Musings of a Curious Mind

Fifteen days into the season, three premier league matches, a league cup match later, and United are still without a win. The same team which cantered to the championship in 2012-13 are struggling to beat teams which have otherwise never be discussed in the same breath as them. A top four finish looks well and truly beyond them. Two hundred million pounds have been spent and a manager has been sacked, but United seem to have lost it all. And today, against Burnley, it could and should have been worse for United. If only Burnley had a couple of quality attackers, the scoreline instead of being 0-0, could easily have been similar to the one we witnessed on Tuesday night.               With United’s newest sixty million pound buy Angel di Maria starting, there was new found hope for the fans. And even with suggestions pouring in from pundits for a reversal to a 4-3-3 or a 4-2-3-1, Van Gaal persisted with the 3-5-2. And the results were horrific. Time ...

What difference a month makes. On 21st July, we had an Indian bowler bouncing out English batsmen in their own backyard. Fast forward to 17th August, and India had just succumbed to their third worst defeat in 80 years of test cricket. And yes, it took England just 2 and a half days to inflict this humiliation. Even after accounting for England’s performance in test cricket over the last year( humiliation by Johnson and the loss to Sri Lanka at home), no one expected India to win the series. But what hurt fans the most, was the abject surrender and the complete lack of fire in the belly. Apart from Dhoni, there was simply no one else who wanted to fight it out in the middle. A five test series separates the men from the boys, and with this performance, Kohli and co. just showed that they are yet to make the switch from prodigious talents to world beaters. The reasons for this reversal in fortune in the last month can be attributed to the four Ts- Technique, Temperament, Tactics, ...

Swansea had never won a league match at Old Trafford. United had never lost the opening home fixture since 1972. United had won all their pre season friendlies. So,when a certain Mr Brendan Rogers commented a few days back that Louis Van Gaal will be surprised by the quality and depth of the premier league teams, the manager who has won the league in Spain, Germany and Netherlands, as well as the UEFA Champions League, must have dismissed the comment as a deliberate mind game on Rogers' part. But, at the end of 90 minutes against the Swans to kick off the premier league, Van Gaal was in for a rude shock. And by the end of 90 minutes, it seemed nothing has changed from the Moyes era. And like the 4-1 victory against Swansea in last year's opening match, this 1-2 defeat was also termed "business as usual" by most pundits. Just that the meaning of "business as usual" had a 180 degree change as far as United are concerned. With 9 players including Van Persie ...