Liverpool fans in the Mailbox are still fuming despite overcoming the injustice at Newcastle. Also: why City won’t win the league; Man Utd need patience; and Arteta’s stubbornness.
Get your views in to theeditor@football365.com…
Liverpool versus the world
The Newcastle defeat just showed the huge class between the two sides. Liverpool with 10 men with virtually thousands against them in a hostile atmosphere, hostile ref, smashing and grabbing it at the. death.
That’s how champions win. And losers. lose.
Kudos to Klopp’s mentality monsters and Darwin Nunez. WOW, that’s. crazy Darwin Nunez.
Geordies can have all the oil money but you can class. John Brooks should never be allowed to referee a football game. That red card was utter bullsh*t!
Up my mentality monster Reds!
And yeah, a giant Shh to you Tindall.
Enjoy that la!
Tejas (Nunez to start next game!)
Howe did that happen?
Can anyone explain why Newcastle took the foot off the gas in the first half? I appreciate game management but, for fk sake, get a 2nd goal.
We were there for the taking and Trent was a walking red card.
Aidan, Lfc (very happy but confused)
Refs versus Reds
MacAllister sent off incorrectly, Trent booked for being fouled, Virgil booked for winning on the ball on the edge of the box cleanly.
The hatred, the bile, the corruption, the nastiness.
I honestly don’t think I can watch this anymore.
Bye football, it’s been great but it’s not me, it’s you.
Dave LFC
…Just 34 minutes in to Newcastle Liverpool and honestly can say regardless of the outcome, this could be the single worst refereeing performance I’ve ever seen. Lost control almost immediately. Game over now. I mean what’s the point of this whole circus in the face of such consistent incompetence.
Cheers,
Marc (won’t change though will it)
Read more: 16 Conclusions on Newcastle 1-2 Liverpool: Nunez, Gordon, Alexander-Arnold, Howe, Van Dijk and…
Why City won’t win the league
Watching City struggle to break down Sheffield Utd, it struck me that this Man City may not be the all-conquering juggernaut we’re expecting.
The “all Orc” defense is obviously strong, but lacks subtlety and speed in transition.
Spinning around in a circle, and putting your foot on the ball while things settle down are neat party tricks for Kovatic and Rodri respectively, but neither has a defense-splitting pass or a pinpoint 45-yarder in their locker.
Further forward, although Grealish did eventually set up Haaland, a top tip when watching him is to fast forward for 10 seconds whilst he feints, does a couple of step-overs, before passing backwards – scary stuff.
Up front, the Goalbot is great, but he needs feeding. This requires a No.10 which in the absence of De Bruyne, you’d expect to be Foden. Apparently not, which is surely not good news for either Foden or England, given this was Sheffield Utd.
Overall, Man City look way more stodgy than last year, with the removal of Gungodan and Mahrez limiting their attacking threat to an unfed goal machine and Rodri blasting from distance. Opportunity surely awaits for those who dare to do…
Matthew (ITFC)
What Pep needs to prove
Just thought I’d raise an unpopular opinion based on something in Stewie Griffin’s mail.
“Arteta needs to understand though, that he isn’t Pep, never will be that level. Pep is in a league of his own.”
My personal opinion is that Pep can never be considered in a “league of his own” or “the greatest of all time” rather than just in a group of elite managers until he takes over a club that are not the richest in the league with the best players and actually wins something with them.
Fergie won the Cup Winners’ Cup with Aberdeen along with multiple league and cup titles in a country where Celtic and Rangers exist. No club other than the Old Firm have won the title in Scotland since Fergie joined United in 1986.
Mourinho won the Champions League with Porto and Inter when they were both far from favorites.
Klopp won the Prem and Champions League despite Liverpool not being favorites in either.
There are other examples obviously and I’m not saying those coaches are better than Pep. My point is until Pep has the balls to take over a Spurs, Lazio or Leverkusen and coach them to glory proving he is actually as good as his record would suggest then he can never be considered to be in a “league of his own” and definitely not the greatest manager of all time.
Person McPerson
Miffed with money
Cheats. Cheating. Why are we as fans so apathetic about it? Too big an issue? Not like ‘we’ can do anything about it? Just f****** capitalism, isn’t it mate?
Really? Is that the best we can do? Pathetic.
The only reason we aren’t talking about a six year complete dominance (read: purchase) of the PL is because Klopp built a team that won 26 and drew one of its first 27 games. That isn’t normal.
Jack Grealish. Great player and what a sound bloke he seems, revelling in his experience, appreciating the position he is in. Cheat.
Erling Haaland. F*** me, what a player. Beast. The no.9 every club wishes for. Cheat.
Pep Guardiola. Defined the last 15 years of football, in the conversation for best manager of all time. Cheat.
Chelsea. Erm… something nice about Chelsea… erm… Zola was sound, wasn’t he? Financial cheats.
Newcastle. Keegan, Robson… let’s piss on our history and legacy and become Chelsea-light. What a shame for that great club. Cheats.
Players, there is a financial excuse. Pep though. He doesn’t need the money the cheats offer. He’d made more than enough before City. So he’s made a deliberate choice to play Champ Man with all the cheat codes turned on. Bald fraud or bald cheat?
They won the f****** treble last season. The treble! The apathy that was met with was because we all know you’re cheating Pep.
Why are fans and pundits not calling out this takeover of ‘our’ game. The playing field was never level, but this is ridiculous.
And sure, I support a team that isn’t owned by a despotic regime (yet…) or a venture capitalist arrogant enough to believe they can circumvent any ‘rules’. So this is all sour grapes. Or maybe just a wish back to the halcyon days when a successful businessman from Blackburn was the biggest threat to football.
Congrats in advance to Manchester City for buying a sixth PL title in seven years. You dirty f****** cheats.
Spoons, LFC
Give United time
People really can be hysterical sometimes. We’re three games into the season—THREE—and people are already getting the knives out. ‘Mount is a disaster’; ‘ten Hag doesn’t know what he’s doing’; ‘Onana has forgotten how to play’. Honestly. Yes, we’ve started poorly, but we’ve also got six points from three games, almost certainly have two more signings (Amrabat and Bayindir) to come—perhaps three or four in the end—and still have our most significant upgrade (Hojlund) to integrate. We’re introducing a new starting goalkeeper (with a very different) style to a new club and league, and some of our best players are still playing their way into form (e.g. Casemiro) or fitness (e.g. Martinez). Others have had to cover out of position (Rashford), and we’ve already had a few injuries to deal with (Mount, Mainoo, Shaw, Malacia, Varane). It’s going to get better, okay? Just have a little patience. Will we win the league? No. Did anyone really think we were going to, or that overtaking City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, and Spurs—who all finished above us when ten Hag took over—let alone just not getting *worse*, was inevitable or easy? No. Will we win a trophy this season? Possibly. Will we play better than last season? Over time, yes. We’re building a squad from the absolute dregs ten Hag inherited, with a reasonable but limited transfer fund (relatively speaking, of course). There’s a sensible five in, five out policy from the main squad each season, and we can only sell players other teams actually bid for, and only if said player agrees (see: Maguire, Harry). Frankly, we needed to move out twenty players and keep hold of Rashford, Fernandes, Varane, and Shaw – which is essentially a four-year project. It was (and remains) a mammoth task, and not only is ten Hag on track—ahead of schedule, even—in terms of the ins and outs, but most of the team are committed and likeable, he’s been working amid a testing backdrop of Glazer hell and Greenwood scandal, and is still getting used to a new league, country, language, and club himself: so let’s have a little gratitude, a little patience, and a little faith, eh?
Tiger (MUFC) Cambridge
Arteta’s stubbornness
Every Arsenal fan knows what is going on at Arsenal. Nobody is making excuses and I haven’t heard anyone say “we can’t compete financially” since the Kroenkes took full ownership. What we don’t understand though is why Arteta is persisting here.
Last season, we had an inverted LB. This gave us 3 CB in possession (White, Gabriel, Saliba) with Partey or Xhaka dropping deeper depending on where the ball was. This worked wonderfully, we overloaded in attack and had enough cover defensively. Eventually though, with time and a few injuries, we got found out.
This season, Arteta brought in Timber who is similar to Zinny. Idea being, we can invert left or right side to suit the opposition. We are less predictable, more options and solid defensive cover. Add in Rice and you could even invert both full backs if you have high possession. Glorious, in theory.
But he got injured. An elite manager would then look at his squad and go, right we don’t have the right players (Partey is not a right back) so let’s go back to last years system and tweak it from there. Not only would this bring us back the solidity but also allow us to push Havertz higher up (btw the reason he is here is to do what Xhaka did offensively but better and more often, not defensively as Rice offers better cover than Partey did). He is obviously not producing offensively right now but that’s the theory.
However, Arteta is still very stubborn and is trying to shoehorn the wrong players into “his perfect system”. This is bad for so many reasons I’m sure I don’t need to explain to you all.
If Arteta rolls out Partey at right back again, then I will genuinely be concerned for Arteta and Arsenal. It completely unbalances the team. We have won 2 drawn one, not a bad enough start for Stewie to copy paste his 10 paragraph rant from 5 years ago again already. But Arteta has to see what’s going on and change it for United or we might be in serious trouble.
Rob A (still believe in Arteta but his stubbornness will be his undoing) AFC
…First off I want to say I’m largely in agreement with the most recent mailbox on Arsenal. Even, amazingly, with old fave Stewie G. But I disagree that Arteta didn’t have a relatively logical plan. Now, the plan might be flawed and the execution not great, but (I think) I can see the reasoning.
My guess is that Arteta thought last season’s team lacked two related things: an inability to alleviate pressure and a lack of tactical flexibility to respond to changing game conditions. The key to the first point is the second. Hence the desire to have full backs that can play centrally in midfield and have a more ‘dynamic’ formation. The other ideas were to improve on Xhaka, and not be so reliant on the performance of one player (i.e. Partey, who fell off at the end of last season). The squad looks pretty stacked, with the exception of the strikers.
The idea makes sense to me. But it requires experimentation, and the cost of experimentation is that it kills the cohesiveness of last season. Add in new players and there is very little continuity from last season. To me, there is too much change,but I think Arteta assumed other things would be working well enough that he could get away with some early experimentation. But the one upgrade they didn’t get has bit him in the butt. Arsenal are too wasteful in front of goal and really do need an efficient finisher to afford them space to experiment.
Havertz is still a puzzling signing if this was indeed the plan. A more conservative approach would be to play Rice and Partey in midfield, and then experiment either in-game or in other competitions with the new formation. But I think spending so much on a player means he has to play.
However, I’d be really surprised if we see Partey at right back against United. My guess is Partey/Rice/Odegaard in midfield.
André E
Friends of Stewie
The worst thing about a home draw to Fulham isn’t the way Arteta played key players out of position. Nor was it the fact that Havertz wasn’t quite clicking. Nor that Jesus didn’t score. Or seeing us have a goal scored against us when the opposition was down to 10 men. No, it’s the crushing inevitability that Stewie will write in with some negative nonsense about Arsenal.
I’m sorry but I call bullshit. He isn’t an arsenal fan and almost certainly a device dreamed up by f365 in order to provoke a reaction. At least that’s what I hope it is. I’ve been to games at the Emirates and have had to listen to some tw@t behind me moaning non stop about how shit we are. Thankfully that seems to have subsided as guess what? It gets us nowhere. Someone needs to give Stewie the memo. Shut your face and enjoy the ride. Yes it was a disappointing draw, but we finished 2nd from nowhere last season. We’ve not lost in 3 games. It’s early days and Arteta is trying to get some new shiny top level players (which, you’ve been desperate for us to sign) integrated in to the side. Give the guy a break.
JazGooner, Cobham
…While it’s always a pleasure to read such white-hot, incandescent rage, Stewie Griffin appears to be so rattled that he’s still living two decades in the past.
Can’t quibble over the Havertz ire — ha ha ha, he’s your problem now — but surely ‘Chelski’ expired as a jibe after Roman’s credit cards were frozen, if it hadn’t faded by the late 2000s anyway.
While some Liverpool fans’ eyes are bulging as they connect the dots between Saudi Arabia, PIF, Clearlake, FFP and explain how! how!! how!!! Lavia and Caicedo turned down This Means More FC, you can’t still be banging the Russia bin lid. Got to at least attempt something for the new, even more geopolitically chaotic era.
Boehly’s Bloated Boys? Chel$ea? The Dirty Dozen? [Both where we finished last season, and how many players Todd thought made up a team.]
All for a dummy-spit, Stewie, but try and keep up.
Gabe, an Englishman in New York (coffee’s fine.)
…As much as I hate to say it, I agree with most of what Stewie Griffin said following our game against Fulham. I’ve been saying for ages that we need a decent centre forward (although Eddie did score again, so fair play to him even though I still think he’s not good enough to lead the line all season).
I have no idea what a ‘Havertz’ actually is, but we certainly don’t need one. He wasn’t great at Chelsea and he’s going to be no better at Arsenal. I know it’s early days, but sometimes you can just tell. He’s not a regular goalscorer and I agree that he’s not a midfielder either. This does create something of a question then…
If he’d been £20m to add to the depth of the squad then OK, but at £65m he’s gonna start every game until it becomes clear he’s not what we need.
Jesus fits the side better but still doesn’t score enough goals. We can’t rely on the wide players and Martin O to score all the goals again.
As for the defence, then the injury to Timber was unfortunate, but all clubs get injuries. I am surprised that KT is being loaned out but appreciate he wants to be playing. I’d like him to stay and offer us the option of a proper full back who is good at defending as well as going forward. I think we need to get back to a back 4. Tierney, Saliba, Gabriel and White. We look too shaky at the back playing a 3 and Partey isn’t a right-back when required to drop in there.
No, we’re not going to have a terrible season and I would imagine a top 4 finish is likely. But I suspect we’ll do well to get out of our CL group (and we don’t even know who’s in it yet!) and the best we can hope for is a cup maybe? Not a bad return if it happens and fans of many clubs would give their right arm for a cup triumph. However, I suspect most Arsenal fans want the Premier League and unless we get a striker before the window ‘slams’ shut, it’s not gonna happen this season.
Feels very early to be giving out negative vibes, but you can just see how it’s going to pan out. We’ve had a supposedly ‘easy’ start to the season and made hard work of all 3 games. Drawing at home with 10-man Fulham does not brim the tank with confidence. Of course, if we smash Utd next weekend then I knew all along it was going to be a great season!
Stu – A glass half-empty Gunner in France (made worse by siding with Stewie)
It could be worse
There’s first world problems and there’s premiership problems. Us blues could write pages every week but we don’t because it’s futile. Luckily TX Bill somehow finds to motivation to write in now and again and let the mailbox know how we feel, but even he is struggling this season.
The last 2 seasons have been purgatory, yet this year feels worse.
So when you’re all bitching about which multi million pound player isn’t as good as you hoped, remember this:
“guys, you could support Everton”
Fat Man
Let’s go Barbie
If and when Rubiales and the members of the Spain FA who applauded his railing against fake feminists and witch hunts are brought to task, I can think of no more fitting a punishment than to be forced to watch the Barbie movie non-stop until they get the message.
While the Barbie movie is breaking records and cleverly describing the misogyny women experience on a constant basis, it is heartbreaking to be exposed to the deep misogyny in football, especially in Spain.
It’s not entirely surprising that Rubiales thought he get away with the brash and offensive rant as we have seen similar examples, most notably by people like Trump, and those attacking abortion in the US. The attack your attackers at all costs in an attempt to sway the court of public opinion. Rubiales, rightly it seems, thought he had enough fellow thinkers in the Spain FA. All those who applauded should be individually called out.
The fact he used terms like a “little kiss” to try and trivialize his actions and actually said “witch hunt” completely tone deaf to the fact the real witch hunts were the height of misogyny where men (religious men) who felt threatened by women used them to kill them by burning.
It really is a strange world where we are seeing glimmers of hope for women getting more respect, yet are constantly reminded there is a lot to overcome. We can only hope these are the last holdouts of antediluvian thinking and the younger generations will see Rubiales et al for exactly what they are.
Paul McDevitt
Sure he’ll be fine on the £75k a week he’s been pocketing
Manchester United’s decision is equivalent to handing a life sentence to the young man. No second chance. No Premier league. No national team. No chance to reform his behavior and repay society. What is Mason thinking? His world must be totally shattered. No excuse for what he did. Yet…. He is now a father with a son to support. Wishing Mason the best.
Jim Barrie….USA
