Several Manchester United players come in for stick, while one Mailboxer wants Graham Potter to replace Mikel Arteta. Keep your mails coming to theeditor@football365.com…
Come on now Ole…
I’ve been OGS biggest defender, I still think he’s done an incredible job where more obvious supposed better managers failed miserably. However, we’re going to have a falling out if he does that again too many times – you cannot play Matic, Pogba and Martial in the same team. To have 3 players that can’t or dont run is absolutely guaranteed to end badly. You can always afford one of them but not two or all three. Pogba and Martial must never be in the same team again, Martials performance stunk the place out. Like all supporters you can accept bad days at the office but you got to try and get involved.
Its early days so no alarm bells but at SOME point OGS and all the infinite coaches at United have got to say ‘just not working out with Martial is it’. United play their best stuff when all or 90% of the team are runners and on it, even Dan James and Fred who arent the most talented bring out a better team performance than those that cant run.
If we could get our money back on Martial which gives game time to the excellent academy players coming through then there’s very few tears shed by the supporters.
Leslie
There’s something about Fred that I don’t quite understand, the guy is so poor in technique, passing and flair, things I feel an elite midfielder should possess (pogba has it in abundance), he has no business starting a football match for Manchester united. The guy makes me scream at my TV, every effing time he’s in possession.Oh my goodness!
Now to Ole, this man just doesn’t learn, does he? What grievances does he have against VDB? Starting matic and fred was already a delicious recipe for disaster, lost count of the numerous times matic gave the ball away, it’s becoming a norm with this guys, they fail to learn from their mistakes and don’t even get me started on martial, and man AWB started this season with a swagger that off putting.
Better days ahead though…
Alaribe G, Festac
United’s away record
You may be drunk, Ian, but you are correct.
I think this thought can be expanded beyond United’s away record. The world of sports under covid with no crowds should always be considered something slightly lesser than years where stadiums could actually have people in them.
The NFL is similar, and something that somewhat concerns me. My team, the Buffalo Bills, saw a massive leap in quality from their quarterback and a very effective road record lead them to a surprise conference championship appearance and a whole boatload of expectations for the upcoming season.
I still can’t shake the feeling that not having crowds screaming at our team helped them make adjustments on the fly, avoid false starts, etc.
The same applies to this United win streak, or whenever people last season criticized Liverpool for losing at home.
THERE WAS NOBODY THERE. IT’S NOT THE SAME WITHOUT THE FANS.
Alex, Rochester NY
Arteta out – Potter in
Yesterday was a new nadir in the career of Arteta, while no one thought we would get anything from the Chelsea game, his tactical ineptitude is plain for all to see and we are stagnant despite investment levels that most clubs would be envious of
What’s also disturbing is his dressing down of ESR and the fact that according to reports ESR looked confused about what was required of him. If you can’t get across what you want then what hope is there, it’s a slippery slope to losing the dressing room
I will go on record and say I really wanted the Arteta appointment to work and winning the FA Cup was a great start and something he can be proud of (many better managers have never won a trophy) and will enhance his CV when he ultimately gets a new job but the process isn’t working – we are leaky at the back and don’t score enough (not new, we were lacklustre last season)
Unlike other fans I had no illusions about where we are and the top 4 should never have been in the conversation but there has to be progress and there simply isn’t, if anything we look worse than this time last year and top 10 looks like a realistic target which isn’t good enough given the clubs stature and expenditure
Who to replace Arteta then becomes the burning question, I am not convinced by Conte – we aren’t the right profile club for him despite him being an exceptional manager, our squad profile with so many talented under 23s requires a focus on youth and a trust placed in them
I like Potter at Brighton, plays a style of football that would suit us and his work at Oostersunds can’t be faulted. The problem is Brighton may be a more attractive proposition at the moment.
Simon (AFC)
Chelsea vs Arsenal thoughts
The dust has settled on another London derby between Chelsea and Arsenal, quite often the bogey team when it comes to Chelsea alongside Bournemouth of course, but yesterday Arsenal were not the threat of old and a 2-0 victory is the end result, here are my quick thoughts to the game:
– Romelu Lukaku’s holdup play was outstanding and certainly adds a new dimension to this Chelsea team
– Andreas Christensen was an unsung hero of the game, he was usually in the right place at the right moment to clear up any attacking balls from Arsenal, long ball moves especially and dealt with the aerial threat with ease
– Ngolo Kante yet again proved he simply does not have a value in the current market, you cannot put a price on the impact he has when playing for the side, when he plays Chelsea feel more secure defensively, he is everywhere always.
As a Chelsea supporter i try not to make opinions on rival teams, but will add in all the negativity that currently surrounds Arsenal, you have to applaud Bernd Leno for easily a prime candidate for Save of the Season with his reflex save to deny Lukaku a second, outstanding work that was.
Finally, yesterday felt yet again that the “Concussion Protocols” that we are told are in place, were not carried out to the letter, Reece James appeared to clearly be knocked unconscious and yet was able to carry one for the rest of the game, whether we like it or not, he should not have played another minute of the game, a friend of mine who is a Doctor commented on the incident and said “Laying motionless is one of the strongest signs of concussion. You don’t have to lose consciousness to be concussed.”, would love to hear more thoughts from readers about their take on the Concussion Protocols and if they are being taken seriously enough.
The Admin @ At The Bridge Pod
Rebuilding project
Isn’t a rebuilding project supposed to have you eventually look half decent and end up with you climbing UP the table not falling further down it? Especially after you’ve signed over 20 players since you sacked the manager that supposedly ‘ruined’ your club?
Asking for a friend.
Oh, also, where’s Stewie Griffin?
Malcolm, AFC
Balancing thoughts on Arsenal
There’s a lot of nonsense going round on Arsenal this morning, so I was quite pleased that 16 Conclusions contextualised a lot of their criticism.
Ultimately, not a lot about yesterday was surprising. The result wasn’t the damning final nail in the Arteta project; Arsenal were missing their first choice CB pairing, their main midfielder and striking options, as well as new recruits to take the weight off a 20 and 19 year olds shoulders. Arsenal are still paying for the terrible recruitment of Sanelhi/Gazidis regime and despite some clear questions now being levelled at Edu, there are a lot of contingent market problems that are hurting Arsenal that much more because the squad was already so destabilised when it started.
But there is still an entirely accurate criticism of Arteta, which F365 correctly identified, in his stubbornness to change the formation to better address Chelsea’s threat. A stubbornness to adapt a system he swears by (having appropriately footed centre backs for passing) when his reserve left CB was so clearly not up to the task against Brentford. Seriously, go back and watch that match and White took a lot of flack for Toney, but Mari on Mbuemo was the bigger mismatch/embarrassment.
Arteta is making this difficult for himself. That is clear. After Emery, who melted down and produced such an incoherent plan he got himself canned, Arteta clearly thinks sticking to his guns and fronting up about its failure is best.
But that can only last so long. He has until Christmas I think. Enough time to get the senior players back and see what happens. If Arsenal go into New Years in Top 7 I think he’ll be fine, but if it’s 11-15th again, he’s done, and rightly so.
Either way, losing to Chelsea isn’t the low last week was, nor will losing to City away be either. What will matter is the four games after. If Arsenal get 10 points from them and a good performance in the NLD (laugh now, but it’s totally possible) then he’ll be fine. If it’s less than 6, someone will come in sooner rather than later.
But either way, Project Rebuild is happening. Changing a manager won’t alter squad construction and there’s no way Conte is signing up for a 3 years growth project.
Tom, Walthamstow
I wrote this in before the season kicked off on Arsenal:
“Arsenal: I still have a sense that Arsenal are turning into some weird pyramid scheme or magician’s trick; that the veil could be removed very quickly and it all to go spectacularly wrong. I wrote in before on their players, and it still stands with them and Arteta: they don’t seem bogged down by expectation. They have a lot of players who compliment when things are going well, not enough to dig in and grit when things are going bad. Ben White is an example, he is a good footballer, all-round good at everything, but does he organise and shout, lead and drive the players in his line and make demands of the players in front of him, like Maguire, Van Dijk, Dias, Silva? I don’t think so. I think he is a typical Arsenal signing of the last decade.”
I find myself taking a weird interest in Arsenal lately, partly due to the leniency I believe Arteta got last season from the site and partly because I feel like I’m watching the malaise or decay of something slowly before my eyes, like a slow-motion car crash that you can see but can’t stop. Usually with teams (Leeds being an obvious example) there are certain things that happen and a logical reason for their downfall; with Arsenal it seems a combination of just bad decisions, repeated. And then repeated again. They spend fairly big money on players and wages, but always the wrong players and wages; they want to play attractive football but don’t have the defensive base on which to do it. The problem (of many) Arsenal face is that the further back they go, the harder it will be to pull themselves out of. No European football will mean a smaller budget, which in turn will mean transfers will have to get smarter than they were before. The less competitive they are, the less people will want to watch them and the less marketing power they’ll have. If they don’t win, or play attractive football to make people sit up and notice them, they won’t have as much commercial power – especially overseas.
That’s to say that right now they haven’t been bad enough to make it unsolvable, but that they are very much on the way to making it much harder for themselves. I think Rob A summed it up pretty well in saying that there’s no expectation for them to get anything against City or Chelsea. One of the things with mid-table teams is that they kind of yo-yo in results and it evens out over a season to leave them mid-table. That’s to say Villa, Leeds or Everton could beat Newcastle 2-0, or be beaten by Newcastle 2-0 and you wouldn’t be that surprised. Arsenal are now in this bracket. Brentford wasn’t a surprise. If Leicester lost 2-0 to Brentford it would be more of a shock. With less expectation, comes less performances.
Arteta is the silky manager who believes in his “vision”. They need a pragmatist to spend a whole training session just doing shoulder barges on each other to actually kick some competitive life into them. Arteta’s tactical plan will work against some lower teams, they’ll remain low-scoring and next season find the transfer kitty significantly reduced. I like competition, I want as many good teams as possible so every match in the league is something to make you sit up and take notice, Arsenal just aren’t close to that anymore.
James, Galway
Arsene Wenger
Sorry Stewie but Arsene Wenger isn’t unemployed – he’s FIFA’s Chief of Global Football Development – that’s some role at football’s most important body and he’s nearly 72.
So I’m sure he couldn’t care less what you think of him.
I wanted Arsene gone by the end but there is no doubting he’s a class act and our greatest manager – no, I wouldn’t want him back as manager as his time is gone but he deserves more respect than you’re giving him.
And seriously though mate, you really should find a more positive use of your time. You don’t appear to support a team and spend all of your time hating on Arsenal like some obsessed ex. It’s weird.
Graham Simons, Gooner, Norf London
Three times I got it embarrassingly wrong
Hi there,
Here’s three times I got something football related embarrassingly wrong:
1) Cantona’s kung-fu kick. I was living in Prague and didn’t see the game but every morning on my way to work I would dap into the British Council Library to read The Guardian newspaper, which was the only paper they could get on the day of publication. They also had a big screen TV in there showing rolling news and I saw Cantona’s kung-fu kick over and over again. As embarrassed as I am to admit it now, I was outraged like a Daily Mail reader. I told anyone who would listen that Cantona should be banned for life, should never play football again, should be strung up, should be hung, drawn and quartered. I really went over the top that day. Naturally the Daily Mail in me abated (particularly after I found out what a cretin Matthew Simmons is) and long before Cantona had served his ban I felt rather foolish about my initial reaction.
2) Southampton played Wolves at home in our opening game in the Champo just after we’d been relegated in 2005. After a messy divorce I’d moved back to Prague and went with a mate to watch the game in an Irish bar in Malo Strana. As the teams came out we saw each player and when Lescott appeared on the screen I said to my mate, “ah, there’s Lescott…” My mate said, “Lescott? Never heard of him. Who is he?” and I said, “oh, he was easily their best player when they had that one year in the Premier League a couple of seasons back…” At that moment the TV commentator goes, “… and there’s Joleon Lescott, who, of course, missed the whole of Wolves’ solitary Premier League campaign through injury…”
3) I run a football Facebook group and when Claudio Ranieri was appointed manager of Leicester I posted a link to the story with the words, “this will not end well’ and untold laughing emojis.
Anyone got any more?
Mort Snort, Saints
Johnny Nic on VAR
Don’t agree with John Nicholson’s take on VAR at all.
I’m all for some quick version of VAR that improves the accuracy. John seems to want to slide back to the days where blatantly incorrect decisions, which the whole stadium and global audiences know are incorrect when the replays filter in seconds later, should be allowed to stand. He suggests that desire is universal among football fans. We’ll it isn’t, that’s not where I’d draw the (extra thick) line at all.
For me, there were just three issues with VAR last season – (i) their approach to offside just being plain wrong; (ii) it took a bloody age; and (iii) the hubris of PGMOL in trying to project that the referees are very good at their jobs and rarely make mistakes (when in reality they are quite poor).
My version of VAR would be as follows – there should be a panel of four video refs – who do not sit in the same room as each other and don’t talk. One who’s job it is to highlight potential issues in real time. He doesn’t reach a decision, he just has a quick initial look in real time and at the TV replays that filter in within seconds and asks the maybe question, e.g. was Fernandes fouled in the build up to the Southampton goal? It’s a definite maybe, so he then asks the question of the other three refs – was that a foul?
When the other three refs have seen the replay, they have, say, ten seconds to hit the yes button or the no button. Majority decision stands.
The idea behind this is that the whole process should take 30 seconds to a minute (without play stopping in the meantime). No getting weighed down in looking at the replay over and over again to see if the ball grazed a hand.
The key thing is the technical officials are making the decision from scratch. The question is “was it a foul”, not “was it a clear and obvious refereeing decision” – which is a stupid metric, because you’re basically asking the referee “was Mike’s decision, you know Mike, your colleague who’s wedding you went to last month, lovely guy who throws a cracking BBQ every year the weekend before the season starts – that Mike, anyway, was his decision so shit that it was inexcusable, and no right minded ref could have made it?” Because there is nothing wrong with making a mistake, even if it was a mistake rather than something he just didn’t see (because it’s unrealistic to expect the ref to perfectly keep up with elite sportsmen and the ball they can kick bloody hard), but there is no reason it shouldn’t be corrected if the right decision can be reached quickly.
The offside situation is still nonsense. Any system that freezes a frame and makes the decision based on that frame doesn’t work, doesn’t matter how thick the line is. It’s been rehearsed ad nauseum, but it’s nigh impossible to pick the right frame, assuming the kick of the ball aligns with a frame perfectly (which it almost certainly can’t. So offsides should be judged by eye, no lines, benefit of the doubt to attacker, but the same three person panel.
Andy (MUFC)
Redefining a right-back – taking the bait
I guess I’ll join the countless others biting on Andy (MUFC)’s mail on right backs, namely his weird attempt to mock Liverpool fans by praising Reece James in terms echoing the praise often given to TAA. My first tip to Andy is that it is better to launch such attacks from a position of strength, not when your own right back has just contributed to dropped points (highlighted by Silvio Dante in the very same mailbox, hilariously enough). Secondly, I think the majority of Liverpool fans would be very happy to say Reece James looks a world class full back already, just one that’s closer to the traditional mould.
To keep it objective, there are lots of stats available on the PL website that could be presented to show why TAA offers things that almost all other full backs don’t (and also that his defensive contribution is at least as good as James and others), but how about a special one for a Utd fan no doubt yearning for the glory years:
Reece James has an assist every 11.6 appearances, very similar to (but slightly worse than) the archetypal right back Gary Neville (11.4).
TAA, meanwhile, has an assist every 3.85 appearances, very similar to (but slightly better than) Ryan Giggs (3.9), the all-time PL assist record holder.
Shappo
New season, same old Mailbox…
Always a smile reading through the mailbox. Some bangers in there this morning. Jealousy, anger, bitterness, sucking on lemons etc, etc.
Jamie, Lukaku isn’t the second coming but he is a better all round player thanks to the work on the training field with Conte than when he left United. Teams will not be as defensively naive as Arsenal, Van Dijke and Liverpool will be more challenging. But his presence will ensure the likes of Havertz, Werner, Mount going beyond him which will give full backs TAA and Robertson a question have far and high do they push forward. Will be an intense and interesting match.
Barry Fox, it’s going to take more than two games to rid Tottenham of the ‘Spursy’ tag line. You’ve spent the best part of a quarter of a century defining the term!
Well done PGMOL almost got it right but for the Dele Ali one, oh dear.
P Didi
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