There is as much sympathy in the Mailbox for Andre Onana and Man Utd as you would expect, as well as a brilliant list of Prem teams as rock bands, and a warning for Liverpool.
Get your mails in to theeditor@football365.com…
Rock on
Your leading email in Wednesday’s morning mailbox compared Manchester United to a “worn out rock star.” In possibly my most dedicated act of workplace procrastination to date, that inspired me to have a go at assigning a comparable rock band to the 20 teams currently occupying the Premier League table.
Manchester City – The Rolling Stones. The gold standard, often endure a lull in the middle of the set that leaves people wondering if they are finally showing their mortality, but invariably find a second wind and pull out banger after banger toward the end to finish strong and send the crowd home happy.
Spurs – Van Halen. Have lost their beloved frontman who was at the centre of all the headlines, but have seemingly made a sensible way to replace him without rocking the boat. Time will tell if history remembers this incarnation as fondly or pines for the “good old days.”
Liverpool – Bon Jovi. Unstoppable in the 80s, equal parts beloved and derided across the globe ever since, but everybody begrudgingly admits they are capable of pulling something special out of the bag every now and again, even if they’re unlikely to consistently recapture past glories.
Arsenal – Queen. Fell into a period in the doldrums when their talismanic frontman could no longer produce his magic, but are enjoying a resurgence having changed their approach and turned to a younger replacement.
Brighton – AC/DC. Bounced back from the loss of a beloved member to become better than ever, and consistently repeat this trick to reach heights nobody expected while remaining admirably stubborn and doing things their way.
West Ham – Nickelback. Often the butt of a joke, but their resilience means that we should probably start putting a little respect to their name.
Aston Villa – Foo Fighters. Have overcome some tough times to start delivering consistently, and have a wily, charismatic leader that is likely to ensure they enjoy success for a while yet.
Nottingham Forest – Lynyrd Skynyrd. Constant line-up changes and will never match up to their achievements of the 70s, but it’s great to have them in the conversation again.
Crystal Palace – Def Leppard. Part of the furniture, not necessarily the first name anybody thinks of outside their dedicated fanbase, but it’s always a fun time to see them live and we’ll miss them a little when they’re gone.
Fulham – Coldplay. Perfectly pleasant and inoffensive, unlikely to stir up strong emotions in any direction.
Brentford – The Ramones. May never enjoy the traditional definition of success they arguably deserve, but almost everybody admires them, wishes them well, and takes inspiration from the way they go about their business.
Newcastle – Metallica. Grew complacent and expected past glories to keep them in the conversation for a number of years, seemed more interested in money than performative excellence leading to a steady decline in quality, but a passionate and dedicated fanbase kept them alive ahead of a recent return to relevance.
Manchester United – Oasis. Loud, obnoxious, and frequently a bit shit.
Chelsea – Guns ’n Roses. Exploded onto the scene and changed the landscape, undeniably something special at their peak with a back catalogue that anybody would be proud of, but prone to explosive in-fighting and constant line-up changes that make their performance levels unpredictable and erratic.
Bournemouth – Snow Patrol. Few people give them a second thought unless they are actively playing on the radio, but are capable of producing the occasional earworm out of nowhere.
Wolves – The Strokes. Arrived on the scene with a fresh new approach and looked like they would change the game, but quickly backslid and are now struggling to match the heights of their peak.
Sheffield United – Sex Pistols. They won’t be around for long, but they may blacken a few eyes and bloody a few noses while they are here.
Everton – KISS. An absolute institution, but are clinging onto relevance by their fingertips and you can’t shake the feeling that their time has come and gone. It may just be kinder to put them out the pasture now and let somebody else have a go.
Burnley – Arctic Monkeys. Reinvented themselves after deciding to risk tinkering with a winning, if slightly stale, formula. Waiting to see if this new incarnation is strong enough to go the distance.
Luton – Chumbawumba. We’ll all enjoy it while it lasts, but nobody is expecting a second hit single.
Greg (I’m fully aware that I am wasting my life, thank you), AFC
Oh, Vienna
‘Your Nightmare Returns’ read the Rapid Wien banner. You couldn’t help but be annoyed whilst also begrudgingly smiling.
That was 2010. The last time Villa played in Europe. I was there that night, fully expecting a routine(ish) victory in spite of the previous years’ obvious lesson. I certainly didn’t imagine it taking 13 years to get back into Europe, via the Championship. I don’t claim to know a huge amount about AZ Alkmaar, Legia Warszawa, or Zrinjski Mostar, but despite having huge faith in Unai Emery, I won’t be taking them lightly. I do intend to ruddy enjoy it mind!
Losses at Anfield and St James’ and wins elsewhere this season feels about right, although it would have been better if the losses hadn’t been quite so heavy. In a way though, the season starts here – European football whilst trying to consolidate the league position and maybe go on a domestic cup run. Moussa Diaby looks awesome. He’ll become a true fan favourite and legend providing he isn’t pilfered too quickly. Torres will take some time to adapt to the PL. I believe he will though, and show his class in Europe in the meanwhile. Ramsey and Moreno back to provide even more depth.
I’m really hoping the nightmare is finally over. Goodnight Vienna.
Gary, AVFC
The real FC Hollywood
What a shambles, we can’t even get hammered properly. 4-3 looks like a heroic defeat while it was anything but. Plus it gave enough ammo to both sides keep the Man Utd discourse going.
We are a tabloid’s dream. The real FC Hollywood.
Gaurav MUFC Amsterdam
Taking the positives
Hey, at least Rasmus scored and we can blame the ref for some of it
Dave, Manchester (finding the positives since 2013)
Onono
…Bahahahahahaha. 60m on butterfingers? To think this lad had the bollocks to call out Maguire in public, when he is himself the Maguire of goal keepers at best.
Absolutely comical stuff.
AngePoch
..I’m quite looking forward to how Gary Neville and the United fans are going to blame the Glazers for Onana’s howler. Definitely looked like Onana’s hands were glazed with something tbf, maybe there’s the connection.
NR, Thunder Bay
A little more time
Dodgy penalty which took at least a couple of minutes to make the decision, 7 subs, plenty of stoppages and yet only 4 minutes of added on time.
Sure.
Bring on Burnley.
Garey Vance, MUFC
United’s absentees
In reply to RQT (MUFC), who argues that the poor start to the season to due to the unavailability of certain key players. Lets look at the list of players he claims are missing: Sancho (not picked by ETH, so can’t be a vital player), Anthony (missed only 1 league game, and mostly invisible from the games he actually played in), Malacia (I assume you mean Martial, who has been invisible for the past 8 years), Shaw (played in 2 of the 5 league games), Wan-Bissaka (played in all 5 leagues games so far), Diallo (last played for Utd in 2021!!), Maguire (not selected by ETH so can’t be a vital player), Mount (played in 2 leagues games and invisible in both of them), Varane (played in 3 out 5 games), Amrabat (yet to make his debut), Mainoo (his Utd career so far is 15mins long).
Lets look at the City players that are out injured – Kevin de Bruyne, Jack Grealish, Mateo Kovacic, Bernardo Silva and John Stones.
Ash (London)
Karma for Fergie’s control
The whole Manutd still getting clicks things is interesting to me (LFC fan)
I think this is really only true since the purple nosed fella ..
For many years and many decisions, last min goals, non penalties, awarded penalties and talk of defenders needing machine guns etc, I always thought that Fergie had sold his soul to the devil.
He controlled (or at least to anyone outside of the Manu family) the media, the refs, the FA, the premier league, the whole shebang (again or so it seemed to those of us not in the manu fan groups)
There have been many admissions from various ex players, refs etc confirming the ‘fear’ of Fergie,
Theres a whole period of time in football matches that until this years directive was called Fergie Time ffs..
No dared ever tell him to wind it in, shut up or just f**k off… They were too scared…. I always found it odd
So I figured selling his soul to the devil was the only possible, sensible, realistic answer..
And since he left they have been utterly turd (just like they were before him to a large degree)
Even Pep hasnt quite managed to control everything in the way he seemed to.
Now maybe if Pep was to stay 25yrs then he might be as successful.. Im sure we will never know.. but Ive always felt that was alot of the reason for the ‘hatred’ as it all seemed so unjust and ‘lucky’ so many times……
So watching them fail is now a wonderful thing.
Peps team dont garner that level of hatred, as we know they are actually just a sickeningly good football team, if we are honest.. but the last time Fergie won the league, they werent even that good… They just werent..
So I believe that Manu are doomed to fail for a similar length of time that he was in charge for as the ‘payment’ for the devil having his soul..
I reckon we have another 10yrs easy, of them being a bit poo… Which Im all ok with of course.
So you can blame Ten Hag or the Glazers or the players or whoever you choose.. but in truth and reality.. It was all Fergies fault.
He paid the piper and now the cost is being repaid..(hopefully 2 fold… so it might be 40yrs in total… we can but hope)
Al – LFC – What he did wasn’t normal. You cant argue that!
Liverpool will be next
David, LFC are one Klopp away from their next 30 years without a league title. Man Utd are one set of new owners away from getting back to their perch for the next 30 years.
LFC finished well behind United last year, despite United’s horrendous start. I am not losing sleep with United this season, and I am certainly not using reserve players who never play as an injury excuse for why they aren’t doing well. Once everyone is fit and available, I think they will be just fine, and Liverpool are just as likely to get top four as they are to go on a barren run and end up 5th again.
LFC fans are a fickle bunch.Yes, they have one more trophy overall – the legendary community shield last year – but I think I would rather United winning the League cup and getting top four. Simultaneously saying trophies are all that matter while at the same time disparaging United for winning a trophy, and Chelsea…who have won more trophies over this past decade..Is great work. Plus, if “Trophies are all that matter” then what is the point of Brighton, Crystal Palace, Newcastle et al?
The most recent figures for revenue – 21/22 – show LFC and City above United, with LFC ahead by just 11 million. Just get to second in the PL and CL each year to keep that up, and we all don’t know how much City dump into their club through middle eastern sponsors. Imagine the figures if City were honest, and United had owners that put money in?
Man Utd have a magnifying glass over them that’s both good and negative, but my point is that United are on another planet when it comes to attention. England fans blame Maguire for the draw with Ukraine ffs. This isn’t even a debate, it’s just the reality of the situation. It’s like saying Bayern are a bigger team than Dortmund.
LFC are a great and historical club, no doubt. They are England’s most successful team on the continent, but in absolutely no way are they treated the same as United. Bad games don’t get the level of attention and players aren’t under the same level of pressure. When they clearly aren’t going to win the league, the media don’t act as if they should be, and nobody calls for Klopp to be sacked after a long winless run – let alone 3 games. Trent and VVD have made way more errors leading to goals than Maguire, but look who the media roasts non-stop and who gets praise?
If anyone should understand having bad owners and years of mismanagement, it should be LFC fans. Now add the scope of those miserable decades, combine it with United’s size, and maybe you can see my point.
Finally, if with a straight face someone can say they’d rather sign Endo from Stuttgart over just won the CL over LFC Casimiro from Real, then I have a McTominay to sell you.
Calvino (Legends never die rockstars)
Arteta knows best
Will Ford, If you’d paid attention to any Arsenal game over the last 18 months, you’d have noticed when we kick off, we ALWAYS pass it straight back to the goalkeeper (whoever it is) who then sprays it out to either wing. Every. Single. Game.
This whole narrative created around who Arsenal play in goal is already getting ridiculously tedious and I worry it’ll rumble on all bloody season unless he never puts a single foot wrong. Even after a 4-0 win it gets pride of place in the first paragraph.
Where were the hundreds of articles/blogs/discussions/parliamentary enquiries asking why we spent 38m on Timber when we already had Zinchenko/White/Tomiyasu?
Personally, I think Raya is an upgrade and it’s great to finally see a ruthless manager continually improving the team while we’re on the up.
It’s boring already guys. He’s played two and kept two clean sheets. Just leave it Arteta, he knows best.
James, Kent.
Read more: Havertz headache as PSV open door for brilliant Arsenal on Champions League return
Youth of today
I’d like to take this opportunity relieve J (Belfast) of his generational anxiety. As a man in his early-30s, I can assure him that it truly isn’t us, it’s them.
His experience sounded utterly harrowing, I would’ve bitten my glass like a character in a Raymond Carver story if I had heard that exchange, and I’d hate to minimise it. However, on Saturday afternoon my in-his-40s housemate turned to me at half-time in the Liverpool match and, referring to his phone, told me that Jarell Quansah had a pass completion rate of 100% and the highest rating of Liverpool players in the first half. I was too stupefied by what football chat had become to ask where he had gotten this fascinating information, and knew that if I opened my mouth I could only have screamed, “WHO CARES!?”
I ask you, humble 365ers, was it for this that Edward Fitzgerald died?
In short, J, we need better people to watch football with – how about we meet in the middle and watch a Champions League game in Dundalk?
Ciarán, Drimnagh/Crumlim/Kimmage
Top Trump
To compare Trump to football, you’d have to go a lot further than just Todd Boehly. You’d have the add the petulance of Van Gaal and Mourinho, the self aggrandizing confidence of ibrahimovic, the competency for the role as Lampard at Chelsea, the nepotism of sir Alex Ferguson, the financial deal marking ability of Old Trafford since 2013, the corruption of a mid 2000’s Juve, the crisis response skills of Portsmouth and Parma, and fans so loving and loyal as Millwall fans at West Ham.
Trump dotes/dopes, which ever you prefer, tend to overlook the pandemic, his response, why Fox “News” agreed to pay a company $750m for spreading his lies, the lost election, January 6, mass unemployment and a raging sickness, literally inviting the Taliban to camp David, negotiating with terrorists and dictators, releasing 7000 Taliban from prison, making the US a worldwide laughing stock and then add “energy independence” into his defense without one semblance of what that means or when it was ever true.(I recommend this thing called “Google”)
The man took a booming economy – never out did a quarter on Obama – and left it with US democracy at its weakest since the civil war. He added $7 trillion debt in just four years(almost quarter on the entire US debt historically). His son in law -working in the WH – walked away $650M richer + a $2 billion Saudi investment. It was kind of like Mourinho at United. Some minor success, massive amounts spent, but generally over promised, under delivered, and went out blaming everyone but himself in a toxic ball of flames, with a fat pay off, despite hiring “the best people”.
Unemployment is at a fifty year low currently, but ask many and they “feel” it’s at a fifty year high. An actually infrastructure plan happened, manufacturing is on the rise, rural America is getting mass investments but ask them and they don’t feel it. Trumps promises hold more weight that actual actions. It is whatever dear leader and his minions says it is these days.
The tax cuts he gave the rich, sorry, the American people, will expire for the working class in 2025, but not for the wealthy, but guess who’s income will be used to fill in the gaps this creates and ironically, who the blame will be pinned on? It will be like Everton fans blaming their brand new owners for the actions in the past four years they weren’t in place.
That’s not mentioning his current litigation issues shall we say. Just the 34 charges from New York, 40 from Florida, 13 in Georgia and few others, ranging from defamation, stealing top secret documents, to trying to rig elections, sedition, and more. He’s a real treasure.
It’s as if you could take everything wrong with football and football culture, and it literally describes the former President : tribalism, lies, petit arguments, bullying, misogyny, toxic masculinity, deceit, corruption, sexual assault, financial corruption, cronyism, nepotism, cluelessness, greed, terror, incompetency, offensive chants and even weird dancing.
Trump is a lie. He has admitted on stage to his adoring fans that he lies, repeats the lie often enough that people believe the lie, and they cheered.
Which makes me feel that some fans in football do want some of the above, or at the very least do not care about it, if it comes with some of the results/feeling they want. Your Getafe and Greenwood, or City and their finances, Chelsea with Abramovich, your Andy Grays and Richard Keys, Neymar and PSG, Ronaldo at United #2.
Calvino – Biden is like a Jupp Heynkes at 2013 CL winning Bayern – an old fart somehow still around and somehow getting great results. (I can also predict the 2/3 “competent western nations” person mentions: Hungary, Poland and Italy as of 2022- who knows why.)
…I am sure you will get many responses on this topic and wasn’t going to respond, but then thought that we can’t let falsehoods and conspiracies take over great sites like Football365, and attempt to turn into another 4Chan.
Oliver Dziggel’s Trump quote was accurate and a clever analogy. So to read Person McPerson’s shrill defence of Trump was out of line as well as being laughably incorrect.
The US became ‘energy independent’ in 2011 as a result of strategy started many, many years before that. It became an oil exporter and the third largest oil supplier, after Saudi Arabia and Russia in 2014. In case you are wondering, these far pre-date Trump being on the scene. Of course, true energy independence would mean you control the price of oil, but the US does not and any business, US or otherwise are going to maximize demand outstripping supply for a profit. Plus there would be those that would argue the cost of this independence coming at the loss of potable water and land to fracking was not with it. But none of this happened because of Trump. In fairness, Presidents can benefit from the work of predecessors – in Trump’s case, the work under Obama meant he came into a well performing economy. There are many factors to measure as part of an economy-
Employment rate, GDP, etc. – and by most measures Clinton, Reagan and Obama all outperformed Trump.
Trump filed for bankruptcy protection 6 times, which shows he neither has an accumen for business nor an understanding of governance. I only point this out to show his lack of competence across the board, except his ability to sue and use legal recourse – although this ability is waning now as he is serially indicted.
On the issue of the weirdly selected grapes and Trudeau – sour grapes perhaps? The cost of a ‘bunch’ of grapes in Canada is about CAD$7 and not the $20 quoted, and they can be picked up on sale for CAD$5. If you had been keeping up with the (non-fake) news, you would realise we are in an inflationary market that is impacting pretty much the world. So you would be paying more for your grapes regardless of being in Canada, France, UK, USA or Germany, as an example. Of course, Trudeau riled the MAGA world and their Canadian co-conspirators by breaking up the convoys. Tsk, tsk. Imagine a leader deciding to enforce the rule of law over one who supported and incited the invasion of their country’s political home.
Finally, if you really think you have something valid to say and are not going to write such tripe, do so under your real name and not a pseudonym. Only a coward and bully tries to cover their tracks.
Paul McDevitt
…I get you allowed Oliver a bit of rebuttal so I’d like the same courtesy.
Oliver is really reaching here. He attributes Trump’s great economy and record low minority employment to the EIGHT YEAR Obama administration where he had, wait for it…EIGHT YEARS to get it done during his administration but couldn’t.
Look, I get that he hates Trump, a lot of people do, and believe it or not, this Trump supporter admits that there are lot of things about Trump that are left to be desired.
But giving Obama credit for Trump’s economy is about as disingenuous as you can get and par for the course (same thing was said about Bush after Clinton’s EIGHT YEARS in office) when it comes to Trump. I won’t even get into the things Obama promised the American people yet didn’t come through. Remember, “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” That’s just one of the many “promises” from an administration that saw a rise in racism and broken promises. Unlike Oliver though, I will give Obama credit where it’s due. He did get Osama bin Laden and that was a huge win for his administration.
TX Bill (Call it like it is, not like you want it to be), EFC
…Wow, it must be a parlous mailbox if you’re giving a platform to the likes of Person McPerson – wonder why the anonymity? Nothing to do with the utterly unsupportable shite in the message of course – too much to wade through individually, all I would say is you missed out election denial – shame on you! Also try consuming some actual facts alongside your alternative ones – if all you ever look at is right wing media, then all you will ever think is what Trump wants you to think.
As for Trump’s “success” as a “businessman” – it is widely known that he only got anywhere because of his father’s billions, and the only thing that kept Trump afloat through his myriad abject failures was false accounting and tanking businesses in order disappear debt. It is also entirely possible that the virus leaked out of Wuhan accidentally – I mean, I suppose it is possible that China wanted to bring their own economy to its knees, with lasting effects? Maybe Obama did too? Or more likely that fallible humans do something fallible? Seriously, not everything has to be a conspiracy, as attractive as they can be sometimes – reality is a little testing at the moment granted, but trust me it is better than whatever world Person is living in.
As for Calvino – I know the other guy started it, but this dick measuring contest is so tiresome – rise above it! Bantz is fun and all that, but it’s okay to acknowledge other teams’ successes alongside those of your club – you don’t have to belittle everything that isn’t your own. There are numerous clubs that you can make a decent case for being the biggest in the country / world, depending on how you choose to analyse and weight the various threads (revenue, fans, trophies, history, number of abusers on the payroll etc etc) – it’s okay for other people to draw their own truth. Apart from City fans of course who are part of the blood-money machine sucking (along with VAR) all the enjoyment out of the sport.
In other news – I’m wondering what the endgame is with City – everybody knows they cooked the books. They’ve got away with it so far by obstructing and delaying everything until they time out, but that won’t work with the Prem cases. It’s possible that they know they are going to get caught, because they know they did it, and are planning to delay until they can’t anymore, by which point they will have “won” three trebles / quadruples in a row, Saint Pep will then leave with his reputation intact, City will be sold to the next US Brewster as a busted flush, and all their players sold to the Saudi Pro League (which has joined forces with the resurrected Euro Super Leage), where, surprise, City’s owners had a controlling interest since day one.
All their trophies will be asterisked out of the discussion, but they won’t care because the sportswashing project will be complete, and all eyes / money will be on / in their shiny new league played underground or in Elon’s space station while the rest of us surf to our dooms on tidal waves from the melting ice caps.
Anybody think it might play out differently?
Gofezo (Morgan Goford)
Who could Chelsea have signed?
I agree with Paul Merson on Nicholas Jackson and him needing time to settle. He seems a good for Chelsea but like most I would have loved to have signed a proven world class striker. However, my question to everyone chastising Chelsea this apparent shortsightedness is who should we have signed?
Who realistically could we have signed that would have hit the ground running and will bag in 20+ goals as season? Haaland? Kane? Benzama? Who have the other big European teams signed who we missed out on apart from Højlund? (lolz). The alternative was to sign a player who has proven that they can score goals in the premier league but there is a big difference playing for a bottom half team (no lolz here please) to a team who dominate possession and are expected to win week in week out. My question isn’t rhetorical – genuinely interested on peoples thoughts? Even if we’d used £200m of the £1billion kitty to do it. I still think Levy or Kane would have said no.
Woz (Chelsea)
