The Mailbox addresses some of the hindsight being applied in analysis of Manchester United’s transfer business. Also: positivity around Newcastle; and why no one wants to talk about Liverpool…
Get your views in to theeditor@football365.com…
Hindsight at United
So much talk about the awful recruitment at Manchester United and how they should have gone for Kane and Rice instead. Such lazy journalism. Yeah i think Messi was available for a free too – idiots. You dont always get first picks so lets go through the last signings without hindsight:
Onana – de gea was done. Best ball playing keeper around, got to champions league final played superbly.
Mount – Eriksen’s legs are going, Mount has more goal threat, better energy, good age and good temperament.
Hojlund – young, strong, fast, potential. Kane wasnt coming. Osimhen wasn’t being sold. Other than MAYBE Ivan Toney I don’t know who else was staring untied in the face.
Casemiro – proved his worth last season comfortably. This season seemed to have aged 10yrs but how can you foresee that?
Martinez – in the world cup winning squad, played excellently last season, if you want to play out from the back he’s exceptional.
Eriksen – free transfer. 10 assists or so. No brainer.
Malacia – £12m. Perfectly acceptable understudy.
Antony – yeah ok, he’s diabolical.
Meanwhile people will probably retort with but what about Isaak, Watkins, Evan Ferguson etc etc. Absolutely nobody was raving about them beforehand. Other than Maddison who was possibly available, I cant think who would have been a no brainer to sign that you’d bet would do well.
The recruitment I don’t think is that bad, even when we signed Sancho, Varane, Ronaldo – they all made sense at the time. However if you want to question the coaching and culture at the club as to why for 10yrs solid not one player has improved in that time – there’s a discussion to be had cos as signings most of them made sense AT THE TIME.
Johnny Cupcakes
READ: Ranking all 60 Man Utd signings since Sir Alex retired in 2013
Man Utd narrative
I feel people, like Gussy, are very upset that his precious LFC isn’t in the media, or getting any attention. I see F365 also notices this trend, highlighting how the media’s narrative is leaving LFC to operate away from the microscope. No pressure is good pressure in a high pressure environment.
Gussy, for the second time this month, to equal amounts of yawns, has detailed why Klopp is super duper, and Ten hag and Utd are not. He mentions LFC using “18 CB pairings” as I am not quite sure what point that makes, as he fails to mention their form fell off a cliff then, and if I recall correctly, they lost 6 home games in a row that January. I am almost certain I have read more mails from LFC fans disparaging United, than I have of them doing well, or anything of note really except “We demand a rematch” -lol.
It must be weird having your team doing so well (But playing pretty sh*t) and not getting any attention for it. Top scorers, best defense, and all anyone can talk about is Man Utd. As I have said before, United and Onanas worst days get more attention than your best days, and that’s a sad indictment of the times, and the mailbox howls support this idea. You guys are slipping towards a slightly louder version of Man City fans. As Oscar Wilde once said: “There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
F365 plays into this, joining Sky, Goal and Talksport in their calls for Ten Hag to go, and in the most depressingly obvious turn of events, who does the darling English media want to push as the next man they’ll end up crucifying in the end anyways? Graham “Can’t get a goal at Chelsea or Brighton” Potter. Yup, he will fix things. Just need to change the system to a 3-4-3 with even less goals, more specialized signings and a new manager one year later.
I find Sky is drifting in the direction of Talksport, who to me, are the English sporting media version of The US’s Fox News. They create their narrative, and they stick to it, with very little nuance, much misinformation, and an unhealthy dose of toxicity. Very impassioned and reactionary. It is so hyperbolic it has become boringly predictable.
Is this by accident? I don’t think so. Jamie Carragher, Danny Murphy, and James McAteer are some of the Ex- LFC current pundits, who all have much, much to say about United, but very, very little to say about their ex club. I have 0 doubts in my mind that Klopp would want it this way. His team, like many, perform way worse when under media scrutiny, and United taking pretty much all of it is to the benefit of them, and nearly every other team and manager in the league minus Paul Heg. (Maybe this is why the PL sackings are so low)
Eddie Howe has been At Newcastle 7 months longer than Ten Hag has been at United. He has spent just a bit less, has gotten less points per game – both to be expected given the teams starting points- but he this season has ended last in his CL group, and are one point behind United. Both have injury crisis’ which are affecting performance, and I would certainly give it to Newcastle that they play a more high energy, attractive football.
I bring this up as they are in very similar situations. But despite this, one manager is being called to be fired, despite having better success than Klopp and Arteta at this point of their “rebuilds”. Despite having over achieved last year with a top four finish and trophy. The other is being lauded for their efforts, despite ending up worse? Pretty much failing by all of the same metrics minus going further in the capital one cup this season – but worse last season – and scoring a few extra goals?
Newcastle however, like the rest of the PL, have not had to deal with Brexiteer Sir Jim and that uncertainty, hasn’t had the XI decimated as badly by injuries (They have been able at least to consistently pick the same/similar XI), hasn’t had a Greenwood/Antony claims to deal with, hasn’t had a Sancho go public, or Journalists go rogue about player happiness, or have the entire media ecosystem highlight each and every single misstep a player makes on the pitch.
Ten Hag hasn’t implemented a style, but his tactics don’t get enough goals or keep enough out, which is it?! Ten Hag made terrible signings, but there was no good football director hired by the club to make good signings? The players aren’t any good, but Ten Hag should make them good enough at a style they aren’t fit to play? Ten Hag hasn’t improved any player, but Garnacho and Maguire are doing well?(Rashofrd last season also didn’t happen either?)
Ten Hags first 25 games showed what his team can do when players are fit and firing, and it hasn’t been like that since January/February of this year. Which coincidentally coincides with United’s injuries to key players. Cas and Eriksson were upgrades on McFred, and both are injured, and Fred is gone. His preferred backline from then has been decimated as well. You can’t say Oles team was terrible, and won’t win a thing, and then berate Erik for not getting results with the exact same players plus Onana minus Fred and Pogba (and stop with the “Onono” – You’re not five year old ffs)
This of course, won’t change the narrative. What’s sold is what sells, and nothing sells better than hyperbolic fatalistic toxicity, and nobody can rumble that jungle better than a struggling United with malignant commentators paid to make it what we currently see. It is like the music industry; quality, soul and the beauty of the art are no longer what matters, it’s what sells, and that’s sadly to the detriment of United, but also each and every other team doing things noteworthy of praise, or those fans looking for constructive analysis of what’s actually going on.
We live in the times of an LFC resurgence, Man City Treble winners, Chelsea billion pound failures, Arsenal on the rise, a fun Spurs and the biggest story is last year’s 3rd placed team – who’s highest finish was second twice in 11 years – currently resting in 6th place. Allowing ourselves, and the media to be consumed by this, is not good for anybody, even those living in anonymity, as just like with Fox viewers, we’ll be left just as confused, annoyed but unable to place why exactly.
To quote another famous poet: “Chickity-check yo’ self before you wreck yo’ self”
Calvinho (United haven’t won away vs a top ten team in 11 – now watch the media ask you who will win on Sunday as if there was a chance of anything else. Damned if they do, damned if they predictably don’t)
What do they want?
Following what can only be described as a difficult week for Manchester United there’s been a lot of rotting fish talk in the Mailbox. No structure, Glazers out, etc. Not being a fan of the club I don’t really know the details, or what the ideal solution is, so I’d just like to ask what do you actually want? And I’m talking specifics here.
Assuming the Glazers aren’t going anywhere, what could they do to appease the fanbase? A director of football/CEO who ‘gets’ football, but would have a hand in transfers, possibly undermining the manager? Unlimited funds (because this is going great at Chelsea)? Like any successful business owner they help themselves to an annual dividend, but this is currently running at about £20m per year, so less than Sancho’s annual salary. This also doesn’t seem to have restricted transfer spending over the past 15+ years.
The suggestion is that any manager is hamstrung due to those at the top. It’s almost as if Pep could come in, be given £400m and the team would still stagnate. Sorry, but I just don’t see it happening. Since Fergie retired subsequent managers have failed to live up to the (ridiculously high) expectations he set, and the owners have been roundly blamed for what’s happening on the pitch. If only they’d leave, everything would be rosey.
DF (they’ve got the Norwich scarves out again, Barb)
How do you take your football?
Our Europa league dead rubber vs union SG was so dull my thoughts began to wander at HT, and in my midmatch boredom I stumbled upon an F365 link which trapped-doored me to PlanetFootball, which in its own right is a half decent browse (and under the same PSN umbrella) but one I visit w/ much less regularity than here.
Anyway, apparently UK folk prefer American coverage of their european nights to that of Sky and TNT. While I’m not often in such a position, on this I feel well-placed to offer an opinion; I frequent both sides of the pond and seen their respective coverages, and the English coverage is better. Full stop. It’s not even close. To the extent CBS/Paramount+ does well in their CL coverage it’s down to Carragher and Micah Richards, who are ~49% hilarity 51% cringe, but overall are doing football-lite arent they. Meaning, if youre even one iota proper football you’ll find it too bantery and substantially less analytically nutritious than anything Sky or TNT (or Bein, or Prime, or BBC, or any uk football tv package really). Thierry Henry, as much his legend, is inarguably a very wooden pundit, and the less said about Kate abdo the better (I say this about Abdo on the merits, not in any joey Barton-ish kind of way). Still, CBS’ overall coverage of CL is entertaining and watchable if not a bit hollow, but far inferior to that of any coverage in the uk. Ditto that to NBC vs Sky in their coverage of the prem despite the fact theyre really one in the same (like F365 vs PlanetFootball).
What I believe is truly a travesty is stateside Europa League coverage. Obviously EL runs 2nd tier to CL in pomp and prestige, but should the dropoff in American journalistic standards btwn the two competitions be so extreme and pronounced as to be unpalatable? No need to name names but the rabble that CBS/Paramount+ have assembled is shambolic, as if they figured American viewership plainly wouldnt know better. Perhaps they didn’t pause to think an American audience interested in a 2nd tier competition in the first place would be less likely to be prawn sandwich brigade or of a plastic variety, and might be seeking more. I’m not saying this b/c Liverpool are in it and I only caught wind this yr (although some members of their punditry have been there longer than others), I’ve actually noticed this for several seasons now, and as they expand, they’re adding more stooges who sit around and shuffle papers in cheap suits, holding a pen as prop for their fidgety hands and saying absolutely nothing of note. I’d be hard pressed to think of any one example of a good bit of footballing insight or articulate journalistic endeavor from that Golazo show team, from inception. Listen, we should be grateful having varied voices in the game but by the same breath, there are no doubt some truly useless voices that could do with a muzzling. Some might say I belong in that group (my missus does surely) but I’m not a pundit am i
Eric, Los Angeles CA ( Having said all this its occurred to me I could very well be minority viewpoint here… in which case i’ll talk about my bravery in sending this in, and align myself w/ those of similar bravery throwing them apples in the bin from across the rm and have a good laugh at myself)
No siege mentality at Everton
Interesting article on Everton, missed the mark by hundreds of miles though.
There is no narrative of siege mentality since the points deduction, read or listen to any interview with any Everton player or manager.
We were playing well before all this bullshit but you just can’t help create a nauseating mourinho type narrative can you?
No siege mentality, no them an us bullshit, it’s simply a high quality coach giving players clear instructions and roles within a team.
Improved players – Doucouré, Mykolenko, garner, branthwaite, McNeil – they’ve all improved massively under dyche and whilst I wasnt convinced about his appointment, I am now.
Give the manager credit, but not for the hyperbolic reasons you think.
Fat Man (this started when we tore apart Brighton last season and long may it continue)
Toon positivity
Gutted about last night’s result obviously. In a wider context I’m not sure its altogether a major negative, although of course its not a positive, and was pleased that the F365 article after the game was quite balanced and wasn’t all doom and gloom.
After the game last night it was like looking at players who had lost the final. Good that they care, but if you look at where Newcastle’s priorities are for the season, CL was probably in 4th and last place versus getting in to the top 4 again, and winning the FA or League Cup. At least they have gone out having put everything in to it, unlike Man U who have schlupped out with a whimper against some really poor teams.
This narrative that the team are so exhausted, so tired, so beaten down, and its not even Christmas yet, is so poisonous and the worst thing Eddie can do is buy in to it. They are not doing brilliantly, that’s clear, but Eddie isn’t using the limited amount of squad depth he does have. Trippier keeps playing twice a week despite being 33 and needing to recharge. Howe isn’t blessed with a plethora of options but what he does have is two right backs in Trippier and Tino, and two left backs in Hall and Dummett, who aren’t even getting on the pitch. Even Krafth has been available who is a specialist RB.
Its also not just about the injuries. Isak has looked poor recently, and Wilson isn’t carrying a lot of menace. They need to be shook up. Also it should be taken in to account that Howe has coached the crap out of humdrum players like Almiron and Joelinton. If you are playing above your level consistently its not a surprise that as physical fatigue sets in you revert to the mean level of ability. Almiron has always been limited. He’s a hard worker, has purple patches of goal scoring form, but he’s not a player who would be first choice for any other top 8 team.
Newcastle have everything left to play for at a time when they have a few winnable games at home to Fulham and Forest, away at Luton, and have players coming back from injury -Burn, Longstaff, Wilson now, hopefully Barnes, Botman in the new year. Chelsea won’t be a pushover in the Carabao but they are beatable, and a Tyne-Wear derby in the FA Cup will be special.
OK January looks horrible away at Liverpool, City and Villa so it could all go wrong, and losing to Sunderland would make it the worst month, alongside the fact that January can usually go and f*ck itself as a concept.
But on the positive side again, there’s clearly money to spend in January; Phillips I think would be an excellent signing on loan or perm, he fits Howe’s MO to a tee. If we win the race to Guirassy he provides depth and competition for a good price. I even think De Gea, with his experience and point to prove could be a sensible move with low risk and no cost (except wages). What we really need is a left sided, left footed attacker who is ahead of Almiron, that is where money should be spent. Almost all of a sudden, the side could be reinvigorated and fight tooth and nail to get back to the top 4 and win one of the cups.
I hope all the Mourinho talk being peddled (by F365 as well) is nonsense. To me it makes no logical sense whatsoever -why would you take a popular, progressive manager with a very together team and a great connection to the fans, and replace with someone whose goals are literally to have the opposite of all those things? Mourinho would destroy the progress made in a year. The motive for driving this talk is simply that it would be funny for everyone else, which while true, is a bit sad.
James, Leeds
….If I read another dull and repetitive comment about Newcastle’s ‘resources’ without any acknowledgement of the reality of FFP and the limitations on our ability to actually spend it…
Newcastle objectively overachieved, qualified for the CL ahead of schedule with a bare XI of available players made up (on Wednesday, for example) of 6 pre-takeover signings and an academy graduate. Along with Isak (admittedly expensive and bought with our dirty money) we brought Dan Burn & Sean Longstaff off the bench.
Newcastle fans are disappointed the adventure is over, but let’s not pretend we’re 2008 Man City or 2003 Chelsea levels of squad talent/depth or expectations to do much more than we did just yet.
We may well become another soulless, horrendous all-conquering jugganaut; but for now just enjoy a Newcastle team with 5 or 6 actual Newcastle fans in it, holding their own against PSG, Milan and Dortmund. We all certainly have.
Andrew
Sensitive Saudis
I presume Kevin from Dundalk was joking when he said the owners of Newcastle seem like the types to ignore the media given they EXECUTED A F*CKING JOURNALIST whose opinion they didn’t like.
Honestly. How braindead are people when it comes to thinking about their football clubs.
Minty, LFC
Hated and ignored
I read Dave Tickner’s ‘why is nobody talking about Liverpool ‘ article and it’s actually a very simple question to answer.
He goes on to talk about how maybe it’s the frail looking defence (which is the best defence in the league) or the inconsistent form (which has Liverpool top of the league ) or maybe just the fact that everyone has seen us win the league before, as to why nobody is talking about the Liverpool title challenge.
He mentions that so far there has been chatter about city (at start of year) spurs (2 games into the season) and arsenal (up until villa reminded them they’re not quite there) but nobody has talked about Liverpool.
The answer is very simple – people don’t want to admit we can do it because they hope in their heart of hearts that we won’t. There are two teams hated the most in premier league, united and Liverpool. United have decided to render themselves irrelevant which leaves us collecting all their hate. That’s genuinely why nobody is talking about it, they just don’t want it to happen.
I think the average fan would rather see city win every game of every season than see Liverpool win one. Fans are entitled to pick their villains and I’m honestly ok if it’s Liverpool. Despite running our club well and living within our means playing mostly attacking football and representing the premier league extremely well in European competition people don’t really like to see us win – that’s the simple answer to Dave’s question.
Also to the arsenal fan talking about klopp behaviour, you know which manager has received the most fines from the FA? Klopp. He doesn’t ‘get away with it’ at all. He gets punished more than everyone else (rightly so) because he does stupid things which even Liverpool fans get annoyed by, we just let it go because he gets fined, apologises and is also able to say positive things to evidenced by his recent defence of man utd to Gabby agbonlahor. Arteta doesn’t admit he’s wrong, doesn’t apologise and doesn’t get fined. If anyone gets away with it – it’s him.
Lee
…There seems to be a lot of people in the mailbox for who it seems to be their first season of football. Either that or social media and the instant gratification that it demands has truly taken over. Added in with some gross misuse of statistics and form tables and we have mailboxers losing their minds. United were top of the 5 game form table – but who uses that? And why ignore the poor champions league and league cup showing in that period? Why then use the 6 game form table the week later? Because the 5 game form table had Villa top, that’s why. This is what is meant by lies, damned lies and statistics.
Not every win or loss means that the league is a shoe in. Which takes us to Dave Tickner’s latest excuse to talk about Spurs, why aren’t people talking about Liverpool being top of the league? Well done for waiting until the third sentence before talking about Spurs. But we can’t hear a lot about Spurs being top of the league because they aren’t. It turns out that a game against Sheffield United and a Friday night kick off does not 5 points clear at the top of table make.
The reason why we aren’t talking about Liverpool being top of the league is because there’s still chocolates in the advent calendar. Being top of the league for one game week does not mean that Pool are champions elect. There is a lot of football to come. We aren’t even half-way there yet. No one has written off City for the second half of the year much like we hadn’t last year when Arsenal were crowing happily beating teams that weren’t Man City right up until they played a team called Man City. It feels like some Liverpool performances haven’t been as good as the results and its United and Arsenal next.
For the kids like Dave Tickner who get their football from Twitter, United is a derby and form goes out of the window for derbies. This gives United a massive boost as they have been dog dirt recently, regardless what selective stats show. Its not a sure fire win and I’m sure Howard Webb is cooking up new rule changes to help his team, I mean United, out. First goals from Egyptians don’t count or something. But get past Untied and Arsenal, no silly injuries, good result against Arsenal in the FA cup that they will then almost certainly make out that they threw, and maybe we’ll be the second side after ourselves to not win the league after being top at Christmas.
Alex, South London
That Liverpool way
Y’know, Liverpool have never been the best run of clubs traditionally. They had their brief flirt with ultimate glory in the late 70s and early 80s but really…that was mostly it. They would have been a fine European club in the late 80s had it not been for the repercussions of the Heysel disaster, but really, those were the only periods they seemed like proper contenders for “best club in the world status”, these brief little flurries. Liverpool were comfortable being a higher ranked mid table club until 2020, 4th would be regarded as a good season in the red half of Liverpool.
Then they got this control freak called Jurgen Klopp and he looked at the possibilities and thought he could squeeze the infrastructure of the club into greatness. It took him about 5 years to even touch it! That was the state of Liverpool then. Sure, they called themselves contenders and wanted to be, but they were nowhere close and Klopp had to be insanely patient for the club as a whole to start approaching his level. When it did though it became semi-regular and the players who were there now call it “The Liverpool way” or “to play for Liverpool, it takes mentality monsters etc.”
Their Liverpool and all the people who’ve grown up with that Liverpool are growing up with a freak version of Liverpool. This is not “The Liverpool Way”. 90s-20s Liverpool has always been the Liverpool way, interspersed with rare occasions of freak success. Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool isn’t really Liverpool. It is Jurgen Klopp dragging a reputable club up to his level for 8 years.
This is not the Liverpool way, THAT is the Liverpool way. Just be in the limelight enough to be considered possible dark horses but those dreams get cut off sooner than later and if they’re lucky they might win the fa cup or something. That’s a good Liverpool season, top 6 and an FA Cup.
“The Liverpool Way” won’t be the norm unless they make a habit of appointing Boot Room managers who aren’t willing to wait for success and take the heat especially if it looks like the heat is insurmountable. Going against the Liverpool Way has only happened once though and they’ve shown no gumption following through with the so called “Liverpool Way” since that ended. Stop kidding yourselves, it’s a high ranked mid table club, and always has been in it’s soul.
Ludicrous isn’t it?
Garey (Mo Salah is not a typical Liverpool kind of player too) Vance, MUFC
Right of replies
Am i living in an alternate Universe to some of the other contributors to the Mailbox?
Reading Matt Pitts email on Utd’s troubles which is very accurate he seems to suggest by association that Ronaldo is lazy? I massively dislike the bloke (and i’m a Utd fan) but he got where he is by being the most driven individual he could possibly be
And to quote Dara O’Reilly ‘Jurgen Klopp comes across as, or is able to portray himself as, quite likeable and easy-going when he isn’t being a prick’ WTF has he been smoking? Must have missed his bullying of reporters for asking valid questions, essentially calling at he PGMOL corrupt (yes it was a bad decision but lets not pretend it hasn’t influenced every referee of a Liverpool game since). He’s a brilliant football manager but ‘Likeable Bloke’? seriously? Although in comparison to Arteta or Eddie Howe he is the shiniest turd
Angry in Salford…like everyone else
…Rich AFC made some good comments in the mailbox the other day but couldn’t help thinking he/she/they were a tad disingenuous regarding Arsenal’s famous Invincible season.
For instance, Rich idolised this momentous feat by stating “Must be easy to go unbeaten then? The thing is there were no last gap equalisers.”. This patently disregards the moment when Man U were awarded a penalty in the final minute against Arsenal with the score at 0-0 after just a handful of games at the beginning of Arsenal’s Invincibles season. Van Nistelrooy famously hit the bar from the resulting penalty kick which was followed by a gurning Keown jumping on Ruud at the final whistle.
Additionally, this also ignores the blatant dive by Pires in the game against Portsmouth to earn a penalty just a week earlier when the Gunners were trailing 1-0, thus forcing a draw.
Of course, the Arsenal Invincibles record is rightly lauded and is unlikely to be replicated anytime soon but it’s a bit disingenuous to describe this as a feat that wasn’t ever in serious danger of being curtailed during that season and not acknowledging that luck did play a significant part.
Phil (exiled in Brisbane) Chiz
Slight return
Is it too early to claim my ‘prediction of the season’ award? As a Chelsea fan it’ll be painful, but even so my pre-season letter is ageing quite well…
“I worry about Chelsea next season. With the likes of Mount and Azpilicueta leaving, it feels like most of the heart has left the club…I’m talking about that core of 2 or 3 players who ‘get’ the club.”
“Now they’ve got a squad of shiny young players excited to be at a big club and hoping to play, rather than players with the ego to think that they’ll improve the team and should play every game.”
“Expect Chelsea next season to be more like an over-excited puppy. Fun to watch, and it’ll give you moments of 4-2 and 5-3 joy, but don’t be surprised to find a 3-nil defeat to relegation fodder hiding like a pile of poo behind the curtain. 7th place or worse beckons.”
Of course, there’s still time to turn things around. COYB! Let’s look up the table and claim 9th position!
Bobbyhundreds.
