Injury Update | ‘Lion’ Tevez Speaks | So Does Carrick

Some injury news today. Call it good or bad, Mikael Silvestre, who was earlier ruled out for the entire season, could now make a comeback as early as March next year. Fergie says that his operation went well in France and things aren’t as bad as it was thought to be.

Meanwhile skipper, Gary Neville would still take longer to get back into action. Credit should be given to Wes Brown who, despite certain sections of fans thinking him to be poor, has been a very good cover for the captain.

In other injury news, it looks likely that Owen Hargreaves would return for the League Cup game in midweek against Coventry City. He’s had quite a bit of a worry settling into life at OT due to the injuries, although none of that were a deterrent as far as his performances would go, whenever he played. He is a top player without doubt. It just remains to be seen how SAF would decide to play him in the league after an excellent performance by Michael Carrick against Chelsea. While Hargreaves’ performances so far makes it difficult to drop him, when fit, Carrick’s response has made things a little tricky for SAF. I highly doubt he would go with three in the midfield against Birmingham next week, so would he drop Scholes? We shall see.

Carlos Tevez seemed confident while reflecting on the Chelsea game.

“Chelsea pushed the violence to the absolute limit and there could have been other red cards during the match, but justice prevailed in the end and we deserved to win. Our game is totally superior to Chelsea’s this season and the scoreline was actually short of what we deserved. I have seen the problems at Chelsea with the change of coach, but this season they have just not developed the rhythm of the other years. Chelsea were very nervous and it was impossible that we were going to lose the match.”

It’s good to see the confidence in the lad. The Rooney-Tevez combination, while not being particularly electric, did show enough promise to become very deadly in time. We hope there is more to come from our latest Argentinian star. Sir Alex was also impressed with his performance calling him ‘brave as a lion and tough as nails’. Interesting comparison!

Michael Carrick was excited about our defence this season. He thinks that our ‘defence could be our best form of attack’. While I don’t like the sound of what that statement means, in the sense that I don’t want our team to be built on defending alone, I do get what he is essentially driving at — our solidity in defence means we don’t have appear to hang by a thread with a solitary goal advantage. The solidity in defence means it gives our team a lift if we are a goal up, safe in the knowledge that it would be very difficult for the opposition to score, and have the opposite effect on the opposition.

Nevertheless, I would like more goals to be scored.

And finally, tomorrow is the League Cup game against Coventry. I should be out with a preview before the game. I am guessing the team will have an experimental line-up.

Until then.