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Diouf, Guardiola and Post-Boxing Day

Greetings, merry men. It’s been a fairly hectic few days and, as the holiday season wears on, it’s bound to stay the same.

While I was away, a few things happened and among those few things included United losing its fifth game of the season; this time a 3-0 loss to Fulham. I wasn’t home that day, and missed the match. On most occasions of my United supporting years it would be a bad thing. Most readers would agree this was an exception.

I wouldn’t want to dwell on that and re-open wounds that are in the process of being stitched (presumably). So I will just move on.

Ferguson has been gushing in praise of Mame Biram Diouf — the Senegalese striker purchased from Molde FC in Norway. Diouf just got his work permit approved and given our strike force’s form, anyone who can half hit the cow’s arse is a welcome addition. Which is not to say Diouf is our saviour. But from Ferguson’s comments it seems like it.

“If you’re talking about value then you can look at our young boy Diouf,” the manager said. “He’s been training with us and is looking very exciting. That’s the kind of situation we’re good at – finding young players who can develop at the club and at 22 years of age he’s looking very good.”

Actually it can mean one of two things.

1. Maybe he is really the second coming of Didier Drogba, minus the diving and being an absolutely disgraceful twat.
2. Maybe Ferguson is scraping the barrel and saying he won’t look to reinforce and make signings in January because we have before us a player good enough, in his opinion, to more than fill the gap.

Speaking of not making any new January signings, reports have him on record saying he won’t bring in new signings to ease the defensive crisis. I think he’s justified in not bringing defensive cover. The comments don’t preclude him from signing players on the offensive end though — I hope we do something to address that. Like all January signings, there won’t be immediate impact necessarily, but in the long run it will be beneficial [read: Evra, Vidic]. If Ferguson honestly believes player values are ridiculous in the current transfer climate, wait till after the World Cup.

There have been some reports linking Guardiola to the United assistant manager job. Honestly, if a Barcelona legend quits after two seasons at the helm, I don’t think he will be loyal enough to stick around at United, even if he does eventually succeed Ferguson. Secondly, the manager of Barcelona wouldn’t really fancy being number two at another club. This is too far-fetched to be discussed, but it’s still an interesting possibility — only possible in imagination-land.

Boxing Day fixtures include no United games, but the 27th sees us play Hull City. After a couple of deflating results, I hope to see something that lifts spirits this festive season. We blew two great opportunities to close the gap on Chelsea, and with all teams being generally crap this season we can still limp to the title if we take advantage of December [or whatever’s left of it] and January.

Anyway, the preview discussion would be up prior to that game. In the meantime I would try to update this thing and not abandon it.

The reason I say, ‘try’ is because I am flying to Vegas later today, and will likely miss the Hull game; although I’ll try my best to watch it [I know! How jobless of me!] I also know, considering the nature of the place I’ll be visiting, it would be hypocritical of me to tell you all commenters to behave in the interim. But I’ll do so anyway — responsibilities and all that guff.

Merry Christmas to our Christian readers, and happy Festivus to the rest of you.