The Mailbox debates to whom the Premier League would mean most and suggests it would mean least if Arsenal triumph. Also: Roberto De Zerbi is the new Roberto Martinez; Darwin Nunez; Thomas Tuchel back to Chelsea; and more…
Get your views in to theeditor@football365.com…
The new Martinez
In football, as in life, context is all important and it’s something we need to bear in mind when we judge managers. More often than not, a manager arrives at a club that’s failing in one or more ways.
Very occasionally, that’s not the case, usually because a smaller team that’s been doing really well for a sustained period has their manager poached by a bigger club. Cast your minds back to 2013 (I know it’s hard fellow United fans) and David Moyes was the chosen one having built a consistently overachieving Everton side. Organised, hard working and motivated. We all know what happened to him at Old Trafford, but what’s more interesting is the trajectory of the man that followed him at Goodison, ol’ Bobby Brown Shoes, Roberto Martinez.
In the first season under his “outstanding” coaching, he was praised to high heaven for removing the shackles and getting the team to play. The wheels started to come off during his second season, before a disastrous third saw him fired with fans mutinous. All the attacking verve of those early days was built on the foundations laid by Moyes. The no doubt endless drills, the morale, the relationships between defensive players et al don’t wear off overnight, they take a season or so of “just letting them play” to be forgotten.
Fast forward to today and replace Moyes with Potter and Martinez with De Zerbi. The parallels for me are obvious and I was preaching patience and caution whilst everyone blew smoke up his arse. He’s another Martinez.
As a United fan, come the summer, I’d like to say I don’t want him anywhere near Old Trafford, but Liverpool isn’t actually that far away; they’d be welcome to him.
Lewis, Busby Way
Why a title win would mean less to Arsenal
If arsenal win the title it will be less significant than if city or Liverpool win it.
Got your attention?
Let’s discuss.
If city win the title, they are chasing a fourth title in a row which has never been done before, they could also be potentially chasing a double of trebles – imagine that. at a time when they have their biggest rival (Liverpool) also matching them (slightly bettering at time of this email) point for point. If they do it it’s genuinely insane. They also did this missing their best player for 60% of the season (de bruyne) their second best player (rodri) for 4 games and the world deadliest footballing terminator for about 20%.
If Liverpool win the title it will mean at min a domestic double (say what you like about league cup everyone would rather win it than not) at a time when our manager announced he was leaving halfway through the season when we have no sporting director in place and a squad so depleted with injuries to genuine first team players that we were forced to play three players who had a total of about 40 mins of first team football in a cup final oh…and one of those academy players dad died mid way through his introduction to first team football. We also had our star striker depart for two months to afcon and he still isn’t back playing yet… In march.
Two teams were they have massive set backs and simultaneously fighting on almost all fronts despite those set backs.
Then there is arsenal. They missed a striker who doesn’t strike for some parts of the season. And a title win will just be 10% more than they did last season.
If arsenal win the title it’s not really as significant an achievement as either of the other two winning it for the above reasons. I’m sure arsenal fans given the good progress under arteta largely expect that at some point if they stay injury free they will win a title. There is pretty much nothing stopping arsenal this year and their opponents have been disadvantaged by injuries and circumstances multiple times.
Whoever wins it everyone needs to admit that having teams actually challenge city is better and that even just challenging city to a title is harder than about 50% of actual title wins of yesteryear.
Also I noticed in the United game that for the third time this season the way to beat city is long balls to a fast striker (wolves, Chelsea and United) Newcastle did it last year as well. So here’s hoping Virgil can feed some long balls for Salah and Nunez
Lee
And why it means more to Liverpool
Trent… Silly boy, silly comments – No good can come of it…
But he has half a point at least…
On Wednesday morning, possibly afternoon, on the radio (Talksport), City were still trying to advertise that they hadnt sold all the tickets for a home match in the CL last 16…
I mean christ on a bike..
The city fan liason officer or whatever he was, was basically saying its a poor area and working class and they play sooo many games that fans cant afford to go to all the games so they only go to games of their choice…
If it was Liverpool or Manutd or Newcastle you could have sold it out twice… this is the difference, this is the ‘means more’.. its not just to Liverpool fans its to all fans that seemingly arent City fans..
They have many many fans of course but many many less bothered fans who cant be arsed to watch them casually whoop a lowly Danish team in a no jeopardy game they will def win..
And as Will Fords states in the article, maybe they are bored of wining the CL.. I mean f*ck me sideways!
Ask Manu fans from the 90s and 2000s if they got bored?
Did they struggle to fill their stadium because fans (from the working class area of Manchester couldnt afford the 60+ games a year)
What a crock of sh*te that is
City – Bland perfection sadly
They are ‘boring’ because of the lack of jeopardy
They play amazingly controlled football and have some of the best players alive on the pitch and people argue boredom..
Think that tells you everything you need to know.
I dont watch a City game if they are playing anyone else than us.. I do watch lots and lots of football but would rather watch Newcastle v Villa or Spurs v Palace for example as they are far more ‘entertaining’ than ‘perfect’ football.
Al – LFC (yes of course im nervous!!) but I do have an irrational love for Phil Foden. Despite the sex doll mouth run he does…. and to think 2 seasons or less ago people were trying to explain to me why Mount was better…. silly people!
Read more: Alexander-Arnold does Pep’s Liverpool team talk for him as This Means More now means even more
Getting away with it?
I’m enjoying the ‘why they won’t do it’ series, but I have to take issue that Liverpool are ‘doing things by the skin of their arse’ narrative. In the league, before the Forest game, other than the deserved loss at Arsenal, the recent scores have been: 4-1; 4-1; 3-1; 4-1; 4-1; 4-0; 4-2 – aggregate 27-7. And we’ve played most of 2024 without Salah, Allison, Trent, Szoboslai and Jota – arguably half the regular first team out.
Domestically, in the last calendar year, Liverpool have played 55 times and lost three of them (City, Arsenal and Spurs). That is one extremely well padded arse.
Maybe the injuries and the schedule will catch up with us, but it definitely hasn’t been the case so far that we’ve been scraping by.
AM, New York
Hot hand fallacy
I would like to give a response to the email from Andy from Swansea. While I’ll try my best, I am fairly sure it’ll sound a bit condescending but that isn’t my intention.
Andy stipulates that Arsenal won’t win the league for the simple reason that they have not been able to do so in the past 4-5 years and therefore his money won’t be on them. This is “evidence” enough that it won’t happen this time.
Far be it for me to suggest what to do with your betting money, it is the logic of it that grinds my gears so I would like to introduce Andy to the “hot hand fallacy”. You’ll find a more eloquent explanation for what it is on the internet (or in a scene in the movie “the big short”). But in essence it’s the belief that just because something keeps happening in the past, it’ll continue to happen and yet sometimes that particular expectation unravels.
The reason that phenomenon exists is that people are often biased towards that sort of thinking without checking their key assumptions. The evidence you present is backwards looking. As an Arsenal fan let me tell you the reasons why many of us are feeling hopeful (even though I personally suspect that the December slump is going to cost us).
1) The underlying numbers in terms of chances created or conceded. The xG numbers have been trending in the right direction for a long time (lower xG for goals conceded and higher xG in goals attempted). So to me it is no surprise that they’ve clicked into gear since the Dubai break because they’re simply converting what they were creating albeit conceding even less chances than before.
2) We collapsed in the race for 4th two seasons back and we blitzed past that race the season after. But the season after we failed to hold on to a title lead. So the hope is that since one of the youngest squads in the league has gained needed experience, evolved and become better, and has been strengthened by signings clicking into gear, they may just show the resolve to last the course this time. People grow, evolve, up skill themselves, and improvements happen.
3) We have played half the season now without guys who were first names on the team last season when they were available (Jesus, Zinchenko, Partey). We stumbled without them last season and the death knell to the race I’d argue was less about pressure and more about missing William Saliba. Now all of them (besides WS) are on the cusp of returning and aren’t being rushed back in because we are doing fine without em.
On top of all this is the fact that neither of the top 2 have bested Arsenal in the PL this season. Liverpool haven’t beaten them in 2 seasons. Now of course, we can potentially be derailed by a Saliba injury or a confidence sucking defeat to Porto. One can argue multiple reasons for Arsenal to slip up or for Liverpool or City to take the cake (squad depth, fixture list, away game at Etihad etc).
But any analyst in any sector involved in essentially gambling a bit of money would tell you to beware of this hot hand fallacy. The past doesn’t repeat if the context and underlying factors change sufficiently.
Abhilash
Will of the people
Jesus Christ.. Reading Will “Richard Keys” Ford’s piece on Trent making Pep’s team talk for him today..
Calm down lad.. I don’t even necessarily disagree with your point ( albeit I think Trent was coming at things from a financial doping perspective rather than implying that City simply don’t care as much as Liverpool do ).. but Jesus Christ, the bile pooling up around your laptop must be eating through the floor.
I enjoy the banty nature of 365, but that tone ( and not for the first time either ) is unseemly.
Take the nastiness out of it please.
E, Ireland
…Is Will Ford okay? Not twitter-esque baiting. But there’s vitriol in everything he writes; he seems awfully angry, all the time, about everything. Even things that aren’t related to Chelsea losing a game. Unless it’s an intentional tone, to encourage replies (of which I’m doing), but it doesn’t seem overly healthy.
I’m not gonna get embroiled in the ‘This Means More’ debate because genuinely club and fan communication is not coherent. At the same time LFC fans have literally waved flags saying ‘unbearable us, aren’t we’ there’d be other voices within the fanbase lamenting double standards held to liverpool. Some literally lap-up the marketing nonsense and genuinely believe it does mean more, some absolutely revel in the trolling, and some are truly embarrassed by it.
Reminds me of the brilliant Joe Cole interview, post his LFC career. He’d answered every question the in-house media stooges had asked with a variant of ‘yeah, s’pose’ and they’d twisted that to be the equivalent of ‘joe Cole finally happy to be at a European Powerhouse for the first time in his career’ or some such nonsense. The first Joe saw of it was the headlines and he’d openly mocked it all – quite rightly.
Clubs pay people to write that claptrap (god knows why anyone would want that job); some fans adore reading it; some seem personally affronted by it (Will), but surely most just roll their eyes at this pravda-esque nonsense.
There’s clearly far more interest in what is said about football (rather than the actual football) than there used to be. There’s football reporters and journalists who genuinely and provably seem far far more engaged by the manager pre and post match presser than the game itself, and when on podcast and media gigs seem to talk about a match for all of 2 seconds then waffle on at length about ‘oh it was interesting because after the game x said….’ Listen to Faye Carruthers as an extreme example.
Don’t know if it’s my age but i couldn’t care less about a manager pre match or post match. The former is filled with lies (intentional mindgames, or intentional obfuscating), and the latter inherently biased, or, more likely, utterly dull without any meaningful story at the end of it.
There was already the mailbox covering VVD’s apparently lambasting Man United for LFC’s failure to win, when he kinda, just demonstrably didn’t, so I won’t retread that.
But let’s take Will’s very angry article on Trent’s quote this week. A lengthy way of saying a manager pins whatever he can to motivate his team on the dressing room wall. That’s been done forever. Or as was described in the Jordan documentary, often sportsmen invent it to motivate themselves. Will’s then twisting it to reflect both clubs signing expensive players is either demonstrably daft, or entirely missing the point.
What could be argued, is when Klopp won the title he went on national media and just utterly broke down into tears, as did the Captain. They were just in absolute pieces. It led to the fan parade 12 months later, and the outpouring of emotion after 30 years.
I’m not gonna argue as to whether that infers it does means more to LFC than another side, but it fair to say that to them the perception / feelings they had were definitely more transformational than Pep’s 115 brigade celebrations when they earned a 7th. Or like the difference between Aguero’s winning their first.
Not everything that’s said within football needs to be fact; Everything that’s ever been said could be used as a motivational quote by the opposition – even the inane. I get the impression the only people who truly care about player quotes are the media who can warp them to a headline. Doesn’t seem like the players give two hoots. Calm down Will, eh?
Tom G
Taking Tuchel back
The day Thomas Tuchel was sacked was an extremely sad day in my life and I know that sounds a bit much it’s just football but that’s how it felt. We had just sacked the man who had stood up as a leader and kept the club and team together in the most turbulent of times and got the job done all the while he defended the club day after day when everyone was having a wonderful time blaming us for a war and sanctioning us into the ground. The owners had the easy option of keeping the most popular manager since Jose around to help keep the standards in a time of transition but no they made an arse of it. It just rammed home the point our owners hadn’t a clue and we were in real trouble. I tried to stay positive but then the whole Potter/Lampard fiasco unfolds and it’s getting harder to believe the people at the top have any idea what they’re doing. Money being wasted on players that didn’t suit us like Mudryk, buying every midfielder they could find no matter what the cost. I said look it’s better than being the other end of the scale and spending nothing and it’s not my money why should I care. Now here we are is it going well? No not at all. Is it better than last year? Yes but it could hardly have been much worse. Don’t dangle the possibility of having Thomas Tuchel return in front of us, my heart can’t take it when it turns out not to be true and he ends up at Man United. Don’t give us the hope when it’s never going to happen as it would require the owners and board to make a competent decision, and competency is in short supply at Stamford Bridge these days. What I wouldn’t give to have him back at the bridge though, FFP be damned they are going to waste the money anyway, I have had enough of Poch and his lemons.
Aaron CFC Ireland.
Read more: Chelsea managers ranked by how much the fans want them to replace Pochettino
Two sides of Nunez
Not sure I’ve ever seen a player like Nunez before, who is as likely to score a worldy (or two) as fall over his own feet.
Chaos seems to be leaning more into the sublime, rather than the ridiculous, parts of his ability which we’re really going to need on Sunday.
Aidan,Lfc (I’d be very happy with a draw)
Darwin Nunez celebrates in Prague
City flops?
I wanted to respond to The Admin regarding their City’s ‘flops’ letter, especially as there are some glaring errors in what they wrote.
First of all, City have signed some definite flops and I would agree that Bravo, Mendy and now Phillips are all flops as they didn’t provide a positive contribution to the team. Bravo however, didn’t have a “swift exit” and stayed for all four seasons of his contract.
Then we have, what I would call Squad Turnover, where players come in, help the team, but are then mostly moved on for profit and/or better players. This is where I’d argue Torres is and buying for £20M, being a useful player with a better than a 1 in 3 scoring record in his 1st season when injury free and then selling for £55M is good business. Danilo was bought after City had bought Mendy and Walker as City had no Full Backs after Pep’s first season at City. After Dani Alves changed his mind last minute and didn’t come on a free, City could only afford to buy one more Fullback so bought Danilo as he could play both left and right back as back up to both players. Not sure why you think he was played out of position? And we increased his value such that we could part exchange him for Cancelo, who was a significant upgrade. As you said, Cancelo was integral to winning two PLs, so how can you say he was a flop? Is Stam a flop because he fell out with Fergie?
Eric Garcia was a youth team player, who came out of the City Academy, got some minutes and moved back to Spain on a free to his hometown club. Again not a flop. Nolito (and family) were homesick, so that is why he moved back to Spain, but still managed 30 games for City in that one season. Hardly a flop.
Unfortunately for everyone else, City very rarely make transfer mistakes under the combined powers of Txiki Begiristain and Pep Guardiola. And re-writing history or making things up won’t change that.
Andy D. Manchester. MCFC.
…It was interesting to read the mail from The Admin @ At The Bridge Pod regarding players he considers as evidence of Pep’s ‘transfer flops’.
Danilo, in his first season played 23 league games for the team that is ‘statistically’ the best this country has ever seen (100 points) and all 6 games in the League Cup winning side. He admittedly played less the following season but still made 22 appearances for the team that won the Domestic Treble. We then sold him for the same price we bought him for. Seems good business to me.
Cancelo prior to falling out with Pep played an integral part in two PL title winning teams, winning a place in the PFA team of the season both times, and was often referred to as one of the best full backs in the World. Again, difficult to call him a ‘flop’.
Ferran Torres (40 caps for Spain so far) had a few injuries but still scored 16 goals for City from 31 starts and 12 substitute appearances, and was such a ‘flop’ that after paying just £20 million for him we got more than double our money back when we sold him for £45 million 2 years later.
As for Eric García, yes, you’re right to point out we let him leave on a free transfer, although it might have been worth pointing out we only paid £1.4 million for him in the first place, so hardly a Paul Pogba type scenario.
Claudio Bravo admittedly wasn’t a great buy, but after a terrible start he ended up as a decent back up keeper, playing in two League Cup winning sides. Not bad for £15 million.
So from your list, that leaves Nolito (lost £11 million on him) and Kevin Phillips (I’ll give you that one). Don’t think I’ll be spraying ‘Pep out – sack the board’ on a bed sheet over those signings.
Michael The Bert
Unforgettable lines
I see the topic about commentators but what about your favourite line that you never forgot?
I was watching a Spanish La Liga game on Starhub in Singapore and there was this Spanish commentator that exclaimed in English “And Real Madrid are attacking with weapons of mass destruction!” This happened around 15 years ago and I always remembered it.
Alex, Singapore
