Manchester United ‘ruined’ two exciting England internationals and many more players are simply enjoying themselves far more having escaped the club.
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Silliness
What is going on with the world where supporters are writing off title chances off the back of an away draw at a Champions League quality team? Any fan who thinks that they have blown it or bottled it is mad. Equally we are now getting silly articles about how Liverpool are going to bottle the title – they are currently 8 points clear, but Arsenal have a game in hand, so Liverpool are only 2 losses away from being overtaken. They have a good cushion, but 5 points over the remaining 12 games is not a sure fire thing. Everyone is so so sensationalist these days.
In my humble opinion Liverpool are best placed to win the league, but if they don’t then that does not necessarily make them bottlers. They could bottle it e.g. they win the next 9 then lose the final 3 – that would be bottling it, but if they drop points over a few games against Man City, Arsenal and Newcastle, then that is not ‘bottling’.
Ian Towns, MUFC
Liverpool WILL win premier league.
Allowing for possible draws against mancity, Brighton, Chelsea and arsenal they will end with 89 points. The maximum arsenal could get with all wins would be 92 points. Arsenal will drop at least 6/8 points even if they don’t bottle it completely
Joe
Footballing gods
I am a rational man. I gave up on Yahweh before I was a teenager, and the idea that there might be omnipotent and omnipresent deities existing in an alternative plane treating us like pawns on a chessboard is obviously ridiculous.
Yet I know that whenever I have taken football for granted, it has bitten me on the arse. When Liverpool went one-nil up against Arsenal in the Milk Cup final in 1987, I declared that Liverpool could not possibly lose because Ian Rush had scored, and remarkably, up to that day, they had literally never lost when Rush scored. So, obviously, Arsenal won, 2-1. There were further instances in the 1990 World Cup where my hubris got the best of me, and I learned my lesson.
So as much as I know the very idea that there is an all-knowing footballing god, I will not let myself take anything for granted. It sort of ruins football for me, because although I am enjoying the Slot machine ride, I struggle to actually enjoy the games very much. I have developed a strange behaviour where I watch the live games like I used to watch horror films as a ten year old, terrified that something appalling will happen at any moment, like the Nunez miss, or the Tarkowski goal. And assuming that something terrifying doesn’t happen, I will then look forward to watching the highlights on MOTD because then I can actually relax and enjoy the football.
Yet I willingly put myself through this torture twice a week.
So as much as the rational side of me says that Liverpool should be in a strong enough position to win something of note this season (hopefully the league title, that’s the big one), there is no chance I will actually articulate that until the maths make it an inevitability.
And looking at the caution from most Liverpool fans on here, I don’t think I’m alone. And it’s not just Liverpool fans, is it? It is just that we are in the box seat at the moment.
Mat (it’s only a game obviously. My very sensible son told me last night he can’t enjoy football because of the snarling, toxic tribalism, and when you look at about 50% of the comments on here, well, he has a point, doesn’t he?)
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The Real deal
As the scousers have had a few mailboxes to vent their anxiety can we talk about the Madrid v City game now?
Whilst I very much enjoyed watching City struggle and ultimately lose, as I have been doing for months now, I’m not here from the schadenfreude. I just want to talk about Madrid because ‘Oh My Days’ how f**king good are they!
It’s no surprise the biggest, loudest, most honoured club in the world has managed to build a team of absolute world class talent, that’s pretty standard for Madrid after all, but this team is something special and that’s down to its manager.
What Ancelotti has achieved is a team perfectly crafted in his own image. Those who watch La Liga regularly may correct me but at no point have I seen this Madrid team panic, become flustered in any way, or give the barest hint of being under pressure. They are to a man the embodiment of Carlo’s calm and stoic persona.
They also don’t seem to ever complain. There were a few times (and remarkably only a few times) the other night where passes were mistimed or overhit. Did anyone raise their arms up in exacerbation, throw a tantrum, or angrily point to where the pass should have gone? Of course not. They just jogged back into position and got on with the game. The only emotion they showed was the joy and passion of celebration.
I’m going to get a bit Alan Hanson here because when they attack, Power, Pace, and Quality. They ooze effortless style, like the man himself, stood on the touch line looking every bit the immaculate Italian master. Ancelotti hasn’t burdened them with complicated tactics, he knows he’s got the worlds best so he lets them express that. Defend in a 4-4-2, keep width in possession to give his four attackers space to exploit. Its simple but devastating, he and they are really quite brilliant to behold.
Dave, Manchester
Ratcliffe’s deep cuts
So in search of cutting costs ratcliffe is doing the same thing all billionaires do…cutting from the smallest costs possible.
I read yesterday that he is not allowing staff to post letters because stamps cost too much and demanding that maintenance staff count individual screws.
Honestly I half expect next week to read that he’s now ordered all players to wash their own kits and bring packed lunches so that he can fire the kit man and the dinner ladies.
My question is – why doesn’t he simply cut from the top where most of the expenditure is? Executives get paid more than club staff if you wanna cut costs then demanding an across the board 15% executive salary cut would save tens of millions instead of tens of pences but counting screws.
Cancel any and all executive level perks like club credit cards, club paid executive expense accounts. Club paid executive travel. You could save so much more money cutting from the top, if you really cared about the club.
In a broader business sense it’s never seemed logical to me to make cuts at the departments which are most productive , executive are not productive members of a company so firing them and making them redundant means little to no loss in productivity but cutting at the bottom is cutting productivity.
Lee
Right-sizing United
Dear Editor
Football’s a funny old game. In other walks of life, employers willingly (wantonly) (gleefully, even) cull members of their workforce for any number of reasons – all essentially boiling down to spending less money and/or keeping more of the money they have. Even within “The Beautiful Game”, Sir Jim Ratcliffe is merrily reminding us that the Little People are expendable, and sometimes the Big-ish People too. Just not the Football Player people. Never the Football Player people. The juxtaposition of laying off 250 people to save £35M, and Casemiro simply being able to *choose* to continue in his £18.6M job, got me thinking…
The Lawyers have had their moment tearing down silly things like rules. The Accountants have had their moment with write-downs, amortisation of eight year contracts, multi-club models and Odysseas Vlachodimos. Now cometh the hour of the Corporate Restructuring Consultant to get stuck!
Forget reportedly trying to claw back season tickets in the worst possible taste. Forget paying Marcus Rashford £150k per week (or whatever) to make Aston Villa (arguably) better. It’s time for Big Jim to bring out the Right-Sizing Axe. Work up some 3-4-3 Job Descriptions (Tickner has already done much of the heavy-lifting) and get the current squad to apply for the jobs they think they’d be right for.
It avoids the hassle of sending players to train with the stiffs to manage them out. And there’s no worries about a constructive dismissal claim – just point out “It’s nothing personal, but the new team structure doesn’t have a Head of Heavy-legged Trundling from Box to Halfway line” or “I know it’s a bit of a step-down, but have you thought about the Junior Possession Acquisition Officer role – it’s paying £38k/week?”. And they’d be automatically first in line for any other openings across the business – who knows, they could be Head Coach or Sponsorship Account Executive looking after the Wow Water deal in May.
Dave H, Bucks
Don’t you know that you’re toxic?
Utd are finally having the season we’ve probably needed for some time now (and deserved). The odd cup win or finish in the Champions league places has given us fans false hope that a league challenge is not too far away. Surely this is the first time there can be no-one thinking there’s a quick fix from this mess?
Many people have said it before, the issue seems to be a deep rooted toxicity at the club which Ratcliffe has only exaggerated. All he’s done is become a figurehead to be blamed when it’s probably others in the background still making stupid decisions. Maybe the Glazers are actually Liverpool fans…
There is no doubt in my mind the toxicity is the problem but just look at the papers and the mailbox in any given week and notice that the focus is always on which players to dump and which superstars to bring in to fix things when experience tells us that the best XI footballers in the world would forget how to kick a ball at Utd. Or there’s people debating whether Amorin is the right man for the job, was it a mistake to bring him in mid-season.
Rashford and Sancho were regular England starters with the world at their feet. Man Utd ruined them. Players like McTominay, Anthony, regardless of whether you think they are good enough for a top side (which Utd is not), since leaving they are at least enjoying their football. Players do not improve at Utd, they either stagnate or drop off massively. Playing for Utd is clearly not enjoyable and when you don’t enjoy your job (yes, it is a job) you cannot perform at your best regardless of how many Ferrari’s you have in your garage. When all these top players fail, it can’t be the players fault.
Then you look at the managers that have been through the door. Elite and up and coming managers have come in, got a tune for 6 months at best and then left with the club in a worse state than when they started. When all these managers fail, it can’t be the managers fault.
Which brings us to the real issues that are clearer with every passing season. The best example of which is the Dan Ashworth saga. How do you spend so much money getting in a top guy and then sack him after 6 months, costing you even more money in the process. The only time you ever get stupid decisions like that are when there are toxic individuals in the club that have too much power and no accountability, many of us have worked for such individuals, it’s not fun. It may well be the Glazers and it probably is Sir Jim too but unless Sheik money bags or someone else takes over the club we’re destined for this cycle of doom to continue.
Relegation wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen to Utd. The club needs a hard reset and clearly those at the helm are not capable of running a Premier League club. Maybe the championship is more their level or maybe they should be running the Dog and Duck.
Jon, Cape Town (apologies to the Dog & Duck, I wouldn’t wish this lot on anyone)
To add to the lunacy of being a Man Utd fan, this is a typical article we have to suffer on a daily basis:
“Spanish source Fichajes have ambitiously claimed that United will raid La Liga giants Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid later this year in order to get back in the mix for major honours.”
Who leaks this shit? I suspect it’s the club itself trying to give fans hope that we’ll believe the next title challenge is round the corner when the reality is the club is as deflated as a 99p football * that’s been chewed by a Rottweiler.
Jon, Cape Town ( *They used to cost 99p back when you could also get a pint for a quid in happy hour – they’re probably a fiver now, those ‘Shoot’ ones that bend all over the place)
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