December Football

[bruhnaldo]

One thing I definitely feel with United right now - which I can't explain very well - is that I'm not sure how good most of the players in the team actually are.

Apparently I agree with you:

WDYTOE - Man United

David de Gea - Outstanding human, prone to silly error once every 5 matches.
Victor Lindelöf - Inconsistent as fuck, looks lost a majority of the time for the club but makes a nice tackle every now and then that makes you think "oh wait maybe he's finally coming good?"
Eric Bailly - Seems to be hurt more than not. An absolute fucking madman which at times is awesome but at others fucks us up entirely.
Phil Jones - Bless his heart
Paul Pogba - Needs to move on. It's just not going to happen at United, is it? At least we tried.
Alexis Sánchez - I've maintained he's been shit for years and nothing is going to change that fact.
Juan Mata - Should be playing for Valencia again let's be real.
Romelu Lukaku - What's happened to you, son? At the World Cup all I could think of was thank fuck we've already spent millions on this lad he'd be worth 10x that now.
Marcus Rashford - The flashes of brilliance come and go. I don't really know what to think anymore. Was surprised he was given the #10 tbqh.
Anthony Martial - I fucking love Anthony Martial and can't say a bad word about him.
Chris Smalling - My boy you try so so so hard but it's time to fuck off to West Ham or something.
Lee Grant - Enjoy your wages, papa.
Jesse Lingard - Never understood the hype but love the little fucker anyways. Used to bemoan he only scored 1 in every 30 appearances and then he said "no really, watch how I only score 1 in 26" just to piss me off. Sweet dance moves though.
Andreas Pereira - Who fucking knows? I've never seen it but apparently it exists. It being immense talent.
Marcos Rojo - Psycho like Bailly but 10x less talented. Not a bad squad player I reckon.
Fred - See Andreas Pereira.
Ashley Young - Greatest crosser of a football of his generation. Stand up individual. Should've been knighted but Harry Kane can't score sitters in the World Cup the fucking prick.
Diogo Dalot - Too early to tell but did well in the couple appearances I've seen.
Ander Herrera - Great rotational player. Has a nice eye for a slick pass every now and then.
Sergio Romero - lol ok
Luke Shaw - Love the lad. Hopefully he keeps progressing.
Timothy Fosu-Mensah - Nah.
Antonio Valencia(c) - Probably should've moved on by now tbh but he's a good rotational player to have when fit.
Marouane Fellaini - One of the greatest midfielders of all time if you really think about it.
Nemanja Matić - His debut was amazing and then it's been basically shit ever since.
Matteo Darmian - Why are you still here lad?
Axel Tuanzebe - Who knows?
Scott McTominay - I really have no idea what he does well.
Joel Castro Pereira - I like this guy but anyways who really cares


If you actually read any of this thanks for helping me kill my last 15 minutes at work xx

[Lewis]

Something like that. You want to sympathise with Mourinho, because he is still a massive legend, but doing things like playing Scott McTominay in defence to prove some sort of point, or setting up with six defenders because two attackers are out, robs him of any potential goodwill. 'LvG' used similar circumstances to bring the likes of Marcus Rashford through. If you knew your defensive options were toilet why not keep Axel Tuanzebe around as a project?

[igor_balis]

Rodriquez

[Kikó]

Watch Too good to go down on BT, https://youtu.be/nBM_bzgw6QE

[Jimmy Floyd]

Now I think about it, wasting so much of their budget on Sanchez was the mistake. I have no idea why they had to do that. It seems to stand completely against the moneywank way that Ed Woodward seems to do the rest of his business as well.

I think the answer is they've got a massive complex about Manchester City being the city's leading club now.

[phonics]

United should be winning those home games against shit teams, but that Cardiff away is a late kick-off, which means them and their assembled crowd of retards being UP FOR IT and getting at least a draw (then losing their next ten), and 'Rafa' is probably already planning an ambush. The less said about Liverpool the better. If the club suddenly reversed its approach towards the immediacy of modern life then matey could find himself in a bit of trouble.

Even at Arsene's lowest ebb when fans were refusing to show up having paid for the tickets in their tens of thousands, those that did bother to show up saw 21 wins, 4 draws and 3 losses. The sheer amount of draws is just a disgrace and that's the manager.

When you have a shit (whether through quality or tactics) defense the best form of it is attack where you've got a couple of hundred quid invested in just two of them. You've got 8 creative/attacking players that individually would all be parts of almost every other squad at their level or dragging a smaller team up the table.

The problem you arrive at is that Mourinho is known for showing you how to prevent mistakes and breakdowns in play, not attack, so you just get 6 players forming a low block out of possession and standing idle about their positions when in possession so Pogba ends up dribbling into the opposition man or it gets pinged forward.

Not to suck Unai Emery off but the big difference between the time we shall refer to as 'Wengers Brown Period' and now is that when playing around the d of the penalty area, they still switch it round side to side and I want to die at the pointlessness of it but now each time one player receives the ball, 3 sprint into a new position at the same time and eventually it ends up in a ball across the 6 yard box and a tap-in. We stopped scoring cutbacks for years and I always wondered why the opposition was in position for them. Now I see it's because they only had to cover one type of runner.

But yeah at the end of the day it's also a bit of what Kiko says a la lazy turds and a Harry Redknapp tactics talk to "fucking run around a bit".

I think United are lowest in the league in sprints per match and distance covered.

[Lewis]

That is a bit telling that one, since, defensive structure or not, even he can't be sending the side out with instructions to just amble around like wankers.

I think weirdly everything being so bollocks this season gives him a better case for more TIME than if they had just bored their way into second or third again, since it has lifted the stone and revealed all the shambolic goings on that you never heard about last season.

[phonics]

It's rip the plaster off time.

[Jimmy Floyd]

For absolutely years before Mourinho was appointed I (wrongly, as it turned out) said they would never appoint him in a million years, for the simple reason that they are just too big for him. That isn't to say he isn't one of the best managers of all time, because he is, but he's a guerrilla manager. He's like one of those charismatic revolutionary leaders of the past. He needs to be the biggest show in town and he needs to mould his players completely around the fact that he is the biggest show in town. It's no coincidence that he then falls to bits once he has shoved his initial bayonet into the bourgeoisie, because people then want to live happily ever after, and how can you live happily ever after with Che Guevara as mayor?

It's no good him being at a club, like Real Madrid or Manchester United, where he is not bigger than the club. Chelsea 1 was so perfect for him because the club hadn't won the title for 50 years, a perfect nemesis in Wenger was there to be shot at, and so he had complete freedom (helped by cash) to shape this immense team. Porto was the same, albeit he probably did the best job of all there because he had to build himself up as well.

At modern United - let's call it post-Ferguson United - he is not the biggest thing at the club because the biggest thing at United is money and marketing. Football exists to serve those things (not so at City - football exists only to serve itself at the glory of Abu Dhabi) and I imagine they are keeping him around at the moment because he's a famous name and he keeps them talked about. If it was David Moyes producing the same results he would be out. They probably look around, think 'hey, there's no one as big as Jose on the market' and say whatever, we'll come 4th or 6th and try again next year. The problem is that it won't get better next year, not only because City will probably now win 5-7 in a row easily, but because Mourinho won't change. He is what he is. He'd be awesome if he went somewhere like West Ham and got given no cash. Wolves would be amazing with him, a whole Brexit-voting, shithole city rallying behind him, and dirty money on top of that. He'd probably come as close to City there as he would with United.

I've done a lot of reading into Clough recently and there are so many parallels it's almost spooky. I suppose the main difference was that Clough had been a good player and so didn't harbour the complete resentment against the universe that Mourinho does.

As for United's side, they really should cut ties and find their Klopp, someone of a lesser existing stature who fits in with the ethos of the club and can grow back with them. I don't know who that is but he's out there somewhere. This won't happen because the Woodward club exists only as a brand, and Woodward himself strikes me as a man on an ego trip.

[Lewis]

If Smallpockets is available then fine, chuck him; but otherwise they might as well just install the Director of Football (or whatever they call them now) that they need anyway and let the two of them burn through a load more cash.

[Jimmy Floyd]

They have been owned by Americans for over a decade, if they were going to have a GM they would have hired one by now. Woodward is playing at being one.

The Glazers are probably the root of it all, actually, because they don't provide any meaningful leadership, nor does Woodward, and so all the extra-curriculars that Ferguson used to bring off the pitch (never mind on it) have just melted away.

[SincereTheRebel]

Wolves would be amazing with him, a whole Brexit-voting, shithole city rallying behind him, and dirty money on top of that.

Better check your tone lad.

[Kikó]

The Glazers are probably the root of it all, actually, because they don't provide any meaningful leadership, nor does Woodward, and so all the extra-curriculars that Ferguson used to bring off the pitch (never mind on it) have just melted away.

Ding ding.

Ultimately it's Ferguson's fault for losing his focus and falling into an argument over a horse.

Liked your post about Mourinho. The team are protected by the brand (of likes and shares) so in the summer when Mourinho tried to be the boss, Woodward should have either backed him or sacked him. His genius was improving Mourinho's contract and then undermining him.

The players not running is a complete disgrace and there's nothing likeable about any of them.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Better check your tone lad.

Have you seen Wolves Twitter? It's amazing, they make Mendes out to be a benevolent messiah.

[Mike]

Super James Milner is playing right back this week. He’s amazing.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I would have agreed with you, but Klopp repeatedly called him 'Milly' in pre match interview and that has ruined both their legacies.

[Mike]

Salah is just messing about on his third. What a player!

[Mike]

Top!

[Shindig]

Cheers, Mourinho. Keep Fulham down there.

[John Arne]

Persebaya Surabaya fans lighting it up this evening...

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[randomlegend]

Dalot is brilliant, he'll be one of the best full-backs of the next 10 years.

[Lewis]

Mourinho freezing Paulp Ogba out and saving the season would be pretty hilarious.

[John Arne]

Sancho scores again in the Revierderby

[Lewis]

Revierderby mate.

[John Arne]

cut and paste mate

[Jimmy Floyd]

I'm sure I spend my whole life looking at videos of various Premier League princes across the water scoring in ever more prestigious German derbies. Imagine the sort of damage Theo Walcott would have wreaked on a loan spell at Stuttgart in 05/06.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

997 minutes.

[Disco]

One vaguely decent showing at the World Cup and suddenly we're exporting total football to continent.

[randomlegend]

Terrible refereeing is back it seems. Neither a penalty against Herrera, nor a second yellow for Anguissa.

[Shindig]

Aye, we should've shifted Rolando Aarons to Schalke.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I'm an Arsenal winner away from my biggest accumulator for years coming in, so no doubt they've all been on the laughing gas at half time.

[Lewis]

Dalot is brilliant, he'll be one of the best full-backs of the next 10 years.

I would like to see him hold up the play a bit more and start kicking it straight into the first man.

[Danny]

if it makes you feel any better he has given it away a few times when trying to pass inside?

Rashford has a very good game today. Needs to finish other chance he had though.

[randomlegend]

Fulham are genuinely fucking awful, Sessegnon should get out ASAP.

[Danny]

I'm an Arsenal winner away from my biggest accumulator for years coming in, so no doubt they've all been on the laughing gas at half time.

Go on then. How much?

[SvN]

I was waiting on Arsenal too. Norwich nearly fucked me, but they redeemed themselves. I won £260ish.

[Boydy]

Sheffield Wednesday dicked me over by failing to beat Rotherham. Useless wankers.

[Giggles]

Sheffield Wednesday dicked me over by failing to beat Rotherham. Useless wankers.

Richie 'Richard' Towell

[Shindig]

Warnock keeping a side up might split the universe in two.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Go on then. How much?

Five hundred, although there was a subplot in which Norwich fucked it by dropping a last minute equaliser, only to unfuck it again via Teemu Pukki deep in added on time. I'll be sending 50% of the winnings to Pen.

Like SvN then, but probably with a more irresponsible stake.

[Pen]

Pukki bring great this season has been superb for our national team. Would love to see Norwich come up so we could have a player in the Premier league again.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Not the foggiest how we've mugged them off there, but regardless, stick it up your jumper 'Pep'.

[Lewis]

In reference to the BT Sport debate, in which Robbie Savage appears to have cursed them, I reckon a few previous title winners - namely Ronaldo-led United and the first Mourinho Chelsea team, but also the Arsenal Invincibles - would munch this City team eight times out of ten. I think even the Liverpool side that went close in 2009 would do them most weeks as well. City are ace, but every 'Pep' team is getatable if you can defend and have an outlet. None of those were.

[Gray Fox]

Pep has been able to walk his way to titles by consistently beating the shitters and binmen of the league he's in. For example it doesn't matter if Dortmund would have beaten him in Germany as he'd just win the next 10 games anyway. That, he is very good at.

[niko_cee]

City are quite reliant on their old guard, particularly Aguero and Fernandinho. They really miss actual forwards when they don't play any, which makes Pep's initial anti-Aguero witch-hunt all the more lol. Shame he didn't succeed really.

They can weather virtually every other absence fairly seamlessly, but they're so much sharper and more of a threat with Aguero in the side. Jesus never seems to have taken off despite obviously being quite good.

[mugbull]

Lol. City are so much better than every Manchester United team there ever was.

[Shindig]

[Giggles]

Who's between Sheringham and Irwin? Blomqvist (as I don't see Giggs)?

[Shindig]

That's who I reckon as well. I just picked a side from the treble season but not the whole squad. There's no Cole in that picture either.

[niko_cee]

I think I voted for the Invincible Arsenal team in the BBC vote on the matter but that 98/99 United side was pretty decent as well.

Current City are the closest to CM-style perfection though.