beano46 said:
Does anybody know what Ratboy had to say about us after the Derby, I have searched for thread on this and can't find anything.
I posted this a few days ago:
Gary Neville's core beliefs shaken to their very foundations as Manchester City embarrass United
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...ions-as-Manchester-City-embarrass-United.html
Jonathan Liew:
The two teenage girls nattering in Polish on the bus yesterday morning can’t possibly have known why I was eyeing them so suspiciously. They continued their animated conversation, but both were acutely aware that just across the aisle from them, a strange man was glaring at them as if they were incarnations of the devil himself.
It was a good job I didn’t have to explain myself. The name 'Mark de Vries’ probably would have meant very little to them. I would have had to take them back to January 2006 and a miserable third-round FA Cup tie at the Walkers Stadium. That would have been unfortunate for everybody concerned.
Tottenham were, as I recall, 2-0 up against Leicester. Satisfied that progress to the fourth round had been wrapped up, I popped down to the shops to pick up two KitKat Chunky bars. When I returned to the television, Leicester were somehow level, and the last half-hour was played out in the most gut-wrenching yet deliciously milk-chocolatey tension imaginable.
I’m not sure if Gary Neville had any confectionery to fall back on yesterday afternoon, as his former team-mates were getting spanked 6-1 by Manchester City, but it might have helped his mood some. Watching the downward progress of his face over the course of the day was one of the great sights in television. It was like watching a man watching his own house burn down, and then marching up to him and kicking him in the undercarriage. Whatever you think of Neville, it was impossible to feel impervious to his anguish.
As a pundit, Neville is often insightful and lucid, picking out tactical talking points that the casual viewer will often miss. But when United are playing, you feel Sky should put a caption in the corner of the screen that reads: 'United = 100’. For virtually anything that emerges from his mouth will assuredly have been exhaled through a red-tinged filter.
Just as Alan Hansen is given to viewing all great teams through the prism of his all-conquering Liverpool side of the 1980s, for Neville the United team for whom he played are the base index to which all others are inextricably anchored.
This most readily manifests itself in a fundamental belief that if United play to their full potential, they will win, whatever else happens. It is a belief shaken to its foundations yesterday, and even after City’s rout, concessions had to be squeezed out of Neville like coins from a very small purse.
“Can we talk about QPR v Chelsea?” he asked, half in jest, half in pleading. “That wasn’t nice to watch. It’s a painful day. But you’ve got to give credit to City.” City will, I’m sure, be gratified by Neville’s sense of obligation.
Although he looked fine on the surface, Neville bore a hollow, haunted look in his eyes. This trauma was clearly drilling itself into his subconscious in much the same way that Mark de Vries had drilled his way into mine.
With seconds to go, you see, Leicester pumped the ball forward. De Vries brought it down and buried it into the corner to seal an incredible 3-2 win.
I mourned for the internationally-standardised period of time (until dinner, or until the next morning in the case of finals), and had virtually no cause ever to consider the name of Mark de Vries again.
Until, that is, one of the Polish girls blurted it out on the bus yesterday morning. My ears pricked up instantly, all those painful memories flooding back.
Now, I know what you’re going to say here — that they can’t possibly have been talking about that match, that there are lots of things that sound like 'Mark de Vries’, especially in Polish — but clearly there was something about this particular tableau that struck a nerve. For as I lowered my gaze, I noticed that both were clutching a KitKat bar. It was hard not to feel cosmically taunted.
Likewise, in the coming months, Neville may be eating dinner in a restaurant or listening idly to the radio. Suddenly, out of the background hubbub, somebody will say the word 'Brixton’ or 'Szechuan’, and Neville will immediately spin round in alarm. “What did you say? Six-one?” It is that peculiar sensation of deferred dejection that only a football fan can really process.
And for those Blues who so easily forgive and forget remember: An enemy is for life and not just until retirement!!!!
Dribble....
