Manchester United right back Rafael Da Silva has stated that his teammates should be display quality when they take on Bayern Munich in the first leg of the Champions League quarter-finals at Old Trafford. United had been given a formidable draw in their hopes of winning the Champions League.
This is the first season at the club for manager David Moyes and he has been struggling a lot to maintain their winning ways of Sir Alex Ferguson. However, Champions League has been one competition were they have been looking at least half decent this season.
If Manchester United is unable to get a top 3 spot in the Premier League, this will be the first time that happens since the starts of the top tier English competition and this is just another evidence of how disastrous the transition between Sir. Alex Ferguson and David Moyes has been.
It has been a season of inconsistent results with some positive outcomes in a week but the following one was a totally different story. David Moyes has revealed to the media that the negative season has hurt him and he was not expecting the job to be so tough.
“The results against the big teams have definitely hurt. They have hurt more because I joined Manchester United with big expectations myself that I was coming to the winning football club’’.
Rafael Silva is not only an amazing soccer star but he is a doting brother as well. As soon as his elder twin left Man U & joined up with erstwhile United striker Solskjaer, the younger Silva contacted Ole and asked him to be careful with his brother.
Much to the dismay of Man U fans, David Moyes has already confirmed that one of their most favorite stars Fabio has already moved towards Cardiff City. He would be joining Ole at Wales.
While there is a big amount of players and coaches that have critized David Moyes claiming him to be the reason for the recent demise of Manchester United, there are others that are suggesting that the blame should not be put on David Moyes and instead it should be on the players themselves.
The Brazilian player, Rafael da Silva believes that Moyes is not the man to put the blame on.
The experienced midfielder of Manchester United Ryan Giggs says he has no plans of retiring despite having turned 40 years old in this week.
“I’m lucky that I have been at one club, where I am surrounded by good players and a good manager.It can be hard sometimes but I am still enjoying it. As long as that is the case I will carry on.”
Ryan Giggs added: “I still want to do well in every game, want to win trophies and my focus needs to be on that. I don’t know what the younger lads think of me. “When I was 17 and 18 I thought 31 were ancient. And here I am at 40!”
The Silva brothers i.e. Rafael da Silva and Fabio da Silva are fighting for the same place in the starting XI of Manchester United. Both of them have their eyes on the right back spot in the XI and with Rafael injured, Fabio has a great chance to impress the manager David Moyes and make that position his own at least for this season.
Rafael discovered a hamstring injury while featuring for United in their opening game of the season i.e. the Community Shield match against Wigan Athletic. He hasn’t yet recovered from that injury and has been on the sidelines since the last 5 weeks or so.
Phil Jones is injured too at the moment. So, Moyes decided to give Fabio a go in the game against Crystal Palace which was played on Saturday. This was the first time in the last one and half years that Fabio began a Premier League game.
Fabio didn’t disappoint his manager with his performance. He was energetic on the field and he looked in decent touch.
The Red Devils ended up winning that match by 2-0. The goal scorers for them were Wayne Rooney and Robin Van Persie.
At the end of that game, when Fabio was asked how it is like to compete with his own brother, he said, “It’s not a problem for either of us. This is not the first time that we are fighting for something. We have done that a lot of times since childhood.”
“I have got full confidence in my abilities. I know I can cement my place in the XI if I keep working hard.”
Fabio had signed for the Red Devils 6 years back in 2007 after leaving the Brazilian club Fluminense. He has featured for United in just 20 odd games so far and has managed to find the net once.
Brazilian defender Rafael Da Silva is expected to be a first-team regular under new manager David Moyes as the new era at Manchester United begins. The defender has said that pre-season is an exciting time at the club and he is looking forward to it.
This time around, preparations will be intense in order to keep hold of the title that United won last season. Moyes is also under pressure to win his first major trophy. Getting the first trophy quickly will help Moyes settle at Old Trafford amidst a sea of comparisons with former manager Sir Alex Ferguson.
Rafael was one of the important players for the club last season, and his presence is set to get even more natural. The club will be playing pre-season friendly matches in a number of countries. They will be having matches in Thailand, Sweden, Japan, and Australia before the new season kicks off with the community shield. Rafael has said that pre-season tours are extremely important for the benefit of the team because it would help determine their whole season. Developing fitness during this stage of the campaign is the key motto, and those who fail to do it will struggle for the rest of the campaign.
Rafael did not take part in the Confederations cup.
“Pre-season is always good, it’s enjoyable. I like this stage of the year a lot. Of course, there is a lot of running. But it’s good as well because when you come back from holiday, sometimes you can get tired from doing nothing. I feel good when I’m working. The pre-season tours are a big part of preparation work for the new season. If you play well, you can put a thought in the manager’s mind and maybe change his mind if you perhaps weren’t in his plans for the first few games,” said Rafael.
The manager of Manchester United, Sir Alex Ferguson, has said that he had thought about signing Frank Lampard when he was playing for West Ham United, but, he didn’t do that eventually and that was a wrong decision.
It was Chelsea which signed Lampard in 2001 and the English midfielder has been superb for the Blues in the last 12 years. Recently, he has scored his 200th goal for the club.
Now, he is just one goal away from breaking Bobby Tambling’s record of scoring the most number of goals for Chelsea.
In the middle of the season, there were reports that Lampard might be leaving Chelsea in the upcoming summer, but, now, with the news that Jose Mourinho is returning to Chelsea, it is believed that Lampard is set to sign a new deal with the Blues.
At one point of time in this season, it was speculated that the Red Devils are interested in signing Lampard, but, now, with the news of Mourinho coming back, they seem to have no chance.
When asked about Lampard, Sir Alex Ferguson said, “In the 90s, I had seen Frank playing for West Ham United and I was really impressed. I gave it a thought whether I should sign him, but, then, later on, I dropped that idea. Now, I think that was not a right decision. I should have bought Frank.”
“For a midfielder, to reach a tally of 200 goals is not easy. He is certainly one of the greatest midfielders produced by England.”
“Even at 34, he is as quick as any one and that’s incredible. He still has plenty to offer.”
For Lampard, the ongoing season has been quite brilliant. He has found the net 16 times this season.
Each year in the Premier league it is not only a race to be at the top of the tables for the pride of winning the league, but also a race to make sure who gets to go to Europe and compete against the best teams from around the continent. This can be harder to predict and betting odds on this will never be easy to choose from at the bookmakers. The clubs can either make it into the Champions league, with the top three teams getting in automatically and the fourth getting the chance to go into the playoffs for the competition. Finally the fifth place team also gets a chance at going to the UEFA Europa league also so there is much to bet on for fans and for the players to play for other than just the Premiership title.
Sir Alex Ferguson has said that he didn’t think of substituting Rafael da Silva in the second half of the Champions League match against Real Madrid because he had full faith in the abilities of the 22 years old Brazilian defender. That match was played at Estadio Santiago Bernabeu.
Silva’s performance in the first half of that match was poor and he was expected to be taken off in the second half. But, Sir Alex Ferguson didn’t do that. Silva proved his manager right and performed really well in the second half.
However, United didn’t manage to win that match. Both the teams scored one goal each and the match ended in a draw.
Ferguson was talking to the reporters in the press conference after the match. When he was asked if he considered taking Silva off in the second half, he said, “No, I didn’t consider that. I had full faith in the potential of Rafa. Yes, he had a poor first half, but, the kind of temperament that he has got; I knew that he would bounce back.”
“Rafa is one of my favourite young players. He is a fighter. He always keeps trying. For a young boy of 22, it’s not easy to bounce back after a poor outing in the first half. He showed that he is mentally very strong.”
United took the lead in the 20th minute of the match with the goal of Danny Welbeck, but, Real Madrid equalized with the goal of Cristiano Ronaldo just 10 minutes later.
When asked about the overall performance of the team against Madrid, Ferguson said, “It was certainly not one of our best performances, but, it was not that bad either. You should consider the quality of opposition as well. Real Madrid is a very strong side. So, it was not easy out there. But, I would say that we could have played a little bit better.”