I've talked him up for the last 2 years and this season he's proving to me that he's going to be a star. A fantastic talent on our hands.

We can't be too hard on him lads, you need consecutive games to build up momentum, confidence and experience, he doesn't get enough games.  Mind you he has to better than Carrick, he was woeful, again, last night.  Great goal by Gibbo, he hits a mean long range shot.  Faded badly, but as I say, that's down to lack of continuity of games.

hopefully he can continue to improve and become a regular at united

Him and James McCarthy should be the future of our midfield

No, he didnt finish the game and was fairly passive in the game aswell...

SCOTLAND star Darren Fletcher has sold his mansion to a teammate - for £1.5million.

The Manchester United midfielder was desperate to sell after his wife Hayley was subjected to a terrifying knife raid there.

Now the property in Bowdon, Greater Manchester, has been bought by United starlet Darron Gibson.

And the Fletchers have moved to a £2.5million house in nearby Hale.

A source said: "Darren put the house on the market last year shortly after the robbery.

"Hayley was left really shaken by the ordeal when she had a knife held to her throat. They installed a hi-tech CCTV system and security system but decided to move to a more private location.

"The six-bedroom house was put on the market for £1.65million while the new camera system was available by separate negotiation.

"But Darron drove a hard bargain and got the house and security system for £1.45million. He is really pleased with it."

The raid on the house took place in February last year when three hooded thugs burst in.

Hayley, who married Darren, 26, earlier this year, had her £10,000 engagement ring ripped off her finger.

The couple's two-year-old twin sons were asleep in another room.

The crooks, dubbed The Away Day Robbers, got away with cash and goods worth more than £150,000.

The raid was the 14th on a footballer's home in Lancashire and Cheshire in three years.

Police fear crooks are striking when stars are playing in away games.

Republic of Ireland boss Giovanni Trapattoni has explained why http://www.tribalfootball.com/category/leagues/english-premiership/manchester-united - Manchester United midfielder Darron Gibson is not in his squad.

Gibson was overlooked for Derby County's Paul Green in victory in Armenia.

He said: "I have no prejudice against any player. You don't need to tell me about Darron's qualities. They are exceptional.

"But he is not playing at the moment and that can affect a player's morale.

"Also, I like my midfielders to be like Gattuso, to be mentally strong and to carry out the little details. I'm not always right but I am happy with how Green played."

Darron Gibson has become embroiled in a war of words with his international boss Giovanni Trapattoni after the Italian suggested he should leave Manchester United.

The Republic of Ireland manager suggested that the Derry man could improve his "hunger" by quitting the Theatre of Dreams.

The 22-year-old was snubbed by Trapattoni in favour of Derby County's Paul Green for Friday night's 1-0 victory over Armenia in Yerevan and he is set to miss out again for tonight's Euro 2012 qualifier against Andorra in the Aviva Stadium.

"If Trapattoni wants me to move on from a club like Manchester United to better my game, move to somewhere like Stoke where I'll get more games, but have little chance of winning anything, then I just don't know," he said.

"Where else would I go from Manchester United? At what club, other than Manchester United, could I go to improve my game?

"To be honest, if he's trying to say that I should move somewhere like Stoke City and change my game to winning tackles and not winning games, then he's having a laugh.

"To move on from Manchester United just doesn't make sense to me." Gibson admits his lack of first team action with United so far has denied him his second competitive international start, however, he hopes to seize his opportunity when it arrives.

"I have good relationship with Trapattoni," he added.

"We haven't fallen out in anyway. Personally, I just think I haven't been playing (for the Republic of Ireland) because I haven't been playing regularly at club level and he's giving other players the chance that play week in, week out."

The attack-minded midfielder is expected to play a significant part in Manchester United's bid to win back the Premier League title and he wants to help shoot down Andorra, a team ranked 201 in FIFA's world rankings.

"Like I've said before, I've proven what I can do with my performances at Manchester United last season," he said.

"I will be very disappointed if I don't play against Andorra. "I wasn't surprised I didn't play against Armenia, but I was disappointed not to get on.

"At Manchester United I've continued to do the same thing I've done all last season.

"I'm just waiting for my chance to get another run in the team. "It would be great for me if I was to play against Albania, it would be another cap and fingers crossed, I'll get the nod.

"We'll see what happens, but hopefully I can get on and make a difference. "If we play well we should get another three points which would be a great start to the group campaign."

Gibson should deffo be in ahead of Green.

Giovanni Trapattoni has denied reports that he claimed Darron Gibson would have to leave Manchester United in order to further his international career.

Reports claimed over the weekend that http://topics.skysports.com/Darron+Gibson/?section=football - Gibson might have to quit http://topics.skysports.com/Old+Trafford/?section=football - Old Trafford to become a regular in Trapattoni's http://topics.skysports.com/Republic+of+Ireland/?section=football - Republic of Ireland side.

The suggestions earned an angry rebuke from Gibson with the midfielder unhappy that Trapattoni was advising him to leave United, stating the Italian 'must have been having a laugh'.

"If Trapattoni wants me to move on from a club like http://topics.skysports.com/Manchester+United/?section=football - Manchester United to better my game, move to somewhere like Stoke where I'll get more games but have little chance of winning anything, then I just don't know," Gibson told the Derry Journal.

"At what club, other than Manchester United, could I go to improve my game? To be honest, if he's trying to say that I should move somewhere like http://topics.skysports.com/Stoke+City/?section=football - Stoke City and change my game to winning tackles and not winning games, then he's having a laugh. To move on from Manchester United just doesn't make sense to me."

Confusion

However, after Ireland's 3-1 win over Andorra, Trapattoni moved to clear up the confusion insisting he never suggested for Gibson to find pastures new, but to work harder to establish himself at United.

"What I told him was that, for him, the action is not finished when he does not have the ball," said Trapattoni.

"I told him that in this great team (United) it is not easy to play in this situation because he plays with ten great players and when these great players have the ball they play.

"He must ask for the ball, he must want the ball. That is important.

"He has to work to get the ball. He has fantastic vision and the long ball and he has a good personality with the ball."

Gibson at odds with Trapattoni view

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/images/2010/0909/1224278513017_1.jpg">Giovanni Trapattoni speaking with midfielder Darron Gibson. Gibson has baulked at the idea of leaving Manchester United to further his Republic of Ireland career.

REPUBLIC OF IRELAND INTERNATIONAL NEWS: DARRON GIBSON may have undermined his chances of reclaiming his place in the Ireland team after appearing to mock Giovanni Trapattoni’s suggestion he might develop more as a player if he were to move away from Old Trafford in search of first-team football.

The Italian observed last week that Gibson had lost out to Paul Green in his team selection for the opening two games of the Republic of Ireland’s Euro qualification campaign because the 27-year-old was more used to having to work for the ball due to the fact he essentially plays week in week out with lesser players around him than the northerner has at Manchester United.

More than once, however, he hinted that the bigger problem is the lack of first team opportunities Gibson enjoys at Old Trafford. The 22-year-old from Derry started just 12 games for United last season and while he came on in almost as many again, Trapattoni would clearly like to see him featuring much more regularly.

On his recent visit to Dublin for the pre-season friendly against a League of Ireland selection, Alex Ferguson was at pains to talk the player’s prospects up, arguing that having chipped in with five goals last year, he could contribute much needed fire-power from midfield if given more regular run-outs.

Since the competitive action has got under way, though, the Scot has not even named the midfielder in his bench for a single game, prompting questions to Trapattoni in the build-up to the last two international games regarding what he believes might be the best way for the player to progress his career.

The manager made it clear he did not want to “tell” the player to move for fear of antagonising Ferguson but made clear his own frustration that a potentially key member of the Ireland squad was not getting the chance to play for his club and that the player could address the situation by moving in order to secure first-team football.

Asked by the Derry Journal in advance of the Andorra game about Trapattoni’s observations, however, Gibson appears to have reacted with a mixture of incredulity and scorn.

In a piece run under the headline “Shut your Trap, Gio”, Gibson is quoted as asking: “Where else would I go from Manchester United? What club, other than Manchester United, could I go to to improve my game?

“To be honest,” he continues, “if he’s trying to say that I should move somewhere like Stoke City and change my game to winning tackles and not winning games, then he’s having a laugh.

“To move on from Manchester United just doesn’t make sense to me.”

The player subsequently acknowledges his lack of first-team football is an issue on the international front and accepts he was unlikely to start in Armenia because of it.

He goes on, however, to express the hope he would start against Andorra. He didn’t.

He says, however, that having shown what he was capable of for his club last year he is just waiting to get “another run in the team”.

“I have a good relationship with Trapattoni,” he insists. “We haven’t fallen out in any way. Personally, I just think I haven’t been playing (for Ireland) because I haven’t been playing regularly at club level and he’s giving other players the chance that play week in, week out.”

That, as it happens, would seem to be the manager’s point and when Gibson’s quotes were read to Trapattoni at a press conference yesterday morning prior to his return to Italy, his tone was fairly scathing.

“I said before, he’s not my player, I’m not Ferguson,” he said. “But when a young player plays more games, in the first or second league, it increases their personality. It’s not a problem, though; if Gibson wants to stay in Manchester, let him stay in Manchester. It’s not my problem.

“I will continue to ask him but I think also it’s a question of whether he plays or doesn’t play. I cannot have seven or eight players who don’t play for their club. I can’t have such a situation.

“Two other players asked me 20 days ago about opportunities to go to the second league to play and I told them to go, play. He (Gibson) says he wants to stay, that Ferguson helps him; then stay! It’s not my problem.

“But the answer is that he must play. When he stays always on the bench, obviously he is not improving. Manchester is Manchester. There are players with great personalities who play. He must enter this group. Now, he doesn’t play or plays only sometimes because there are other great players but I think that at another club he plays all the time.

“It doesn’t matter whether it is Manchester or Juventus or Milan, when you stay at these great teams it is very important because you play in the league, in Europe . . . but if you stay in this club and play only a few times, you just stay with the shirt, then that is different.

“But I didn’t say whether he should stay or go. Just that if Gibson was at another club maybe he would play 90 minutes, 90 minutes, 90 minutes and he would grow more. He has football in his head and in his legs, it’s beautiful but if he doesn’t play . . .”

Asked about his side’s winning start to the campaign, Trapattoni’s satisfaction was apparent and he said he had congratulated his players before cautioning them against overconfidence.

“I said we’d only played the first two games. Don’t be arrogant. When you become strong, the other teams try to get at you. We cannot think we are the best just because of these two games.”

Trust Old Trap to offer some career advice to the still relatively obscure Darron Gibson on an issue that is increasingly touching the professional lives of some of the biggest names in the game.

Do they want to play, immerse themselves in the heart and the rhythm of a team, or are they as happy to grow rich without the steady beat of performance that can only come from regular competitive action?

On the face of it, Giovanni Trapattoni was merely suggesting that Gibson would be a far more valuable member of the Republic of Ireland squad if he spent less time watching the veteran Paul Scholes and the likes of Darren Fletcher and Michael Carrick from the Manchester United bench or reserve team -- and more developing his talent on the field with the first team of another club, the only place that really counts in the mind of the coach.

Gibson was indignant. He made his breakthrough in an Irish shirt at roughly the time he was beginning to score spectacular goals for United, and naturally the young man wanted it all, the glory and prestige and the huge wages that came with performing at the Theatre of Dreams and also a regular place in the team that Trapattoni took so close to the World Cup finals.

Increasingly, though, the likes of Gibson are required to understand that vital decisions have to be made at an early stage of their professional development. If you operate at a certain level where your raw talent does not command automatic acknowledgement, there is a question mark against that ability to have it all.

Wayne Rooney has invited huge pressure on himself by assuming that his status as one of the world's most gifted players was quite separate from the need to operate his private life with a degree of control and discretion, at least if he wanted to avoid the kind of public examination under which he was put between two notable European Championship qualifying performances for England. His club-mate Gibson's challenge, though, is much more grounded in the game he seeks to play at the highest level.

meltdown

Rooney, short of a meltdown in nerve and commitment, is the first name on the team sheets of his United and England managers, Alex Ferguson and Fabio Capello. Gibson is never likely to enjoy such treatment. His challenge is to impress -- game in, game out -- a man like Trapattoni that he is getting stronger, more aware of every situation that can challenge a young pro.

The bench is not a place to proceed with such an education, nor the training ground. Real progress requires the real thing.

The key Trapattoni quote was: "I said that when younger players play more games or play always in the first or second leagues, it improves their personality, only this. There is no other problem.

"Gibson can stay in Manchester. It's not my problem. I will continue to call him up but I can't have eight players in my team who aren't playing for their clubs."

Of course he can have as few as two, especially if their names are Shay Given and Robbie Keane. But even here, with players of such established performance levels, there will soon enough be a question of sharpness, a worry about the effects of prolonged exclusion from the serious action.

Given may prefer the opulence of Manchester City to the margins of the Premier League with, say, Fulham; he may draw some satisfaction from contemplating the virtues of a rich old age; but if his young City rival Joe Hart continues to project his talent and confidence, for how long will he be content in the twilight zone?

Gibson's current resolve to fight it out at Old Trafford will surely be ultimately complicated by the limited chances he has to inflict his competitive 'personality' on the knowing Trapattoni. Given and Keane have had ample opportunity to do so, but Gibson has had a few opportunities to blossom under most optimum conditions. So far this season he has to yet to appear in the United first team, a situation that is in sharp comparison to one of his rivals for a place in the Irish midfield, Glenn Whelan.

While Gibson sat out the action the weekend before last, the Stoke City player was immersed in the greatest challenge facing any Premier League player -- he was attempting to make an impact on Chelsea, something he did with a driving performance and one shot which rattled the crossbar.

Stoke was the club that was put to Gibson as a possible route to more regular first-team football and he was aghast at the suggestion that he could learn more in a team not noted for its sophistication than the one that includes men like Scholes and Ryan Giggs.

Trapattoni's point, of course, is that it is not merely a question of learning; it is doing, making the mistakes, but marching on with a greater certainty about what you have do when the pressure is greatest.

That applied to Stoke cruelly at times when Chelsea were besieging their goal, but Whelan was notable for the relish and strength he brought to the battle.

Rightly or wrongly, Gibson creates the suspicion that he may be looking at his life and his football from the perspective of someone who believes the big tests have already been passed. He certainly offers an airy rejection of any suggestion that he would be better off in the Potteries learning how to win tackles rather than staying at United and winning games. But if this was a vanity, it was unlikely to impress Trapattoni.

The old coach is plainly immovable on the most basic of points. Just as fighters must fight, football players must play football. Gibson wondered whether the old man was "having a laugh".

If he is wise, he will not waste further time on such speculation. It would be as futile as spending too much time on the bench, wherever that happens to be.

- James Lawton

If Scholes isn't playing Gibson will play otherwise he won't get near the team.

Would agree with that Tweetering