Mails: Pointing fingers at Jurgen Klopp…

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Congratulations and farewell, Wayne
Rooney breaking Sir Bobby Charlton’s record for United goals couldn’t have cum at a better time. Now we can ship him off to China without guilt or malice aforethought.
Keg Baridi (I) Nairobi, Kenya
PS. Rooney, Ni Hao means hello in Chinese, learn that
…Fair fu*ks, that was some hit.

Well done on the record.
DC, BAC

 

From Rooney’s biggest fan
I’m sure it was rubbish, fortunate or his fault we were even in that position. Anyway, congrats lad, what a way to do it, with another goal that matters.
Guy S

 

Nice to see Man United keep on keeping on…
First of all, this is the first time I’m writing anything to Football365, despite visiting the site daily for many years.

It’s now 1.30am in China and like most Saturdays I’ve stayed awake reading whatever site will work to stay up to date with the latest Manchester United game, and it’s ended in another draw, though I’m not at all disappointed

A few years ago or even as recent as the start of the season I get a feeling we wouldn’t have fought till the end. Okay, this season hasn’t gone the way a lot of supports would have truly hoped but the thing that is most pleasing for me personally is this team are fighting till the end, attacking till the end, another game, another draw, another late goal. Memories of United under SAF when nothing is over until the final whistle.

Tired, disappointed with the result but eager to continue seeing (reading) about my team for the first time in a couple of years.
There’s always the cup competitions this year.
LDW, Changsha China

 

Klopp got it wrong
The article
pinning a lot of the blame for the result on Klopp was pretty fair. To look at the problem is very simple terms; why are you playing no strikers and then focussing entirely on crossing the ball?

Emre Can is in a stinking run of form. It’s worth remembering that he’s very young and young players will have tough periods but he needs a little break out of the side to gather himself now; playing more bad games won’t help him in the long term. Surely Klopp needs to either switch him with Kevin Stewart for at least one game or bring Lallana back into midfield and give Woodburn/Ojo a chance in the front three.

If it were me I’d actually want to switch to a 4-4-2 diamond with Origi/Firmino and Sturridge/Origi up top together. It would help us cope in a game like today where the middle/defence is tight and the space gets overloaded; the two in the middle of the pitch could add width or help create confusion through the centre. Our current setup only works with Mane in the front three and Lallana in the middle three. When either player is missing it either forces key personnel out of position (Firmino was anonymous once moved left to accommodate Studge) or tries to force square pegs into round holes (Sturridge was not born to be a part of a fluid front three).

On the plus side Man Utd had a poor result today but realistically if Liverpool keep going in this way then a loss to Chelsea at the end of January will probably also see us drop out of the top four.
Minty, LFC

 

Liverpool need new blood
I could rant. I could cry. I could scream to passers-by that Lovren and Klavan should not be the centre-back partnership of a top-four chasing team or that a midfield consisting of Henderson, Can and Wijnaldum just doesn’t trouble teams. But all I will say is that whatever can be said about Arsenal and Spurs lacking mental strength, Liverpool are the epitomy of a supposedly top team with no mental strength.

Burnley, Bournemouth and Swansea are all teams that top-four-chasing teams should be beating. Losing to one is fair enough, but all three is very hard to stomach.

‘Liverpool will flatter to deceive, beating a lot of the big teams but coming undone through the usual defensive frailties.’

I sent this in a published mail before the start of the season in which I predicted Liverpool to finish sixth. I was being proven wrong for most of the season, and ultimately still could, but it just seems that the team’s belief is waning and we do not have the squad quality to match the other top-six teams.

I just hope that Klopp decides to dip into the transfer kitty either this month or in the summer. A new CB partner for Matip (Van Djik would be a very good statement), a new centre mid and a winger are the minimum required for a sustained a sustained title challenge.

I ended up ranting anyway and maybe I shouldn’t do so so quickly after a match. Hell we could go on to win the next five league games. But no matter where we end up at the end of the season make no mistake that first-team players are required.
Cian LFC (Also predicted Chelsea to win the title, Nostradamus eat your heart out)

 

Liverpool are being neutralised
It’s a fair run of results now where Liverpool have struggled to implement the same attacking destruction they’ve enjoyed in the first half of the season. Teams have simply adjusted their tactics to neutralise Klopp’s tactics. It’s that time of year when opposition have learned their mistakes from the first tie and learnt from others who’ve played against your team. As a result teams are sitting deep against Liverpool, crowding the box and and choosing well-timed counters to snatch a possible all-important goal. Parking the bus is a tactic which I don’t conceive to be necessarily bad but more of necessity at times to find the attacking room to get a result. Liverpool have been big winners of this tactic in the past with Houllier and Benitez who won considerable silverware with the resources they had.

I’m all for counter-pressing but with teams sitting back so much the possession they’re left with is trying to break through a brick wall with intricate claustrophobic link-up play and long speculative efforts. Liverpool have been most productive this season through counter-attacks but the defence has leaked so many goals that it’s safer for us to have all the possession. Most of the successful high press recently still leaves a box with five defenders in it. If we could solidify the defence with a strong CB to accompany Matip (like Van Dijk (In your dreams, I know)), we could rely on not having the ball and defending for periods of time (tactically) comfortably and confidently. Draw out their defence and look for the breaks. It’s not ideal but without a main aerial threat like Zlatan and Giroud or enough competent long-range hitters I think there needs to be a Plan B.
Gareth, LFC, Donegal (I’m probably just crazy)
Aaaaaargggghhhhh
A game like this doesn’t need 16 conclusions or 10 or 5 or even 3. It only needs 1: A team who want to win the title cannot lose at home to Swansea. And they did. It was nothing short of disgraceful. This is the end.
Damo, distraught, Dublin

 

Oh Kloppy…
The irony of Klopp bringing on Matip to play long balls to him up front. Did it with Caulker last season too…
Kel, MUFC (Captain, Leader, Legend, 250ONEY)

 

Tottenham awful and yet…
The less said about that overall performance, the better. Hard to place what went wrong, so we can simply write it off as a bad day at the office; perhaps even the worst day at the office we’ve had all season. But somehow, from 2-0 down against an utterly dominant City team, instead of accepting defeat and conceding at least one more goal like we usually do, we snatched the unlikeliest point. This game, if nothing else, showed the supreme confidence and belief in this Spurs team: we only had two real chances the entire game and took them both. It’s fascinating to watch.
Alex G, THFC (Harry Kane really is incredibly good)

 

Conclusions from a Man City fan
Writing this as, as a fan you experience a lot of diff emotions directly after, and during, a match. Normally I forget the day after and am just marginally miffed. I also always wonder why people feel the need to do their own 16 concs but I’m angry and feel like venting. Thoughts worth jotting down:

– As a City fan I have, over the last season, began to wonder if it is actually fun supporting a good team (/team fighting for silverware or top 4). Yes – the feeling of that title win was incredible and the second one was nice, but overall it is largely downside after you win what you were chasing. You begin to expect to win every week so it is BAU when you do, but if you drop points it is infuriating. You begin to focus on other teams dropping points and take more joy from that than over you’re own team winning. When we were crap we focused on ourselves (you expect the other relegation contenders to lose too which they normally do), we didn’t expect to win and we’re chuffed when we did

– Sterling seems to prefer to look for an opportunity to get a penalty rather than shoot and miss. Perhaps a form of hiding from the responsibility given how he has been treated. A real shame that we in England have stunted a potential world-class player’s confidence and subsequent quality on the pitch via our vitriolic negativity. Will he be able to shake his tentativeness from his game now?

– The goalkeeper debate… 1) I am not a xenophobe, I don’t like Hart purely because he is English. 2) I am a big fan of Hart as I believe he is genuinely a very good keeper, and when I say keeper, I mean precisely that. He is good at stopping shots (unless you play for Iceland). I trusted Guardiola and thought he might know a bit more than me. 3) he clearly doesn’t. 4) all joking aside my main point in the keepers – is it not worth trying to teach Joe Hart to pass out from the back rather than teach Bravo to be a decent keeper in the prem? After all, Hart has never played in a pass-from-the-back system so we don’t know if he can or can’t. You had a recent reader state that City fans rate him and this shouldn’t be ignored. Having watched him week in, week out for years I’d say on the balance he was a massively positive influence. I could rant more but I fear it’d become circular.

– Referees: got to be talked about hasn’t it. Biggest question for me is with all the money coming why isn’t this aspect being looked at? Any other business etc that has an influx of cash looks to invest a portion of this in its infrastructure to ensure a more efficient and enhanced running to improve overall performance. Why is something not being done to improve one of the most pivotal aspects of the game? Would a couple of “challenges” to ref decisions during a match really disrupt the game so much? One could argue that the poor decision threw the City players and disrupted them so as to make them susceptible to the second Spurs goal (not excusing them – especially the infuriatingly image obsessed Otamendi. Put your hand down and defend the cross for God’s sake!). Could have also had a challenge on the sane goal too – I just don’t see the harm of trialling it. If anything the drama whilst they decide with the tmo could be quite fun/add to the spectacle.

– On the defending – for the second Spurs goal there was a moment where I thought Clichy was comfortably going to get the ball on the corner of the 18 yard box, instead he chose to concede that and let the Spurs attacker get to the ball with space and whip the ball in. Possibly conjecture on my behalf, but it was a curious or even poor decision.

– Poor night for aguero. I’m a massive fan and hope stays for years to come and become our top scorer. Tonight he was greedy and chose to force a shot rather than lay it off to a free team mate. This happened a few times. A rich man’s Sturridge if you will.

– Not the first to say it, but Jesus is alright. The entire football journalism must be rejoicing in the second coming given he easy headlines (it’s ironic cos I dun it two).

– Whilst overall it is a bitterly disappointing result, there were plenty of positives. De Bruyne was at his immense best – def suits sitting a bit deeper, but then again he is awesome higher up too. Toure was such a reassuring presence in front of the back four. You felt comfortable once Yaya had it in that region that he wouldn’t do an Otamendi (God I hate him). Kolorov barely deserves mentioning which is great. Sane was impressive. We harried from up top which has to be the way forward for us, just wonder why we do it so inconsistently. We didn’t overplay from the back. We really did look comfortable in defence apart from the two goals. In other matches I’ve thought we will concede at any minute, in this we looked in control.

– Speaking of in control I miss the Mancini days, perhaps out of nostalgia. Since then I feel we have just not looked assured defensively – maybe this ties in with big Vin and his fitness. Also feel Mancini had a decidedly solid record against the big six. It seems like we bottle the big matches in the main now and have done for a few years. No stats to back this up as I can’t be arsed, just nostalgia. Tying back into my first point, when the upside in winning the routine matches becomes BAU the real joy is in these matches if they go well. They just haven’t done so very much of late. Oh well, I guess – the trials and tribulations of supporting an oil rich team that has had the tenacity to challenge the self-entitled oligopoly and therefore undermine the sport.

– Now I can see why people write their own conclusions. It’s therapy and I will likely be able to unslam my door, slink out of my room and speak to people again now, hopefully glossing over the fact that I acted like a petulant child earlier.
John Moz (press stating it’s a good weekend for Chelsea, but let’s not forget Arsenal!)

 

KDB has everything but pace
Probably a weird thing to latch onto on a day full of other stuff to get excited about, but Storey’s assessment of De Bruyne being close to the complete footballer stirred something in me.

As sports science becomes more and more sophisticated, and players become faster, stronger, and fitter than ever before, is De Bruyne massively underrated, even by more intelligent pundits and fans.?

This is an attacking midfielder/winger who isn’t very fast compared to other top-class players of his position, or indeed top-class full backs, and *certainly* isn’t strong, and yet still looks like the best player on the pitch a great deal of the time; whether he’s playing in the middle or out wide.

His passing, crossing, finishing, ball control, creativity, vision, positioning and pure intelligence are something close to flawless. Would De Bruyne have been a shoo-in for the best player in the world if he’d been playing in the 80s and 90s? And with a few yards extra pace would he be better than Messi and Ronaldo? Don’t get me wrong, Hazard, Sanchez, Aubameyang, Griezmann, Reus etc. are all exceptional players, but would they be *as* good without their pace?

I definitely love Tintin and I’m still devastated we sold him for doing absolutely nothing wrong (f*cking Mourinho), so, I’m bias, but another question just for the sake of opening this up a bit – who are your favourite current players that would be Messi-Ronaldos if not for their physical shortcomings? Right now mine are KDB, David Silva (swoon) and Juan Mata (sob)
Ollie, CFC, Love Conte but still miss Mata. And Tintin

 

Now that’s why Pep is the master…
This match proved what a great manager Pep Guardiola is. Got his tactics spot on, won his battle with Poch and made Poch change our gameplan.

We actually started with 5-2-3 as Rose and Walker were very deep and we tried to play out from the back. This allowed City to pressure us and after a few early scares they got the crowd in their side increasing their confidence.

After we changed formation, there was a period of relative calm before again we got ourselves into trouble by trying to play ourselves out from the back just before half time.

Fast forward into second half and two Gomes-esque errors from Hugo, I had flashbacks of the Sherwood era. I was dreading a cricket score before Alli put one back and City kind of went into a shell.

Then Toby pulled up and I thought that’s it; match over, season over but somehow defying all odds makeshift CB pairing of Wanyama and Dier kept us in the game and we got a really undeserved equilizer. I wasn’t sure how to feel for the rest of the match.

Andre Marriner was absolute dogsh*t though. Apart from Walker’s nudge he also missed Rose and Kane getting mullered by Sane, De Bruyne, Kolarov etc on quite a few occasions. Wanyama should also have won a freekick before he got dispossesed in the build-up of City’s second goal not to mention Sane’s handball before first (although in fairness he was never never gonna see that from his position).

So in conclusion well played Pep and City but the real winners today were Chelsea and Arsenal both of whom will win tomorrow at a canter.
Tanzim Nabil

 

Fuming at the cheating epidemic
Okay, so Kyle Walker’s push yesterday evening has pushed me over the edge. I’ve slept on it and it is still bugging me. There is an epidemic of cheating that is ruining football and something must be done about it.

This realpolitik approach to gamesmanship, where players do whatever they can to ensure victory, banking on incompetent refereeing to bail them out, or just knowing that the ensuring free kick-yellow card combo is less painful then a successful counter-attack, is ruining the game.

The solution has to be greater punishments. Successful cheating, such as yesterday must be met with a punishment so great that it makes such an attempt irrational (five-game ban for altering the course of the game through illegal methods + points deduction). Equally cynical challenges must be given a punishment greater than the advantage gained (free kick + sin bin + bring play forward 10 yards).

The point is that the solution to ending the epidemic of gamesmanship is to make engaging in such actions irrational. Bringing in colossal punishments for successful cheating, such as huge bans and points deductions, would end it over night.

Thanks for listening
Sam (if the punishment for stealing £10 is a £5 fine, we would all do it, and the world would be shit) Bath

 

Consistency please
Southampton v Spurs. Redmond knocks Alli off balance in the box without playing the ball. Alli stays on his feet and gets a poor shot off. Mike Dean gives a penalty and a red card. The punditocracy slates the referee.

Man City v Spus. Walker knocks Sterling off balance in the box without playing the ball. Sterling stays on his feet and gets a poor shot off. Andre Marriner does not give a penalty and a red card. The punditocracy slates the referee.

If Mike Dean had been praised rather than slated for giving a correct decision then maybe other refs would be more likely to give these when a player stays on his feet.
Tom, Enfield (I’m glad my team benefitted from both these decisions)