Transfer Rumours: Arrivals

Cristiano Ronaldo's £80m move to Real Madrid hasn't been completed yet, but the Reds are already linked with plenty of potential replacements.

Aston Villa's Ashley Young and Gremio starlet Douglas Costa are the latest names on the grapevine, while with Carlos Tevez's future as yet unresolved, the press are also linking Sir Alex with a move for a host of the game's top striking talent.

Lyon's Karim Benzema, Barcelona front man Samuel Eto’o, Atletico Madrid’s Sergio Aguero continue to attract attention, while Bayern Munich are sending out mixed messages over their desire to keep hold of Franck Ribery.

Most intriguingly, The Daily Mail has tipped the Reds to make a bid for Real goalkeeper Iker Casillas, with Edwin van der Sar in the twighlight of his career.

www.manutd.com

Iker Casillas

Ashley Young

Douglas Costa

Fernando Torres

Sergio Aguero

Samuel Eto'o

David Silva

Arjen Robben

Joao Moutinho

Antonio Valencia

Franck Ribery

Karim Benzema

Blog: The Treble was top

Like his idols, our guest blogger Mark Webster became a world champion in 2008, when he won the BDO (British Darts Organisation) title. Fanzone wonders if he practices by putting a rival team's poster on his dartboard...

My older brother and my dad are probably the reason why I support United – you get it drummed into you, don’t you?

They took me to my first game in 1990, the Charity Shield when we played Liverpool and drew with them. We shared the trophy, there was no penalty shootout in those days.

My first United memory would be the FA Cup final that same year, when we beat Crystal Palace. I would have been six years old, and I remember both games – drawing three each at Wembley, then Lee Martin scoring in the replay. When you’re a young boy you don’t tend to pay attention to things for that long… but that’s the first time I can remember really sitting down concentrating on a whole game. I was hooked from then on really.

Liverpool were the opposition for my favourite-ever game, the FA Cup tie in ’99, when we were 1-0 down and turned it round and won it in the last minutes thanks to Yorkie and then Solskjaer.

When you look back at it now, you realise just how important those goals were in keeping the Treble alive – though I suppose people weren’t even talking in those terms at that point. But United just didn’t know when they were beaten that season, and that game epitomised it.

Beating Liverpool made that game in '99 all the more special. I’m not too fond of City either, but there’s no contest really in terms of the team I dislike the most.

When I was younger I didn’t dislike Liverpool that much – their era of success was pretty much over by the time I got into football (1990). But when you become friends with Liverpool fans it becomes a lot easier to hate them!

I know so many tunnel-vision Liverpool fans it’s unreal. Some of them are my best mates, but when it comes to talking football with them, especially about United and Liverpool, you just can’t get any sense out of them.

Unfortunately, there seem to be more Liverpool fans than United fans on the darts circuit, although Martin Phillips who plays for Wales is a fellow Red.

There are also a lot of Stoke-based players in the game, and they support Stoke or Port Vale. I'm from North Wales but they always call me a Scouser to wind me up!

The views expressed in this blog are personal to the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Manchester United FC.

Edwin van der Sar

Tomasz Kuszczak

Ben Foster

Owen Hargreaves

John O'Shea

Dimitar Berbatov

Jonny Evans

Rafael Da Silva and Fabio Da Silva

Rafael Da Silva

Rio Ferdinand

Nemanja Vidic

Ji-Sung Park and Sir Alex Ferguson

Anderson

Darren Fletcher

Darron Gibson

Federico Macheda

gary neville

Michael Carrick

Paul Scholes

Ryan Giggs

Wayne Rooney

Zoran Tosic

Sir Alex Ferguson and Nani

Carlos Tevez and Cristiano Ronaldo

New signings 'will be worthy'

18/06/2009 13:46, Report by Steve Bartram


Sir Bobby Charlton is confident that Sir Alex Ferguson will make the right signings to compensate for Cristiano Ronaldo's impending departure.

The Portuguese winger is set to join Real Madrid for a staggering £80million, prompting a whirlwind of speculation over who will be replacing him.

Speaking at a press conference in China to launch United's sponsorship deal with aigo, Sir Bobby said: "I'll have to leave that (deciding how to replace Ronaldo) to Alex Ferguson.

"He is a great judge of a player, he's very brave with his decisions, he's very decisive with his decisions and that's why he's been a great success. Who the players will be I don't know, but they will be worthy of putting on the shirt for Manchester United."

Charlton concedes that there was little point in trying to coax Ronaldo away from his childhood dream of joining Real, although he feels that hindsight may show the winger that his best days of his career were at Old Trafford.

"He is a great player," he said. "He's been with us for five or six years and in that time he has improved beyond all recognition. I suppose, in time, he will reflect, and say that the best time he ever had in football was when he was at Manchester United. It was better for him and it was fantastic for the club.

"But we have no divine rights, we talked him out of it for one year but he's gone and we move on. Ronaldo leaves us because as a young boy he always dreamt about playing for Real Madrid, so if he leaves us, it's with our blessing.

"It's a lot of money, but it's a little bit soul-searching. You never know if you've made the right decision until the start of the season. It's an enormous amount. We will make sure we will use it properly and our club will be better for it."

Brum relishing OT opener

18/06/2009 08:00, Report by Steve Bartram

The new Barclays Premier League season may be just under two months away, but Birmingham City manager Alex McLeish and co-owner David Sullivan are already looking forward to their opening day trip to Old Trafford.

The Blues, promoted as Championship runners-up behind Wolves, visit M16 in the opening weekend of the season. While the Midlanders have quickly been established as rank outsiders to take even a point from the game, manager McLeish has taken heart from United's slow start to the last two seasons.

"If I remember rightly a couple of years ago Reading went there on the opening day and dug out a draw and Newcastle did the same last season," he told BCFC.com. "So we'll approach the game in a positive frame of mind and hopefully with a good pre-season behind us we can go there and cause a shock."

Co-owner Sullivan is similarly optimistic - albeit with a dose of realism - and is hoping the excitement of being back in the top flight can inspire a storming start to the campaign.

"Realistically we are going to be 10-1 to win and they are going to be 5-1 on, but United have had some slow starts to the season and let's hope that continues," he said. "We go to Old Trafford with optimism but the reality is that we are going to get nothing."

Birmingham's last visit to Old Trafford was on the first day of 2008, a year in which the Blues were relegated while United conquered England and Europe. Carlos Tevez scored the only goal of the Reds' New Year's Day win.

Edwin van der Sar

Tomasz Kuszczak

Ben Foster

Owen Hargreaves

John O'Shea

Dimitar Berbatov

Jonny Evans

Rafael Da Silva and Fabio Da Silva

Rafael Da Silva

Rio Ferdinand

Nemanja Vidic

Ji-Sung Park and Sir Alex Ferguson

Anderson

Darren Fletcher

Darron Gibson

Federico Macheda

gary neville

Michael Carrick

Paul Scholes

Ryan Giggs

Wayne Rooney

Zoran Tosic

Sir Alex Ferguson and Nani

Carlos Tevez and Cristiano Ronaldo