The Mailbox reckons Liverpool can hammer the final nail into Erik tan Hag’s coffin this weekend. Also: loads of Arsenal; and when did fans go from joyful fanaticism to paranoid delusion?
Get your views in to theeditor@football365.com…
Liverpool hold Ten Hag’s future in their hands
Given the game on the weekend is United’s only chance of winning a trophy this season in somewhat restoring some form of pride and success to the team from how they have performed this season, its simply make or break for Ten Haag I think, and may result in whether he stays or goes in the summer.
Its a huge game and couldn’t ask for a crunchier match playing against your biggest rivals, but Liverpool will go into the game with full confidence and just aren’t losing any games at the moment. I wouldn’t say they are playing amazingly well, but they are making chances every game and defending well as a unit currently with the blend of youth and experienced players. As for United, it looks like Hojiland has possibly become the most important player in how we play, with other young players such as Garnacho and Mainoo impressing since the turn of the year.
With Lindelof currently being the only available LB, it would be worrying if Salah is fit to start on the right and Diaz is in devastatingly good form as well, I worry our full backs will get exposed and the wingers (Assuming it will be Garnacho & Rashford) need to track back properly otherwise goals will be conceded.
I somehow have some hope United can win the game given its at Old Trafford (If it was Anfield I wouldn’t even hope for a result) but it is key Hojiland starts and players such as Varane, Dalot, Fernandes & Rashford are very good on the day. I personally think if Ten Haag does somehow win the FA Cup this season, you almost have to give him a chance to build on that the following season, unless there is a better manager available, but what top manager would want the United job currently? Until INEOS start making good footballing decisions and appoint the correct people in recruiting and selling players, no improvement will happen, United need to sell first given there isn’t enough quality and Ten Haag has peaked in that sense getting the best of out the current squad of players.
Rami, Dubai
Why so paranoid?
So, as I sit here and read Vish’s rant about F365 being anti-Arsenal, I find myself wondering what has created the modern phenomenon of the Self-conscious Supporter (SS).
Time was, being a football fan was about being a braggard, it was about believing you were “by far the greatest team, the world has ever seen” (spoilers, you aren’t) and while admittedly 35/40 or more years ago sometimes that bragging came in the shape of a house brick of course so not all good, in the last 10/15 there has been a genuine rise in the self-proclaimed persecuted, and the “conspiracy against us” gang.
Now, not to set the usual suspects off about me being a closet Arsenal fan because I don’t particularly believe in bottling in team sport (never have) and that how could a human NOT support one of the many shiny-angry-chonky elite clubs, but I get that being a genuine supporter of a National League side punching above their weight (admittedly, rather unsuccessfully this season), I can appreciate that there must be certain “pressures” that come with being a supporter of a club under constant public and media-scrutiny however I just can’t see the benefit in immediately following a night like Arsenal had on Tuesday, by screaming at the nay-sayers. Especially those that actually invest real dollar in attending… a lot easier not to get panicky when your ticket price for an afternoons entertainment is about the cost of a round at White Hart Lane for sure.
It’s far from only Arsenal of course, we know the clubs and we know the type, as it appears to be a growing disease within every club who’s ever dined at the top table these days to have a rich vein of SS-types crying foul that PGMOL, or Sky Sports, or Dave on twitter, has had it in for their highly-decorated club, with the balance sheet of a blue chip and that they are fighting some sort of moral crusade. It just baffles me you don’t take a beat to stop and smell the roses once in a while, you’ve won trophies, you go on multi-game unbeaten (sometimes even winning) runs, you win the occasional game by 4, and you get seventy-four limited edition kits a season.
That’s two issues of course, but trust me, away from personal opinions from Sky and Dave and moving onto the bad-decision, “referees definitely side against us” brigade, any club still small enough to host birthday parties is looking at your gripes-and-moans about VAR and wondering at what point you forgot that your club makes money from it’s huge business and it’s partnerships with Rubberbum Tyres (C) and not from winning a trophy. Your failure to win a title by 2 points because a referee failed to draw lines really isn’t going to make you crumble the way a decision may affect a less priveleged club and it’s highly unlikely to stop you being lucrative to “Bolly Bingo” as your official club bingo-hall partner and sleeve sponsor.
So relax, enjoy the ride, get entertained by your club because to paraphrase one Tywin of the House Lannister, a lion should not concern themselves with the opinion of the sheep.
Harold Eduardinho Hooler (to be honest, while reasonable, £20.00 is becoming pricey for some of the match day dross served up at York Road this season)
Read more: Liverpool top the list of 10 best Premier League clubs to support in the last decade
Those pesky kids
Did anyone else feel like they were in an episode of Scooby Doo when Vish (AFC) said that Stewie Griffin is a pseudonym for someone at F365?
Also, ‘engineering contact’ is one of the worst euphemisms for ‘cheating’ I’ve heard yet.
Robert, Birmingham.
Football pyramid scheme
There’s a lot in the news about the lack of a deal with evil premier league clubs not willing to share their profits with the lower leagues.
There’s two things wrong with this –
1. The assumption the premier league doesn’t give already
2. The assumption they should
I’ve heard people say it’s a pyramid the base supports the tip etc. does it? How does the base support the tip?
I’ve heard people say that this is where scouting and youth scouting is done by big clubs at the tip. Sometimes it is, and it is completely shameful that those big clubs steal all those players without ever paying for the… Oh wait. They do pay for them. And if the clubs are unhappy with the fee they can either negotiate higher fees or in cases where they can’t (it does happen quite a lot) they go to arbitration and a third party sets the fee (which also happens a lot)
So they do pay. Or is the assumption that premier league teams should pay just because it’s nice to support smaller, less profitable teams? In which case the richest premier league clubs should all be paying the poorest premier league clubs for the exact same reason.
Should man united have to pay anyone since they’re in so much debt they actually could afford to spend recently ?
Should city, Newcastle pay much more because they have infinite wealth (as they love to remind us)? Why not strike a deal with city and Newcastle and other state owned clubs in future that they can spend as much as they like as long as they donate an equal amount to lower leagues, thus strengthening the lower leagues?
Like it or not football clubs are businesses and if you’re running your club at a loss that’s really on you. Nobody bailed out Portsmouth, Leeds when they overspent. Rangers literally stopped existing (sort of) and one could argue Scotland is as poor as lower leagues, did anyone argue they should get money to “support the game”? But because these are small local teams that have overspent and now can’t afford to survive we should help?
There is actually some examples of similar things around Europe, in Germany Bayern have twice saved Dortmund from administration by giving them interest free loans when they hit the skids.
There is a smaller market for lower league football, it might be a sad fact but it’s a true one. We don’t ask McDonald’s to subsidise genos takeaway. We don’t ask Reebok to subsidise the local cobbler. But we’re asking premier league teams to fund small local teams that doesn’t have a market? For who? If there was a market then they wouldn’t need help so we are funding a product that few want to experience.
There are too many leagues in this country and too many professional football teams. It’s not really sustainable which is why every other country doesn’t have so many.
I get why people want to save them because they’re local and personal as opposed to the big corporate machines every team now is, but asking for bailouts won’t make them sustainable clubs it’ll just make them dependant on bailouts in the same way city are now dependant on oil money, if it dries up…disaster.
I’m interested to hear replies and rationale because id like someone to change my mind and yes…I am 100% aware of the irony of a fan of a team from a socialist city arguing against a socialist solution.
Lee
Coping with Arsenal
All this “it means more” discourse has made me realize something: I’m glad Arsenal bottled it last year. I know that sounds like massive cope because, well, it is. But hear me out!
It is very easy to imagine a world where we turned a few of those inexplicable draws last season into wins and pipped City for the title. It is nigh on impossible to imagine a world where we won the title by going into the Etihad in late April and doing anything other than losing 4-1.
If we had won the title we’d have done so as the decidedly second best team in the Premier League. And that’s fine! It happens and I’d have been thrilled with it. But this season as we head to the Eithad, we might very well still lose and either way until the moment they’re out I will give City the edge in the title race, but the dull dread of inevitable defeat I felt last April is completely gone, and I’m instead just excited for it to be March 31.
If we win the title this year it won’t be because we hang on for dear life against a superior opponent. It’ll be because we go toe-to-toe with Pep and Klopp and come out on top,and that just hits different.
Whoever comes out on top, and again it’ll probably be City, just seeing us play at this level again is worth more than a mere title. I think that might also be the kernel of truth in Trent’s words about the Klopp era, too.
Lucy
Loving the new Arsenal
Years ago, I wrote in to say I wanted my Arsenal back.
Turns out I didn’t. That was an Arsenal followed by silent misery guts. This Arsenal is infinitely more fun.
Thank you to Arteta, all of the club’s staff – from players to coaches to management to rank and file staff including Gunnersaurus and Win the dog and all of the fans – from Gunnerbog to Louis Dunford to all of the regular mailbox contributors and every gooner across the globe.
Something special is happening at the Emirates, my Arsenal are unrecognisable – and I love it.
Graham Simons, Gooner, Norf London
Back to Dubai
Those are the European Champions League nights Arsenal fans have missed right? A nerve shredding tight and tense affair against a dogged, wily opponent who stifles your play and the game is on a knife edge, squeezing through on penalties! I don’t think the Arsenal team took Porto lightly, if anything they respected them too much, but probably a lot of our fans and the media thought we’d win the tie comfortably.
The lack of CL knock out experience was a leveller in the tie, I think 9 of Arsenal’s starting 11 hadn’t played in a CL knock out tie before. Over the two legs Porto seemed like they knew exactly how the games would be refereed and played the ref accordingly – who dutifully obliged in providing the stop start nature to the game(s). They dived, feigned injury, wasted time, demanded yellow cards, kicked and fouled their way through both games. Ironically there were times last night they showed they are a good footballing side as well. Good riddance to teams who play this brand of anti-football.
Ultimately Arsenal, young and inexperienced at this level had the mentality to get through, the penalties were excellent and Raya was the hero saving 2 could easily have been 3. Raya I think won the man of the match but over the 120 minutes it was Odegaard who was the stand out player, he was superb. At the other end I don’t know how Pepe does what he does at 41, he didn’t seem to break sweat and still had time for a Pepe classic foot in to the back whilst winning a header for that touch of nastiness he’s known for.
Conceicao complained Arteta insulted him during the match, and this is why he refused to shake hands. This guy did the same to Pep when they lost to City in 2020 and then again to Tuchel when they lost to Chelsea in 2021 so I think I’ll chalk that up to repeated sour grapes than believe him.
On to the QF where we should hopefully get some more of our injured players back fully match fit (yes Arsenal have had injuries!) don’t really care who we get now. Over two weeks off until the City game – maybe another Dubai break because whatever Arteta did the last time they were there has turned our season around.
Rich, AFC
Rodri’s ‘escape’
I’d just like to write in to clear up the complete guff that keeps being written in relation to the “Rodri Handball” in the run in a few years ago vs Everton.
People like Patricio Del Toro from earlier this week keep regurgitating this absolute falsehood. Others have been guilty of it in the past. No doubt some people will continue the lie after today.
Because we’re STILL seeing people moan about this. The full video of the Rodri “handball” at Everton. The referee clearly signals for offside at the end of the VAR check. pic.twitter.com/zNksxBhyKx
— Matt (@matt_kindon) March 10, 2024
Watch the very beginning and then wait until the very end and enjoy, you conspiracy loons. The referee clearly indicates (at the end) that Richarlison was offside (at the beginning).
Yes Rodri handballs it, but RICHARLISON WAS OFFSIDE.
Offside. Richarlison. First.
Can we stop f*cking going on about it because the handball is moot. The first offense was the offside and the officials check both with VAR and actually did their job for a change.
Cheers
Mark SK2 Blue
History lesson
I’m going to give Sean (LFC) a bit of a history lesson here, because he clearly isn’t a Scouser (because you sound like a massive Tory), and clearly isn’t someone who knows that football existed before the formation of the premier league.
The premier league came from a place of avarice. The big clubs didn’t want to share their money or success with the little clubs, who they felt didn’t deserve a cut of the pie even though they were community assets in the same way as those big clubs, whose fortunes ebbed and flowed like those big clubs. All of those clubs existed through the period of time that football has existed alongside each other in the same leagues or apart when their fortunes differed. Just for clarity Sean, i’m talking about before the Premier League. There used to be football, you know?
The Premier League is an entity in it’s own right, with it’s own governing laws separate to the EFL. It has its own financial functions and financial deals. It isn’t obliged to give any money to smaller clubs to keep them afloat but in doing so, it is denying those clubs the right to help when they need it. So the simple answer to your question is Yes – they did steal something from those little clubs/leagues. They pulled the level playing field from underneath them by creating a financial bubble into which it is getting increasingly hard to break into, and requires an immense amount of wealth and living beyond your means to break into. Even more ironic, is clubs are living beyond their means whilst in the Premier League and in receipt of money from within that financial bubble.
I bet you’re the type who doesn’t support his local club because they are rubbish. But woe and betide if they ever did try and buy better players for a promotion bid. They should know their place, right?
As for the government not allowing Sean to live so far beyond his means, the government or banks don’t care whether you do live beyond your means as long as you can repay the minimum amount of debt that you need to. As for your missus, no idea.
God Sean, you’ve made me write a miserable email, but you really are the archetypal entitled football fan.
Mat, Leeds.
…A bit late to the party (late start at work today) and Im sure I wont be the only one to point this out ….
But Jack, Llanelli – “Surely no one has done this before in a major league”
Have you heard of Brian Clough or Nottingham Forest?
Promoted from division 2 (Championship now) 1977
Won Division 1 (Premier league now) 1978
Won the European Cup (Champions league now but with only champions in it..) Also beating Liverpool 1-0 in the League Cup Final 1979
Wont the European Cup again…!!!! 1980
I appreciate this was all before football even began… but credit to the greatest manager of his generation (of all time is def an argument to be had if you are as old as me!)
Al – LFC (Credit where its due and a minor education to the ‘yoof’)
KRO to League One
I have been relentless in my criticism of Garry Cook however it now looks like he will deliver on his promise of taking Birmingham City out of the Championship.
Fair play.
Banjo, MCFC
Ally on the box
I’ll tell you something. I genuinely believe that it really really means a lot to Ally McCoist that we truly believe that he really really means what he says. I’m being honest, I honestly do think that. I really really do.
Martin.
No laughing matter
Atleti vs Inter was an interesting game, but it is massively marred by the fact that is contained a sexual assault which was laughed off by commentators and incredibly ignored by VAR. At the 100th minute of the game, Marcus Thuram squeezes the testicles of Stefan Savic.
This is completely unacceptable, and reminiscent of Luis Rubia. It is true that Savic seemed to be laughing with Thuram a few moments later, but that is no excuse and of course it is not easy to know how to react to that.
This should be treated by UEFA with the upmost concern, and should surely result in a very long ban for Thuram – otherwise the message is sexual assault is okay on a football pitch, and at the place of work of these players. Sexual assault cannot be used as a tactic to improve your chance of winning.
It is of no consequence that Atleti won the match; justice requires action to be taken, and it is imperative that it is.
James
