Enzo Maresca can ‘f*** off’ even after Chelsea made history

Chelsea have won a trophy but even their fans are underwhelmed, while we have views on Man Utd and Liverpool.

Send your views to theeditor@football365.com

Well done for taking part, Arsenal
Given that most London clubs have won trophies this year, it feels a little harsh on Arsenal.

Should we give them participation medals?
Rob

READ: Flowers for Maresca as The Treble puts Chelsea on course for better season than Liverpool

Is Maresca just Benitez Mark II?
I’m admittedly a few beers deep, but wanted to write in to describe my personal feelings.

Champions league qualification and a trophy. We can’t moan at that. I’m celebrating!

First club to win all of the European trophies. Most European trophies of any English team in the last 25 years. Just like the weather… better in Europe! Have never competed in the ‘Europa League’ or ‘Europa Conference League’ without winning it.

To those who say “oh it’s just the conference league/teams are WiFi passwords” – we didn’t qualify for the Conference League. We qualified for the Europa and would have beaten either finalist. United winning the FA Cup kicked us into the Conference and from that point, we just had to win it. A boost for the youngest ever Premier League squad of all time. A triumph and a good season. I’m happy.

BUT…

Maresca feared Antony to such a degree he asked Cucurella to stay back in defence and Gusto to play the “inverted full back” role. He wasn’t inverted. He wasn’t a full back. His heat map shows he was just another midfielder and the experienced Pellegrini targeted the space behind Gusto (where Chelsea had no right back) and they deservedly took the lead by exposing that very weakness.

After 15 mins every single Chelsea fan I know saw it, agreed a change was needed and we got it.

After half time.

In the absence of a right back, centre backs need to be on point. But we started Chalobah and Badiashille. Nothing against them personally but before the final they had played together as central defenders TWICE. It was just too much of a change in the back line and could have ended differently. Maresca would have won more respect had he made that change after 30mins. We all saw it. That’s just facts.

So my point: This is a young, inexperienced team with a young, inexperienced manager.

He made the wrong choices with the line up and the right decisions to change it, a bit later than I would have liked. Much like Rafa Benitez, got a result but hasn’t convinced the entire support. But he had more experience (at football and at p*ssing off Chelsea fans).

So I hope that the players AND the manager/coaching staff learn from this and set up to win from the first whistle next time. This is a success but also a HUGE lesson.

Congratulations Newcastle, Palace, Spurs, and Liverpool. What a season from you all. Thoughts with those affected by the awful incident during the latter’s trophy parade.

Commiserations to the young Betis fans in the crowd tonight. You’ll get another chance, I promise. It hurts, but it makes the first even sweeter.

Keep the blue flag flying high. We’ve won it all.
Ash, CFC

Watching Chelsea: A journey
13 minutes in and it’s going exactly how I thought it would.

Betis fans and players way more up for it than Chelsea.

Same old insipid, unproductive and unimaginative football from Maresca. Passy passy, bollocks, bollocks.

Chelsea won’t get better under him. But let’s be honest, Chelsea won’t get any better under the scum that own them.
Will (Maybe Chelsea will win this game, won’t change how little I think of the manager, owners, or the vast majority of the players Blue co have bought.)

…37th minute update. Maresca keeps shouting at players. I assume they aren’t passing backwards enough. Perhaps he only wants to give away corners? Wouldn’t surprise me.
Will

…It’s the 58th minute, maybe Chelsea score (they won’t) but it changes nothing about how I feel about this business.

The Betis players looked like they were enjoying the game from kick off, I haven’t seen a single Chelsea player enjoy Maresca’s football all season. Who would.

Last thought, Badiashille always looks incredibly surprised to find himself on a football pitch.

Anyway, regardless of the result, Maresca can f**k off, Lawrence, Winstanley, Eghbali and Boehly can go and do far worse.
Will (Oh Sancho’s come on, I’m sure he’ll do a good job of walking around a lot)

A question
What the f*** are Man Utd doing playing friendlies in Malaysia? No wonder they’re f*****.
Robert, Birmingham

(An answer: Money – Ed)

Some good news
The clouds hang thick and heavy over Manchester. The drizzle fizzes and smoulders as it lands on the burning wreckage of the exploded clown car that is Manchester United Football Club.

The ignominy of losing a final to Spurs still cuts deep with embarrassment, and the salt is rubbed in by the bucketload as the world’s most self-righteous football club hoists the league trophy aloft down the road…

But then, hark! What is this?! A shaft of bright, dazzling light cuts through the grey and the most beautiful rainbow illuminates the gloom…

“Rio Ferdinand to step down from his role as TNT Sports pundit”
Lewis, Busby Way

Where’s the line for Man Utd fans?
What does it mean to support a club? I mused before, and I muse again with the news that United are willing to sell Mainoo, with (likely unfounded) rumours around the great mysterious Sheikh interested in throwing oil money at the club owners again, and while also wallowing at the end of our worst season since before I was born. What does it take for a supporter to withdraw their support?

People have declared that, just because their club gets bought by an owner with a less-than-stellar record on human rights and state-sanctioned murder, there is nothing they can do. They can’t change the owners. It’s not their fault. But they’ll keep buying merch and giving them their own money anyway.

For me, there are red lines. Being utterly crap absolutely isn’t one or no one would support any but a couple of clubs. The aforementioned ownership scenario is one. But so is selling the club’s soul in different ways.

For me, the key thing about United (and other clubs too, of course) is the critical place youth development and the academy has held. It’s not just the lovely record of always having an academy player in the match-day squad. I don’t just want to see a bunch of expensive players on the pitch. Without that, it’s just another club with some players I may like.

With Rashford now exiled, and Scotty winning titles in Italy, it rests on Mainoo – someone who should be a nailed-on starter – to be that local lad in the first team. But as per the news leaked over the last month or more, that looks to be at an end.

Maybe Fredricson will establish himself – he’s looked good, although Heaven will likely be higher in the pecking order. But that underlines my point; buying in youth for a year isn’t the same as developing your own. There’s a lot of players who have come into the ranks and then into the first team. Garnacho and Amad two obvious names. Chido and Kone will likely show more in the next 12 months. But they aren’t academy players. Or at least, not from ours.

For me, selling Mainoo is a red line. It displays the ownership priorities clearly. Forget our terrible league performance – there’s always next year and even the next manager – but selling prized assets that we know full well are only being sold to generate “pure profit” and not because they “don’t fit Amorim’s tactics” is absolutely unacceptable.

It was the same with Rashford who clearly fitted the tactics better than Garnacho – 3 goals in 3 games showed that – and is capable of playing striker, but had already been earmarked for sale and touted around since last summer window with nonsense stories about him being problematic. You may agree or disagree about whether he was good enough or consistent enough, and that’s fair, but can any actual fan who actually watched us last year say Mainoo isn’t? A year ago he was our great hope scoring great and vital goals. He’s a player, a boyhood fan and local lad, I want to watch in our shirt.

Fans of United should be up in arms. This is the slow destruction of the essence of the club. Blame the Glazers if you like – they are certainly more than partly to blame for the state of things – but this current situation has the fingerprints of Sir Rat all over it. For the record, I don’t blame Amorim for being a pawn, he just made a deal with the devil.
Badwolf

READ: Sell Bruno Fernandes? Man Utd need him to lead rebuild, not pay for it…

Hailing Ed
A really excellent mail by Ed Ern (Ed, sign him up) which was of course misunderstood by many of the commenters in the comments. Yes, it was a little optimistic, but if a fan can’t be a little optimistic after winning the title at a canter (when virtually no-one gave them a sniff), with tales of excellent (and expensive) transfer business done early, well, when can he?

Liverpool will never match Real Madrid for league titles or European titles, that’s not the point, but there is a realistic set of circumstances where their profile will continue to rise, and that they are entering a new phase of being consistently competitive across the board for a sustained period.

They are certainly in the box seat from an English perspective to be the biggest club in the global game. Man City don’t have the history or the fan base, Arsenal need to stop flattering to deceive and don’t have the fan base either, and the one team with the fan base (albeit dwindling, apparently) and the history are near relegation fodder right now, with the club clearly being run appallingly. United are at least three years from dining at the top table again, and getting back there is by no means assured.

In fact, one of the biggest factors that saw United rise (because of a brilliant squad and manager) was that they did it just as money began to dominate the game, and they profited from this fortuitous timing and kicked on. This same factor is now significantly affecting them, because they are perceived as a rich club, and are habitually mugged in the transfer market and wages negotiations when they are clearly in significant financial distress.

They are not much of a lure in footballing terms right now, so it seems likely that they will continue to rob Peter to pay Paul and buy themselves out of trouble, and well, it feels like they have been stuck in this moment for many years. The simple truth appears to be that they are way behind the curve here, and that clubs like Bournemouth and Brighton are way, way ahead of them in terms of intelligence and good old fashioned nous.

In contrast, Liverpool are being run very smartly by owners who have invested very wisely over the years and it’s not a surprise that these same Moneyball owners had a distinct plan, and that it appears to be working.

Of course, optimism + spending does not necessarily equate to sustained success. Next season is a huge one for Liverpool, as they look to become possibly the biggest summer spenders and it would appear that their owners are looking to position the club to kick on even further, the culmination of a master plan. Success is far from assured, especially with the weight of expectation that is inevitable, but I can’t remember the last time Liverpool’s future looked quite as rosy.

Of course, as every football fan knows (even most United ones by now), it’s the hope that kills you.
Mat (after the Europa League final last week I have been enjoying F365’s own version of the battle of the tallest dwarves, watching Pacho and Keith with their handbags in the comments)

…I really appreciated Ed Ern’s detailed putting together lfc’s significantly increased revenues over the years. Great job FSG especially compared to our impoverish neighbors across the M62 😈🤣🤣🤣

Only point of disagreement I have: we’ve spent a grand total of £29m so far replacing our dearly departing Trentsfer …

I’ll start looking forward to challenging Real Barca for hegemony once i see the cavalry start to roll in 😊
Gab YNWA

A flaw with five up/down
Reading Steve Chicken’s piece this morning ref. jeopardy in the Premier League I can’t help agree with his overall point.

However, the idea of 5 up/5 down seems fundamentally flawed, as surely the jeopardy only exists for the first season it is implemented (assuming this follows the last current 3 up/3 down season) as, at the end of the second season of 5 up/5 down, the most likely 5 teams to drop back down would be the 5 teams promoted the season prior, and we sort of end up back where we are currently?
Andy FTM (Yes we’ll likely be relegated in spectacular fashion, yes Jobe still seems wants to go and eat sauerkraut and drink that funny cloudy beer, but who cares……… We’re Premier League, baby!)

Spurs: The two-season classic comedy
I enjoyed your piece on Ange Postecoglou’s claim that the best TV series have a better third series than their second outing.

What Ange’s theory overlooks is the British comedy tradition of having two series and then leaving on a high: Fawlty Towers, The Office and Fleabag would be good examples of this. Given Big Ange’s reign has been more comedy than drama, is this not a better comparison?
Tom, YCFC, Salisbury

(BTW, please save the word season for football not TV shows. You’ll be using words like sophomore next)