Mails: Things to look forward to next season

Matt Stead

If you have anything to say on any subject, mail us at theeditor@football365.com

 

More ‘good egg’ stories, please
I’m sure loads are going to email in just to say thanks to Ryan for his letter about his Gran. I think we forget something absolutely fundamental and that is that the players are human, and have families. And lives outside the pitch. What with all the craziness going on out there in England, it is nice to remember that simple acts of kindness are often the most wonderful things, but also the most overlooked.

Would love to hear more ‘good egg’ stories in the mailbox.
John Matrix AFC

 

That mail today from Ryan Jacobson was possibly the best and most heartfelt letter I’ve ever read on F365. Bravo my friend.
Andy Smith (Scunthorpe)

 

#heiscoming
What marvellous news. I feel quite giddy.

As a City fan I couldn’t hope for a better implosion of Man Yoo than I’ve witnessed the past couple of seasons however it’s now been eclipsed. How?

1. Hire an odious manager that will destabilise the club and make it rotten to the core – tick
2. Hire an over-rated, past it galactico who will destabilise the club – tick
3. Ruin any chance of making the top 4 due to these aforementioned actions – tick

The Premier league is now a much more competitive landscape and flat-track bully Jose will be found out, again.
Banjo (off to lay Man Yoo for a top 4 finish – mugs wanting to pile in at odds on!!) Prague

 

Ten things to look forward to next season
1. The return of the traditional Barcelona kit. None of that hoop nonsense
2. The fall out after Celtic lose to Rangers and Brendan Rodgers gives the old “We showed great character” line
3. Lee Cattermole cutting down Zlatan Ibrahimovic
4. Rafa Benitez stunning journey to continue by getting fired by Newcastle in September only to be hired as next England manager
5. The new ways United fans are going to blame SAF for their struggles this season
6. A club to fire their manager and Harry Redknapp moan about proper football Englishmen not getting a look in
7. Tim Sherwood being appointed by said club
8. Tim Sherwood getting sacked for being quite rubbish setting English managers back another five years
9. Ryan Shawcross cutting down Zlatan Ibrahimovic
10. Liverpool winning the league (obviously)
Brian (special mention: Mourinho having a full mental breakdown) LFC

 

Wales to beat Belgium please
I like Wales. They are a solid team built on a few very good players and one superstar. And, in fairness to Bale, he is very much a team player. Being Irish there is a footballing kinship of seeing them as the last representatives of the British Isles. While they are definitely a level above us in terms of quality, I feel there is the same determination, organisation and team spirit in each camp.

But none of these are the reasons I want Wales to beat Belgium tonight. I want Wales to win so they play Portugal in the next round. I want Wales to beat Portugal in the next round, preferably 1-0 thanks to a goal from Bale. I want to see the meltdown that will follow from the preening, self obsessed, self-centered, egotistical, ‘make everything about me’ divinely talented Ronaldo. All because of his antics in the Poland game. He missed numerous gilt edged chances. He still sulked and moaned at his team-mates. I just want to see the hissy fit if he loses in these circumstances, it could be amazing.
Kev (Renato Sanchez, such potential)

 

Football team meets expectation, and is bad at penalties
This figure of winning six knockout games in 50 years that is being bandied around is like one of those stupid figures that comes across the Sky Sports infobar on Saturday afternoon. ‘Bournemouth haven’t beaten Man United since 326BC.’

Let’s have some context and paint the full picture shall we?

Since winning the World Cup in 1966, England’s record in knockout matches is as follows.

Played 17
Won 5 (Paraguay, Belgium, Cameroon, Denmark, Ecuador)
Drawn* 7 (West Germany, Argentina, Portugal x2, Spain, Germany, Italy)
Lost 5 (West Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Iceland)

* Games which go to penalties are considered as draws.

Now, that’s not amazing, but it’s not too shabby either. It’s almost like England aren’t the best team in the world, or the worst. They’re just okay, when we get into the final stages of major competitions. It’s almost like they beat the teams you’d expect them to beat, and draw/lose against the teams you’d expect them to struggle against (Iceland aside).

Far from this ridiculous notion that the national football team has let everyone down, it’s more ‘football team meets expectation, and is bad at penalties.’ Assuming your expectation is reasonable, of course. Maybe that’s the real question here.
Andy (look on the bright side, we’ve never lost in extra time), London

 

Del Bosque for England
With reference to the article on Loew I know you’ve got to throw in a few names to prove a theory ( in this case great coaches have an effect on a team) but I think your way of the mark with Del Bosque and Terim.

Del Bosque has won most of the important trophies in club and internaional football and Terim (similar to Iordanescu) Is revered in his homeland for guiding their nations during their most successful periods. Success in major tournaments is a combination of having a cohesive unit (talent helps) and a great manager in this tournament the managers I’ve mentioned t maybe did not have as much talent as in previous tournaments

You’ll however not get any defense from me for Hodgson
TIMI
MUFC

 

Get Vicente del Bosque! Oh my sweet baby Jesus, Vicente del Bosque for England! Give him whatever he wants! Rejoin the EU if he wants it! Eliminate the monarchy if he wants it! Make Rooney shine his shoes if that would help!
— Mark (Surely we don’t want an English manager with del Bosque available, right?) Champion

 

Del Bosque for next England manager?

Yes, I’m putting that out there.
Michael

 

North of the Wall
“Being Scottish is shite” but I’m not gonna lie, it gave me a great deal of pleasure watching England exit the Euros at the hands of the mightiest minnow – Iceland (not least because i had visited Iceland earlier this year and the people are welcoming and brilliant).

The aftermath is a strange mix of feeling the need to tune into every football TV & radio show, to soak up the misery, and the frustration of then listening to the pundits and experts reasons for failure. I don’t want England to succeed, never have, but i cant help but feel exasperated at the solutions and theories put forward by these people, the scapegoating (?) of Raheem Sterling, the randomness of nominating Hodgson replacements (Klinsmann???) and the failure to be realistic.

6 knockout victories since 1966…….6!!!

Why on earth would the current crop of England failures pay the slightest bit of attention to what Ian Wright, Lee Dixon, Alan Shearer, Rio Ferdinand, Danny Murphy, Ray Wilkins, Chris Waddle, Glenn Hoddle, Ray Parlour, Jamie Carragher (i could keep going)..have to say??? They all failed. They never won anything. Between all of them they managed 6 knockout victories over 50 years.
The best thing the English FA could do is to not consult a single one of these guys and instead carry out psychometric testing on all generations of English players to find out why they crumble like a poorly made biscuit.

This tournament has shown that teams with an identity, a proper system and game-plan can go far and achieve great results. Italy, Wales, Portugal, Iceland, Germany, Poland all spring to mind as teams who have a clear method of playing, a clear game-plan, worked and developed over the qualifying stage (or in some cases like Germany, developed over years!).

The England team who won 10 qualifying games bears no resemblance to the one which started Euro 2016. Hodgson abandoned his principles entirely, caving into pressure and picking “in form” players. Being in form for your club doesn’t always translate to the international scene. Rooney was your top scorer in qualifying, yet nobody bats an eyelid about sticking him in midfield?? Tottenham had a great season, lets pick all their good young players!! Not paying attention to the fact that they play in a team which is meticulously drilled by a fanatical manager. Dier went from having Dembele alongside him & the top prem defence behind him to having Rooney alongside him with Smalling & Cahill behind him. Alli has Eriksen & Lamela either side supplying him and Kane, is it any surprise these guys looked outta place?

Everybody wants their piece of England, every journo and ex-failure picks their squad and tells it how it should be and how they should play. The squads predicted before the tournament were all the same, bar a couple of players. The individuals are always put before the team, the system, the teams identity. “Pick the in form guys and forget the qualifying!!! We have great players and that will get us through!!” Bollocks.

Iceland players were more intelligent, better drilled and psychologically miles ahead of every England player. Stop with the money arguments (i’m pretty sure the German, Italian, French young players aren’t kicking about in Hi-Tech & Lonsdale gear), stop with the root and branch bollocks, stop with the utterly mental manager choices and just pick a guy who has a clear plan. Who sets a team up in qualifying and builds upon it , not abandon it the second some guy scores 4 goals in the last 4 games of the season!

As we have the unfortunate/fortunate luck to have you in our qualifying group, I sincerely hope that in the future you continue your mad hatter philosophy of building up, destroying, appointing expensive managers and then questioning their every move, bringing players into the squad when they put together 3 good games in the premiership.

Having said all this you will undoubtedly put us out of the world cup against our will (sounds familiar) and we will continue to wander through the frozen wastelands of European football waiting on the undead to put us out of our misery.

I don’t hate you…its just that you’re w*****s and we’re colonised by w*****s
Kev

 

Sanches = a bit good
I was surprised not to see a mention of the wonderful Renato Sanches in the mailbox this morning. As a United fan, the bitter side of me was trying my best to convince myself he’s destined to be “The New Anderson”. But after the game I just wasn’t able to believe my own mental bias!

The boy was magnificent. A wonderful high-energy display that also delivered the equalising goal and a 94% pass completion rate. He was everywhere and, even though he seemed flat out by the end of the 120 minutes, thoroughly deserved to go through to semis (along with Pepe).

Looks the complete package to me and shows maturity far beyond his 18 years, especially when stepping up and slotting the penalty. Bayern may have just signed 2021’s best player in the world.

Oh and I had a flutter on him for MOTM, obrigado Renato
Dan (Ronaldo though?), Dublin

 

P*ss off, PFMs
That’s it. That’s all I can stands, I can stands no more. John Hartson first, Henry James second; can we stop, please God can we stop with the continuous assault on academia and intelligence from these utter morons?

Anyone that uses “academics” as a insult or as justification for someone being unsuitable for a job in football is just an idiot of the highest degree. Heaven forbid that we should seek to appoint candidates that are actually intelligent and skilled enough to do a job. I mean, come on, it’s not like the Proper Football Man has ever failed to deliver, is it?

Professional football is essentially a more wealthy version of high school football; only the cool kids get to play and if you’re one of those book-reading types then you can’t be in our club, loser. You also have the idiotic sycophant types who so desperately wish they could play football but are happy to brown nose those that can, just so they can be associated with them (Adrian Durham, Tim Lovejoy, all newspaper “journalists”). These people are the ones holding back the development of our national game. They think experience and popularity is a viable substitute for actual talent, technique and intelligence, and the constant undermining of better men and women, just because they are different, is sickening in the extreme.

It’s why players like Juan Mata are dismissed as “luxury players” because they don’t get stuck in. It’s why people like John Terry and Jamie Vardy are held up as pillars of the game. It’s why players like Raheem Sterling are being vilified on a daily basis for having the temerity to be in poor form. And worst of all, it’s why the most talentless people keep getting the best opportunities because of either their name or who they know.

Nowhere else would Tim Sherwood have gotten his first management job at a top six club. Nowhere else would a man who has been out of the game for ten years (Hoddle), or a manager who headbutted a player (Pardew), or a guy who doesn’t even have the coaching badges (Beckham) be genuine contenders for the England job. Nowhere else is body type and passion the yardstick for whether a player is going to be a success above their actual footballing ability.

If the academics have any sense, they’ll get the national PFM institution to come up with a list of suggestions for the England job and then ban everyone on that list, plus all the PFMs and their known associates, from ever managing in football again.
Ted, Manchester

 

According to reports
I really hate the words ‘according to reports’ in transfer rumours.
Stu, Southampton

 

Love for Johnny
Marvelous work from John Nicholson.

Flaps and slaps. Classic.

Cheers,
Cormac, Galway