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Oh We'd Like To Think So...
Does this mean Derby are unofficial world champions now?
Nick, Aberdeen
Ah, So That's Why He Doesn't Want Tevez...
I have sat in front of this Mailbox day after day reading one United fan after another express disbelief at why Ferguson hasn't signed Tevez up.
The evidence was there in glorious technicolour last night. The man runs around like a headless chicken and can't find a fellow red shirt with a single pass for 90+ minutes and you wonder why.
Don't even get me started on Nani - has the man no shame?
Josh
Nani: Pants
I would like to congratulate Derby on a well-deserved win. Let's hope we sort out at OT in two weeks' time and thank our lucky stars we aren't out of the tie already! They were better than us and clearly wanted it far more. Several of the players didn't really seem to be that up for it. So I am not here to declare the world is over like I am sure most people writing into the mailbox will do this morning, but I do have a few observations.
I had also been questioning Sir Alex as to why the useful but not spectacular Park had been a regular recently and why Nani hadn't been playing much, sensing we needed a little more of his sublime, yet sometimes ridiculous skills to help unlock a defence. Now I know why. He is utter bobbins at the moment! He has scored some magnificent goals, ones against Spurs and Boro spring to mind. Not forgetting the ability to make a defender look all over the place like my gran after one too many sherries at Christmas. Time is approaching for him to start fulfilling the potential, I sense, before he finds himself shipped out.
Also my beloved Mr Tevez is not going the right way about getting the board to part with another £25m odd million depending on what paper you read. Lacklustre by his very high standards last night.
All this leads to my conclusion: Never question Sir Alex, never. After gazillions of trophies, I think he may know what he's doing!
Pete (on a different note, Danny Wellbeck looks bloody useful) Ridding MUFC
...Haven't seen a poorer performance in the last 11 years of following Man Utd.
Evans - His worst performance. Vidic's reactions said it all. Made 5-6 errors which would be catastrophic come Sunday.
O'Shea - Don't get me started. Just a fill-in.
Anderson - What's got into his head after first season? Wasn't he supposed to get better? Exponential degradation.
Gibson - How does he get a game for Man Utd?
Nani - Pulling my hair out. Shambolic performance.
Tevez - His worst performance. I'm sure the transfer issues are in his head.
Only Scholes, Rafael and Vidic decent performances. With so many poor performers on the pitch they didn't stand a chance. As Fergie rightly put it, we were lucky to come away with 1-0.
The biggest worry is we not scoring goals. Ronaldo hasn't started his season yet, Rooney is spurty, Berba is settling in. Tevez hasn't got many chances. Still on the bright side, we are in four competitions and virtually 2nd in the league one point behind the wannabes (No I'm not talking abt Chelsea this time).
Vineet (Was up till 0330 hours to watch this performance?) Man Utd, India
A Rather Good Point
After reading Pete Gill's acticle regarding Carlos Tevez i think he's missed the point, and here's why.
As things currently stand, Tevez is 'owned' by Kia Joorabchian, and loaned to Manchester United. To make Tevez's 'move' permanent, Utd must pay Joorabchian an alleged £32m.
As that is the case I have several questions, what happens to Tevez if no club buys him? does Joorabchian pay him a wage? is he on a contract? If so, how long is it? is he available on a free transfer? Would a clubless Carlos Tevez earn Joorabchian £32m?
I'm sure they're questions also being asked by Utd (and every other football club) and I can understand why they would be reluctant to pay £32m for a player who's value is 1) a reflection of his commercial value to them, and 2) doesn't exist in the employment of Kia Joorabchian.
Kia Joorabchian is trying to create an auction based on the commercial value of Tevez to any prospective club, if all clubs made a coordinated decision not to play ball with him then he has a product with no value in his hands.
In my opinion Man Utd are playing this in the only way that benefits them and football as a whole, I.e. stop playing him and drive his value down. As a clubless and unwanted Tevez has no value to Joorabchian. Obviously this only works if all clubs are reading from the same hymn sheet, however we are entering a period of recession which should make it a buyers market, as we've seen with Arshavin's non transfer.
I'm sure these are the over riding questions facing both Ferguson and Utd in relation to Tevez and not his ability. I bet SAF would love to play him every match, however so unsavory is the nature of Tevez's ownership a tough stance must be taken, as ultimately it's his success for them that drives his value.
John Cook, London
Spurs Down To Bare Bones? Really?
Two points. Firstly, I was amused by the vast response of Spurs fans to Paul Lees' excellent letter yesterday, with the predictable moans about how current Messiah Harry is absolutely right, with the implication that former Saviours Jol and Ramos really did waste trucktons of money on relegation-zone players. I find this all a touch melodramatic, especially if you compare Spurs to the outfits in the places they should realistically be aiming for (i.e between 5th and 10th). Hull, Bolton or Fulham are not much better (indeed, probably worse man-for-man), yet they make the most of their capacities. Here at the Cottage, our first team contains a centre-mid who couldn't get a game at Spurs only a year ago, a right back and a striker who weren't playing at West Ham before this season and two former Everton bench-warmers. Except for our keeper and CBs, we don't have a single player that woud get into Spurs' starting XI.
As many a secretly undersatisfied girlfriend (though not of the author, obviously) will have heard countless times: "It's not the size that matters, it's how use it". Harry should stop moaning about a lack of players, and start improving the roughly 100m worth of first-team he already has.
Secondly, Spurs' chase of the decidedly average Downing, along with Scolari's recent moan that he can't play 4-4-2 despite his team costing almost an Anelka in transfer sums, raises an interesting question: Why aren't there any left-footed wingers anymore? I don't mean in England, for that is quite a long-standing ailment, but in the whole of football. Man United don't have one in their first team, and neither do Arsenal, Tottenham, Everton and quite a few others, and those lefties that are in a Premiership first are usually remarably average (Malouda, Downing), with the surprising exceptions of Riera and the aging Petrov. There are enough left-backs (which seems to me a vastly less interesting position to develop into, if I were left-footed), so we know it's nothing to do with a general lack of dexterity. So why aren't any coming through? Answers on a postcard.
JD
Players Under Same Manager...
In answer to Aaron Collins' question about players to have played under the same manager at three different clubs, look no further than fantastic examples of nepotism in our modern English game.
The first is of Paul Sturrock and son Blair, who were together at Dundee Utd, Plymouth and Swindon. Surely the best though is the example of Anthony Pulis, son of Tony. Pulis Jr was a trainee under his dad at Portsmouth before he was sold on in 2004 to Stoke managed by, guess who, Tony Pulis. With daddy Pulis leaving the club in 2005, this left young Anthony at a crossroads, with his father not around to shamelessly play him and tell him he wasn't absolute gash. Fortunately Pulis Sr shipped up at Plymouth and Anthony spent the back end of 2006 on loan there. His spell came to an end at the end of the season but fortunately by the start of the next one, Tony was back in charge of Stoke and all was well again, which makes four separate spells (although admittedly not all at different clubs) for the Pulis father-son combo together. Imagine the heartbreak this summer though when Stoke were promoted to the Premiership and even Anthony's own dad didn't think he was good enough and sold him to Southampton.
The only other example I can think of is Ivar Ingimarsson under Steve Coppell (Brentford, Brighton, Reading) but unless Manchester United had a particularly wild sex-fuelled tour of Iceland one year in the 70's, I'm assuming they're not related.
Steve Sanders, NCFC
...In answer to Aaron Collins question of players to play under manager at three different clubs. I know Souness had a habit of taking player to different clubs with quite a few playing for him at two and Dean Saunders was under him three times although this was only twice as a player at Liverpool and Galatasaray before coaching for him at Newcastle.
However Steve Harkness did play for him at Liverpool, Benfica and Blackburn.
G Devine, Liverpool
...In response to Aaron Collins' email in the mailbox this morning - as a mentally-scarred Coventry City fan (is there any other kind?) - I can think of Paul Telfer. I wish I couldn't. He played as a kind of utility hoofer/runner around under Gordon Strachan at Cov, Saints and Celtic.
Martin, Beaconsfield Sky Blues. Membership: 1.
...In response to Aaron Collins post about players playing for three clubs under the same manager.
James Hunt, Northampton, Oxford, Bristol Rovers under Ian Atkins.
Simon (Who? I hear you all ask) Bristol
A Pennant/Beckham Merger
If The Guardian are to be believed, then Liverpool's only transfer activity this window is going to be the fairly surreal switch of Jermaine Pennant to AC Milan (*that* AC Milan). Trying to make sense of this, the only thing I can come up with is:
At the moment Milan have got Beckham on the right. Great professional, amazing technical ability, huge desire to win, but he can't run anymore. Then you've got Pennant. Very little professionalism, poor technical ability, no desire to win, but he runs really fast.
Using the legendary sports science abilities of the Milan lab, they are going to fuse the two of them together to make a single human being - not so much a clone as a splice. The splice will be called Jervid Beckant and will essentially be the perfect right-sided midfielder.
Anyway, that's the most sensible explanation I can think of.
Mithran, LFC in Bangkok
A League One Mail In A Premier League World
I'd like to say, on behalf of Leeds United supporters everywhere, thank God no one has grabbed Fabian Delph yet and there has been absolutely no talk about it either. For Football365 to include him in that Championship shopping list was almost an invitation for all sorts of crazy media speculation, leading our star player to become 'unsettled' at the club, transfer to one of the 'bigger' (Read: Tottenham) clubs, and prolong our ever increasing and horrible stay in League One.
Also I'm not entirely convinced by this Simon Grayson character either. I mean yeah he did well at Blackpool, but as 'the Guv'nor' Paul Ince can attest success at one club doesn't necessarily translate itself to every other club. Especially considering the fact that he came up as player, then player/manager, he obviously knew the ins and outs of the entire Blackpool squad ridiculously well. How is that experience going to help Leeds, who's players currently have a shelf life of about eight months before they are sold or loaned? I personally wanted Curbishley, but I guess I'm just going to have to accept the fact that Leeds might just be down to stay for a while, and no Premier League manager will want to touch us with a ten foot pole.
By the way in relation to the whole players who went back topic, I'd like to further illustrate our heartbreaking futility by mentioning that a large portion of our supporters wanted to bring back former manager David O'Leary. Enough said.
Mark E, LUFC, NYC
Paul Scholes Got Me Drunk
F365 Mailbox, 6th Jan 2009, Paul Vorbeck: 'For a fun 2008-9 era drinking game, take a shot of something stout every time Paul Scholes f***s up and the commentator says 'well, you don't see that often from Paul Scholes!''
BBC Radio Five, 7th Jan 2009, Graham Taylor: "This isn't the Paul Scholes we know. In the first half there were three or four times when he gave the ball away, we just are not used to seeing that."
I don't remember much of the second half...
Will 'The Beard', Winchester
