Enemies at the gates but Sir Alex knows how to keep them at bay
This week if ever has summed up the term ABU. The furore surrounding the Wayne Rooney elbow incident shows that when United are involved incidents are magnified tenfold and whilst he should have been shown a red at the time, the fact Clattenburg felt he dealt with it meant the episode should have been over.
Not likely.
You couldn’t look anywhere without hearing about it and whilst Ashley Cole shot someone Rooney’s incident still got more attention. As I said, by the letter of the law the matter was over yet people were still baying for Rooney’s blood and again whilst I don’t condone what he did the FA were right to absolve him of any case/charge.
Well for non United fans justice was to be served as we got some harsh decisions against us in the Chelsea game, decisions that impacted on the game’s result yet the people that were up in arms about the miscarriage of justice in the Rooney case were nowhere to be seen or heard.
I even heard some idiots saying it was karma for Rooney getting away with his elbow. Well if the game is to be governed by karma we may as well throw away the rule book! If a player fouls another player don’t bother show him a yellow who knows he may get an injury later. Sounds stupid doesn’t it? Because it is! The game has laws for a reason and unfortunately Atkinson didn’t follow them.
Of course in such an important match Sir Alex’s was angry at Atkinson’s inability to control the game and his comments were met with an FA charge. The fact Atkinson had an poor game (confirmed by former ref Dermott Gallagher and Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti) was clearly over looked! For all the talk of favouritism from refs, the media I can’t see how continue to flog that dead horse but after this week it’ll be forgotten and people will go back to those boring claims.
People showed delight in our loss to Chelsea and I can help but notice how people are making it out to be a forgone conclusion that in the absence of Rio and Vidic, we will lose to Liverpool and in turn Arsenal will pip us to the title but as I said it’s part and parcel of being United. Everything I have said Sir Alex has probably told the team though.
Instilling an ‘us vs them’ mentality in the team is part of the reason Sir Alex has been so successful for so long. Following Sir Alex’s complaint that we were playing Hull at 4pm on the Sunday before the Champions League final with Barcelona, Paul Wilson of the Guardian wrote,
“It is an old trick of management to create a siege mentality within a club, fostering the usefully motivational belief that the whole world is against you and everyone wants to see you lose… It is not an option for Ferguson, something that can be switched on or off. It is his natural defiance and competitiveness forming his outlook and defining his team.”
And Wilson is right, it isn’t something that can be switched on or off because as we’ve seen quite prominently this week there is a very strong anti United sentiment outside of the club. Wilson spoke of Sir Alex’s defiance and in his 25 years here he has continually defied those who want to see us fail. The best way to silence these people is with success and no one is more of a winner than he.
Arsenal’s slip up against Sunderland has already silenced some of the people that were enjoying our loss at the Bridge on Tuesday and the effect it would have on the title race but what better way to silence them completely by getting something, preferably 3 points, at Anfield?
I have very little doubt Sir Alex has posed this question to the players already.
Is this your calling?