You know what to do – keep those mails coming to [email protected]
What will actually happen to top six by season end
Lots of gnashing of teeth out there – kneejerking / spaffing / toys being thrown out of prams etc .. but lets look at the facts ;
Liverpool – general concensus is they are sorted and will ( whatever blips may occur) finally hit their holy grail – will win Premiership
Man City – will end their cycle, Pep sounds like he’s ready for next job, will march onwards but they need to replace some old’uns – will win champions league as a last Pep hurrah
Man Utd – aren’t as bad as is being made out (some truth in decisions not going their way, they should have at least another 4 points and things wouldn’t look AS bad) – will turn a corner somehow (new manager / Pogba trying / Ibra back) – top 6
Chelsea – things falling into place but will lose confidence when things turn against them and Europe kicks in hard – third and FA cup
Spurs – are in spiral – there is definitely something wrong internally – Poch will get what he wants ( 6 out – 4 in ) in Jan and then it will be a question of who wants to stay for 20/21 – if they have another summer of 2019 it could be a long way back ( think Arsenal post their Champions League Final ) – top 6
Arsenal – Desperately need to introduce / welcome back Tiernay/Bellerin/Holding/Lacazette and hope one of the young midfielders comes through – Emery is the luckiest manager in league – Arsenal couldn’t beat worst Spurs and Man Utd teams (of the last 10 years ?) should have lost to Watford/Villa/Bournemouth, scraped past a (then) rancid Newcastle and were lucky against Burnley – oh and were wiped off the pitch by Liverpool – Emery still there – out of top 6
However any of man u / spurs / arsenal will be replaced by Leicester and/or Wolves if changes don’t occur …… it will be tough watching but lets not get over excited …. The die is cast and any of the rest are even worse ( although some Palace fans may be getting excited – the sane ones know they are only a week away from a run of 10 defeats/draws) .
Gary – call me paddy power – Gooner
Biggest club nonsense…
Dear oh dear oh dear…
‘Man United always bigger than Liverpool’ – what are we Paul Murphy, 11?
Then, ‘…even when our best player wants to bugger off to Spain we still get more column inches than you.’
Jesus wept. Firstly, are you talking about Pogba? Best player? Pretty low bar, that. You mean the guy you let go then bought back for a billion quid. The same Pogba who is more bothered about dying his hair than he is playing football.
Christ, I am glad he is not our ‘best player’.
Secondly, do you really judge how many ‘column inches’ you get as an indicator of how ‘big’ you are? You can keep your column inches fella, because let’s face it, you are getting your column inches because your club is a shambles from top to bottom.
I’ll take last season’s Champions League if it’s all the same, I think that clearly says a lot without filling the tabloids.
The press thrive on failure, you not worked that out yet? Hence Utd are currently, a journo’s dream.
#bantz
(A different) Paul, London
Clearly Anon touched a nerve there eh Paul Murphy? For those of us that have lived through the Fergie years not supporting Man United, listening to all the self-glorying, self-entitled guff (mainly from fans than the team to be fair), I’m not sure I have ever read anything that better summarised how it now feels better than Anon’s mail. How stupid do those Paris celebrations now look? Nail. On. Head. Hit.
United may well be “box office” at the moment as he says but I think Mr Murphy is missing the point. The queue to get the tickets at the box office has a big sign saying Horror Show above it. United are box office in the same way that videos of plane crashes on YouTube are.
It’s a bigger story than all others because we are witnessing the demise of a piece of history. That fact is truly box office and maybe will even be turned into a movie one day. Working titles include: “The New Leeds United”; “How to Blow £800m and still be worse than Rochdale” and “Lord Of The Rings 4 – Gollum Runs A Football Club”.
Anon could have gone further and mentioned some other comedy gold. Rio’s “we’re back” looks pretty funny now. And that Ole’s At The Wheel thing. Jesus. What Paul really needs to do is relax, suck it up and accept that it’s just United’s turn to be tripe. Literally everyone else has been there, it just took United a while to catch up. Fans like Paul are doing such a good job of trying to deny it and now even measuring their success in “column inches” just adds to the hilarity. Please stop it now, I can’t get on with my work with all the laughter.
Paul
As a Liverpool supporter, I for one think that Paul Murphy is probably right that Manchester United on the back of historic success in the Premier League era is the ‘bigger’ club at this point. It was a status built by an astute manager and a board that was able to capitalize on the commercial possibility of the Premier League.
Well the manager has left and the board that so ably guided the club is a distant memory, and Paul comes across a bit like Nero, fiddling while Rome burned.
So I whole heartedly support Paul’s assessment. We’re not as big a club, we don’t have the same commercial muscle. I’m fine with that. What we do have is an astute manager and a board that has provided all the tools for the club to succeed going forward.
Click Here: Geelong Cats Guernsey
Paul can cling to the past, make excuses for the present. It sounds very much like the same song a lot of Liverpool supporters sang as United passed us. If we have more supporters like Paul, then United will continue to warble along, the Glazers content to flex their commercial muscle and reap the reward of the previous generation’s success.
So yes, United can continue to be the bigger club…I’ll take trophy challenges over Spanish headlines every day of the week.
Mark LFC (Seriously, can you not see the irony of United fans boasting of past success during the current mediocrity)?
Paul Murphy, Manchester. The bitterest of all Man U fans (how ironic), has got his knickers in a twist about a rival fan’s wind up email.
Perhaps he’s smarting about his summer prediction?
I’m preparing for the ridicule and scoffing as I type this but I’m putting it on the line that United will mount a title challenge this season, every man and his dog has written us off telling us City and Liverpool are head and shoulders above the rest, well I say b*llocks to that we will surprise quite a few people next season mark my words.
Y’know, I think that the surprise you’ve mentioned might just have gone the other way.
I’m also loving the fact that you seem to have reverted to the Manchester United of yesteryear, before the anomaly of the Ferguson years. You know, all brash and loudmouthed that you were the biggest club in the universe, paying over the odds for players and clinging to a mythical ‘United Way’ whilst Liverpool got on with the business of building a dynasty. Hopefully history is repeating itself in that final regard as well.
You keep clinging to your column inches mate, we’re more excited about winning football matches and, hopefully, more trophies.
James Outram, Wirral
Calm down…
I’ve refrained, until now, from adding to the opinions voiced about my beloved Man Utd but, now that the knees have jerked and the hyperbole has somewhat subsided, I’ll stir it all up again.
I’ve read a number of articles in the last week, titled ‘The 5 things Mourinho got right about Man Utd’ and, in a game of one-upmanship, ‘The 7 things Mourinho was right about …’, you get the idea. I’ve also seen United ‘fans’ stating ‘at least Mourinho won something’, displaying a rose-tinted memory of epic proportions. Mourinho was toxic, the football was dire, the players used as an excuse for why Mourinho didn’t win more and the state he left the club and, more importantly, the players in is still hanging around the club like a fart in a lift.
Look at what Ole inherited and is still working to resolve, disinterested and disillusioned players, many of whom simply aren’t good enough or motivated enough to push for a top four/six/[insert made up target here], let alone play flowing football. Add in the Pogba issue, an egotistical player who has just seen the club sack the manager that he fell out with, further inflating the already ridiculous ego, then look at the players for a leader, a player to inspire those around him, a natural Captain. They simply aren’t there. Ole has got rid of some of the players who didn’t want to contribute (Sanchez, Lukaku), got rid of some of the players who weren’t good enough (Smalling, Fellaini) and brought in three players who are playing some good football, despite injuries and squad limitations.
Looking at the current team, without injuries, the first team is easily good enough for the top half of the table but that’s as good as it is likely to get this season. De Gea, Wan Bissaka, McGuire, Lindelof, Shaw, Martial, Pogba, Matic, Mata/Lingard, James and Rashford is a team that would slowly improve under Ole, I’m sure of that. Unfortunately, six of those are injured and the lightweight squad is not good enough. The club has to buy big in January, despite the apparent ‘lack of value’, as long as the right players can be brought in, bare minimum is a creative midfielder (two if Pogba goes, he really needs to be got rid of) and two strikers.
Sacking Ole now would be a waste of time, he’s had one transfer window and the fact that the club has not broken the bank for mercenaries makes me think we are finally doing some sensible business, a Director of Football would go some way to help Ole but I believe we will be challenging again within two years, for the top six at least, which is realistically where we find ourselves. Getting rid of Ewar Woowar (‘d’s removed for comic effect) would be a good move as well, or at least getting him well away from the football side of the club.
Cheers,
Paul, Man Utd
A little (lotta) love for Coleen Rooney
Appreciate I’m normally one of the first to say the ‘WAGs’ drama/news sections of newspapers should be shunned/ignored so partners of players aren’t randomly objectified and oggled, but I did want to give a big shout out to Coleen Rooney today for the six plus month sting operation she’s been running on her IG.
For those not enjoying the rapidly evolving/devolving situation on Twitter, Coleen, having suspected someone on her private account of leaking/selling stories to The S*n, pulled a full-blown canary trap on her subscribers, restricting views to certain (fake) stories over 6 month to work out which ones got reported on, whittling down the number of people she let view the story until she found the leaker.
Long story short, its Rebekah Vardy’s IG, and Coleen has proof.
BOOOOOM. A god level play. Straight from a Tom Clancy novel. Respect.
Tom, (love it when a plan comes together) Walthamstow
Spurs nearly team
This morning’s mailbox encapsulated how overrated Spurs are. Sorry, but have Spurs nearly won? Yes, they got to the CL final but they were never in it for more than 4 minutes. They have never even led the league in the last 4 years. Or is it the league? Nearly teams nearly win things or lose gloriously. Neverkusen in 2002 was a nearly team,Hungary in 54,Newcastle in 96,Holland in 74, now those are nearly teams.
Poch’s Spurs have more in common with Wenger’s teams between 06-11. They both got to a CL final after terrible domestic seasons, they both got to the league cup final.They both disrespected cup competitions. They both had Wenger’s team didn’t stumble to the CL final and they actually were closer to winning it.He actually led the league for a while in 07-08.Wenger also didn’t have mega TV deals to help him keep his best players, and for majority of that period had to compete with the best teams in Europe directly in the league as evidenced by the number of times 3 English teams made the CL semi finals during that period.He also didn’t have have his 2 best players(Xesc and Rvp) fit at the same time for very long in that era. Pochettino did not lose a cup final to a team that was eventually relegated that season, mind.
But the major mistake both managers made was not seeing the value of domestic competitions. Wenger actually benched his most inform player for a dn Fa cup semi final and generally used the kiddies in the cups. Man Utd under Fergie got a boost by winning a league cup in 2006. This as Ferguson as stated helped boost and push them towards further glory later.
Pochettino has been a good manager at Spurs, but his work is overrated. Spurs had finished in the top 4 twice in the 4 years before he was appointed and missed out by 1 point in another year. He has increased their level sure, but let’s calm down on the hyperbole.
Anon
Poch is not the root cause of the problems at the Lane
Northern Spur,
I see where you’re coming from but Arsene managed to win four FA cup finals before taking us to the Champions League final and it made sod all difference against Barca.
Also, as much as I love Arsene, he achieved the feat when it was much easier to actually win silverware – over the last few years Poch has had to contend with a Chelsea team and City team taking home two of the three domestic trophies on offer and last season when City managed a clean sweep.
The league cup is generally considered the one that’s winnable but is it really when City and Chelsea have won the last the three. The FA Cup isn’t a banker either as that often has a habit of throwing up the worst possible fixture at the worst possible time.
I may come across as a hypocrite as I was one gooner that rallied against the ‘be careful what you wish for’ crowd when Wenger was manager but as I say I don’t think Poch is the root cause of the problems at the Lane.
Anyhoo – good luck for the season – a strong Spurs side is much better for us as it gets the Arsenal to raise our game.
Graham Simons, Gooner, Norf London
Winning is the aim
Oliver Dziggel, Geneva, Switzerland – “When you put it in this context, you can appreciate both how well Pochettino has done over his five years at Spurs, and how drastically the situations at Chelsea, Arsenal, Everton and United have deteriorated.”
Chelsea drastically deteriorated while being the 2014/15 League winners & League Cup winners, 2016/17 League winners, 2017/18 FA Cup winners and 2018/19 Europa League winners, Spurs have done so well whilst winning…
While I know it’s not all about winning that is at least the aim!
John
‘And f***ing finally’…
Good Afternoon
Please an you explain to me how you an allow deragatory language in your article shit and dick?
Don’t go about what you are allowed and not allowed. I am sure you have yourself covered. Show some respect to people who browse your website. We have children in our family who browse. And this is what they get educated about instead of getting educated about football.
Please explain,
Antonio Dias