Mails: Would you swap Mourinho for Pochettino?

Matt Stead

Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com.

 

Love for the FA Cup
As an Arsenal fan I felt no place in the ManYoo v Tottenham row… I’ll be happy if we win the Europa Cup next season but I’m more worried about the direction my club is heading but that’s one for another day!

Turning my head to the FA Cup, that will always be important to me. As a child my club were a mid table cup team (I was only four in 1971 so I don’t remember much about that!). We’ve basically fallen into the same mould (omitting mid table); so I’m looking forward to the FA Cup in the same way Always..as a nervous, excited kid!

Sod injuries, if we get slaughtered, we get slaughtered.

For people my age and older, we will always remember the way FA Cup final day was no matter who was playing in it (always a bonus if one’s own team were playing of course!).

It was another traditional day like Christmas and always will be to me!
Chris, Croydon

 

Rooney leaving ain’t that simple
Bit late for today, and too early for tomorrow, but I’m stuck in a boiling train, so it’s now or never.

To the best of my knowledge Wayne Rooney has 2 years left on his massive contract. I can’t see him going to China, and why would he move elsewhere if he’s guaranteed that huge pay packet each month?

If you were in the same situation and, so long as you don’t set fire to Woodward’s pet Labradoodle, you get paid. Why would you move?

Surely he has the self awareness to know he’s a bit cackle nowig, so why not just kick back and drink in the £30m he stands to make in the next 24 months. I would.

Unless United subsidise a club to come in and take him, why would they gamble so much when the aforementioned cackness is taken into account?

I just get the feeling he’s going to hang around like a terrible fart in an underground carriage.

I see him listed in every ‘players who should leave‘ article. Unfortunately I don’t think it’s that simple.
Welsh Londoner

 

Would you swap Mourinho for Pochettino?
I got to thinking about the swap Man Utd for Spurs debate and I think it boils down to a simpler question. Regardless of league position and trophies, would you swap the squad and manager?

As a Liverpool fan I always remember looking at the younger United teams and dreading the fact they were probably only going to get better by adding a Van Nistelrooy, a Rooney or whoever they wanted.

The Spurs team has the lineup but not that fear for me. The probably will improve but when a young, great player was at United you expected them to stay as there were very few clubs that could prize them away.

Spurs right now have a more “United Team” than Man United. They play the kind of football and have the kind of talent on the 90s United team.

So if Spurs had the status and financial muscle of Man Utd then everyone would be quaking in their boots for the next 10 years. On the other hand, put the United squad in the Spurs kit with Mourinho as manager and everyone would write them off as an top 8 team.

I don’t think any right minded Man Utd fan could say he wouldn’t swap the team and manager. It would be daft, but then again there’s plenty of daft people out there. I might be one… and i’m sure a few people will do their best to prove it.
Derek,
Ireland

 

On that note…
I get it. The Europa League final was not interesting from a neutrals perspective. Not only did a Jose Mourinho team come and win it, but they did so in a way that was reactive to this young Ajax’s sides new brand of ‘Total Football’, so in the average punters mind it was by definition ‘anti football’.

But here’s the thing – we have so much praise given to the way Spurs and Liverpool play, when this quite clearly has not worked in cup football over the last two seasons – read Liverpool overplaying against Sevilla and blowing the exact same half time lead a year ago, and Spurs inexplicably being knocked out of a simple CL group and then getting knocked out by Gent (Gent!!!!) in the EL.

Whilst I am firmly in the camp of United supporters who has been underwhelmed by Mourinho’s ambition at times this season – it has been pretty funny to see the clamour to criticise his style and praise the style of others with some sort of in-built belief of how football *should* be played. Ignoring entirely how ineffective that style of play may be when sh*t hits the fan and you get knocked out of a competition.

What I think is absolutely crucial is how Jose sets things up next year. This years negativity just about passes this year (with 2 trophies), but next year is all on him. If it’s just a couple of strategic cups then it’s not great, but if he’s successful in the marathon, then all of this looks like a wonderful warm up done under difficult circumstances.

* Caveat; Spurs play wonderful football, but Poch needs to win something for it to really matter.
Dan Bigmore

 

And on *that* note…
I have sent atleast 3 emails questioning f365’s stance re-Mourinho, Kante, and even English born managers. None published but thats the mailbox way I guess. The main reason for writing this email was to again bring forward the lack of objectivity seen at f365 towers.

People say the EPL is the hardest league to win at, and this season confirmed that. A manager who had walked the la liga, and bundesliga, came within a few points of finishing outside the top 4. Uet this fact is brazenly ignored in order to justify a narrative that seems to suggest, f365 will go against the grain no matter what.

Conte, when the league was young, and before Europe games arrived was shown up by 3 teams, and I dare suggest, it wasn’t 3-5-3 that ensured the league win, it was because the most competent teams had to play mid week games frequently. Spurs, if I remember correctly were struglling before December, and duly got themselves out of European early, what followed is qhat people are calling a remarkable season.

The only two teams that did anything meaningful in Europe had disastrous league form. Leicester and Man Utd. Coincidence? When Mourinho is lambasted for saying United played a lot of games, every writer at f365 get their pitch forks/pens out, and go on a witch hunt. Yet the facts are staring them in the eye, united simply played too many games COMPARED to their rivals.

F365 writers seem to ignore this fact. When United are the only team playing in Europe, and doing it on Thursday nights, followed by Sunday games, it makes it even more impressive that they held on for so long. Jamie Carragher, Neville, Winty,Storey and every writer may lambast Mourinho to high heavens but the man delivered.

Conte had all week to plan for his team, so did Klopp, Mourinho had 3 days for 80% of the season.
Dave(Never published, but the Ed will have read it), Somewhere

 

Do NOT over-celebrate
On the eve of the FA Cup final I thought I’d write in to help Arsenal and Chelsea fans avoid what we all know to be the scourge of modern football. Over celebrating. It’s unavoidable these days. Liverpool disgraced themselves this year by bothering to celebrate finishing fourth. United fans rather pathetically looked like they were having fun and taking pleasure in winning the Europa League (a trophy we all know is second rate). We all remember the way Arsenal fans embarrassed themselves a few years ago by having the temerity to enjoy their FA Cup win with an open top bus parade (only acceptable for important trophies).

So, Chelsea and Arsenal fans, to help any repetition of these situations, I’ve compiled some advice on what is acceptable and not acceptable should your team win on Saturday:

Handshake: This is fine, traditional and an appropriate response to winning a second rate trophy.

Pat on the back: Similar to handshake, this seems about right.

Hug: Again, acceptable but don’t let it linger any more than a few seconds, incase anyone thinks you’re enjoying yourself too much.

Kiss: Between family members this is fine, with friends, absolutely not. You’ve not won the Champion’s League for God’s sake.

Singing: During the match this is fine, but once you’ve left the stadium this is a no no. Please accept that you’ve only won a unimportant trophy. Going home and watching the highlights with a cup of tea should be the extent of your post match celebration.

Posting memes/comments to celebrate online: This is highly unadvisable as fans of other clubs will rightly remind you that what you have won is unimportant and you are enjoying yourself too much.

And for crying out loud, don’t even think about enjoying the day if you lose. Don’t buy anything featuring both teams as a memento, this makes you not a real fan. Do not, under any circumstances enjoy the experience of being an Wembley in a cup final, even though you’ve probably spend over £100 on your day out. Football is about winning. No enjoyment or celebration of success is allowed unless your team wins. You didn’t think this was supposed to be fun did you?

Oh, one last thing, for supporters of all clubs. After the match, don’t forget to take to social media to discuss how this affects which club has had the “best season”. It’s what being a fan is all about.
Mike, LFC, Dubai

 

The big difference between the Premier League and Europe’s elite
Please for the love of god, can we stop the “who had the better season” mails. As a United fan, it is tiresome and embarrassing. As a mailboxer brilliantly put it yesterday – if you love trophies its united, if you love exciting football its spurs.Let that be the end of it.

Now, to more interesting discussions ! Now as a United fan I want us to dominate Europe for eternity (the CL not the EL!) Obviously, we are some way off to achieve that goal. But I thought it would be interesting to see what practices of other CL heavyweights we (and other English teams as well ) can incorporate to make ourselves more competitive. Barca, Mardrid, Juve and Bayern are almost always in the thick of things for longer than I can remember (apart from Juve’s brief absence).

To me, one of the critical differences in the current English teams and these teams is the differences in their Bench strength and Squad Management. They have the likes of James, Morata, Muller, Douglas Costa etc. to come on and change games apart from giving the opportunity to rest key players when the season reaches its most critical point without seriously diluting the quality of the team.In fact, one of the reasons for Real’s success in the past two seasons under Zidane has been attributed to his excellent rotation and squad management.

This is even more important for English teams due to a lack of Winter break and the milk shake cup. But almost all English teams have a pretty pathetic bench. Infact Chelsea’s ability to call on players like Fabregas, Willian etc is probably the reason why they ran away with the title so comprehensively. We have maybe Martial to call upon who can make a real difference, City can say Jesus now, Arsenal maybe Welbeck. But its pretty bleak. I know the argument is that good players want to play football but thats what good squad management is all about. Fergie was one of the masters for it and I think it is one of the underrated reasons (among many) why he dominated the league for 2 decades. Look at Isco, who is regularly labelled as a “bench warmer” by people who don’t really see LaLiga but is being talked about as a nominee for the player of the season over Ronaldo and Benzema because of the key role he played, especially in the league run in

Anyone else have any other practices that other big continental teams follows that you think would make English teams more competitive ?
Apoorv, MUFC

 

Wishful thinking
Inspired by Bernard’s wishlist in the afternoon mailbox, I’d just like to add that Arsenal could do with a new centre back, so hopefully Chiellini. In the centre of midfield we could do with a few upgrades and seeing as he’s baggsed Verati and Busquets already, we’ll take Vidal, but if he’s not available I suppose Toni Kroos will do as a brilliant second best. Finally a new forward should round things off, but rather than Messi I’d rather have Neymar.

Big outlay, but when we’ve shifted Coquelin, Wilshere and Sanogo off the books and looked down the back of Stan’s couch for some spare cash, we’ll surely have enough and will no doubt be involved in that unprecedented six way title race thats all but guaranteed to happen next season.
David, Sheffield

 

Give the kids a chance
I know the importance of qualifying with a good record is imperative, but I feel we should let the kids go to the u21 tournament and hash together a team that can beat Scotland (France doesn’t matter).

With a full team to pick from, the U21s could line up like this:

Pickford
Chambers
Stones
Gomez/Holding
Shaw
Ward-Prowse
Dier
Dele
Demerai Gray
Sterling
Rashford

Plus other options such as Holgate/Mawson/Hughes/Loftus-Cheek/Chalobah/Redmond/Ibe/Akpom.

I know the Spanish set up gets them through tournaments with great cohesion (plus stars like Asesnio, Saul, Bellerin, Munir), but the majority of that team would cost £20m+, heck two of them are already £50m+ and you an add Dele and Rashford to that too!

This is a team that would go in expecting to top the group (Sweden/Poland/Slovakia), not crossing their fingers and hoping for the best. They would have a genuine shot at the title, (not that the current squad doesn’t) and probably would be amongst the favourites.

So why not just give them the chance Gareth? Imagine if you were allowed to pick that team as u21 manager.
KC (senior call ups: Spain-8, Germany-5, England-0)

 

Spot on, Toby
Great piece by Toby Sprigings this morning.  Wenger is lauded for what he has done for English football, but the article highlighted for me just how far behind Arsenal have fallen.  He may have introduced the knuckle-dragging, head-the-ball resident ludites of English management to innovations such as nutrition etc. but he’s been reduced to one of the same by the other clubs which have identified exactly what makes a Premiership footballer and a top European team – as TS pointed out.

Whilst Wenger dreamt of Arsenal becoming the Barcelona of England, Chelsea’s signing of Sanchez to combine with Hazard would make them so.  Meanwhile, Wenger has not only stubbornly destroyed what he built, he has successfully managed fans’ expectations to a pre-Pochettino Spurs level, and is within one game of consolidating that.

But I can’t see him leave under a cloud.  Aaaaagh.

Have I died?  Is this ‘Purgatory’?
Ally, London

 

A Reading fan hits back
I know it shouldn’t but having just read your Big Weekend article, I am getting a bit peeved by the play off coverage this year across the media when it comes to Reading.  I know we aren’t a fashionable club but a little bit of credit wouldn’t go amiss.

In the semi finals, it was all Fulham and how wonderful they are.  They finished 6th for a reason, they were the 6th best team in the division over the course of the whole season, Reading the 3rd best, yet we were seen as nothing more than an annoyance on Fulham’s march to Wembley.  Now Huddersfield, Wagner has done a great job there turning them around from 19th last season to finish 5th and if they beat us on Monday I won’t begrudge them a place at the top table but seriously, our turnaround under Stam has been as impressive if not more so.  We finished 1 point ahead of Huddersfield last year, the season before we finished 5pts behind them.

This season, we’ve finished 3rd, 4 points ahead of Huddersfield, playing a brand of football, that when it has clicked is a pleasure to watch but we’re also not afraid to be more reserved when needs must.   For all of Huddersfield’s version of “Heavy Metal Football”, we scored more goals than them (only 5 teams scored more) and won more games.  The story around us has been skewed by some of the heavy defeats we’ve had but these have generally occurred by us keeping a fairly open shape to get back into games rather than hitting the damage limitation button.

So all in all, Monday’s game matches 2 very similar sides, playing pretty similar football who have been turned into challengers in no time at all by new managers.  I’m usually pretty happy that we stay off the radar but given that everything Huddersfield are getting credit for this year can in essence be applied to Reading as well I had to get things off my chest.

Paul(we’ll always have the Simod Cup), Frankfurt

 

If there is a God…
Tammy Abraham, free scoring Chelsea loan star, has a brother called Timmy.

Please let there be another Abraham brother, Tommy.

That would be just be wonderful, I would get a funny feeling in my tummy.

Yours on a sunny Friday,
The Bournemouth Red