Man Utd takeover: No to the Qataris, Musk would muddle and Ratcliffe can ‘go f**k himself’
None of the prospective Man Utd buyers would come without drawbacks and negatives. An interfering Elon Musk is made to sound like the best of a bad bunch.
Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com.
The one and only Wanderers
Last night, Bolton won 5-0. Our first 4 goals were scored by 4 of our back 5. Our 5th goal was scored by the player that replaced the only one of the starting back line not to score. Not a particularly Earth-shattering revelation but I think it’s a nice, quirky little stat
Darryl (League One is good fun!) Drummond
Post-derby clarity
Dear Editor,
For the first time in weeks I looked at the sports news with a sense of excited anticipation, not dread.
I actually thought there would be a few more fellow reds singing our praises this morning! Don’t get me wrong, we’ve not ‘turned a corner‘ this is not ‘the reset’ etc, etc. But what a lovely evening of football.
A goal for Mo, a goal for Gakpo, an assist for Darwin – who could ask for more? A confident and more disciplined performance form TAA (notably Jordan Henderson sat nice and close to him, a reminder of how it used to work so neatly on that right hand side). Bajetic was fantastic. A clean sheet. I mean, just lovely stuff.
Moreover, you could instantly see the impact to the press when Jota and Firmino came on – it takes time to learn the system and they almost instantly both forced defensive errors when they came on by pressing the centre-half and full-back respectively. The midfield is a huge issue, but perhaps getting our pressing from the front functioning again will help to relieve some of that pressure – with Diaz on the road to return as well, I hope we can begin to work a bit more cohesively and protect the defence from higher up the pitch and be less reliant on an off-form Fabinho and less vulnerable to the counter. We shall see!
A derby win to head in to a very tough challenge on Saturday. And I’m able to read F365 et al. with confidence for at least a day.
Up the reds!
Cheers,
Marc
Man Utd takeover options
I don’t want to come across as a Woe-is-us Man Utd fan, but I can’t help but feel distaste for all of the prospective buyers of the club. Not that I want to stick with the leeches the Glazers are, but each of the prospective owners the media have reported come with significant drawbacks.
Firstly, the Qataris. I frankly don’t want anyone involved with the club who benefits from slave labour – in Qatar, in the wider Arab world or anywhere. I don’t want my club owned by people who hate the LGBT community or think that their imaginary overlord prohibits same sex love. I don’t care how much money they bring, or if they could buy us the entire PSG squad, I don’t want a mediaeval mindset involved with my club in any way.
Elon Musk has shown what a numpty he is over the last few months with Twitter, and has shown his right wing tendencies, palling up with the likes of Rupert Murdoch and allowing Twitter to become more of a cesspit than it already was in the name of “free speech”. In all honestly, I could put up with this were it not for the fact that I wouldn’t trust him to meddle with the football side of business. His involvement in Twitter suggests he thinks he knows more than he does. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a brilliant man and an excellent engineer – very clearly very smart. But that doesn’t mean he knows everything about everything. He clearly has got a lot wrong at Twitter in his short time there. I don’t think he knows all that much about football, and after the shitshow of leadership since David Gill stepped down, Man Utd need an owner who will let the CEO run the business and the manager and director of football run the team, not an owner chopping and changing leadership and mandating team selection. Maybe Elon wouldn’t do this, but I don’t think I’d trust him not to.
And then Sir Jim Ratcliffe. Apart from him not really having the kind of wealth that the others could bring, and by that I mean he would not exactly be a sugar daddy to the club, there are his politics. Ratcliffe is a ducking Brexit supporting mug of the worst kind – the kind that tells everyone it’s a great idea when it doesn’t affect him in the slightest. The kind of man that pushes Britain to impose sanctions on itself then moves to Monaco to avoid paying tax and to avoid having to live in the shit heap he helped create. The kind of man that trumpeted the benefits of Brexit then opened his new factory in *checks notes* France (conveniently in the EU). The kind of man for whom freedom of movement and the lack thereof mean nothing to him and his because he can afford to throw enough money at the bureaucracy to allow his family all the opportunities he’s denied millions of. So Sir Jim can frankly go f**k himself.
Which leads us where? I wish I could be in a position to be excited by new ownership but with these options I’d have to hold my nose whichever owner takes over unless the Glazers decide to just float the club on the market again, which is so unlikely to happen I think we’ll see Putin surrender before that. I wonder how other Man Utd fans feel about this?
Daniel, Cambridge
Palace thoughts
Dear Football365,
* Crystal Palace and Brighton & Hove Albion met on Saturday afternoon, allowing fans across the nation to ponder questions such as “why is this a derby?”, “why do the media insist on calling it the A23 or M23 Derby when neither set of fans calls it that?” and “now they’re actually very good do Brighton fans still also support Chelsea or the Arsenal?”
* Patrick Vieira lined his side up with two throwbacks to the Roy Hodgson era: a 4-4-2 formation and several of his oldest players. James Tomkins replaced Chris Richards in defence, and Jordan Ayew partnered Jean-Philippe Mateta up front. Clearly Palace’s intention was to defend deep, neutralise Brighton’s midfield and attempt to spring a counter. However, theory is one thing and practice is another.
* As the form book would have suggested, Brighton & Hove were by far the better side throughout. They should have opened the scoring in the first half, only for the VAR to rule out Pervis Estupinan’s goal for an offside only they were aware of. According to Understat, they had an xG of 2.65 compared to 0.93 for Palace, of which 0.61 was their goal and sole effort on target. Then again, even under Graham Potter part of the Brighton & Hove Way was to take far more shots than their opponents and draw, because this is what happens to non-elite teams playing possession football.
* Brighton & Hove opened the scoring just past the hour mark. Solly March has come a long way since John Motson, a man otherwise studious to the point of obsessive about his pre-match research notes, spent an entire Match of the Day highlights package calling him “Olly”. Much has been made of his transformation into a goalscoring threat but it’s largely down to a change of role: under Potter this season, he made six appearances, four at wing-back, one on the right of a midfield four, and only as part of three attacking midfielders; for Roberto de Zerbi, he has also played at wing-back four times and once on the right of a midfield four, but it is his ten appearances as an attacking midfielder that has led to his recent purple patch of goals. Look, I don’t like being nice about Brighton & Hove or their players but it seems childish not to acknowledge how well they’re playing. I’m taking a mark off for March and his teammates following the Albion trend of giving it large to Palace fans after they score, but being sure to do it in front of the family stand.
* Palace’s goal was something that only happens in games between fierce rivals. Robert Sanchez dropped a clanger and Tomkins could barely believe his luck. It was a step towards redemption for Tomkins, who let down a team in need of his experience in his previous appearance by getting sent off.
* A periodic reminder that the majority of football fandom is schadenfreude. So Brighton & Hove having a legitimate goal ruled out by officiating ineptitude is every bit as funny as it would be infuriating had it happened to Crystal Palace. Then again, had there not been a VAR controversy, perhaps more might have been said about Alexis Mac Allister only receiving a yellow card for a challenge that saw him plant his studs into Cheick Doucoure’s shin.
* Karma-baiting corner: trying to get people onto your side of the argument with a banner referencing Morrissey is a bold strategy from Manchester City, and I’m talking David James up front levels of bold. Also, the Arsenal have not won in the Premier League since their fans flooded Twitter with “but where are his trophies” reactions to Harry Kane becoming Tottenham’s all- time top scorer.
* An easy way to begin reducing the amount of abuse suffered by referees would be for television pundits and co-commentators to analyse big decisions from the officials’ perspective: what they saw in the moment and how they arrived at their decision. It’s about understanding their point of view, not whether you agree or disagree. It’s also worth reminding everyone that the laws of the game state the referee’s decision is final, not that it is right.
On a related note, would anyone reading this relocate their family to a country that spoke a different language to your native tongue, and where people from that country doing the same job as you receive heaps and heaps of abuse? As a follow-up, do you still think European referees are queuing up to come to the Premier League?
Ed Quoththeraven
VAR improvements
Just an idea I thought i’d throw out there to improve the use of VAR in the future. Why dont they just remove the lines when judging offside decisions? If its not clear and obvious with the naked eye then onside it is, more goals and after all wasnt VAR supposed to be used for ‘clear and obvious’? Do we really need goals disallowed for half a toe being offside?
And secondly, allow each captain 2 VAR challenges a match for sending offs and goals. That way its on the team itself whether they should challenge a decision or not and we can get away from blaming the ref for anything.
Terry Orange
I’m sure this is oversimplified at the newspaper level of information shared with us too, but I can’t help but feel the Premier League are setting themselves up to fail if they are only having one dude (an older ex-referee) do all the reviewing of VAR/line drawing etc.
In the NFL, it’s a whole team who look at 30+ different angles for any challenge/TD to determine the slightest element.
VAR for more than half its checks doesn’t need a qualified ref, it needs tech-savvy people to use complicated systems with oversight from someone who knows the laws of the game.
I can accept a referee is infallible as a human, but VAR is a system and individual human error can be eliminated/mitigated with better processes, automation and more oversight/multiple people working on same problem to corroborate.
It shouldn’t just be Jon Moss forgetting to look at every player/deciding just two checks were enough because he’s pressed for time. There is too much money in the game/riding on the game for such a slapdash thing to happen.
Tom (I don’t trade in conspiracies per se, but I think Arsenal get the rough of it from refs in several areas because of unconscious bias) Walthamstow
Many of you will have read of the increasing abuse referees are suffering, in particular in the lower leagues. This is clearly not acceptable and as a direct result of this abuse less youngsters will pursue refereeing as either a hobby or as a potential career path, thus reducing the pool of referees to be selected at elite level, ultimately reducing standards (which are in need of improvement!).
In terms of the abuse from players, this is all so avoidable and to me, the fix is such an obvious one. At the start of each year we are told that referees will be ‘clamping down’ on abuse. They don’t. They never do. Certainly not to any meaningful extent.
So, if a player abuses the referee? SEND THEM OFF!
If a player argues back? SEND THEM OFF!
If players swarm the ref? SEND THEM ALL OFF!
Only the captain can approach the referee, but he/she must be respectful in doing so. It is that simple.
I would anticipate that in the first week of the season we will see red cards in most top flight games, and probably early on too (there will be an assumption, based on past events, that ref’s won’t be as tough as they are suggesting), but the moment players see that abuse is met with a straight red card, and consistently, THEY WILL STOP! And if they don’t their managers will stop selecting them. This will feed down the footballing pyramid and one would hope to grass roots level where, one day, refereeing may return to a position where people are no longer afraid to do it!
This has undoubtedly been said before but I cannot see a downside and it is utterly infuriating. What is the problem? Am I missing something?!
Dave, Berkshire Spur
Great email from Mark on refereeing, really think the problem with VAR is two-fold in the Premier League. Firstly, the media love it. I’d imagine more than 50% of highlights of every match focuses on refereeing decisions. Slow motion, freeze-frame, artificial-lines you name it. Why? Because it’s easy to discuss, easy to rile up the audience and requires very little actual intelligence to do so. Go watch analysis of the NFL – it’s staggering. Ex-pros bring a depth of tactical analysis that really enhances an understanding of how complex the sport really is. It’s fascinating. For whatever reason, the premier league audience doesn’t expect this at all, and would rather yell at the ref. Then again, many read the Mirror or the S*n, so…
Secondly, VAR is inherently unfair, and in my opinion, stupid (except for offsides/ball out of play etc). Let’s be generous, and say that 5% of decisions each match go to VAR. That means 95% are decided in real-time by a single human being who is running 10k over 90 minutes trying to be well positioned. But the other 5% get slow-motion, multiple-angles, and full minutes of analysis. For me this breaks the sport on a fundamental level. It creates two different thresholds for a foul – simply if it’s VAR’d or not.
For me VAR should only be used for non-binary issues in one way: the on-field ref gets one more view, in real-time, from one angle. Otherwise the whole premise is ridiculous. If the VAR-folk can’t find that view in a minute and the ref can’t decide from one viewing then it’s not obvious.
Ryan, Bermuda