Tomorrow is THE game and this year the trip to Anfield Road comes with two more bonus elements. First of all there is the question if the Anfield loyals will show Michael Owen the respect he deserves for his time at The Kop. The other factor is whether it will be the last game in charge for the Spanish waiter.
Rafa Benitez has lost 6 games out of 13 games played this season so far and I will be nice here but he actually is a good manager. A good manager with a bad attitude. A manager who seems to have lost passion.
One could give the Spaniard the bonus of the problems in the board room, some people even say that he doesn’t have money to buy players but that argument is bollocks for the guy who has bought more than 70 players in his time at the Merseyside.
Our freebie, Michael Owen, has had an illustrious career at Anfield and spend the debut of his career with the Dippers, making 216 appearances and scoring 118 goals for the side between 1996 and 2004. He is one of the most successful strikers for The Kop but will he be respected for this. Are the Scousers mature enough to see that he left Anfield 5 years ago already?
As usual with a derby game there is no clear favourite although the pundits and bookies seem to have punished the Dippers for their poor performances so far, but in the words of SAF: ‘Anyone can win it‘.
Park-Ji Sung is certainly out and there still are doubts around the fitness of Wayne Rooney. For Benitez things look more serious with both Mr. Loserpool Steven Gerard and Fernando Torres doubtful.
At the back everyone is fit and with EVDS present in between the posts again our back four seems to have found their tenure again and SAF certainly has selection problems with Gary Neville performing very well again and Wes Brown also being fit again. Both John O’Shea and Evans also played well so far this season but we will probably see our preferred centre back duo, Rio Ferdinand – Nemanja Vidic again. Evra, who has been passed fit as well, probably will return to his left back position, after a great performance of Fabio Da Silva in midweek.
Tomorrow is our chance to finally knock the Dippers, who did the frackin’ double over us last season, of their perch. If they lose the season seems over already for them and history will repeat: ‘Next year we will win it will become the official Dippers song again after they briefly dreamed that it would be this year.
It is hard to predict the outcome, but I will say 1 – 2 for ManUtd with an injury time winner from Michael Owen.