mark wilson27

Results:
1/11: Champs League - H - Benfica 7-0 (Saha 3, OG 1, Rooney 3)
5/11: Prem - A - Blackburn 1-1 (G.Neville)
8/11: Prem - A - Bolton 2-1 (Carrick, Hienze)
18/11: Prem - A - Arsenal 1-2 (Ronaldo)
21/11: Champs League - H - Dinamo Kiev 2-0 (Giggs, Fletcher)
25/11: Prem - H - Wigan 2-0 (Saha, Torres)
29/11: Prem - A - Fulham 2-2 (Saha 2)

Prem; 3rd
Champs League: Qualified as winners of group
League Cup: Kncoked out in 3rd Round

Top Scorers: Saha 18
Torres 5
Rooney 3
Ronaldo 2
Bent 2
Scholes 2
G.Neville 2
OG 2
Lennon 1
Carrick 1
Fletcher 1
Hienze 1
Giggs 1

mark wilson27

1st December: With the festive month starting this was our chance to gain some ground on Chelsea, our first game far from festive, a local derby against Manchester City

2nd December: Manchester United v Manchester City;
My first Manchester derby and I was looking forward to it in some strange way.
The game started poorly as we gave away a silly own goal as O’Shea sliced a clearance into his own net, the City fans were going mad and so was I, it was a good job Match of the Day goes out after the watershed cos if the cameras had picked up what I said there would have been some complaints.
City seemed more up for it and by the half time our fans had become impatient and booed us off the pitch; I don’t blame them because that was a poor first half.
With my half time talk ringing in there ears the players came out and started playing the type of football this club is famous for, then on the 64th Minute Giggs scored a brilliant free kick to make it 1-1. The chants started to the City fans “Your not singing anymore”
That goal must of winded City bad as after only 3 minutes Rooney scored to put us in the lead, the fans went wild, a brilliant comeback, but the joy was short lived as Torres had to come off injured with a bad injury.
Manchester United 2 – 1 Manchester City (Giggs 64, Rooney 67)

3rd December: Bad news on the injury front as Torres will be out for up to 3 months with an injury to his Achilles Tendon, this meant I had to bring Bent back into the first team squad, he knew this was his last chance to impress me.

6th December: Lyon v Manchester United
With both teams already qualified I told the players to go out and enjoy the game, as so happens with foreign fans they didn’t bother turning up for this game. The stadium was half empty and the atmosphere was very flat.
The players tried there best to get the fans excited with some quick attacking football, this paid off for us as we scored on the 8th minute through a deflection off a Lyon defender. After the goal we seemed to relax too much and both teams played out the remaining 82 minutes with no haste in play. The referee didn’t add much injury time, probably to save himself and the fans the stress of putting up with another minute of a totally rubbish match. With Kiev getting the Uefa cup space the group was decided.

1st Man.Utd…2nd Lyon…3rd D.Kiev…4th Benfica

Lyon 0 – 1 Manchester United (OG 8)

mark wilson27

7th December: My thoughts are now on another difficult game as we travelled to Anfield to face Liverpool. I would have preferred an easier game so close to a European trip but there was nothing I could do to change it. The players were looking a little jaded so I gave them today and tomorrow morning off with the instruction to relax because the next few weeks were going to be hectic.

9th December: With Chelsea only drawing there game I knew a win against Liverpool would help close the gap between us to 5 points, on a lighter note the Fa Cup 3rd round draw was made and we were going to face Fulham at Old Trafford, the game of the tie was Arsenal against Tottenham. The potential giant killing was Accrington Stanley against Aston Villa
Our match was to be played on the 6th January

10th December: Liverpool v Manchester United
The game was played in front of a full house at Anfield and we started the better team with Reina saving well from Saha and Rooney early in the game, unfortunately it was Liverpool who scored first with a shot by Crouch on the 14th minute, why Vidic didn’t close him down no one apart from him will know. It only took us 8 minutes to reply as Ronaldo scored after a brilliant dribble from 45 yards to score past a helpless Reina. We seemed to relax after the goal and Liverpool capitalized as they scored on the 29th minute to regain the lead. 2-1 down at half time was not what I wanted but we didn’t play that bad.
The 2nd half started at full pace, but it seemed too quick for our defence and goalie as the defence’s mistake led to Fowler going through one on one with Van Der Saar, who promptly brought him down. Fowler got up to score the penalty on the 39th minute, 3-1 down was a bad score. The goal knocked our confidence and only 2 minutes later Fowler made it 4-1, with no hope of regaining the lead I decided to bring D.Bent for Ronaldo to make it 3 up. But for all our attacking potential we only managed the one goal, with Bent scoring on the 84th minute, as he celebrated he ran past the dug out patting the name on his back, which didn’t go down well with me,

Liverpool 4 – 2 Manchester United (Ronaldo 22, Bent 84)

11th December: The papers had virtually written us off as title contenders, but as far as I was concerned the title was going to over when it’s impossible to catch them. All we need is a good run

mark wilson27

13th December: Manchester United v Middlesbrough
The players knew I wanted a good response from them after the loss to Liverpool
They seemed to start quite tentative and seemed to lack the confidence to go forward, but after a couple of good passes you could see the confidence oozing back and Saha scored the first goal of the game on 36 minutes .
The second half started well enough as a bad mistake from the Middlesbrough defence decided to give us a 2nd goal through and own goal. With a continuous onslaught by our attackers Boro didn’t seem to have an answer and it was long till we scored again through Giggs. The goal killed off Boro and we dominated the remaining minutes of the match as we entertained the home fans with some excellent passing and attacking play, unfortunately we didn’t manage to score and had to accept a 3-0 score line
Manchester United 3 – 0 Middlesbrough (Saha 36, OG 49, Giggs 57)

14th December: With Newcastle at Old Trafford our next game the papers have been predicting an easy win over the strugglers but I knew we had to play better than we had been.

17th December: Manchester United v Newcastle United
Newcastle started the stronger team with Van Der Saar having to save well early on. The defence were looking very shaky and this continued throughout the first half. At half time the defence and the rest of the team knew how I felt (just say I can’t put what I said, id get a yellow card for foul language)
The team talk as such didn’t seem to make any difference as the players continued to give stupid balls away, but lady luck must have been with us as on the 66th minute Rooney gave us the lead and 3 minutes later Carrick scored to make it 2-0 which was totally against play. How we managed to win the game is a mystery as Newcastle had dominated us from start to finish

Manchester United 2 – 0 Newcastle United (Rooney 66, Carrick 69)

18th December: The papers picked up how lucky we were, but a former manager stated that all Championship winning teams had some lucky matches, hopefully this would be true

mark wilson27

23rd December: West Ham United v Manchester United
Our 4th game in 13 days and we were against a good West Ham team who were currently 6th in the league,
The team started poorly and we were punished for our sloppy start on the 7th minute as Anton Ferdinand scored with his head, going one nil down seemed to wake the players up and we started to keep possession better and eventually our dominance scored through Alan Smith on the 24th minute, the half continued at a high pace with both teams happy to into the break at 1-1.
With the radio on in the background we heard that Chelsea were losing and playing bad with it.
The news of Chelsea made all the difference as we came out all guns blazing and started to show West Ham how to play, it didn’t take long for us to score as Giggs scored a peach of a goal to give us the lead on 61 minutes, by the end of the game West Ham were lucky to have only conceded 2 goals and with Chelsea losing we had closed the gap on them to 2 points

West Ham United 1 – 2 Manchester United (Smith 24, Giggs 61)

25th December: Merry Christmas everyone and hopefully my players were enjoying it as I was working out what to do about Sheffield United, especially with how we struggled against them on the opening day.

26th December: Sheffield United v Manchester United
The game couldn’t of started any worse as Sheff.Utd scored only 2 minutes into the game, as the game continued the team started to play better and on 15 minutes Rooney equalised for us with a brilliant individual goal, in the 37th minute Rooney was hacked down in the area but the referee said it was a dive and booked Rooney, I was furious and the referee knew about it as he sent me to the stands. The game continued with us hitting the bar at least 3 times, we couldn’t break down a stubborn Sheff.Utd, and in my view the referee cost us 2 points.

27th December: The papers were having a field day with my antics and it wasn’t long till the Fa got in contact with me and let me know I was being charged with improper conduct, ill give them improper conduct. The board were furious with me advised me to plead guilty, reluctantly I did and received a nice one match touchline ban, the Fa what a bunch of t@&ts....

29th December: The board meeting went well even though they did show a little concern about my recent outburst to the referee

mark wilson27

Results:
2/12: Prem - H - Manchester City 2-1 (Giggs, Ronaldo
6/12: Champs League - A - Lyon 1-0 (OG)
10/12: Prem - A - Liverpool 2-4 (Ronaldo, Bent)
13/12: Prem - H - Middlesbrough (Saha, OG, Giggs)
17/12: Prem - H - Newcastle 2-0 (Rooney, Carrick)
23/12: Prem - A - West Ham United 2-1 (Smith, Giggs)
26/12: Prem - A - Sheffield United (Rooney)

Prem: 2nd
Champs League: 1st Round v Celtic
League Cup: Knocked out 3rd Round
Fa Cup:3rd Round v Fulham

Top Scorers: Saha 19
Torres 5
Giggs, OG 4
Ronaldo, Bent 3
Scholes, G.Neville 2
Lennon, Carrick, Hienze, Fletcher, Smith 1

mark wilson27

here comes a big chunk of story I'm trying to catch up to were I am in real time play

mark wilson27

1ST January 2007: Tottenham v Manchester United
The traditional New Year game saw us away to Tottenham, the last time we played them on the New Year they thrashed us 4-1. The game was more difficult for me as I couldn’t do anything due to my touchline ban, me and my big mouth.
The players knew what I wanted but as has happened too many times this season didn’t act on it, as we were humbled throughout the game, with Tottenham being the more potent team, we didn’t manage to string more than 2 passes together and looked out of our depth, and in the second half they scored through a beautiful chip from Robbie Keane. Tottenham fully deserved there win and we looked like the players had too many drinks or mince pies over the festive period, not a good start to the year

Tottenham 1 – 0 Manchester United

2nd January: Yet again we let ourselves and our fans down; I had some major thinking to do, like different tactics, formation or players. Something had to be done because we couldn’t afford to give points away like we have been doing, especially with Chelsea winning like they were

6th January: Manchester United v Fulham: Fa Cup 3rd Round
This was always going to be exciting for me as it was my first taste of the best cup competition in the world, the players were up for this game as well and it showed as we were off the blocks quicker, after only 11 minutes a rejuvenated Smith scored to me and the fans the perfect start. Fulham however had different ideas as they started to come back into the game, there attack started causing us some problems at the back and as in the league game they equalised through a very dubious penalty, I wasn’t going to complain not with the chairman in the stands watching the game.
The 2nd half was a quiet affair with neither team showing much attacking impetuous that was until Lennon smashed a superb shot in from 20 yards on the 70th minute, no goalie would of saved it, I thought this was the winner but a lack of concentration again caused Fulham to break free and equalise on the 87th minute, which meant a replay at Craven Cottage which is definitely not what I wanted.
Manchester United 2 – 2 Fulham (Smith 11, Lennon 72)

7th January: The draw for the next round was made and if we won our replay we would be getting an easy tie against Cheltenham, more important to me though was our next fixture against a Watford team deep in relegation trouble

10th January: Manchester United v Watford
We started well and Ronaldo was the main trouble causer for the Watford defence as he ripped there left back to pieces, our dominance was clear to see as we peppered the goalies hand with shot after shot, typically it was a Man.Utd loan signing that was saving there necks in Ben Foster. Yet totally against the run of play Watford took a shock lead on the 33rd minute, the goal seemed to spur us on as after only 10 minutes we took our opportunity to equalise through Alan Smith. The perfect end to the half.
The second half started brilliantly for us as Saha scored within 5 minutes to make it 2-1, with this we started to gain further control of the game, but Ben Foster was having a stormer and must of saved on 15 occasions, but after 67 minutes the Watford left back hacked down Ronaldo to earn himself a red card, unfortunately all this did was wake Watford up and on the 80th minute they equalised to make it 2-2, thinks weren’t looking good especially with the news Chelsea were thrashing there opponents 4-0, With the game coming to an end Rooney set up Saha to score with a beautiful chip on the 88th minute. The fans were left sweating as we managed to win this game but boy did we make hard work of it.

Manchester United 3 – 2 Watford (Smith 43, Saha 50, 88)


11th January: I was growing concerned by the fact we had conceded 5 goals in 3 games, so I called the coaches in for a meeting to see if they had any ideas that would help. It was a very constructive meeting which was disturbed when I got a call from our Champions League opponent’s manager Gordon Strachan wanting to know if we were willing to sell D.Bent and if so how much for.

12th January: After talking to the chairman he told me he knew we wouldn’t get what we paid for Bent back but anything over half was good, so I rung Gordon up and said anything over £5,000,00 would be a good start, I told him to think about it and get back to me.

mark wilson27

13th January; It didn’t take long for Strachan to get back to me about Bent and he offered a nice £5,750,000, which I thought was a very good offer, so I let him start negotiations with Bent.

14th January: Manchester United v Bolton
Another local derby and another full house at Old Trafford,
The squad were coming into there own and were showing signs of there potential. We were all over Bolton from the start, but it took to the 33rd minute for us to get the break through as Saha put us 1-0 ahead with a simple tap in, with our attacking domination it was long till we scored again, this time through an own goal on the stroke of half time. The perfect way for us to end the first half and at last the team were doing what they were taught it training, keeping the ball…..
The second half was much the same as the first with us hitting the bar and dominating throughout, but it wasn’t our strikers that would score it was Giggs on the 79th minute to seal a very comfortable 3-0 win

Manchester United 3 – 0 Bolton (Saha 33, OG 45, Giggs 79)

15th January: Finally a clean sheet, the first one since the middle of December, 6 games ago, even better was Chelsea had dropped points so the gap was down to 1 point, next up was Fulham away in the Fa Cup replay

16th January: The news came through that D.Bent had completed his move to Celtic. The papers were all speculating why he left, I left them to it and concentrated in the now not the past

17th January: Fulham v Manchester United, Fa Cup 3rd Round Replay
The game started perfectly for us as Smith scored after only 23 seconds to give us a 1-0 lead very early in the game, we were all over them for the majority of the half with Saha and Rooney giving the Fulham defence a real hard job
The players knew all they needed was one more goal to kill the game and they started the second half as though they wanted it, but after 10 minutes it was Fulham who scored to equalise and send the home fans bonkers, this seemed to rattle us and we started moving on the back foot and on the 78th minute Fulham scored what turned out to be winner, so yet again we didn’t kill a game off we should of done, and my first taste of Fa Cup management ended with the embarrassment of going out in the 3rd round

Fulham 2 – 1 Manchester United (Smith 1)

18th January: The papers were having another field day at our expense, claiming our season was all but over and the best we can hope for is Champions League place at the end of the season…

19th January: The next game was as they say a real 6 pointer as we visited Chelsea, Mourinho started he mind games, and I couldn’t be bothered to retaliate and left him to it, I told the players not to say anything to the press as this might jeer Chelsea up even more...

mark wilson27

21st January: Chelsea v Manchester United
Line up: Van Der Saar, G.Neville, Evra, O’Shea, W.Brown, Giggs, Lennon, Scholes, Carrick, Saha, Rooney
The game started as though it was a cup final as both teams went on the attack to search for that all important goals, and it was Chelsea who broke the deadlock on 39 minutes with goal from Drogba, who had gone past an ailing G.Neville to score. It was clear Neville wasn’t fit, so we had to replace him before the first half had ended, the first half ended with us 1-0 down, but we hadn’t played bad.
The second half started at a fast pace and after only 10 minutes Lennon was caught with what looked a vicious tackle and he had to be replaced, 2 injuries in the game and 1-0 down wasn’t what I wanted at all and it got worse as Saha went of limping, maybe I shouldn’t of sold Bent in this transfer window…
Chelsea 1 – 0 Manchester United

22nd January: Good news on the injury front as all 3 player weren’t injured as bad as first thought, with them being out for the longest a week, but the game meant Chelsea had gone back to a 4 point lead, but with our team out the cup it meant we had a rest for a week, so I sent the players away on a team building course, hopefully it would work and they would come back better for it and ready for the long run in

28th January: The players came back looking refreshed and in a buoyant mood, there next game was against a struggling Reading, and they knew I wanted all 3 points this time

30th January: Manchester United v Reading
The players went straight for the jugular in this game and Rooney capitalized on an error by there defence to open the scoring on 2 minutes, Rooney was playing a blinder and was lucky not to score anymore in a dominant half by my Red Devils. The second half was all United as we hit the bar three times and the goalie saved well on several other occasions, but I was starting to get nervous as we weren’t killing them off which is the problem we was having recently. My nerves were saved as on the 73rd Hienze scored to make it 2 – 0 and win us the game.
Manchester United 2 – 0 Reading (Rooney 2, Hienze 73)

31st January: The board meeting didn’t go well as they expressed a growing concern between them that we weren’t gaining on Chelsea, plus the fact we were out of the Fa Cup and we had lost 3 games in this month.