for the shirt-pulling by Smalling on Pelle.This is getting so bad currently that there perhaps ought to be some possibility of a retrospective punishment for it, especially as it is sometimes punished in a match by a penalty. But the referee was clearly not going to award a penalty against United at Old Trafford. Maybe Pelle is too honest in staying on his feet and ought to go down, like all the cheating bastards do whenever our players barely touch them. It was also commented on by Neville during the match (excellent punditry), that United's players went down looking for the free-kick whenever there was the merest contact. We have a couple who do that too and perhaps referees should be a bit harder in their interpretation of what constitutes a foul. Having taken these 7 points against Chelski, the Arse and United, we have no need to fear anybody. The difficult run of fixtures over the festive period is now virtually over and now we have a less daunting run to come. I won't say easier, as any team is capable of beating any other on their day, but provided we maintain this belief and discipline and don't suffer injuries and suspensions to key players, it looks very good for us. Interesting to note that Schneiderlin's stock continues to rise after a masterful display. Now it becomes clear that if United wish to replace us in the top four, they need players like him. And Wanyama. And Clyne. And Tadic.

Brave of you to risk the derision of Fry and Dorkish by expressing an opinion contrary to the perceived wisdom of such towering intellects as theirs. It can't be long if you persist in arguing your viewpoint that you will be labelled as thick, or of talking b*llocks. What we thickos fail to realise is how grossly unfair it would be for the wealthiest club in World football to have to say to their fans, look, we can only sell season tickets to 90% of you instead of the 96% that we are currently allowed to offer. Fry seems to believe that the main problem with altering the current rules is his touching concern for the fans of Man United who might be inconvenienced by having to face up to the humiliation that they would have to allow the same percentage of away fans into their stadium as they are allowed to send to away matches, even if the situation would not arise very often. Now, I'm not sure how up to date the figures are currently, but as of last April, they had 55,000 ST holders, so plenty of scope to introduce this change if the authorities had the guts to do it. I expect that the situation regarding the expansion of OT might possibly have preceded this attendance ruling, in which case it could be that whereas the previous capacity was not so out of kilter with others, the subsequent expansion of an additional 8000 or more seats in the past 8/9 years has rendered the ruling obsolete and high time that it was revised. But as the revision of the ruling would take away the advantage that is currently held by the biggest clubs with the most vested interests and therefore the most influence, I won't hold my breath.

OK then, you're in denial. That's altogether to be expected. But I'm sure that other posters will make allowances in future.

Read up on your condition here http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/npd.htm, recognise that you have a problem and then go and seek professional advice.

Nor mine. But let him believe he is right, so as not to antagonise his condition (NPD)

You should have taken them to the nearest Police Station. That is the obvious place that somebody would go to to look for them if they had lost them.

I refer the right-dishonourable "gentleman" to the reply I gave earlier

When you gain wisdom and maturity with age, you will realise that there are some things that one is unlikely to change on one's own. You might find these sage words from St Francis helpful;_ “Lord, grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Changing arbitrary decisions like this falls into the category of the first line, as does expecting you to adopt a more adult posting style.

As I accept yours

No.

Yes

I read that and found it very interesting. Our Ron certainly believes in himself and if he can inspire the same belief into our players, then there is the possibility of a top four finish, which would have been inconceivable before he arrived.

MLG made some perfectly reasonable points, but you have had to resort to puerile insults instead of responding civilly. It says a lot about you, but also suggests that maybe these forums aren't for you if you can't control yourself.

He's made all the right noises in that interview and comes across well with the right attributes for us. As was said, if Koeman didn't think that he could get the best out of him, then he would not have signed him.

:lol: Man of the Match every time he plays.

As you say, Fry doesn't do himself any favours with his snide and infantile style one day and his supercilious, condescending mode the next. But he naturally finds that far easier than having to make salient points and then debate them like an adult. Where some dismiss this 10% or 3000 ruling as not being arbitrary, they ignore the other meaning of the word which describes it accurately as a decision taken by an autocratic, authoritarian body, which the governing body of football most certainly is. It's brave of you to agree that it gives the big clubs an advantage, as you risk being charges with talking horsesh*t, bowlocks, etc. We are never going to need more than 3000 places at OT on a Sunday at 4pm when the match is on the telly, but even if the timing of the match and other circumstances meant that we could need more than the 3000, it is not available. But all well and good to cite examples of clubs five hours drive away and ignore the more relevant ones like Burnley, right on United's doorstep, or Crystal Palace or Fulham (when they were in the PL) and Arsenal, West Brom and Aston Villa. A very good point you raise about the influence that a vociferous home crowd can have over refereeing decisions, but we're assured by The9 that there is no tangible, empirically proven value to having fans at a match to begin with,

Close the thread. The 9 tells us that there is no empirically proven value to having fans at a match, so any discussion on how the atmosphere can be improved is rendered completely pointless. He has examples of a couple of matches to prove it. I'm amused that my logic is deemed to be all over the place following my reading of your other contribution above this last one, when some of the points that you made were quite frankly bizarre. But then again, am I right in recalling that it was you who went on and on moaning about the Car Parking policy laid down by Cortese, when it was perfectly possible to park for free just across the road from the stadium in the adjacent industrial estate? My apologies if I got you mixed up with somebody else.

As I said, no empty seats required, as any that we didn't take would be filled by home fans. Where's the advantage? If you feel that there is little or no advantage in having one's fans at an away match to cheer the team on, then naturally you will fail to see the advantage. If however you think that having your own fans at a match increases the chances of gaining a result, then it follows logically that the more fans you have at the match, the better the atmosphere they will create and the more encouragement the team will receive. Then it is only a short leap of imagination to realise that having 10% of the stadium comprising our fans, is going to be much better than having only 5%. This thread is about how we can create a Kop end at St Mary's. It suggests that an increase of vociferous support at one end of the stadium will benefit the team. But as you see no advantage from having as many of your own supporters at a match as possible, then in your eyes the thread is presumably a bit pointless.

Congratulations on a spectacular misunderstanding of what I wrote. Quite where you got the idea from that United would have to set aside 7000 (actually 7500 is 10%) empty seats is quite beyond me. I merely suggested that 10% of the stadium's capacity should be available to away fans, across the board. Of course if that allocation was not required by the visiting club's fans, then those seats would be available to the home crowd. I note above that we sold out of our allocation of Arsenal tickets, presumably the 3000 maximum allowed by this daft ruling. Had we wished to take more, then we should have been allowed to take anything up to 6000, or 10% of their capacity. As it was, we were only allowed just under 5%, whilst they were able to fill 10% of our stadium. In case that is not clear, I am not proposing that any seats we did not take would remain empty, merely that we should have been allowed more than the 3000 had we wanted them. It really is quite simple as to what constitutes a fair situation - the away fans have 10% of the ground's capacity if they require it. It is the limiting restriction of the 3000 maximum that gives the big clubs an unfair advantage.

Congratulations for going off on even more of a tangent by introducing Man Utd's worldwide support of plastic fans into the equation. This is quite an upgrade on Fry with his red herring of our catchment area. In order to gain some perspective into the discussion, it is necessary to concentrate on the more pertinent examples of the disparity of allocations that make the allocation of away fans numbers unfair. Regardless of whether we would normally expect to take more than 3000 fans to United is not the point. The point is that we are restricted to that 4% there, rather than to the 10% of our capacity that they have here. The more glaring examples are not of teams having to travel the length of the country, but those within a short distance away from each other, where the expectations of larger away attendances are greatly increased. We usually have good attendances at the London Clubs and the problem isn't so great with West Ham, Spurs and Crystal Palace, or previously Fulham, which are not that much different in capacity to us. But our allocation for Arsenal and Chelsea should be 10%, not 3000. If we failed to take the full allocation at Arsenal of 6000 tickets, or 4100 at Chelsea, then what is the problem? We should still have the choice of taking that allocation if we wanted to. But why should Crystal Palace fans not be able to have more than 3000 seats at venues virtually on their doorstep? Other notable discrepancies are West Brom compared to Aston Villa, Newcastle and Sunderland compared with Middlesbrough, and Liverpool, Everton and City compared to United, with the most glaring disparity of Burnley, who have to allow 10% of United's fans into their ground for a return of 4% of United's capacity. If you and Fry cannot see that this gives the bigger teams an unfair advantage in that at their grounds the proportion of away fans is much lower that theirs is away, then so be it.