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FAO: Mark
Hats off to Mark, London, MUFC for boiling my blood and personifying the much vaunted football fan who seemingly has no knowledge of football in England or of the “local clubs” he is talking about.
The idea of just shredding the Football League so we can merge clubs and become city centric is one of the most ridiculous ideas I’ve heard for a long time. No we don’t want the American model, sport as franchises with a closed circle of clubs without relegation etc to protect commercial interests (yes I know we are finding our own gross ways to commercialise sport beyond reason but that’s a step further).
Our clubs have a deep rooted heritage within the communities they represent and to simply recommend that we put rivalries aside and collaborate to have a pop at the big time completely misses the point. Lower league football isn’t all about the quality of football on show, but about all being in it together, being a part of something unique and enjoying the small moments.
Yes as an open market it leaves sometimes empty stadiums and clubs might find themselves in financial strife but these are the clubs that are often being mismanaged and have been for a long time. There are other ways to solve these issues, many of which are getting a lot of airtime at the moment (which can only be a good thing).
As a last point, considering that Manchester City are the most successful club in the area at the moment, how would he feel if United were just merged into City? Actually judging from how shallow your mail was I’d guess you’d be perfectly happy…
John Jack (AFC Wimbledon)
In reply to Mark, London, MUFC: he may be on to something. Clearly having multiple teams per city is unsustainable so, to run with his idea I propose the following:
Only 1 team per city is allowed per division of English football. To make it fair for everyone, only the ‘best’ team from each city will be allowed to continue and, to keep it simple, ‘best’ is defined by final league placement of the previous season. This would mean that:
Man City become the only Manchester based club in the premier league. Man Utd immediately close up shop and cease operating.
Liverpool become the only Liverpool based club. Everton immediately close up shop and cease operating.
Chelsea will be London’s only representative. Spurs, Arsenal and West Ham immediately cease operating. Shame really as Spurs have that shiny new stadium.
I could go on but I think the pattern is clear. Obviously, none of the fans from the soon-to-be-closed clubs will mind switching allegiance to a former (and sometimes bitter) rival. The thousands of people who will be out of a job and the myriad businesses severely affected will be more than happy to join the dole queue. The potentially devastating impact to the economy will be applauded as it would mean that the situations at Bury and Bolton will never happen again.
Or did he mean that Man City stay in the Premier League, Utd get dropped down to the Championship and so on and so forth? Because that wouldn’t adversely affect smaller teams….
Mark may well have meant that teams from the same city will somehow amalgamate, combining players, staff and resources, but that is only a slightly less ludicrous suggestion.
What has happened/is happening to Bury and Bolton is a tragedy and will no doubt affect a great many people. The Fit and Proper Persons test is a joke, the FA and the owners should share the blame and yes, the money going into the Premier League should somehow filter down the footballing pyramid (which, let’s face it, isn’t going to happen) and Mark’s suggestion would theoretically solve that problem, but only at the expense at causing a thousand more problems all over the country.
I imagine though that Mark has already put his money where his mouth is and is looking snazzy in his new sky-blue shirt.
Clive, LFC
P.S. I may have missed this and apologies if so, but where has Peter G gone? I haven’t noticed a mail or article from him in a while and he was genuinely well-informed and insightful
Just thought I would respond briefly to Mark, London, MUFC fan regarding the sustainability of a 92 team system.
In his postscript, Mark notes one of the best things about US sports is that they have one team per city. And even talks about Toronto. As it happens, several cities in the US have multiple teams. New York and LA have 2 teams in all the major leagues (NY even has two MLS teams.) San Francisco 2 teams in the NFL and MLB and Chicago in MLB.
Second not everyone is happy about being limited to one team. Tickets to Toronto Maple Leafs are expensive and hard to get. But because they own the Franchise for a broad area that encompasses at least 10 cities, even Hamilton, a City about 30 minutes West of Toronto can’t get a team into the NHL.
Finally, as far as I can tell neither Bury nor Bolton have 2 Football teams, nor do all of the smaller cities most impacted recently by financial issues. It’s one thing to talk Bristol or Sheffield but to then stretch it to teams in the ‘shadow’ of bigger clubs is pretty condescending.
Lets face it. Its hard enough getting tickets to a Liverpool or Man Utd game. If we decided that the ‘smaller’ cities can’t have a club in the ‘shadows’ that would make getting tickets for the ‘bigger’ clubs harder to come by and more expensive (supply and demand) assuming the idea is those football fans are forced to follow the bigger club.
The US franchise system only makes it extremely profitable for American Football teams. Its a very small, closed shop, with few games and large TV audiences. But there are many smaller Baseball, Basketball and Hockey teams that have a hard time making it. The difference is that the teams move to a new city – usually a bigger one or one in the ‘shadows’ of a bigger city where they can survive.
But now that MUFC are in the ‘shadows’ of a big team like City, is Mark suggesting it be closed down or move elsewhere?
Paul McDevitt
Dear Mark, London, MUFC
Regarding your idea of forming one club per city…
No. Just no.
Would you happily merge with your noisy neighbours? I know for damn sure I wouldn’t want to somehow merge with Spurs and I have no doubt every single supporter of both Arsenal and them lot is with me on that.
How can you then expect teams like the Bristols, Sheffields or wherever to fuse into one? Logically it makes perfect sense, yes, but supporting a football team isn’t logical. It’s irrational, passionate and completely ridiculous, and no fan worth his salt can switch allegiances.
If Arsenal ever reach the verge of bankruptcy I’ll reconsider but I’m pretty sure my feelings will be the same. Until then, the thought of cheering on Arsenal Hotspur at The Lane makes me shudder violently.
Alay, N15 Gooner
Own it
The people angry at the EFL/gubmint/PL clubs for not saving Bury are missing the point. Football clubs are prime target for grifters at the moment, and offering bailouts would make it worse.
People like Ken Anderson already prey on the fact that they can exploit the emotional attachment communities have to clubs to make them take terrible deals to protect the remains of their clubs. Adding a golden parachute at the end will just remove any trace disincentive they have for gambling everything on promotion.
I think the only effective solutions will involve ensuring that people running clubs into the ground bear consequences for the failure of the club. The best suggestion I can think of could involve putting up a hefty collateral when buying a club that you’d forfeit in the event of administration. It would probably deter a ton of potential competent directors and rule out fan ownership, but there may be ways to fix that.
Dan, Plastic LFC
Klopp’s masterplan
Looking at the article about Liverpool’s pressing game and showing Liverpool players average positions I just realised… Klopp is just copying the classic table football 2-5-3 isn’t he?
James, Switzerland
In writing this I am openly acknowledging that I know nothing about the Bobby Duncan situation at Liverpool. I’m ignoring what’s been said on both sides.
But it does remind me of another highly rated young forward who effectively used his agent to get a move away despite Liverpool wanting to keep him. If you’re wondering, Jerome Sinclair is now at VVV-Venlo (no, me neither) on loan from Watford following loans at Sunderland and Oxford in the past two seasons.
When you look at Chelsea’s youth setup, for example, lots of players never quite made it there (De Bruyne and Lukaku stand out in my mind) but I do feel that sometimes the benefits of staying put and gaining exposure to top players and coaches can only be good for a young player. I appreciate they had loans away but I would imagine there’s still pre-seasons with the parent club and regular contact with coaches who monitor their development.
Duncan seems like a talented kid and I just hope he isn’t being misled by an agent who is not fully representing his best interests. I can’t help but think football is a game of fine margins, I suspect the difference between Bobby Duncan, Jerome Sinclair and whoever is going to be the next Harry Kane is not that big, but I suspect coaching and environment will play a big part in it. Obviously if he’s miserable then the sooner he moves on the better but for now it doesn’t feel too clear what’s really going on.
Minty, LFC
Quality
When I type the letter ‘f’ into my address bar autofill takes me to the land of F365…. it has for over a decade now.
Upon arrival I’m greeted with a football editorial (supported by a relentlessly fantastic mailbox) that is without doubt best in class.
That said, this article stands alone in it’s excellence. If you haven’t read it, read it… you won’t find similar elsewhere.
Barkstriker (AFC) Sydney
Jerk off
Just re-reading Matt Steads top 10 kneejerk reactions after the opening weekend. The one which looks the most glaringly silly, even after just 2 weeks is number 6, Man Utd to be the league’s top scorers.
If there is a natural disaster that flattens London, Liverpool and the blue half of Manchester, then of course a team that already looks unbalanced and seriously under recruited, with no leaders, will be top scores in the league. A team, I might add, which may now also have to rely on either a 17 year old or a petulant want away overpaid mercenary to provide support in attack, now that their inconsistent No 9 is injured, having also sold one of their main strikers at the last minute with no real idea of cover plan.
That is quite the jerking of the knee it must be said.
Garret, Dublin
Find the middle ground
I understand that the hunting season has opened, on Man United. Everybody’s unhappy, everyone knows better than Solskjaer how to run this team. Our strikers are sh*t, our midfield sucks and we have too much deadwood. We’ll be lucky to finish above Wolves, Leicester and West Ham.
And yet, think for a second – if Pogba’s pen goes in, and Rashford’s as well, if the referee’s give a red card for the foul on Martial, if Ruben Neves’s shot goes 6 inches higher or lower, all of which are marginal calls and sliding door moments of a very nascent season, this would be a United team with 3 wins out of 3 and magically this whole conversation would be different. I guarantee that at least one pundit would have pointed out the ability to win games when not playing well as a mark of a good team.
Think of it another way, after the first game, everybody said, let’s not read too much into one result. But it turns out we’re all ready to cast judgement after 2 more games that we could easily have won. How does that work?
We’re not the title challengers loads of fans think we should be already, but we’re not the putrid cr@p we’re being made out to be either.
4th place will be between United and Arsenal this season, unless Spurs have a few more wobbles and join the gang.
Ved (Angel Gomes could be the player to light the spark) Sen, MUFC
DL, LFC, Geneva, United sold Lukaku as he wasn’t happy sitting on the bench and wanted to leave. His style never fit the way Ole wants to play, so you had to get rid or risk a toxic atmosphere in the dressing room as he moans to the press.
As for Sanchez it is a similar story. He is washed up, but when healthy he would have to be played or you risk him pouting and end up with weekly stories about him. Personally I am happy to see him go, even if United are paying most of his wages.
John Brannigan, most United fans don’t assume Rashford and Martial are the second coming. We assume they are both talented players who need to be given a decent run in the first team to see if they are good enough and develop an understanding. Greenwood is another talent who needs to be given a chance.
I don’t know how many of you noticed, but we didn’t have a mail from a United fans pretending we are challengers for the title, when we beat Chelsea 4-0. If anything most openly stated that we would be fighting for 4th, despite thrashing Chelsea.
Uniteds main complain of the midfield is that they keep losing the ball in our own half, often under little pressure. It is one thing if they lost the ball trying defense splitting passes or making a run at the defense, another gifting the opposition chances by being careless.
Lastly, it became obvious that United had a very limited transfer budget given the requirement of the squad. Maguire and Wan Bisaka were good purchases in positions we badly needed quality, James at 15 mil was hardly expected to be a first teamer (which he has become by default). However almost all United fans wanted at least another top class midfielder and a quality attacker (didn’t happen).
So now knowing that we have no shot at the title and at best we are in with a shot at top 4, many of us are happier watching our young players get playing time and are happy that we play a style of football that is fun to watch. A couple of the youngsters (Martial, Rashford, James, Greenwood, Perrera, McTominay) will grab this chance, others will prove they aren’t upto the challenge of playing for United and United can look to buy players for those positions next summer. Either ways it is a better option than watching the washed up Sanchez trying to run about or having to watch Lukaku struggle to control a simple ball played to him.
Jarron, MUFC
I’ve been reading a couple of mails that reasonably state that losing out on lukaku and herrera without replacing them will cost us. I agree to these claims but the issue is that utd did try to go for replacements this summer but failed to do so. The issue again is that probably the money involved is not what woodward wants to give into. He’s very selective about the kind of player he wants to buy especially after 18-19 summer transfer window.
The reasons for appointing solskjaer are quite obvious after that golden run of form but they thought of doing that because solskjaer also has a long term plan he wants to work on and this might have prompted solskjaer to be considered as the top candidate and hence an indefinite delay on inaugrating the dof position.
As far as the state of affairs presently, the squad looks thin and not strong enough to keep utd in the top 4. Yet, the players who were first xi for the previous 3 managers and more so for mourinho now find themselves at the fringes. This is quite an important sign of a commitment towards a long term plan. The idea is to build a skeleton for the first xi this season and getting wan bissaka and maguire is evidence of that.
So the expectations are naturally going to be different i.e. the expectation to perform at high levels successfully. The crystal palace game was a failure in that terms because utd have never looked dominant whenever playing posession based game against highly compact teams. Counter attacking wise utd are solid but not possession wise. This I think is the challenge for the current xi.
Expectations have to be measured in the context that you find yourself in and utd have to face teams that defend deep. If they succeed in this then top 4 looks likely. So to find replacements one has to fulfill such a criteria and this probably is the reason why fernandes was not gone for because of the amount of times he loses posession. You can see the comparison of that between him and erikson.
So I think there is a plan and utd are going for it but of course with glazernomics involved. If we do get a sporting director it should complement solskjaer’s ideas. A friend of mine said that ole would be a great dof rather than a manager. As far as things have turned out to be i wouldn’t disagree at all.
LJ, MU
Ole is the DoF
I’d like to share with you, if I may, a little pet theory I have about Manchester United and their apparently fruitless search for a director of football. I think we’ve already appointed him and his name is… Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
What’s happened at the club over the summer is something of a hard reset. A bloated, overpaid and under-performing squad has been trimmed with some of the apparent bad apples (Sanchez and Lukaku) shipped out as well. The few signings that have been made have been young and with an eye very much on the future, and the squad places available opened up for a promising crop of youngsters to prove whether they can make the grade or not, with plenty of available game time as we’re in the Europa League. This tack is intended to rebuild the dressing room’s harmony and create a team spirit through having a young, hungry motivated squad. That is Ole’s job as manager; not to mount a title challenge.
It looks to me like a clearing of the decks; doing a lot of the dirty work and preparing the ground and setup for a new manager to come in next summer, with Ole moving upstairs. There may even be an agreement to allow Pogba to go then (a la Ronaldo) to swell the coffers for the new incumbent. If Pochettino (who is the likeliest candidate) arrives to find a lean, young squad, a hefty transfer budget and a considerably lower wage bill to work with, he’d have a vastly better platform to work with rather than having to waste his time working out what the hell to do with Marcos Rojo.
This may just be a pipe-dream and presuppose an awful lot of forward thinking and planning that Woodward has thus far not shown, but with no prospect of catching City and Liverpool in the next season or two, it would take an absolute moron not to be looking towards the medium and longer term. He’s a businessman, they don’t like losing money, and we’ve wasted an awful lot of it on short termism as managers with different styles and philosophies have come and gone, bloating the squad and squandering fortunes.
As for Ole himself, a lot of top clubs have appointed former players as technical directors, and if you’d asked me to pick a former United player to take on the role for us, Ole’s name would have been pretty high up on my list (much Paul Ince’s chagrin).
Lewis, Busby Way
Persie your lips
The email by Mark Danger Endicott, BRFC reminded me about the coolest story I have in recent memory.
You see, according to the popular opinion I look like the late Robin van Persie. It’s quite true actually – we are the same height, greying hair on the side, similar haircut, etc.
So, when I visited Old Trafford (I’m Man Utd fan since I can remember) a few years ago, it was really nice to hear guys in front of the stadium chanting “Oh, Robin van Persie”. I chuckled and my friends were just saying “We told you”. Surrounded by United fans and being confused with one of the last great strikers we had was cool, but pretty much expected.
Come to think of it, that moment broke something in my karma. Since then, I’m constantly called “Persie” when I play 5-a-side with people who I don’t know. The most shocking case was one night when I went to the local store. Two teenagers were smoking in front and when I passed them they started chanting the song. I was stunned.
Yeah, it’s not like a Bristol Rovers/City fan, because RVP is popular pretty much everywhere, but still, it’s an awesome feeling.
Plamen, Plovdiv
