United Rant

Fixtures bring tough start but great run-in

Manchester United will open the new Premier League season against Roy ‘Woy’ Hodgson’s West Bromwich Albion at the Hawthornes in what might prove to be a season of two distinct halves. Sir Alex Ferguson’s team faces a tough start to the season, with seven matches against direct title rivals before mid-February, but just one match [...]

Bébé: a deal gone wrong from the start

Reserve forward Tiago Manuel Dias Correia – Bébé – will join Beşiktaş on loan for the 2011/12 season, netting Manchester United a €1 million fee in the process. The Portuguese under-21 international, 20, could join the Turkish Süper Lig side permanently although there is no ‘option to buy’ built into the contract as widely reported. But [...]

Arise Lord Ferguson of Govan

Sir Alex Ferguson could be appointed to the House of Lords if two Manchester MPs have their Early Day Motion (EDM) read in Parliament. Labour MPs Tony Lloyd, Manchester Central, and principal sponsor of the motion Graham Stringer, Blackley and Broughton, have called for football to be more widely represented in the upper house, with [...]

Scholes looks to future as silly season gets into full swing

New Manchester United coach Paul Scholes says that the club will rebuild this summer but only if Sir Alex Ferguson deems it necessary. Scholes, who retired at the end of last season, says he is as excited as the fans, with a string of names linked to United in the press over the past fortnight. [...]

Glazer IPO unlikely to offer fans major stake

The weekend’s Times newspaper report that the Glazer family is considering floating Manchester on the Hong Kong stock exchange raises the possibility, for the first time since 2005, that supporters could claim a stake in the heavily indebted club. It’s a goal that groups such as the Manchester United Supporters Trust (MUST) have been working [...]

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehn Darron T Gibson

The T, sadly some might add, does not stand for Tiberius but news that Darron Thomas Gibson has agreed terms on a £5 million move to Steve Bruce’s Sunderland will leave not a dry eye in the house all the same. Maybe. Sort of. Well, perhaps not at all but it will bring to a [...]

Sympathy for the randy Red Devil

Who would you say out the following three men is the kind of role model a society should look up to? First up is a man who has had two mistresses, chain smokes and drinks between eight to 10 Martinis a day.  Second is a man who doesn’t get out of bed each morning before 11am, used [...]

Magic and marketing for Scholes’ testimonial

So Eric Cantona returns to Old Trafford, not this time as player, nor matinée idol but manager of a team with no talents, a club with no stadium, the New York Cosmos. And with Cantona’s newly reformed Cosmos will come a tranche of ringers, drawn from some of the finest recent football talent to be [...]

Fergie signals end of era with Jones signing

It turned out to be an extraordinary day of transfer activity, so soon into the summer window, as Sir Alex Ferguson closed in on £16 million Blackburn Rovers defender Phil Jones. The England Under-21 international has reportedly agreed terms on a five-year deal and is likely to become the first of several signings before the [...]

Rant anywhere: mobile site/app

As part of United Rant’s continual evolution we welcome to two new interfaces for the website – for touchscreen smartphones and Samsung Bada-enabled devices. First, those readers with a touchscreen smartphone will enjoy our web-app interface. Navigate to unitedrant.co.uk on your touchscreen smartphone and touch to add the web app interface to your home screen. [...]