‘Well done Liverpool’; you handed ‘new Spurs’ a Champions League place
Liverpool gifting the win to Chelsea could have long-term consequences. And the Blues are nothing but the new Spurs.
Send your mails to theeditor@football365.com
Cheers Liverpool
I may sound bitter (well I am) but Liverpool heading to the beach and handing 3 points to Chelsea is something else.
They do realise Chelsea with Champions League next season are going to be targeting the players they will be after.
Well done Liverpool.
Paul
Chelsea are the new Spurs
Want to appease your home support by beating the champions… Check
Struggle away from home all season… Check
Have 7 substandard goal keepers and your best one out on loan …. Check
Have a player clearly should be playing at a bigger club….. Check
Think you’ll keep hold of that player? Wait til the offers come and that pesky PSR must profit on English players dilemma comes in …. Check
Have fans who think they are a big club… Check
Have a manager who gets carried away at beating a big club …… Check
Have an average winger who cups his ears at away fans despite being, well, average all season… Check
Have a manager who thinks he’s Pep….Check
Well done for those who guessed it! It’s Chelsea !
Second prize if you thought I was talking about Arsenal.
No more champagne now Arne, *BIG* club coming next 😂
Ade (21 is coming)
READ: 16 Conclusions on Chelsea 3-1 Liverpool: Brilliant Cole Palmer exploits half-hearted Liverpool
Newcastle v Chelsea ahoy…
I’m not sure at what stage a “six pointer” becomes WAYYYY more important than that.
But the Newcastle v Chelsea game next Sunday became at least a £50million pointer – and could cost Maresca his job.
BRING. IT. ON.
Howay the lads.
Tom. (Geordie in Toronto)
Elite or good?
I was in the final stages of making a fine cheese dip as I ruminated on the difference between elite teams, and teams that are just good.
Elite teams win ties even with big matches looming. Elite teams are capable of finding solutions that win matches through squad rotation. Elite teams have multiple leaders. Elite teams don’t have to use emotions to channel their focus, it’s already there. Elite teams don’t need to wave their arms and gee up their fans at every throw in. Elite teams don’t drop points in 44% of their home matches.
And the biggest different between elite teams and teams that are just good – they win trophies and develop without telling people how good they are.
IJR – Elite teams receive guards of honour from good teams
Arsenal were rubbish but…
I’m sure Arsenal will get pelters from the usual suspects, and the performance was poor as they have been for over a month in the league as focus is clearly elsewhere, but we can have separate conversations about performance and decisions.
I feel like I’m going mad that anyone can consider Bournemouth’s winning goal as anything other than handball under the current rules? A ball bouncing in an upwards trajectory towards a players hip/stomach/elbow area as he’s leaning back (being pushed back) and then takes a sudden downward trajectory after it hits him. Literally the only way this can happen is by it hitting his elbow. You may argue the video isn’t clear, it is, but even if you want to be obtuse and argue that (hello Jamie completely unbiased Redknapp) then you can just use basic knowledge of how physics of a moving ball works.
In a sea of frankly embarrassing referee and var decisions all season that has to be right up near the top and another one of those that seems reserved especially for Arsenal. It feels like there can be a really poor decision and var can say I think 99.9% you’ve got that wrong but because I can’t rule out the 0.1% chance that I’m wrong I won’t overturn it. Absolutely bonkers.
Again, plenty of teams get bad decisions, but they will also get a few that go their way. Even if you subscribe to the view that all decisions have so much subjectivity around them these things are 50/50 then how have Arsenal had 10+ of these 50/50 decisions and every single one go against us? Genuine question – have Arsenal had any game defining subjective 50/50 decision to in their favour all season in the league, so red cards, penalties and goals (ie: var’s remit)?
For the record and for those who routinely say Arteta blames anything but himself and his players note that he didn’t mention this decision once.
Rich, AFC
Amorim would have relegated Man Utd
If Ruben Amorim took over United earlier he would’ve relegated them.
Next season is going go to be interesting, I wonder how long before INEOS pull the plug on him, will they repeat the trick like they did last October with Ten Hag and summer transfers.
But back to Amorim as he shows no sings of learning the way teams play in Premier League. 5 at back and low block for every game since he arrived and they are still leaking goals, that is really special.
Even crazier is that 5:2:3 formation is being played by Manchester United in 2025 and they are being embarrassed left and right by teams with third of their budget and nobody is laughing at them in UK because their coach laughs a lot with his bright shiny teeth… crazy times we live in today.
Mat, Plastic UEFA A fan, Munich
(This is the Premier League table since Ruben Amorim was appointed; I don’t think he would have relegated them – Ed)
Da Media or whatever
Sorry: another long mail. [In fact, Editors, this might seem more like an article with a byline than a reasonable Mailbox submission. A while back, I had a rueful laugh when you published both my ill-tempered e-mail and subsequent retraction. It was just; I couldn’t resent it, and it only made me look human.
When I write as Chris C, Toon Army DC, I’m aware that anything you publish in the Mailbox is your property. This is my explicit permission to publish anything I post under that name in whatever format you choose, for free. Or to ask me to rewrite it a bit, nail down the “I presumes” and still publish it for free (in this case, at least) under my actual name, Chris(topher) Crenshaw.]
All the recent Mailbox entries about broadcast commentary and punditry have made it clear that I don’t understand how most of the members of this forum experience the sport. I don’t really even understand who’s providing what coverage of what competition in England, much less in Germany or South Africa.
I’ll try to describe what I see in the US. I’ll forget things, and other US fans will no doubt fill in gaps. Also: I’m talking studio/pitch-side work, not match commentary (another can of worms; NBC features Graeme Le Saux, which is probably significant).
Via YouTube TV, I get my EPL coverage from NBC and subsidiary networks like USA and – on the final day of the season – Golf Channel and the Food Network or whatever. At least three, and as many as six matches a weekend are available with basic cable , plus most mid-week fixtures, excepting international breaks.
The balance of coverage is handled by Peacock, NBC’s online presence here, which lets me see every EPL match (and replays) with no blackouts. Some matches see the US studio team broadcasting from a ground hosting a big match. NBC has a relationship with somebody, but I don’t know who.
Rebecca Lowe swings between anchoring Premier League coverage for NBC in the US alongside Tim Howard and Robbies Earle and Mustoe and covering the Kentucky Derby and occasional English-market specific events, so it’s always been clear that we in the US aren’t getting the same product that you do in England. In fact, on Saturday, the crew broadcast from Churchill Downs before the Kentucky Derby, and Lowe, sporting a fetching little hat, disappeared from the NBC broadcast to do something for…Sky, I presume?
If you folks around the world see any of these NBC broadcasters, I’d love to know what you think. I think it’s rather good coverage, even if NBC’s version of deep reporting is having a dude hold English sports-page headlines up to his webcam. Tim Howard is a thoughtful guy, easy to respect even when I disagree. The Robbies are personable and solid and have real authority, but evidently not enough for Sky or the Beeb. But Gary Neville appears frequently, and I never find him a welcome presence.
In the US, CBS/Paramount+ has the rights to broadcast Champions League coverage. This is the crew featuring Micah Richards and Thierry Henry. I don’t know whether that’s from Sky or BBC, or something else entirely. I had a soft spot for Richards as a player, but find him positively insulting doing football coverage. He’s the guy that all the Ferdinand complaints make me think of. Ugh. From time to time, the otherwise excellent Henry’s contempt for Richards seems to show. I generally dislike their material because of the weird primate-dominance and/or sexist vibes I’ve seen it achieve. You have to sub to Paramount+ to get all of this stuff, like with NBC and Peacock.
Fox has the rights to MX Liga, the World Cup and the Euros, and their studio material is abysmal. Almost everything utter MAGA clown Alexei Lalas says reveals ignorance and overconfidence (yeah, pal, I remember how you couldn’t make it in Europe). He ruins everything about their coverage, and the rest of the crew — mostly former male & female US pros who do have a clue — don’t have a chance. As far as I know, Fox did not acknowledge the human rights violations associated with the Qatar World Cup even once in their coverage. Fie, I say.
I get access to ESPN/ESPN+ coverage of the FA Cup, big European leagues and most international football (also NHL) through my subscription to Disney+. Its football coverage feels more low-rent than other networks*, and I don’t know how much of it folks in the UK get, but I suspect the rest of the world gets a lot. It’s pretty good, though, featuring folks like Dan Thomas, Adrian Healey and Kay Murray in the UK and Craig Burley, Steve Nicol, Kasey Keller and Shaka Hislop in the US. Those last are two of my favorite keepers ever, so that’s a bonus.
I only see folks like Alan Shearer, Roy Keane and Rio Ferdinand (those last two both pretty awful, imo, and Shearer isn’t exactly brilliant except when celebrating NUFC cup wins) on Youtube. I’m seldom sure whether it’s Sky or BBC coverage, because more TV people on that side of the pond seem to have regular radio and podcast gigs on what might be competing networks. I don’t have instant recognition for anybody but former players amongst that cast/those casts. Which is the evidence for my point, I suppose.
We really haven’t gotten the Amazon presence in the US, though of course they did feature the NUFC documentary/marketing exercise. As far as football goes, they only seem to broadcast NWSL matches. Sadly, I didn’t even know that until I started writing this.
I sometimes have Spanish-language broadcasts via YouTube TV playin while I do something else but have little familiarity with the broadcasters shown in the US beyond Andres Cantor. Telemundo and Universo broadcast EPL matches and studio “headquarters” programs. One of the Spanish-language networks — Telemundo? — has the EPL and often airs La Liga and Liga MX. The EFL Championship used to be on FuboTV; I think ESPN has it now. I figure that’s the Wrexham effect.
And I know there’s an entire ecosystem based on VPNs that I would have clung to like a mother had it existed a quarter century ago, when I got like one EPL match a week via ESPN. You could see more Aussie-rules football than soccer back then. These days, I can watch virtually any match from international level to Australian or African national leagues without resorting to piracy. It’s remarkable.
I’d love it if folks around the world could make it clearer to me what coverage they’re getting and how they’re getting it.
Chris C, Toon Army DC (54, never narced once)
* They’ve broadcast OmegaBall, ffs. Three-sided five-a-side football on a circular pitch with three goals. It’s actually a pretty fun watch, if perhaps too chaotic. This is why they created The Ocho.
On a more personal note
Craig Pawson was putrid today. He gave two penalties to NUFC that were rightly overturned by VAR and failed to deliver the second yellow and straight red cards that Brighton fouls called for. Pawson wasn’t biased, he just sucked. I was almost stunned when he called the third pen, because I thought he’d be scared to be overturned again. VAR is making referees worse.
When the last penalty was called, I walked to the kitchen and washed four steel tumblers, a coffee mug, and (almost) a spoon before Isak actually took it. That fact raises about a dozen questions, but I’m focused on this one: what were they looking for? The penalty was naked-eye obvious and the handball clearly intentional. No red was given, so that wasn’t what they were looking at.
I’m not tryna blame the officials for Newcastle’s draw today. We were mostly pants in the first half, and Hürzeler consistently puts out sides that disrupt our play effectively. Hell, they beat us at home on my only trip to SJP, so I was always nervous.
The VAR crew for BHA-NEW may not have been biased, but the nine minutes of added time in the second half is – at the very least – an example of a VAR crew trying to justify its existence. VAR doesn’t guarantee good calls, and it never will. It’s just not worth it.
Chris C, Toon Army DC