The First Weekend

I was like a giddy schoolboy all of Friday, sat at my desk at work constantly checking various websites for any inkling into the all important team selection for the first game of the season, Saturday morning was even worse, with a trip to the newsagent under my belt and having already trawled through the sports section to make the all important selections for my betting slip and there were still four hours until kick off...

Fast forward to 15:45 and all the excitement and the optimism for the season ahead had well and truly vanished and instead I was languishing in self pity wondering how things could have fallen apart so quickly.  Half time in the first game of the season and we're losing 3-0 at home to a side expected to struggle this season, this was not good.  Already dark thoughts were gathering in my mind, cursing the lack of activity in the transfer market, stubbornness of the manager's tactics, I was already starting to worry about what the season ahead holds.  By 16:50 the result hadn't changed, but my outlook had.  Its only the first game of the season, even champions lose a game every now and then, we always struggle against the "lesser" teams in the league, and at the end of the day its a marathon not a sprint...come next May I'll be celebrating promotion.

The big game of the weekend though was the traditional curtain raiser, usually the community shield is a nothing game, but today's was actually an entertaining.  We also learnt a few things about the two teams;

• Despite the money, Citeh are still not good enough to challenge United quite yet.
• David De Gea is not a natural replacement for Van Der Saar just yet, given a couple of years the boy could be something special, but looked a little nervy...and I think even my Nan could have got down quicker to stop Edin Dzeko's shot (and she's had two knee replacements).
• United have got some serious young talent, in the second half with Jones, Smalling, Anderson, Young, Cleverley, Nani, Rooney and Welbeck giving Citeh the run around the future looks bright for the Red Devils.  Whilst they might not form the core of the team this season, in a couple of the years this lot are going to be good.
• Super Mario is still mental but not as stupid as people might think...having been lumped by Vidic in the first half he bounced up to square up to his assailant before realizing Nemanja wasn't the man to be starting a ruck with.
• Everyone who's put Kun Aguero in their fantasy team is going to have to wait a little bit longer to see how that's going to work out.