Mails: Picking Pep over that bully Jose…

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Not too happy with Mourinho the bully
I will begin with an apology. I feel like a spoiled brat writing this. You know the one who gets a Merc SLS for his 16th birthday and then throws a fake ass temper tantrum because his neighbor got a Lamborghini.

My SLS is the new streetwise, strong and physical Man Utd with Pogba, Zlatan, Bailly and Mkhitaryan. The neighbor with the Lambo is City with Pep.

I knew Pep was a very good manager but the two City games I have seen so far have shown me he can get his teams to play amazing football while still fielding even the likes of Kolarov and Zabaleta. I especially liked the way he showed Hart the door while the media wailed and gnashed their teeth. He still might fail in England but he has shown he has his own ideals and will stick with them wherever he is and whatever the outcome. Like Ali G said: RESPECT!!!

Mourinho has made our team feared again. And he was and is the best manager for United at this time. But still seeing Martial frustrated and wasted out wide, Rash on the bench not getting a look and players who don’t have the biggest media backing (Schweinsteiger, Mata) etc get humiliated in public, is just sad. All this while Rooney is still a starter at one of the most important roles in the line-up!

Jose is great at politicking the English media and thus swaying the opinion of the lumpenproletariat masses who hang on their every word. He knows who to pick on and who not to.

Mourinho is like the guy who picks a fight he knows he will win. Pep on the other hand is the dude who will fight whomever for his ideals.

I like the latter better.
Mike (Still a million times better than the dark days of Moyes) San Fransisco, MUFC

 

Arsene Wenger is David Brent
Quick thought on Arsene Wenger saying that he has concerns for the 600 people with jobs related to Arsenal. In the UK Office there was a training video where someone asked, “What is the most important asset to a business” David Brent says, “The staff.” The video then says, “That’s right, profits.”

If Arsene Wenger wants to run Arsenal as a successful business which consistently makes money instead of chasing trophies and winning the league at a loss, I can understand that. It may pain people especially lifelong fans, but football is a modern-day investment where people will try to make money over glory and be rewarded for it. But once a person can’t see the football aspect for the business and starts to quote unquote David Brent, well that’s when something needs to change. It doesn’t matter how many staff are at the club, business is business and that means either you make a profit, or you go for glory. Once you make tens of thousands of fans pay over the odds for season tickets to keep a few hundred staff in jobs, that’s when something’s gotta give.
Brian, United fan who misses the classic Arsenal/United rivalries of 15-ish years ago

 

Seeing parallels with Arsenal and Villa
Clearly not in terms of league position, quality of player etc etc, but work with me on this.

Arsenal needs radical change if it is to get out of the monotony of being nearly men season after season.

On the correlation between Arsenal and Villa as I see it. Villa for the last five years has bounced along the bottom of the Premier League, narrowly avoiding relegation mainly due to three worse teams. The lack of investment at a different scale in the quality of player coming to the club meant there was only one way the club could go. However, each year we survived relegation, there was a pat on the back for the CEO and manager and the owner slept easy for another night. Had we not been relegated, there would have been no dramatic change at the club and continuous pats on the back. But there is no point in participating in any league, if the sole aim is to do it to avoid relegation.

I see the same with Arsenal, lack of player investment has meant the teams around have progressed beyond them in quality and what appears to be an ethos of slow considered change and avoid being tagged as wasteful in terms of money spent. In a league, were 6/7 teams can claim a place at the challengers table, it’s become much harder for Arsenal to compete when years ago it was a straight battle with Man U, then Chelsea arrived, Man City arrived and teams like Spurs built off the radar. Fan expectation never helps but when you’ve seen the Invincibles, your level of expectation can get skewed but as a non-Arsenal fan I can absolutely see the benefits of change, my own club now boasts an owner prepared to invest in the club, to build a winning team and at my fan level, the chance to see better winning football from a team with pride in the shirt who will die for the cause.
Darren (nothing more clever than Up The Villa), Dublin

 

Can people stop moaning about Liverpool please?
I’m sick of all the moaning about Liverpool, absolutely fed up. So the only logical thing to do is to moan about the moaning, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

First, regarding Henderson: He’s never going to be Gerrard’s replacement, that much is clear, and he’s going through a dip in form (admittedly, a really sharp dip). But remember how wank Lovren was this time last year? He got it together and has been very solid since then, including a very memorable performance against Dortmund. If it were up the to pitchfork mob, he would’ve been shipped off instantly, and we would have had Illori as a starting CB. Not sure how well that would have worked out (probably wouldn’t have).

Second, regarding Can: I love Can, I think he’s brilliant. But everyone saying he should be captain needs to have their head examined. He’s 22 years old, and he made tons of mistakes last year that led to goals. If he continues developing he will be immense, but let the coach make the decision who should be captain, not your local armchair managers.

Lastly, regarding Klopp. I’m half-convinced that most of the mails slating Klopp are concern trolls pretending to be Liverpool fans. Any club in the Premier League would take him in a heartbeat, he’s a fantastic manager. Ffs, he took the club to two cup finals with bloody Mignolet as his keeper, granted he lost both, but it took him less than a year whereas Rodgers couldn’t even manage one final in nearly three years.

I get where all the cynicism and negativity is coming from. Years of disappointment, poor recruitment, and near misses have made Liverpool fans a very jaded bunch (myself included). But the club has arguably not been in a better position since Rafa’s reign. The club has expanded the stadium (which looks gorgeous btw), stabilized finances nicely (still one of the richest clubs despite not winning anything in a while now), a world-class manager (he is one regardless of your anecdotal evidence), and the deepest squad I’ve seen Liverpool have for a very long time. Are they guaranteed success? Hell no, but give me the current situation over ****ng Roy Hodgson and Konchesky any day.

If the club is close to relegation come Xmas, then you can slate me, but I highly doubt that is going to happen. Two wins out of three matches but apparently doomsday is approaching, **** me, there’s plenty of horrible stuff going on in world to get upset about, so please stop being so miserable about football of all things in the first week of the season…
CB, Washington DC

 

Why Newcastle fans might have been booing…
Jay LFC asks ‘What makes a fan boo at St James’ park on the opening day?’ it may be because the players were 300 miles away at Craven Cottage. There were no boos after the televised Fulham match, there was however, reported unrest against newly promoted Huddersfield where Newcastle were defeated by a late goal in front of a sell-out crowd. One could equally ask ‘what makes 52,000 fans attend a game of a recently relegated and much derided club?’

I wasn’t at the game but my match-going friends inform me that the performance was pretty poor. Back-to-back defeats came as a shock and caused understandable disappointment at the start of a season which generated much hope and optimism after Rafa’s men had previously gone 11 games unbeaten.

I am also concerned about the growth in fickle and expectant fan culture creating a poisonous atmosphere for clubs but it also seems that trolling rival fans like to highlight ugly fan behaviour as a form of fan snobbery. This behaviour is usually carried out my small minorities and we must be wary of the realities versus what reported or trending on social media.
Nik (They’re actually chanting Boo-nitez) NUFC

 

Leicester in the Champions League draw!
Good Morning F365 and friends!

Today is the day of the Champions League group stages draw. When the ‘mighty’ Leicester City find out who they will play from Europe’s finest!

‘Ooh’, I hear you say, ‘maybe you could have the opportunity to pit your wits against Barcelona, Real or Bayern?!’ Wrong, my friends, because we, Leicester City, are seeded in pot 1 and will thus avoid the biggest of big boys on the biggest club stage of all. Please forgive me while I go and lie down in a darkened room at such a turn of events.

In all seriousness, it is an incredible moment in a never-ending series right now. No matter who we get, or how far we go, it will just be an absolute privilege to take part in the competition because, don’t forget, we really aren’t meant to be there – before last season, most sane people would predict Dundalk have more chance of reaching this stage than City.

I have nothing more to add to this. It was really just an attempt to spread some joy and wonderment in mailbox dominated by moaning Arsenal and Liverpool missives.
Rob (Porto, Brugge and Copenhagen would be nice, thanks) Leicester

 

Thank you and goodnight Robbie…
In all the discussion about the treatment of Joe Hart, and the outrage over Wenger’s stinginess and the debate whether Hendo is worthy of a starting berth for Liverpool (he isn’t, in my opinion), Ireland’s record goalscorer Robbie Keane announced that he will be retiring from international football after the upcoming friendly with Oman. This is a man who scored a frankly eye-watering 67 goals for the boys in green, more than tripling the previous record of 21.

Taking into consideration the two strongest footballing continents (Europe and South America), only five players have scored more international goals than Robbie. One is regarded as arguably the greatest player of all time (Pele), another two as the greatest ever goalscorers (Gerd Muller and Ferenc Puskas), another the all-time top scorer in the World Cup and for Germany (Miroslav Klose), while Sandor Kocsis was a member of the 1950’s Hungary team widely regarded as one of the best international sides ever. The fact that the Republic are but a ‘mid-ranked’ team in international terms (particularly compared to the sides the aforementioned five players played for) makes his exploits for the boys in green even more eye-watering. An Irish sporting legend whose record will never be surpassed.

Of course, such is Irish begrudgery that he rarely gets the credit he deserves. In fact he has come something of a parody in recent times, mainly due to the fact he mentioned playing for a couple of the clubs he moved to was a ‘childhood dream’. While his influence on the side has been on the Wayne (Rooney esque) over the last couple of qualification campaigns, he still was willing to make the long distance trek from LA to link up as a bit-part/use-in-case-of-emergency member of the squad, an admirable loyalty to his country.

So thanks for the goals Robbie. You big feckin legend ya.
Brian (Robbie’s goal vs Germany in WC 2002 was the original Robbie Brady goal vs Italy in Euro 2016), Wexford

 

The gambling problem…
In regards to Mick Attridge on the ‘too easy to bet and too hard to close’ betting apps.

While this is often a shock to people who aren’t used to how the gambling industry operates, it is their normal modus operandi (the connotations in using that term are deliberate).

I’ll provide a short story to illustrate. A few years ago I visited a new city as a tourist. This city was dominated by a large casino which sat over their central business district with stretching out wings and corridors, quite aptly I thought…like an octopus.

I was travelling on foot and wanted to get to a street on the other side of the complex. As walking around such a behemoth of the building would have taken a good 45 minutes, the ground I was in decided to cut ‘through’ the casino.

Casino design being deliberately confusing as it is, there was no ‘straight’ corridor through but rather constant diverting paths into rooms for gambling or other ways to part you from you money. Our group thought we could deal with this simply by looking for the green and white ‘exit’ signs that all safe businesses should have…it took us over an hour to find one. Easy to enter, difficult to leave. Just like easy to set up an account, hard to close.

I was appalled – surely making a business where it is near impossible to find an exit is illegal considering the fire and building regulations right? Guess not. Oh and I’m sure that has nothing to do with casinos being around the largest political donors to governments.

Here in Oz, there is an online betting company which has terms and conditions that you actually can’t close your account *unless you leave a minimum amount of money in it*. That’s right…you can’t actually leave the service without paying a hefty fee. Surely that’s illegal right? Again…governments…political donations.

Be appalled football fans. Be very very appalled that this leech has attached itself to your sport. If they can influence government policy to harm its citizens, think of the influence they can have over the not-so-morally upstanding and unaccountable EPL?
Hugo (NUFC) Adelaide

 

…This will be brief as I am writing on my phone, but I feel it necessary to make a couple of comments. Firstly, I agree that gambling has been pushed so far into the mainstream that it has become the norm. What was once a relatively small market, only pervading the general consciousness at Grand National time, is now a lad’s paradise, advertised as a banterous bit of fun. Yes, there are the usual ‘gamble responsibly’ bits tacked on, but you’ve all seen the adverts, the which one of these proper geezers are you?’, the endless offers of ‘free’ money to get your gambling life underway. Gambling is a serious issue and the ease with which you can lose fortunes is terrifying. And that is before you consider the dubious relationship between Twitter tipsters and the bookies themselves. Many of these accounts will contain links to their ‘recommended’ bets. What they may not explicitly state is that the tipster gains a share of your losses. If you open an account via that link, they will get a share of everything you lose under that account. People are taking tips from people who directly benefit from your failure. Some have taken to offering ‘good’ tips, encouraging their followers to build their bankroll, before offering up a losing bet and therefore maximising their own gains. At your expense. Still think that punt is worth it? Still trust that tipster because the previous couple of bets came in?

I’ve seen friends and family suffer because of gambling addiction. It is horrific. A family friend was a racing columnist for a major broadsheet. He eventually lost everything: house, car, family. Be honest with yourself. Don’t blind yourself to your losses. Don’t tell the ‘breaking even’ lie that we’ve all told. Don’t get sucked in by the hype, by the ads, by the websites that keep on offering tips and odds despite being a football website, not f**king Ladbrokes.

And Dave the Gooner, in the Kingdom of Hertfordshire, references the classic ‘world has gone mad, hell in a handbasket’ story of the McDonald’s coffee case. I need to point something out: the 79-year-old woman concerned received third-degree burns to her groin area, needed skin grafts, and TWO YEARS of medical treatment. Why? Because the coffee machine was defective and the coffee was too damn hot to be served. This wasn’t a frivolous law suit. This was an elderly woman who suffered severe burns because McDonald’s neglected to ensure that their equipment was fit for purpose. So let’s not use her suffering as some kind of punchline, eh?
thayden