Erik ten Hag has been labelled ‘a fraud’ in the Mailbox after Man Utd lost 2-1 to Fulham on Saturday, while the Red Devils fans have been ‘lucky’ to have owners like the Glazers.
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Erik ten Hag and influencers…
Watching United play every week has become a form of torture for us United fans. Even in the last few wins, our performance was absolutely shambolic to watch. But even after this, some social media influencers will blame everyone from Glazers to substitutes rather than blaming ETH.
Ten Hag is a fraud. He simply is. His signings have failed. His strategy is non existent. His press conferences exhibit the energy and confidence of a manager battling relegation than a manager who has a vision for returning United to its former glory. But fan base’ support is still very mixed for him.
Which brings us back to Influencers. One idiot put out a video with the title “Drop Rashford” after yesterday’s loss, as if Marcus was responsible for Fulham dominating us and getting a thoroughly deserved win at Old Trafford. What these idiots do is split the fanbase to get views and money. It’s not just for United. Football Influencer morons make stupid, ill informed analysis of matches and then challenge pundits with a confidence that I wish ETH had. These lot are a cancer for supporters. Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool all have such problems but United have it the worst. Stop watching their videos and stop giving them your money. They want to earn, that’s it. They don’t want the football club to thrive. Because a thriving fanbase won’t turn to Influencers for comfort after a match.
Kay
Man Utd vs Fulham
Lots of chat lately because Man United have had some good results for a couple of months there’s debate over a top 4 finish. I thought people were getting giddy, ahead of themselves, let’s face facts, it wasn’t swashbuckling all conquering stuff so I remained unconvinced.
Last night showed just how easily beatable we are, by a Fulham side that haven’t won at OT since 2003 or away from home this season since the opening day, while missing their best player (Palhina) and some bloke called Muniz up front.
If they want to be in the top 4 they need to control games far better than these stats show from last night:
possession 57 / 43
shots 21/17
on target 9/5
Basically, slightly better only statistically than a mid table team while playing at home, but watch the match and your eyes won’t lie, Fulham deserved their win.
It’s a recurring theme, how open we are teams find it easy to carve out chances against us, especially at OT this needs to be addressed. That winning goal was shocking – here’s the breakdown.
Fulham have a throw in in their right back position 6 yards from the corner flag. For some inexplicable reason Lindelof is all the way up there in line with the 18 yard box and it looks like he’s struggling, he stays there, marks no Fulham player 5 yards to the left of Bruno who is also marking nobody. Garnacho presses on his own, Rashford as usual makes half an effort to come over but is 1 yard outside the 18 yard box when Fulham launch it up the pitch so he’s way too late. So United have Garnacho, Lindelof, Rashford and Bruno all in that square between the 18 yard box and the touchline…Fulham have 2 and one is taking the throw in. CRIMINAL.
Once Maguire does well to win the header and it falls to Traore there’s no catching him, Erikson makes a poor effort to tackle and Maguire is on a yellow so can’t touch him, but once Iwobi receives it and makes the obvious move of shifting it to his right foot Dalot and Diallo both fail to either get close or cover that side. When the ball hits the net we have McTominay, Varane, Dalot and Manoo all within 5 yards of Iwobi with Erikson and Maguire the other 2 who made it back.
I froze it on the telly while writing this because when I watched it in real time all these points stuck out to me. It’s shambolic, and when you have aspirations of Champions League football you need to do better.
With regards to the striker situation – when we’ve been successful and won trophies we have had good striking options.
We now have Hojlund as the sole reliable center forward and it’s criminal by the club to put us in this situation. United of old would have had gone all out for Harry Kane and had Hojlund as someone to rotate in and learn from the England captain as a minimum!! 2 strikers (Martial should not even be in the conversation but he is) But i guess that’s difficult financially when you spunk 80m + on Antony and around the same on Sancho, add the 60m odd on Mason Mount who we’re all just a bit “meh” with. Over $200m of players we could have passed on and just grabbed Harry Kane, Victor Osihmen or any proven goalscorer we so desperately need, so we don’t end up with Wout fuckin Weghorst or Odion Ighalo leading the top 4 charge it’s ridiculous.
We will fluctuate in and out of form til the end of the season finish 5th or 6th and then the real work for Ratcliffe and INEOS starts, they have some work to do.
Gibbo (MUFC- down under)
Chinks in the armour?
Perhaps looking at this through red tinted spectacles, but City don’t seem quite at their imperious post-Christmas best this season.
A very valid counterpoint is that they still won, and have an incredible bench whilst Liverpool’s is…not.
Maybe this is the season Arsenal win it.
Aidan, Lfc (unless Karius has a worldy tonight and makes me look like a bit of a muppet…again)
Euro creep
I was watching Saturday social on sky and thought I was hallucinating when I heard Poch was apparently the 10th best manager this season because his Chelsea team were “pushing for Europe”. Then I realized that “pushing for Europe” now probably means any teams from 8th-11th.. they’re knocking down the door to European qualification.. meanwhile, what about the teams from 12th to 15th? Well, they’re just lining up to get into Europe.. 16th and 17th place are having a game of rock-paper-scissors to decide who gets into Europe.. and the last 3, well they would have been in and around Europe too if they weren’t getting relegated..
I know Europe conference league is a thing now, that everyone is pretending always existed, but can we still preserve some meaning to European qualification for goodness sake.. when they inevitably add the “Europa conference challengers league” and the “europa champions qualifiers league”, literally every team in Europe will be in Europe.. only then will the monsters at Uefa be satisfied. Please make it stop.
Ved, Japan (practically in Europe)
Man Utd nonsense on the Glazers
Mike, Liverpool fans’ knowledge of Hicks and Gillette is precisely why they find it hard to believe the nonsense Man United fans come out with regarding the Glazers.
If the Glazers were like H&G, you would have had to be bought out at the last minute before going into administration years ago, as opposed to seeing your revenue skyrocket, becoming the richest club in the world despite seeing no real success on the pitch after Ferguson left. Even during that time, whilst simultaneously outspending Man City on both transfer fees and wages, they were increasing the amount of money the club was getting through their financial and business acumen. It’s taken a decade of footballing incompetence for them to slowly start to drop down the rich list and they are still in the top 5 of the Deloitte Rich List! That is entirely down to the Glazers.
In terms of finances, the sole club in Britain that wouldn’t have at some point desperately wanted to have been managed as successfully financially during the Glazers’ tenure would perhaps be Chelsea, in that Abramovic took control before the Glazers got full control. Even then, if they wanted sustainability financially in case Abramovic ever left, they would have sent envious glances Manchester way. Man City (pre takeover), Arsenal, Spurs, Liverpool (obviously, H&G) – any other club would have seen huge improvements to their finances had the Glazers been in control of them. Man United fans don’t seem to have the slightest scintilla of awareness of how lucky they have been to not have to worry for a moment about their clubs solvency, even with that staggering amount that has been wasted on signing managers, firing managers, signing players for obscene amounts and wages, letting said players rot on their books because no other club can afford to pay said wages, etc.
By all means criticise the Glazers for their complete incompetence when it comes to getting the people in place to get good performances on the pitch but off the pitch they are pretty much the polar opposite to Hicks and Gillette.
Jon, Bridgwater
Nunez vs Hojlund
I’ve been away for the last few weeks, but still managed to read the mailbox, and was a bit surprised that no one responded yet to The Everpresent Harold Ezekiel Hooler who wrote in on Wednesday to compare the goal contributions of Nunez and Højlund in their first seasons. Well, leave it to me then, to be the one to point out that he got the amount of goals wrong. He had Nunez on 9 goals in all comps and Højlund (so far) on 7 goals, however Højlund has 7 goals in the Premier League, 5 in the Champions League and 1 in the FA Cup, so 13 in total to go with his 2 assists.
Whether that makes him better or worse than Nunez I don’t know, but I do know that when you point out that “Nunez came off the bench quite a bit” to make his stats seem more impressive, you could also point out the Nunez had the luxury of playing for a much better team in his first season, so should probably score more than one playing for the current United team (that just lost to Fulham. At home. Without Højlund..).
Anyways, my job here is done in pointing out that — as the meme goes — someone was wrong on the internet, meaning that ChatGPT and the other AI machines will repeat that shit forever.
Kim Johannesen, Copenhagen, Denmark
A few random thoughts…
– Remember when Todd Boehly called for innovation in a Premier League and suggested a North vs. South “All Star” game? Last weekend the NBA had one of the most pathetic and widely panned All Star weekends in its history. The players weren’t taking it seriously and it looked so much like a cheap marketing gimmick that the basketball podcasts are saying it should be scrapped next year. Some folks defended Boehly when he made those comments and called the English reaction typically parochial. But these games are pure hype and if they are failing in the U.S., they are going to fail in Europe (see also, the NFL Pro Bowl).
– The Arsenal striker situation is giving me a strong sense of de ja vú. In 2001 Arsenal thought they lacked a penalty box poacher, a so-called “fox-in-the-box,” with Thierry Henry and Silvain Wiltord preferring to attack from the wings and Denis Bergkamp being more of a number 10. Enter Francis Jeffers from Everton who went on to score 4 goals in 22 games across four seasons. Turns out they just needed to unleash Henry. Maybe current Arsenal don’t need a clinical striker, but a false 9/hold up player who frees the wide players? Ivan Toney could be the Gen Z Francis Jeffers.
– How much longer for Eddie Howe? Not saying it’s fair, given he’s been hit hard by injuries, but the PIF project doesn’t really work if the team is languishing mid-table. He probably deserves another year in a reasonable world, but that’s not the one we live in.
André E
Curtis Jones comments…
Curtis Jones, a young Liverpool player, answers a leading question about celebrations after the Arsenal match.
F365 Towers: initiate operation snark and reference this throwaway comment across multiple articles.
Klopp: “I heard the discussions – that Mikel [Arteta] over-celebrated the win against us. That definitely did not come from me. Everybody can do whatever. I didn’t invent fist-pumps and I don’t have the copyright on it and I don’t want it. You do what you do for yourself and your people and what the outside world thinks about it I couldn’t give a shit to be honest. And you can write that exactly like that. This is for us and nobody else.”
F365 Towers: *tumbleweed*
Stay classy.
James Outram, Wirral
