How many January transfers actually worked?

Matt Stead

Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com if you want a Sunday Mailbox. And be good.

 

Friday thoughts
Liam, LTFC
believes that the best way to counter certain views from society is to allow them to be aired and shouted down, but is unhappy with F365 for facilitating this? Poor Liam must’ve had a long week. That said, people’s senses of humour and tastes do drastically differ; and whilst the fans may not have been aiming for banterous joshing with Ze Germans, not everyone has to find it abhorrent and a stain on society.

Regarding the actual football, at risk of perpetually being pulled back in having thought I was out, I actually really enjoyed that first half. There was a freshness to the way we played, which was probably down to the fact that it was a friendly, but nice to see nonetheless. That formation could be sensational with Walker and Rose. It may even make me want to watch tomorrow.

That Spurs scenario would be the happiest thing that could ever happen: not because we’d finally finish above Arsenal (that’ll be more relief than any actual joy), but because it would mean we would be nearing a state of affairs where we don’t promise so much and then f*ck it all up hilariously. I’m not sure how many more of those ridiculous collapses I have in me.

To further Steve’s point from a couple of mailboxes back, Spurs are notoriously bad at creating interesting songs. Case in point: the original song for Dembele was “Oooh Dembele, he’s a yid” to Oh Black Betty; we now just do the mind-numbingly boring Seven Nation Army. Which is almost certainly why we currently don’t have a song for Alderweireld, in spite of him being a total hero.

That David Woods piece in The Star hurt both my eyes and my brain. I wonder if being a complete cretin is actually compulsory for a job there.
Alex G, THFC

 

Learn from Northern Ireland
When I was growing up, going to a Northern Ireland match was just awful. Attendances were very low, they would have let you in for free if you rocked up after kick-off. The few people that were there spent the entire match singing sectarian songs and shouting abuse at our own Catholic players. It was a toxic atmosphere and certainly not somewhere you’d bring your children, parents or any functioning member of society to. However, the IFA and the sane fans decided that enough was enough, no more of that type of behaviour and set about to change it.

If you go to a Northern Ireland match now it’s entirely different, filled with families singing songs about Will Grigg and doing the bouncy. It’s a joy and given the performances of our team in recent years it’s had a positive effect on our football. I guess my point is that the FA should come over and see us, see how it was done and just do it. Go and see Wales too while you’re at it.

As a neutral, watching England matches on TV is painful. From the ridiculous commentary to the infuriating dirge that the band pumps out, everything needs to change. Just because it’s a national team doesn’t mean that everything has to be about England. Is there another football team in the world that plays their national anthem during the game?
SC (Let’s all do the bouncy), Belfast

 

January transfers which did work
You had a feature a while back about January transfers that no one should have bothered with thought I’d do one with transfers that have actually benefitted either the team or the individuals so far.In no particular order the top five are

* Memphis and Schnedeirlin : from scandalously underused to first teamers one is showing what he can do when hiis remit fits his skills the other is showing what can happen when people focus more on his football than his cars and hats.

* Mamadou Sakho: his fall from grace has been mentioned at lenght in a very good article on this site (where he was an early winner no less),Good to see him back at his best

*Gerard Deulofeo: had started to stagnant a bit but has used the chance to play at a fallen giant in Ac Milan,to shine even brighter there’s even tqalk of going back to Barca

*Oumar Niasse : At least Duelofeo got to play in the first team Niasse didn’t even have a shirt number

* Marco Gabbiadini : What would happened if they had just got him in the summer they needed a striker when resident football 365 man crush left and he’sa been outstanding since he’s got here.

special mentions to those that round out my top 10

Robbie Brady for adding class to Burnley’s squad while not being B(W)arton
Tom Cleverly he’s settled nicely at Watford even though no one will notice
Luka Milivojevic : for being the sort of Midfielder you expect in a Big Sam team

Patrick Van Anholt/Martins Ollson for Adding goals from left back for two teeams struggling in that department
Timi MUFC

 

Defending Daniel
In response to Conor (LFC [no surprise there]) this morning, one of the great things about this site is that it’s clearly written by people who are passionate about football and really enjoy the game, rather than the majority of weary embittered journalists out there.

The self references often give the articles personality, and don’t forget these are opinion pieces after all.  One of the main reasons we all flock to the site is all the fascinating opinion pieces and features rather than actual football news.  There’s no football of interest for the best part of two weeks, and there’s still great content to read multiple times every day!  Come on, how good is that!

The quality and variety of writing and the range of articles and features is fantastic (in the main) – and that’s due to the writers, there aren’t many good quality football writers around (I’d read anything by Daniel Taylor in the Guardian) and where the writer is good , it’s great to see the personality of the writer too.
AS Camden (MUFC)

 

Ruggers
Yes but Chris MUFC, you’d have to watch Rugby. So I’m afraid your point is invalid.
Mark Hamilton
Everton

 

Reading Chris’ mail I felt a weary sense of deja vu. “It’s just better at the rugby”, he says, like so many others before him. “They are nicer and much more welcoming”, he insisted. This may well be the case, but it only seems applicable to those who are actually rugby fans. Prefer football but decided to give rugby a chance? Cool. Prepare for fucking hours of being called a poof, being told that “now you’re gonna see a real game”, and having your preferred sport endlessly railed upon by people who really, really need you to know that football is homosexual and rugby is manly, and that rugby supporters are, by extension, even more rugged and masculine and absolutely 100% super-heterosexual. Definitely. Not like you footy poofs, no no no. Man’s game, and all that.

Cricket doesn’t have this issue, but let’s not pretend that rugby is all inclusive. I’ve had more threats of violence from pissed up rugby fans than I’ve ever had watching football. Go and ‘enjoy’ a rugby game in the pub. Watch as grown men fling pints around, all in time to their special song about Jonty’s giant testes. Both rugby and football have more than their fair share of boorish c**ts, it’s not a universal problem throughout the entire fanbase, but it exists. Because it’s not about the sport. It’s about the person. A cunt is a cunt is a cunt.

And on that note, Fat Man Scouse’s self-congratulatory mail is a bit sad, no? Patting yourself on the back because everyone recognises that you’re a fucking moron? Let me guess, you were just trolling us, right? Standard defence of the blithering idiot. Here’s an idea: try getting everyone talking by offering am interesting opinion, rather than an offensive and mindless bundle of ignorance
thayden

 

Further to the thoughts about the diminishing popularity of international football, Chris, MUFC’s mail covered a lot of good points, but missed, I think, one of the most important.

Since Wembley was rebuilt, England play all their games there, and geographically at least, this means it’s verging on the inaccessible for a lot of football fans, and this has been made worse by holding games on Fridays, Thursday afternoons, or whatever WITLESS kickoff time the FA and TV can come up with.

Before Wembley was rebuilt, I remember a lot of debate about England just being a South Eastern team, and the FA took this to heart during the rebuilding, arranged games all over the country and really engaged the team with fans everywhere. Now though, and I fully acknowledge that the place has to be paid for, we seem to have gone back to the old days, and while people are still watching the games on the box, there definitely seems to be less involvement, especially in younger fans.

They’re having the same debate in Rugby at the moment, with a definite idea of taking games away from Twickenham, and I cannot understand why the FA aren’t doing the same. It is the England team after all, it should belong to the whole country, not just London, and if the FA don’t realise this, they can’t complain when the world outside the South East finds something else to be interested in.

Cheers,
Paul Quinton
Wolverhampton

 

It always annoys me when people compare other sports to football and try to claim they’re better – no they’re not – they’re just different.

I absolutely detest rugby. I’ve been to Twickenham, frozen my nads off, then thought sod this for a game of soldiers and went home at the interval. But that’s just my own opinion.

The point is football is a very different experience and people pay for the privilege accordingly.

I’ve noticed the difference personally in just one day as I often try and get to a Middlesex test match for the morning session before legging it down to the Emirates for kick off when both sides are at home.

The cricket is a relaxed, sedate affair in a stadium bathed in sunshine if I’m lucky before heading to the football for a more tribal, intense affair with my fellow gooners.

Comparing the two sports is like comparing two of my favourite bands Iron Maiden and British Sea Power – BSP can be a bit crazy but they are also capable of more melodic meandering music, while Maiden are always good for some ruddy head banging. I’m seeing both live in the next couple of months – there isn’t one experience I prefer – they’re just different. The same goes for football and cricket. You can keep rugby though – it’s the Maroon 5 of sports.
Graham Simons, Gooner, Middx, Maiden and BSP fan, Norf London

 

Auntie
Loved the John Nic article on the BBC, and was also slightly surprised. Bravo JN, bravo. We are lucky to have the finest broadcaster in the world as our own domestic offering, and by God I will defend the corporation till the end of time.
thayden

 

Many, many more chants
I love great chants that never were.

When Etienne Capoue played for Spurs there was a bloke near me who tried to get a chant going to Eddy Grant’s Electric Avenue:-

“We gotta hold on to Etienne Capoue / He’s gonna take us higher.”

Also, I sometimes like to imagine that two of the Spurs midfield have spent an evening listening to Bob Marley, smoking weed and eating snacks. Unfortunately the more muscly midfield enforcer is gobbling up all the crisps before the more lithe attacking talent can get to them. Thus:-

“Dembele full (Alli hungry).”
Rob Davies, THFC (This is the story of Harry Kane / He scores a goal in every game)

 

Eriksen-sen-sen

Best football chant going by a mile!

Not even a Spurs fan and have found me and my mates going at it for a good 5 minutes on nights out!
Shaun, he makes Ozilllll loooook $hiteeee

 

I’ve probably missed the boat on this one, as I often do with the Mailbox fun and games, but I have one very simple and short one. I take from the obscure ‘cockney influences on Classical music’ routine from Bill Bailey, and his reference to the “Have a Banana” light motif (best references online are here https://youtu.be/y5_neq3EzM8?t=11m10s and https://youtu.be/y5_neq3EzM8?t=12m55s), for which I change the words to “Adam Lallana”. I say it in that style every time the commentators mention his name.
Chris G, LFC

 

Me and my mates have been singing “Divock Origi, hold onto that feeling! Divok Origi, woooaaaahhhoooo!” to the tune of “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey for the past few months. (Un)fortunately nobody outside of my apartment, barring some irate neighbours, has heard it.
Seán Cooper, Dublin.

 

I can’t help but think of ‘Walk of Life’ by Dire Straits when ‘Divock Origi’.

‘Divockorigi baby what I say!’
Stu, Southampton

 

Here’s a song I maid for everyone’s favourite Marian (chortle);

Voulez-vous PAHARS
Dan (in your best Alan Partridge voice naturally), LTFC

 

Gilles De Bilde. Can he fix it? Gilles De Bilde. No, no he cannot.
Mark

 

I was hopeful that N’Koudou would get more game time at Spurs and people could sing his name to the chorus of the spice girls classic Who do you think you are!
Wayne Sprigg
(You are welcome)

 

In response to Andy G, and apologies for showing my age but whenever I hear The Killers Mr Brightside, it just has to be replaced with “ cause I’m Norman Whiteside”

Also the chorus of Sit Down by James, just begged to be replaced with “Oh Zidane, Oh Zidane etc etc”

Cheers
Chris CFC Surrey

 

Cake by the Ocean = Pep Guardiola?
Anon (So poor I can’t put my name to that)

 

I am not a Southampton fan , but loved when they signed Juanmi because it gave me the opportunity to sing

Juanmi
I look at you
And I get that feeling
Juanmi

to the tune of Linda Martin’s Eurovision winner Why Me?

Regards
Lar (Even put him in my Fantasy Football team as a result), Dublin

 

A variation
As its Friday afternoon / international week, I thought I’d take a punt on slipping into the mailbox a poor email

As a slight aside to player songs,  was thinking what songs teams should play pre-game, at United a few years back I always thought they should play The Pharcyde’s Quinton’s on the Way (Quinton’s on his way, Quinton’s on his way, and it’s OK, Everything’s OK…) down the road, I always thought they should play Stevie Wonder Living in The City (maybe they do? But they haven’t on the couple of times I’ve been), Sunderland could play Status Quo’s Down, Down. I’m sure there are better examples

Thanks
David McDougall