Is it time for Man United to drop Paul Pogba?

Matt Stead

Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com.

 

Drop Pogba
I read one mail-in this morning’s Man Utd/Liverpool special mailbox– criticizing Paul Pogba’s selfishness which I fully agree to.

It was supposed to be a good thing that when Pogba gets the ball, one or two of the opposing players are quickly drawn to him leaving other’s free for a quick interchange. But Pogba would hold unto the ball for far longer than necessary ending up to either lose the ball or play a back pass.

This is not purely based on the Everton game.

A very poor Rooney was dropped over a month ago, by the time he got back in the team, he had found a way to perform better. Herrera, Mkhitaryan, Martial, even Mata etc. are or were not secure in the team, they had to prove themselves. Along with De Gea (and maybe Ibra), Pogba looks like the most untouchable member of the team.

Maybe this sense of security is affecting him. JoMo (LOL) should remove it!
Posova(Fellaini’s madness was the only reasonable piece of action I got to watch, poor me) Andrew.

 

Love for Schweini
Fellaini and Schweinsteiger both had 5-minute cameos this week and both perfectly showed what they are about.

Bastian was calm, kept the ball, set up an attack with his quick thinking then assisted the assist. Fellaini…well we all know what happened, and no-one was surprised. The thing that really winds me up with Fellaini is the notion that he’s good in the air – he f*****g isn’t. He doesn’t jump, usually gives away a free kick via elbows and tends to only win the header if he’s unchallenged. He’s good for nothing other than bringing the ball down (again unchallenged) on his chest and that isn’t good enough for Man United. Fellaini is a player for a dogged team with a small pitch who lump it up to him as an outlet, not even West Ham would want him now they have that big pitch.

To see out a game someone like Schweinsteiger (who so clearly should be rotating the sitting midfield spot with Carrick) or Blind should come on – who keep possession with a calm head and great passing. I remember a game where Fergie was lauded, possibly against Arsenal or Spurs, for bringing on Nani in the last 10 when 1-0 and we ended up scoring 2 more goals. Why not bring Mata on to unlock a tired defence? So often teams get punished for going defensive why not try and kill the game off?

There are so many better options than throwing on Fellaini. To make a point we should tear up his contract – he’s an absolute sh*thouse and so is Mourinho for picking him.
Silvio Dante

 

Perspective
After a 2-1 win at Chelsea people said “That’s why Liverpool will win the league”. After their first loss in over 100 days now it’s “That’s why Liverpool won’t win the league”.

As frustrating/ highly anticipated as yesterdays “Kloppse” was there have been more positives than negatives over the past 100+ days to demonstrate that a title push for Liverpool is more than on the cards.

If we learned anything from yesterday it’s that Liverpool must dip into the transfer market if they are going to push on until May. The fact that Lucas was chosen ahead of Klavan really blows my mind. If Klopp is counting the fitness of Joe Gomez than he better be along sharpish. With Sakho finally headed for the exit a CB surely should be on the cards.

Liverpool also need another attacking player. Sturridge continues to prove he can not be counted on. With FSG historically reluctant to buy in January, it would surely lift everyone associated with the club if they opened the checkbook in the winter window.

Perspectively really needs looking at after games like this. Liverpool went 100+ days without defeat, are in wonderful league position with winnable games between now and New Years. Lallana has come back from injury, Matip and Sturridge should be available for next weeks game, and Origi is amongst the goals. Things will be fine.
Brian (Israel, United continue to drop points with Mourinho on the touchline and are 9 points off 4th. I’m laughing harder than ever!) 

 

Fortune cashed in her chip
Jurgen Klopp is an emotional man, whose teams tend to play emotional football.

Nowhere is this better exemplified than last season’s game v Dortmund.  Klopp admitted as much after the event, stating that our only chance was to turn it into an emotional rollercoaster of a game, to trample systems, tactics and better players under a wave of raw excitement.  Well, this is fortune cashing in her chip from that April night.

To nicely illustrate this the two games played out almost in perfect parallel: away team 2-0 up and absolutely cruising at HT; an early goal from the hosts in the second half quickly countered by a flowing move for 1-3 on the hour, surely that’s game over? Nope, an effervescent midfielder whips one in from the edge of the box to galvanise the home team, and a 78thminute equaliser from one centre back is followed by (the most inevitable ever) 91st minute winner by the other.

You can’t have one without the other and frankly Klopp’s way is much more fun.  I don’t begrudge Bournemouth anything – partly because they are a very likeable side with a very good manager, but also partly in recognition that the back-from-the-dead injury time winner is obviously the best possible thing about watching football, and their fans deserve it.

We can carp about tactics and shutting the game down for all eternity, but this was one of those moments where logic goes out of the window.  These are what keep us watching games when, say, 0-3 down at half time in the Champions’ League final, and to wish to see them managed out of the game would in many ways be sacrilegious.

Well done Bournemouth and Eddie Howe, hopefully you’ll get a top half finish. We will learn from this and (hopefully) Klopp will not allow the complacency that clearly set in at 1-3 to be repeated.
JG LFC (If you want the rainbow, you have to put up with the rain. You know which ‘philosopher’ said that? Dolly Parton. And people say she’s just a big pair of t1ts)

 

Is Matip the best?
Is there a better CB in the league than Joel Andre Job Matip?

Yesterday showed how much Liverpool need him, he really organises Lovren.

At 6’5″ he’s bigger than Van Dijk, and just fantastic in the air. As far as passing CBs go he strides out of defence and spreads the play like he plays for Barça.

He really is the whole package, and whilst Van Dijk, Bailly, Luiz all have qualities, none have the total package of size, pace, passing and leadership.
KC (and he’s only 25! (and he was free!))

 

Go get Hart
After swearing and calling Karius every name under the sun I took my dog for a walk to calm down. Whilst on my walk a thought hit me, what if we had sign Joe Hart. Now I know he has had his moments of madness but still this is a goalie with experience of winning two league titles. Would he has rescued three valuable points yesterday I can’t help scratching my chinning and thinking yes he would. Instead Alex Manniger was brought in!

I love Liverpool but I’m not sure I grow fingers nails quick enough to keep watch this defence try and pretend it’s good enough, oh well it least this season won’t be dull!
Joe (Sakho must have slept with Klopp’s wife to be over looked for Lucas!) LFC, Milton Keynes

 

Come back, Jack
I just wanted to touch on something the pundits were saying after Bournemouth beat Liverpool yesterday, I think it was Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville (I might be wrong).

They were essentially saying that Jack Wilshere would be mad to return to Arsenal because Arsenal had an abundance of central midfielders and that Wilshere would better serve his career staying at Bournemouth and playing regularly.

I thought it ridiculous that two “experts”, would not notice that Santi Cazorla spent much of last season broken, is broken again this season, is out of contract at the end of the season, and that in terms of skills set, Jack Wilshere is stylistically the closest player we have to Santi Cazorla.

A perfect “internal solution” as Le Boss would say.  Come back Jack!
Naz, Gooner (oh, and Santi, stay and do a Rosicky please)

 

Debunking the Poch myth
So that was a curious mail from Sood CFC. I’m not actually sure that he or she got a single thing right. And, of course, I couldn’t let a slight on our beloved Pochettino go unchallenged.

· He is literally the same man as last year. Our results have been more frustrating, which would probably go a way towards explaining the fact that he’s appeared more frustrated. Was that not obvious?

· That mini-outburst” you speak of was a man answering a question. In fairness, you may have gone off the very misleading “lays into” headline, when in fact he simply pointed out that famous instance directly relevant to him about an English player diving. Ring any bells?

· In spite of not having he best season thus far, we are two points better off than last season, with quite substantial room for improvement.

· Sorry not to have lived up to your expectations, Sood. Because all other (experienced) English clubs have done admirably, haven’t they?

· It’s not necessarily rich; it’s just a bit of a weird thing to write in and say, given how incredibly misguided literally all of your observations are.

· In short: thanks for your concern; please never offer it again. Poch is the best manager we’ve had in my lifetime by quite a long way.
Alex G, THFC (I’ll give you the Sissoko disaster)

 

World class
“If he leads Arsenal to the title, then he is world-class,” says Alan Shearer.

I can’t quite remember – how many title did Alan lead Newcastle to?

I know he won the league with Blackburn but he’s considered one of Newcastle’s greatest ever strikers – does the lack of a league title with the Geordies mean he’s suddenly pants?
Graham Simons, Gooner, Norf London

 

Ah, that age-old question: Is a player world class or not. Alexis Sanchez’s performance against West Ham on Saturday was as good as anything you are going to see, anywhere in the world. However, when Alan Shearer and Chris Sutton were asked by Gary Lineker on MOTD whether Sanchez was a world class player, both adopted an expression that suggested they had been asked to shoot their grandmothers. Granted, Messi and Ronaldo continue to sit on a rung above, but why is it that anybody outside of this pair cannot possibly be considered to be ‘world class’, however good they are! Can the footballing globe only possess two such players? It seems to me that there is a generally accepted threshold where (until these two retire) no other player can be bestowed such an accolade.
Paul (CPFC), London

 

Palace on track to be Palace
“Palace look like a mid-table side even though they really have only got a point a game” is rationale Pardiola himself would be proud of. “Yeah, Palace are mid-table but only because they’ve got the amount of points necessary to be above enough teams to be mid-table”. Sorry about maths, it can ruin even the most rewarding narrative.

If you look at the teams in 1st – 12th place, how many “should” Palace be finishing ahead of, for this to be another successful season? 3 at most? So, as I mentioned in my mail from last week before this win, we are just about on track to be where we should be, and scoring quite a lot of goals while we do it. Which is perfectly enjoyable for the time being thanks, and isn’t at all undercut by our manager making public derogatory comments about the people who might want to sack him. That’s just funny.

I really think Christian Benteke and Wilf Zaha are good at their jobs, and I really find Alan Pardew and F365 entertaining even though they sometimes aren’t. Football is well fun.
Ben (CPFC)

 

*Crystal Palace are saved! It’s a Christmas miracle!

That said, one swallow does not make a Spring (or a relationship), so there’s still a long way to go before the Eagles can properly consider themselves out of trouble.

I have been a very vocal critic of Alan Pardew for how we have been losing, so it’s only fair to turn that around as well.  He rejigged his personnel, partly through necessity and partly through choice.  Joe Ledley came into the side because Yohan Cabaye was suspended, and this gave us more grit in midfield at the expense of creativity, but against a team who like to dominate possession this could have been a sensible move even if Cabaye was available.

Damien Delaney came back into the side at centre-back, with James Tomkins playing at right-back and Joel Ward moving over to left-back in place of Martin Kelly/Zeki Fryers.  Immediately, Palace looked more reassured at the back; much like in midfield, Delaney is more limited than Tomkins, but he was an assured presence.

*The first Palace goal was something of a freak incident.  Claude Puel blamed the pitch, which I didn’t think was too bad, apart from when Soufiane Boufal tripped over his own feet.  Surely the bobble was caused by the ball rolling through a divot or rut that Fraser Forster himself had made ahead of taking a goal kick.

*The other two goals looked like the sort of goals Palace usually concede rather than scoring.  I was wondering what that felt like.

*Oddest take of the weekend was from Paul MacInness in the Guardian, whose on the whistle report mentioned that the lone positive for Gareth Southgate was that Wilfried Zaha didn’t play well, just days after switching his allegiance to Cote d’Ivoire.  Never fancied her anyway, mate.

*Inevitably, there have been a few comments along the lines of “where have all those people complaining about Pardew gone?” We’re still here, waiting for you to learn how complaining works.

Ultimately, Pardew has bought himself some time, but only a bit.  If Palace lose to Hull City next weekend, he will have to go.  The key thing will be showing that, having organised a team to play on the counterattack, he can organise one that can win while dominating the ball, because City will want to sit deep.  If the Eagles do win that, Pardew effectively has free passes in the next two games – against Manchester United and Chelsea.  No one expects Palace to win either of those, so to sack him for losing them would be harsh.  However, if the team play well, and can then beat Watford on Boxing Day, then it will be more difficult to dismiss him.

*True to form, Pardew managed to turn what should have been a fairly sympathetic post-match interview into something chippy.  Most managers (other than, perhaps, Jose Mourinho or Sean Dyche) would have been basking in the glow of his team coming through for him when his job was on the line, and pulling off a convincing win.  Pardew, on the other hand, decided to take a shot at the team’s American investors, saying “we have a lot of serious investors at the club who perhaps don’t know a lot about football so the chairman has been defending me this week”.

Josh Harris and David Blitzer might not know a lot about football, but as owners of the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils, they do know a lot about losing.  For the Devils, since they took over, the team has missed the playoffs each season, and have made several coaching changes.  This despite the fact that the salary cap makes it difficult to buy your way out of trouble, and the lack of available, proven coaches.  Unfortunately for Pardew, football does allow people to throw money at problems, and there is a wider pool of proven managers who could be brought in to replace him.  We shall see.
Ed Quoththeraven

 

The Leicester view
Read calls for thoughts of Leicester fans this morning. Last season has really messed up a proportion of Leicester fans, probably the ones that didn’t pay much attention to us until last season. The booing is ridiculous and embarrassing. I even heard calls for Pearson to come back!

Premier league form is a worry, but we’ll turn it around I’m sure. Central midfield is a big problem as king and amartey are not of the required quality and leave our ageing defence exposed in a way Kante never did. Mendy returning will help with this. We did miss a trick in not signing Gueye though.

We are not a big club, we’ll go down at some point over the next few seasons. And we’ll come back up too. That’s fine, it’s always been that way. What we have though is the story to tell of the greatest, most improbable league victory ever. I’m fine with that.
Toby (Champions) Mitchell

 

11 conclusions
Brilliant weekend of football. 11 conclusions…

1. Absolutely loved each and every one of Chelsea’s goals. All so hard and direct, especially Hazard’s fabulous finish

2. “We don’t like to see games end like that” – THIS IS EXACTLY HOW WE WANT TO SEE ALL GAMES END. A MASSIVE BRAWL. On a side note, Fabregas is the most snide player I can remember for years (please come back love u xxx)

3. Can we please marvel at how gloriously awful just about all goalkeeping is right now?

4. Stekelenburg tearing out of his box, for no reason, and gifting supreme-all-being Zlatan the easiest goal ever

5. Bravo – just lol. After making do with Almunia for years and years, the two are kindred spirits in somehow making themselves smaller on 1-on-1s. Literally pointed at where Hazard needed to place the final goal

6. Curzon Ashton 3-4 AFC Wimbledon – I know tearing into non-league sides isn’t cool. But the Curzon goalkeeper gave a rather “interesting” performance

7. Obviously I think Deli Ali is the worst person alive after his heinous crimes, but must admit I laughed a little on hearing Pochettino talk about Owen’s dive (and the only journalist I remember for calling it for what it was at the time was Patrick Barclay)

8. The constant attempt by the Press to paint Stones as the next coming of Sir Bobby Moore is little short of hilarious. I’m not saying he’s not good, but come on…

9. Am a bit perplexed by all this “United are playing really well” shtick. The only team they hilariously dominated and didn’t get all 3 points from was us (love you Giroud xxx). Otherwise yesterday’s game looked like two pub teams. (As a side note what is going on with decent managers and seemingly decent people like Koeman and Bilic?!)

10. I hurl my fair share of abuse at the Arsenal Twitter account whenever we concede and I’ve written countless times into this mailbox to slag off the boss. But like, he’s never spent £100m in one window, gotten us down to 6th, 13pts off the top, and then moaned about needing 2 more transfer windows to get it all right. Mourinho made another dig at AW in his hilarious post-match presser. Watching this man disintegrate before our very eyes has been nothing short of wonderful this last year and a half. (Really wish he’d go back to describing all the refs as “weak and naïve” constantly)

11. Watch the ball-boy’s reaction behind the goal for Sanchez’s dummy and dink (love seeing kid’s reactions to amazing football, always just unbridled joy)
Sandeep (the best goals are super-fast counter attacks), London.

 

Spare a thought for Cov
Yesterday, my ‘beloved’ Coventry City were beaten 4-0 by Cambridge United in the FA Cup.

For anyone keeping score, the whole sad situation Coventry City find themselves in is: Asset-stripped beyond recognition by shady and unaccountable owners; without a stadium as of the end of next season; all-out war between the city council and owners, who are piling most of their money into hopeless court cases and appeals and an interim manager completely out of his debt. Relegation from League One feels like a complete certainty and at this point the club going out of existence feels like it would be an act of mercy.

I humbly put it to you, and the F365 readership, that Coventry City are the worst club in England to support. There surely cannot be any other set of fans that have had to endure such perpetual misery, without even a glimmer of hope and success (we haven’t finished in the top six of any division in 46 years). And yes, I’m deliberately overlooking the 1987 FA Cup because for a huge section of our fanbase (myself included) this was before our lifetimes and the club never managed to significantly capitalise on this rare success.

If there’s any other team who has had this bad a run over such a sustained length of time, I would actually be genuinely interesting in hearing their story.
-Adrian (Coventry City fa)

 

Sick of football nostalgia
Just reading Johnny Nic’s piece on playing your best 11 (I’m only half way through so I can’t judge the piece properly yet) and see a paragraph on how “back in the day” you had tougher players and less choice.

I’m sick of this footballing nostalgia, like football was better when it was played by so called “real men”. I don’t want to watch players who can barely stand up playing until they’re hurt. I don’t want to see pitches that look like The Shire. I don’t want to see players relishing violent challenges as a means of bridging a skill gap. By the way, perhaps the reason so many footballers were drunk, depressed or both “back in the day” was because they were forced to play in shocking conditions and any concerns were answered with a gruff “man up”.

Were footballers easier to relate to? Sure, but at what cost? Who would wish that on their fellow man?

Football is played at a higher level now and we should be grateful for it. Yes it’s annoying watching a player roll around in feigned agony, but it’s also wonderful to watch players do genuinely amazing things on a regular basis. I can understand wanting to lose some of the football-industrial complex, the money, the media hyperbole, the clickbait journalism but surely noone can argue that the actual football on show is anything other than superior?

Unless they’re watching united play…
Dave, MUFC, Manchester

 

More on Johnny Nic
Interesting read from Johnny Nic this morning. The one thing that immediately sprung to mind was Leicester City 2015/16. Ranieri had a best 11, which altered rarely and only really due to injury or suspension. We all know the result.

Fast forward from May and Ranieri has been duped into buying 9 new varieties of olive oil to dip his bread into. He was told he needed to in order to compete again. He is now unsure of which oil is his favourite, and which produces the most satisfying results. Some of his more expensive olive oil is not giving him the result he would wish for, but he feels he needs to continue trying it as it would be foolish to discard an oil he paid over the odds for. Turns out maybe having a best 11 is the best option after all.

No player builds form through constant rotation. A few poor games and you are ‘rotated’ out of the side. Rarely has a player ever played themselves back into good by not playing. Rotation does not breed familiarity, which is often the underlying factor in the success of any football team. Shearer and Sutton did not have to learn to gel with other players every other week. Neither did Adams and Bould. Sometimes having a best 11 and sticking with it where possible is the best option. And do not talk to me about rotation for the cups. If they sap that much energy out of players, perhaps Jose should have a premier league 11 and a Europa league 11. He has enough internationals at his disposal to put out sides strong enough to compete well in both competitions.

I could go on, but I choose not to.
Tom (Jose out), West Midlands

 

Garth invader
After reading Mediawatch, I couldn’t believe that Garth genuinely wrote those lines about Costa’s goal and the other pieces. And sure enough he did…

Except the bit about Luizs pass for Costas goal is nowhere to be seen, some 6 minutes after Mediawatch was published.

Do you warn Crooks about his errors or does his editor wake up and realise he has posted something without permission?
Rob A (If Sanchez isn’t in the world class bracket, then its a very very small bracket) AFC

 

Sorry
Was reading the transfer gossip, and after the unlikely (arsene is not going to sign a 30 year old striker unless it’s on a free) links to Carlos Bacca, the list of injured strikers, and the line ‘we can’t help but think he’s forgetting a certain someone’ my immediate response was ‘why are f365 suggesting yaya sanogo is the answer?’

Then I read the next line and remembered why it’s a happy time to be a gooner. So sorry for the sanogo misjudgment. You’re better than that. We’re all better than that. Apart from yaya sanogo (probably).
Sal (create a dog academy at London Colney if it helps Sanchez sign)

 

Good call
Good call from Ben in the mailbox last July comparing Bilic to Martinez
Richie Egan