Kante would have won any top six side the title

A lack of midweek football has killed the mails. We have just about scraped this together. Help us out on Thursday by mailing theeditor@football365.com

 

Rafa still more popular than Jurgen?
I’ve been keeping a keen eye on The Magpies, always had a soft spot for them and even more so now The Rafatollah has got them going again after a sticky patch. Chuffed for them to overcome their promotion rivals last night as they did.

Indeed I’ve always felt that us and they are similar in many ways…passionate fanbase with a reputation for occasionally raucous atmosphere. Trophy haul in the modern era not entirely commensurate with financial outlay. Large, unhinged element to fanbase tinged with unfettered optimism. Cult heroes galore and fanatical devotion to some Kings in their past. As I say, plenty of similarities.

Anyways, if as is looking likely The Rafatollah brings them up at the first time of asking will the game at Anfield be the first time ever that the visiting manager is more popular and has more songs sung about him than the home manager? Now don’t get me wrong, I love Der KloppMeister. When he gets us on song and can select the first XI we absolutely blow teams away playing easily the best footy in the league. But we lack consistency and he struggles against teams we believe [for some reason] we should be summarily dismissing. He’ll get it right I reckon once he realises there are 38 absolute battles across the season – for some reason Liverpool are still a revered scalp.

But we’ve not entirely taken him to our heart. I was at a game early doors and the crowd tried out a couple of chants for Norbert and at the end I seem to recall he was spitting blood as he’d done nothing yet and was going mental in the post-match presser. Fair enough but I feel he’s a hard man to love in many ways and hardly endears the witty characters on The Kop from trying out too many chants/songs. Not like cuddly, warm Senor Benitez. All together “Oh Rafa Benitez, Xabi Alonso, Garcia and Nunez”…
Gregory Whitehead, LFC

 

Pulis shows you what a manager can do…
Ross (I know this is mad, but it does make you think) Jenkins WHUFC I think you have had the worst idea ever and actually wasted an email to submit your idea. How much influence does a manager have? West Bromwich Albion currently sit eighth in the Premier League.

We have a striker who has not scored for over two months, yet we are scoring lots of goals. We have the oldest outfield player in the Premier League at centre half who is actually our joint top scorer. We have a centre-half from Rochdale who has been a fabulous right back in Craig Dawson. Allan Nyom who was a bit-part right-back at Watford, has become a cult hero at left back for the Baggies. A winger (Matt Phillips) signed for £5million from QPR following an indifferent season in the Championship has lit up the Premier League with goals and assists. Not to mention a 32 year old Chris Brunt playing at left back and again making lots of assists and James Morrison playing as well as he ever has done. We also have one the League’s best defenders in Johnny Evans signed from Manchester United, who we only got because of our manager, and the best captain in the Premier League in Darren Fletcher again who we only got because of Pulis. We have scored from more corners than anyone else in the Premier League. In fact a corner for us is now almost like a penalty. All this is down to Tony Pulis, who you have a snide dig at. There is no way the Albion should be eighth but our manager has built a team greater than the sum of its parts. That’s how important a manager is. The work they do in training and unseen is vital. For true success a good manager will appoint the right captain.

A captain can be equally important. We see this in Darren Fletcher. A true leader of men, and re-enforces his managers views in the press and on the pitch. A good captain will help the manager influence the game, by driving and making sure the team follow up on the work they have done all week in training.
Ben The Baggie

 

Which means Ranieri is culpable
The nonsense from Ross (I know this is mad, but it does make you think) Jenkins WHUFC this morning seems to be adding to the ‘players just decide when to be good or bad, managers have no influence’ line that’s been peddled this week in support of Ranieri.

Surely the one thing that managers are very much responsible for is motivating their team. If the team isn’t motivated to perform as well as possible, then the manager is not doing their job properly and should be held responsible.

I have no idea what’s gone wrong at Leicester (if only every pundit would admit the same thing) and I haven’t seen enough of them playing to tell what has changed on the pitch but clearly the players have not been playing to the best of their abilities, as Monday night’s game showed. And the person that’s responsible for picking the team, deciding on the tactics and motivating the players?

Football hasn’t died because Leicester sacked lovely Uncle Claudio. Why is the narrative that he did a great job last year so should be allowed to get them relegated this season no matter how badly he’s doing? Can’t Leicester choose a different option?
Monkey Steve

 

Return of the...
With the news of Roy Hodgson having talks with Leicester about coming back to Premier League management, I now have this vivid image of him in his car, rolling into the training ground car park, singing ‘Weturn of the Woy’ under his breath, to 1996 RnB classic, Return of the Mack.

Anyone else? Just me?
Tom, West Hampstead

 

What could Kante do for your team?
Last night we were debating just how good N’Golo Kante is. Among other things, we concluded that he is the absolute opposite of a luxury player. He is a player that would definitely improve every single team in the Premier League. The question is, how much does would he improve every team?

Imagine 20 different alternative realities where in each of them Kante signed for a different Premier League team for this season (i.e. in one he plays for Arsenal, in another he plays for Hull etc.).

Of those 20 Kante’d Premier League teams, how many would win the league, and what is the lowest league position any one of them would finish?

We decided that any of the ‘big six’ could feasibly have walked the league with him in their side, and the lowest any club would finish is 10th. So I guess we think that he could single-handedly improve any team by up to 10 places. Even Sunderland.
Andrew (Diame meant that goal) M

 

Do the right thing, West Ham
Seeing as Leyton Orient missed out on moving into the Olympic stadium at the expense of neighbours West Ham and now face being wound up over a £250k tax bill, shouldn’t West Ham do the decent thing and offer to play the O’s in a friendly match with all proceeds going towards saving Orient?

We live in an age where a player on £250k a week may well complain at not being paid enough, while this sum of money could be the difference between whether an age-old London club survives or not.

I’d attend the match even though I’m a gooner.

Get this done West Ham – it’s a good way of attracting good PR after getting a stadium for free.
Graham Simons, Gooner, Norf London

 

In defence of Brighton
Sorry I had to bite. JC NUFC, ‘Brighton have not impressed me on the few occasions I’ve seen them this season?’ With the third highest goals scored (behind yourselves and Norwich), the meanest defence in the league and the fewest losses, we are doing something right and have been rightfully yo-yoing at the top of the table with yourselves the last few weeks. That is obviously not that impressive enough for you.

After the heartache of last season, it feels like we have a real crack at the big time and last night’s defeat takes nothing away from that. We were second best for large portions and suicidal defending in the second half did not help us one bit!
Iain (Feel free to beat Huddersfield at the weekend though), BHA

 

Video killed the radio star
I really like how F365 has started putting videos of interviews. I think that without watching them one can never know the true context of what is being said and if I think an interview is interesting from an article, I find myself looking for it somewhere else pretty often. So thank you for allowing me to watch even more football related… well anything, without putting any extra effort. Great effort guys.
Zdravko

 

Burnley’s hall of shame
Is Prince Charles really worse than Alastair Campbell?

Plus, what exactly have Burnley done to deserve these two?
James F, BCFC KRO