Chelsea will sack Maresca ‘after 10 games’ as Man Utd transfer work already ruined by Ten Hag

Enzo Maresca will only last 10 games as Chelsea boss and Erik ten Hag would rather chat rubbish on Dutch television than coach his Man Utd players. Bleak pre-season thoughts dominate in the Mailbox.

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4am pre-season friendly thoughts…
Arsenal are very good. All of them. Playing the same way consistently, young and old. The B*stards.

As for United, my god was it same old. Star striker and defender off injured. Second half collapse to low block led (admirably) by Jonny Evans.

I can’t be bothered debating who was worse from Rashford, Sancho, Antony etc. More interesting is how good Mount looked pressing as an attacking midfielder and how that will all be lost when Bruno comes back. Can they play together under this manager? Who knows. You don’t. I don’t. He doesn’t.

Slightly afraid to comment on Maguire, given f365 ridicules anyone suggesting he’s shite but also places him as a worse signing than Antony. He battled valiantly, without ability or intelligence, as per. Come on West Ham.

So, if you were interested in a potential united mood meter for pre season, it’s back at June levels. The positive transfer work may have already been undone and our manager seems more intent on chatting sh*t to Dutch tv than coaching anyone.

Farewell summer/optimism.

Hello darkness.
Simón MUFC

United divided
I may not know what I am going to get from Slot and Liverpool but not too far away from Anfield is a club I literally have no clue where they will finish. Man Utd do seem to be going down the right path but there is a lot going on.

Ratcliffe and his employment purge of 200. Probably seems the right thing to do based on the incompetence of the Glazers and should focus the other 900 to actually turn up for work and do a decent job.

Ten Hag staying – Wow, how did that happen. Makes absolute sense based on everything else that is required but still, he must be thinking in his mind ‘If I can just get to December in 6th 5 points off top 4 they can’t sack me can they ?

Zirkzee looks an interesting one but isn’t he playing in Fernandes best position ?

Yoro – young, needs time and space, both on and off the field, will get neither and probably dominated by Chris Wood & Dom Solanke

Ugarte for Sancho seems like a great idea

De Lijt is a weird one. Bayern wanting Jonathan Tah instead speaks volumes. Almost feels like Utd cannot resist a bargain price and at least it reunites him with ETH which might mean he does well.

Squad

Keepers – Onana / Bahindir – no issue
LB – Shaw / Malacia – seems okay
CB – Yoro / Martinez / Maguire / Lindelof / Evans – Lindelof out
RB – Dalot / AWB – weak
Mids – McTominay / Mainoo / Casemiro / Eriksen – Only Mainoo really
AMs – Fernandes / Mount – decent, Mount needs a full pre season but could be excellent this season, you heard it here first…..
LW – Rashford / Garnacho – Marcus needs to be sold. He’s bored and overpaid
RW – Antony / Diallo / Pellistri – oh dear
CF – Hojland / Zirkzee – assume both will play ?

So will ETH play a 3-5-2 ? Might be why he wants De Ligt as a ball playing CB ?

Surely they can’t be as bad as last year can they?
Hong Kong Ian – Utd 3rd or 8th….

Chelsea = goosed
From the evidence of the first two pre season games of Maresca’s tenure it looks like he could be sacked even quicker than Potter, possibly after 10 games with us dead last because we are genuinely awful.

I’d love to be hopeful but the evidence so far is damning, the style of play doesn’t seem to suit any of the players, we have been completely outplayed by both Wrexham and Celtic.

I have a feeling this is going to get worse before it gets any better. Buckle up. (And in goes the fourth goal as I type).
Aaron CFC Ireland.

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Passion – the most overrated quality in football
Week in week out I see people talking about how players need passion. If they had passion the team would win the league with him swooping the balon dor.

I call nonsense, it’s a massively overrated quality. It’s 100% unnecessary. It’s a decent bonus if they have it but it doesn’t matter in the slightest if they don’t. As fans we want to see it because it’s the only aspect of football that we actually have within ourselves. All others are the results of endless coaching and play. So of course we view talent as necessary it’s the only thing we have.

Before you turn on the caps lock and start messaging back ask yourself this question – which is more likely to win a team of ultra talented yet average work rate players or ultra high work rate and average talent?

There’s also the fact quite a few talented players have zero passion for the game and do it just as a job and nothing more. Ben white for example but just in case you want to make the example he doesn’t count because you’re not an arsenal fan and so he’s sh*t one of the greatest strikers of all time Gabriel batistuta was widely known to hate football and couldn’t wait to retire. He did it just because he could and he wanted to provide for his family.

There’s tons of examples of players doing perfectly well without passion for the club. The vast majority of players have no passion for the club because they weren’t boyhood fans really. That’s just pr guff they say to trick fans like you into accepting them quicker and defender their sh*t performances a bit longer.

There are a couple who probably did have passion, Terry, Gerrard, Neville, maldini….but they’re very very very rare. If you think that new Brasilian from belo horozonte grew up a <insert team> fan you’re naive. You honestly believe that croatian you signed from Zagreb always dreamt of playing in <insert city>? No. He dreamt of earning a big money move to any money bags premier league club, preferably a good one but most importantly a high paying one.

And it doesn’t make their performances any worse because they don’t have passion.

Finally the subject of mavericks, someone said pep didn’t kill mavericks and in fact he’s bringing them back! Well no actually. Contrary to popular opinion pep didn’t nurse baby Messi into the world. He was promoted to the first team by rijkaard before pep ever got there. Pep started working with Messi when he became first team coach and of course he didn’t stop Messi being a maverick…the entire club was built around Messi and laporta wouldn’t have let anyone ruin Barca long term and possibly rule breaking gamble. Top to bottom messi was protected , it’s probably why Barca paid off refs (Google it ) to make sure Messi didn’t get hurt. Well that and to knock out Chelsea.

So pep couldn’t kill that maverick if he wanted, he was a made man and pep was just a friend of theirs at the time. He did kill every maverick who came along though, he did the same at Bayern and at city. Turned exciting mavericks into boring cogs – just ask grealish who is less an exciting winger now and more a James milner without the goals or assists. Klopp is no different really, Salah most exciting years were before he got klopped into a different but equally productive player.

Will they come back? I dunno, there’s a reason they’re all going to Madrid and it’s not just money. It’s because Carlo allows player to express themselves and doesn’t drill them to death. If they do come back it won’t be because of pep.
Lee – Pep killed mavericks

Lead balloon?
Had to pass comment on AI, LFC’s “Lead balloon” comment.

AI, mate, imagine you’re a kid, and someone gives you a lead balloon….

Not much fun is it? Not going to kick that one around and play headers over the sofa with your old man are you?

Almost like it was something they told you would be brilliant and it really, really failed spectacularly to achieve its stated aim.

You’re welcome.
ANON

…Probably a subject for a slow news day because most will find it incredibly boring, but I want to talk about the wonderful world of Premier League profit and sustainability rules.

I’ve seen a number of commenters below recent articles that seem to believe selling an academy player allows the club to spend much more in the transfer market than the value received. This isn’t quite accurate but because of how amortisation and ‘book value’ work it is sort of true.

Amortisation is just how the club spreads the cost of a transfer over the period of the player’s contract. So, if they sign a player for a £100m fee on a five year deal they will register this on their books as £20m spend each year for five years. The book value of this player is simply the remaining value which is left to be amortised. So, with our £100m player, after two years at the club £40m will have been amortised so his book value is £60m.

If this player is sold after two years for the same £100m then the book value of £60m is deducted and the remaining £40m can be registered as profit. However, if instead after two years he is awarded a new five-year contract the remaining £60m can then be amortised over a new five-year period meaning the club would be spending £12m a year rather than £20m.

One more layer of complexity to add is that clubs will always spread the cost of spending over many years (amortisation), but they register sales as a lump sum profit in just in one year of accounts. Spending £100m in the summer window actually costs £20m in the year one, and £20m in each of the next five years. Selling for £100m makes all the profit in year one and then nothing else after that.

It’s this process that led to a few clubs horse trading academy players in June to prevent a PSR breach. Academy players were never signed for a fee, so their book value is always £0, hence any fee received for their transfer is 100% profit (in PSR terms at least). By effectively swapping academy prospects for £20m both clubs can register an £16m profit for the year (£20m profit minus £4m spend) which helps balance the books and kicks the rest of the cost down the road.

The notion that selling an academy player for £20m means you can buy a superstar for £100m is true only in that it pays for the first-year cost of that superstar so year one accounts balance. The club still have to fund that transfer for the following four years and might need to sell another academy player next year to cover year two costs and so on.

Or I’ve misunderstood the whole thing because PSR is complicated and none of this is true or false.
Dave, Manchester

Dear Moses…
Writing an essay of irrelevant stats shows me that in fact you do condone cloggers.

What I’m talking about are people’s feelings, something intangible and not measurable by stats. I guess you won’t understand that because all you care about are stats.

I appear to have hurt your feelings so I’m sorry about that, yet your response however shows that you do not care for people’s careers.

I often write in about things that can’t be measured in stats and there’s always someone who replies like you, with stats, completely missing the point.

Either deliberate or not, I don’t think you’ve kicked a ball in your life. I speak from experience of playing many Sunday leagues, and in Europe. Trust me when I say, talented players get kicked sh*tless in the UK.

That is a fact and when you decide to accept it, we can talk again.

Thanks
Fat Man (the original clogger, we need to be stopped by the country that makes the rules)

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