Talk:1998–99 Manchester United F.C. season/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Malleus Fatuorum (talk · contribs) 13:41, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Lead

• "The team's never-say-die attitude, instilled in previous seasons was focal to their success as the players often availed in difficult situations. "Focal" and "availed" aren't the correct words here.

 Fixed — Lemonade51 (talk) 18:26, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

• "Wins in the FA Cup against Liverpool and holders Arsenal en route to lifting the trophy exemplified this." Exemplified what?

 Done Removed. — Lemonade51 (talk) 18:26, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

• "The pinnacle moment though was United's dramatic comeback in the Champions League final". "Pinnacle" isn't an adjective.

 Fixed — Lemonade51 (talk) 18:26, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

• "In the same season, Manchester United officially became the world’s richest football club", In the same season as what?

 Fixed

Attempted takeover by BSkyB

• "United accepted but the general consensus between club supporters and football fans was that the game looked to be in real danger of becoming more commercialised". What has this to do with the topic of the paragraph, takeover talks between Man U. and BSkyB?

 Done Removed. — Lemonade51 (talk) 18:26, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

• "After a meeting with Silvio Berlusconi in spring 1998, Rupert Murdoch (pictured) informed BSkyB the need to buy a football club if the company wanted to hold on to their Premier League rights." Doesn't make sense. "... informed BSkyB of the need"?

 Fixed — Lemonade51 (talk) 18:26, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

• "Murdoch's Fox Entertainment Group previously invested in a major sports franchise the Los Angeles Dodgers, the last family owned team for $311m." Doesn't make sense.

 Fixed — Lemonade51 (talk) 18:26, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

• "Fox also held exclusively rights to Major League Baseball". Should be "exclusive rights".

 Done — Lemonade51 (talk) 18:26, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

• "... which meant from a strategic point of view; Murdoch’s acquisition looked more appealing." That punctuation makes no sense. For one think, anything following a semicolon must be a complete sentence.

 Fixed — Lemonade51 (talk) 18:26, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

• "Manchester United thus was the unanimous choice between Murdoch and board members". It wasn't the choice between, it was the choice of.

 Fixed — Lemonade51 (talk) 18:26, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

• "The club were the most lucrative in English football". "Club" is a singular noun.

 Done — Lemonade51 (talk) 18:26, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

• "More than 200 supporters’ groups had been established across the world in that period and over 100 million fans are said to follow the team". What period? 1997? Why the switch from past tense "had been established" to present tense "are said to follow"? What's relevant is how many were following at the time of Murdoch's bid, not how many follow now.

 Fixed — Lemonade51 (talk) 18:26, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

• "As a means of capitalising on this growing market MUTV, a television station operated by the club was launched in August 1998." This sentence is fairly typical of the rather carefree punctuation throughout the article; it doesn't make sense without the missing comma.

• "On the pitch, United's success was largely down to the nurturing talents of manager Alex Ferguson, assembling a team capable of dominating in the long haul." Needs to be cited.

 Done Cited. — Lemonade51 (talk) 18:26, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Formation of Shareholders United

• "... detailing the reasons against the club being brought out by a media tycoon." Reasons aren't against anything, they're just reasons.

 Fixed — Lemonade51 (talk) 18:26, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

• "... football fans across the United Kingdom also chipped in by lobbing their local MPs into passing legislations to prevent this from happening in the future."

1. "chipped in" is far too informal an tone for an encyclopedia article.
2. Presumably it should be "lobbying" rather than "lobbing"?
3. Why is "legislations" in the plural?
4. To prevent what from happening in the future?

 Fixed — Lemonade51 (talk) 18:26, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Pre-season friendlies

• Needs to be cited.

 Done Linked each game in the football box template and cited the Aberdeen game. — Lemonade51 (talk) 18:26, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

August

• "After the game, Alex Ferguson refused to comment to the broadcasting and written press and imposed the same notion to his players and staff." You can't impose notions.

 Fixed — Lemonade51 (talk) 18:26, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Group stage

• "In the return leg, Bayern came back from behind again when Roy Keane's goal was cancelled out by Hasan Salihamidžić." How could they come back from behind when Keane's goal was disallowed?

 Fixed — Lemonade51 (talk) 18:26, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Knockout stage

• "However, Manchester United, led by captain Roy Keane in a singular display of will, began to fight their way back into the tie, despite being shown a yellow card that would have prevented him from playing in the final." That's rather muddled: it starts talking about Roy Keane, goes on to talk about the team's fightback, and then switches very awkwardly back to Kean. The way it's written makes it look like it was Manchester United shown the yellow card.

 Fixed — Lemonade51 (talk) 12:06, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Final

• The first three paragraphs, the majority of this section, are completely uncited, as is the final paragraph.

 Done Cited. — Lemonade51 (talk) 18:26, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Legacy

• "Roy Keane scored the winner, ensuring the team became the first and only English side to win the trophy after it's abolishment in 2004."

1. Clearly there's some redundancy in "first and only".
2. Should be "its", not "it's".
3. Trophies aren't abolished, but even if they were it should be "abolition", not "abolishment".
4. Uncited, as is the preceding claim.

 Done Cleaned up. — Lemonade51 (talk) 18:26, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

• Who owns the copyright to the YouTube video cited in ref #99?

Not sure, I'm aware the copyright goes to UEFA (the tournament organisers) and ITV (broadcasters) but how am I supposed to display that?

I very much doubt that whoever owns the copyright has given permission for the video to be uploaded to YouTube, so we can't link to it, as it's a copyright violation. Malleus Fatuorum 21:09, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

• "Despite United's continuing league domination, it took the club five seasons to regain the FA Cup and a further four to win their second (third in total) Champions League." Once again, "club" is a singular noun. Also needs citing.

 Done Cited. You may need to double check the wording. — Lemonade51 (talk) 18:26, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

September

• "This was Arsène Wenger's third straight victory over the Red Devils". Where have we been told that "Red Devils" is a nickname for Manchester United?

 Fixed, victory over the manager. — Lemonade51 (talk) 23:20, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

October

• "A trip to The Dell on 3 October was taken with great precaution given United's return from Munich in the Champions League and winless record at the ground". What does "taken with great precaution" mean?

 Fixed — Lemonade51 (talk) 23:20, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

• "Despite dominating possession and clear-cut chances in the previous season’s fixture, United lost by a single goal leaving Ferguson to question when, not if he would eventually break the hoodoo." "Hoodoo" isn't the right word. Jinx?

 Fixed — Lemonade51 (talk) 23:20, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

• "Raimond van der Gouw continued to deputise for injured goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel". We haven't been told that was deputising, so "continued to deputise" makes no sense.

 Fixed — Lemonade51 (talk) 23:20, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

December

• "United were fortunate to pick up a point given their opponents dominance in the second half, and were careless at Tottenham Hotspur, throwing away another lead". We haven't been told that they threw away any other lead, let alone another one.

 Fixed — Lemonade51 (talk) 11:56, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

February

• "... was made to pay early in the second half as Nwankwo Kanu's threw ball found striker Anelka". "Threw ball"?

 Fixed — Lemonade51 (talk) 11:56, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

September

• "A 2–0 victory against Coventry City the following week put United in perfect stead for the clash at home to Barcelona, but a comprehensive defeat to champions Arsenal left Ferguson with little room for complaint." What exactly is that trying to say? No complaint about what?

 Fixed — Lemonade51 (talk) 16:10, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

FA cup

• "United played Arsenal in the semi-final replay at Villa Park". Something wrong with this section; as it's written it looks like United and Arsenal played two replays but no semi-final.

 Fixed, there may still be evident prose in that section. — Lemonade51 (talk) 18:50, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Group stage

• "In Group D, United were paired with Spanish club Barcelona, German champions Bayern Munich and Danish side Brøndby, quickly labelled as the competition's 'group of death'." You can only be paired with one other thing, not three.

 Fixed — Lemonade51 (talk) 19:44, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Knockout stage

• "However led by Roy Keane who was shown a yellow card preventing him from playing the final, the captain headed in a Beckham cross." Doesn't seem to make sense. Wasn't Keane captain for this match? Was he leading himself?
  • I've fixed that myself. Malleus Fatuorum 22:37, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Transfers

• What's the source for the third paragraph?

 Done Cited. — Lemonade51 (talk) 09:27, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

• OK, I think we can close this now, thanks for your patience. I'm still unconvinced that the sections on the BSkyB takeover and Shareholders United are in the right place, but that's a relatively small thing that it would be churlish to withhold GA status for. Malleus Fatuorum 12:45, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.