The Championship Manger Story
Quinton Fortune was sold to Atalanta for £1.7m. This was great as he had not figured in my plans at all and it reduced the number of foreigners in my squad to two. Said foreigners being Adu and Howard. Up next was home to Roma. We had both qualified, but Roma had 15 points so far and I only had ten. We were destined to finish second. I decided to field a weakened team as we were playing Liverpool the following weekend. Our really weakened team, which was half full of reserves, played well, but lost 2-0 to a full strength Roma side. As long as we beat Liverpool at the weekend I didn't really care about being beaten by Roma.
Jerzy Dudek was man of the match as Liverpool beat us 1-0 at Anfield. I was
really pissed because neither Henchoz nor Hyypia were playing and I thought
we could have given them a thrashing. How wrong I was. Ronaldo and Roy Carroll
were the only two to play well. Dressing room shenanigans followed and I lost
it. Boots were kicked; doors were slammed and swear words were thrown about,
especially by Tim Howard, who wasn't even playing in the match due to being
suspended after hospitalising the journalist! I told the players they would
need to improve or there would be no silverware at the end of the season, and
no silverware means new players coming in, and the old ones being stuffed into
lower league teams to rot.
"You lot had better fucking win this derby match against Man City this
Saturday, or I swear I will sell you all!". Yeah, I gave the team a pretty
harsh warning that the following game at Old Trafford against City would need
to be won or else things would change, drastically.
I bought Phillipe Mexes from Auxerre for £5m, which was a bargain in my
eyes. He could tackle, pass head and read the game well, it would be getting
a game that would be his problem, as Rio and Mikael were both playing fantastic
in centre back. I assessed my defenders and remembered Gary Neville was in the
reserves, and he had not played all season. And I had not missed him. He was
sold to Celtic for a nice £5.5m.
So here it was, derby day. My first Manchester derby, and I was determined
to win it. We started the match well, having all the play, and Paul Scholes
rewarded our good play on 16 minutes. Van Nistelrooy had flicked the ball into
the box for the ginger haired wizard to head home. On 27 minutes Solskjaer dribbled
down the left wing and crossed for Van Nistelrooy to head in. Two-nil. One minute
later, Seaman, who received a red card, brought down Ronaldo in the box. Up
stepped Van Nistelrooy to make it 3-0. On 32 minutes, Van Nistelrooy headed
down to Keane who volleyed home from long range. Four-nil. Nothing happened
until the fifty seventh minute when Van Nistelrooy beat substitute keeper Weaver
to the ball to bag his hat trick. On 70 minutes Nicky Butt struck the ball from
miles out and it hit the bar and went in. Six-nil. On 78 minutes, Van Nistelrooy
managed to score again and make it 7-0!!! He received the MOM award, due to
the fact that he scored four and set up the other three! The board and supporters
were absolutely delighted with this magnificent win, which I thanked the whole
team for.
"That was absolutely fucking fantastic lads! You should all be very proud
of yourselves. Come out for a drink with me and we'll paint the town red. Yep,
we will paint Manchester red! The city fans really won't like that!!!"
Later that night:
"I re-ally looove you!" said a really drunk Rio Ferdinand as he tried
his 'charm' on a local lass at the nightclub we were celebrating in. She took
no notice of him really, until she found out he was a footballer, when she immediately
kissed him, taking care not to have her face sucked off by his Mick Jagger like
lips. Ronaldo also looked a bit pissed as he danced his Portuguese ass off on
the dance floor. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer managed to trip over a stool and hurt
his leg, but it didn't look like it was anything serious. We drank long into
the night. But the next morning some bastard from a tabloid paper managed to
get photos of us all in our drunken states. Roy Keane and Nicky Butt didn't
help matters by trying to give him a beating.
Now onto an even more serious business, the second round of the Champions League,
and I drew Inter Milan. This won't be easy I thought. Well, to qualify we had
to try win, which was something I failed to do away to Inter Milan in the first
leg. A totally even match where Inter's home advantage helped them edge the
1-0 win (Ludovic Guly tapping in a rebound from a Zanetti shot). Not a good
start. The morning after the match the papers were covered in pictures of us
on our previous night out, with the words "drunken louts" and "failures"
plastered all over them. The papers said that we had been drinking for twenty
solid hours, whereas in actual fact it was only about eight. Though they did
have a point, as the players who were most drunk at the party were the ones
who under performed. Ronaldo & Solskjaer.
Next up was a home game against Everton. I decided I would give Diego Forlan
a game as he had impressed me earlier in the season when given the chance. He
took Solskjaer's place in a line-up that looked like this…
GK: Carroll
DL: Silvestre
DC: Mexes
DC: Ferdinand
DR: Brown
DMC: Keane
MC: Giggs
MC: Scholes
MC: Ronaldo
FC: Forlan
FC: V. Nistelrooy
Well, we started great as Giggs struck home on 5 minutes, with a not-so-Giggs
-like header. On 10 minutes, Van Nistelrooy scored when he headed in Silvestre's
cross. Diego Forlan repaid my faith in him by scoring a pot shot on 23 minutes.
Tim Howard, our American keeper, was on the bench and (unintentionally) shouted
some abuse to Canadian player, Radzinski. "What the hell is he shouting
aboot!" said Radzinski. This abuse played on the Canadian's mind and it
led to him putting in a harsh tackle on Roy Keane, injuring the captain in the
process. Forlan then doubly repaid my faith by getting himself another fine
goal on 57 minutes. 4-0 the final score as we started moving in the league again
with a bang.
We thrashed Reading 4-0 at Old Trafford in the FA Cup 5th round. I put in a
bid of 12m for Figo of Real Madrid, which was rejected. I lost the head in a
news conference, telling the press that Real were 'the biggest pack of bastards
in club football' as they were not even starting Mr Figo. I also made sure to
tell the press we were the better team anyway, which I secretly thought we were
not. Once I made a signing or two the following summer we would be able to contend
with them.
At home to Steve Bruce's Birmingham and we won 2-0. Forlan scored to put us one nil up, Wes Brown got injured for 3 weeks, then Ferdinand scored his first goal for the club. Another home league game followed, this time Portsmouth were visiting. Van Nistelrooy put us in the lead on 20 minutes, followed by Defoe on the stroke of half time. Van Nistelrooy scored two more (58, 61) to get a hat trick, and Defoe scored another (74) to lead us to a 5-0 win. That was Saturday over, but we had a tough away game at Highbury in the league coming up on Wednesday.
We travelled to London on a high after the weekend mauling of the Pompey. Scholes
put us one nil up on 33 minutes with a long-range drive. He doubled the lead
on 55 minutes after running from the halfway line, into the box and blasting
it into the top corner. Disaster struck as Henry clawed one back for the Gooners,
but Van the man added a third goal (86th minute header) to secure the win. This
meant Arsenal were an unbelievable 7th in the league!!! What a bad season they
were having, the two defeats by us not helping them either!
Another away game in London as we played Chelsea at the Bridge. Van Nistelrooy's
26th minute goal giving is the win. We beat Wimbledon 4-0 in the FA Cup 6th
Round. This was followed by a 5-1 win away to Aston Villa, a home draw with
Newcastle and a 3-0 win away to Bolton. We had also qualified for the league
cup final around this time, where we would play Liverpool.