The New 'Old Trafford'

The New "Old Trafford"

I would like to first of all say a very big HAPPY NEW YEAR to you guys.
Hope we all have our new years resolutions written down and have
already started defaulting on it as is the yearly ritual. Its funny how we
write a very long list of do's and dont's and only manage to follow
through on January 1st. Once its 2nd January its back to business as
usual. Well, personally after some years of failed new year's resolutions
I decided to call it quits. As the popular saying goes 'Doing the same
 thing over and over expecting new results is insanity'. So I guess you
can say that my new years resolution is  'not to act insane'.

Speaking of new year rituals. I had one ritual that I usually do at the
beginning of the season which like my new years resolutions no longer
holds. Not for the fear of insanely repeating the same event but simply
because things have changed. At the beginning of every season. I would
quickly go through a list of all the matches to be played, 'fearfully' mark one date
and cross it off 'shamefully' as a loss. That's the visit to the  dreaded
'coliseum of Nightmares' a.k.a. The Theater of Dreams.

Having seen team after team come to Old Trafford, play excellent football
and still fail to leave with anything. Just when teams thought they would
take something away from one of the worlds footballs true footballing
fortresses United would come from nowhere and snatch points from under
the oppositions nose. Those were the days when draws were extravagantly
celebrated as wins. Its all been replaced by a heightened sense of optimism
by opposition teams perfectly happy to attack a wounded animal.

This season another North West Team is instilling fear into the hearts of visiting
fans and as 'most' would agree (excluding the die hard united faithfuls)
Manchester City has given a lot of managers sleepless nights and broken the
hearts of a lot of fans this season.

I would suggest the Etihad be renamed 'New Trafford' just to keep up with
the tradition. The Noisy Neighbors have won every home league game
with an average of four goals a game. Not to forget the ever increasingly
intimidating squad of Manchester City 'Gladiators'. There really should be
a limit to the number of top footballers in a team. I mean City's bench has
more quality talents than most first teams in the league.

Coming from an Arsenal fan, you can understand that I have not yet recovered
from the six 'knife wounds' to my heart dealt by Aguero, Negredo, Silva, Yaya Toure
and fernandinho. But on a more serious note, with most teams piling up injuries like
sand on the beach, this city run might just be a sign of things come.

Finally, no one can rule out further additions to the already talented squad considering the infinitely deep pockets of the ever smiling Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan this January. I just pity the teams who are yet to visit the Etihad(New Trafford) there will be in for probably the longest 90 minutes of their careers.

Till next time guys, Stay TRUE to the BEAUTIFUL GAME.