Ten Hag out? He isn’t good at anything! And why Ivan Toney is not the man to fire Arsenal to the title

Manchester United’s losing always means the Mailbox is worth a read. Also: why Arsenal should avoid spending big on Ivan Toney.

Send your views in to theeditor@football365.com…

Ten Hag must go – he is not good at anything
I have been watching this United team for quite some time and one thing that is confusing is what Ten Hag is really good at.

1. Goalkeeper: He has one of the most error prone keeper in the league. Against Aston Villa, Onana conceded an easy free kick due to his failure to just keep his eye on the ball. It’s not the first time he done it and one wonders what the manager said to him when it happened the 1st time. I can’t remember which Game but it was exactly the same manner. I remember Van Der Sar use to deal with those balls easily.

2. Midfield: Worse. Even with the signing of Amrabat.

3. Attackers. I looked at the top 20 premier league scorers today and there is no Man Utd player. Our main striker has one goal in the league.

4. Players treatment: Sancho.. Ohh

5. Substitutions: Remember when united were blowing away Galatasaray until Ten Hag ruined it with his substitutions. That’s why united are out of Europe. Against Nottingham he took off Mainoo the only player who was keeping things tight in the midfield. Why not take out Ericksen?

6. Managing players during the game. He keeps quiet even when the players are making clear schoolboy mistakes. No warning. No creating awareness.

He must go in January. Don’t even wait for end of the season.
Ticco, Windhoek Namibia

OPINION: Man Utd fail to threaten Forest and reverse out of another turning point…

Ten Hag can’t complain about injuries
Obviously as a Liverpool fan I enjoyed Forest beating Man U tonight, I listened to ETH’s post game interviews and the ongoing theme that “our injury list is worse than anyone else.”

So I looked at EPL Injury Table – Premier Injuries

Luke Shaw, Lisandro Martinez I will give you, first team players and Martinez particularly is a big miss. But the rest of the list? Squad players or inferior signings.

Man City have lost De Bruyne for 4 months, Liverpool have both left backs out for at least another 3 weeks and are one centre half injury away from calling up genuine kids, Arsenal’s flagship centre half signing has been out all season, Tottenham and Newcastle have at least 2 regular starters missing, Villa lost Pau Torres for a few weeks…

I love Man U losing but I also love my Man U supporting cousin so I can’t take too much pleasure from it…but as I have been telling my cousin for a few years now, you are miles behind Liverpool and Liverpool are miles behind City…

I don’t have the answers, otherwise I would be technical director for a PL club instead of managing a pub but is there any point in sacking ETH? Or should United persevere with mediocrity for a little longer? Perhaps continuity is the answer?

As I have said here before, everything is cyclical, I’m not convinced Liverpool will win the league this year but I’m not convinced City will either…or Arsenal. It’s wide open and that is a great thing but United are so far off the conversation it’s amazing.

Anyway, happy new year to all genuine football fans.
Mark Jones, LFC, Liverpool

Brexit through the gift shop
I know Jim Ratcliffe is pro-brexit but this is ridiculous. At least leave Europe with some dignity lads.

Play the kids the rest of the season, embrace the madness and let’s start afresh next year with Ajax possession-based football Erik.

Happy New Year all.
Garey Vance, MUFC

Another false dawn
We look good at home except when we don’t. We always look rubbish away.

Players? Manager? Perhaps they all need to go. I can’t explain why they were so rubbish at Newcastle and forest (plus others). Or at home vs Bournemouth, etc. manager or players? Players or manager. No idea, it’s easier to change the manager but!
Anon

Toney is not Arsenal’s man
Dear Ed,

Hope you’re enjoying the betwixtmas period – I’m currently reminiscing about a holiday during university when the landlord at our local had a lock-in from Boxing Day to NYE as he was selling up! Mrs Coltrane is concerned that my 14 year old son is learning the wrong side of Christmas good will.

With the fall out from Arsenals defeat to the Hammers I thought I’d weigh in with some thoughts on the demand for us to sign a ‘Proper Number 9’ ™️.

The fundamental question is, of course, who? And also, for how much? Given we signed Raya on a loan now, sign later deal it would be reasonable to assume we don’t have cash or FFP room to throw around.

The players most obviously likely to improve us (Haaland, Kane, Osimhen, Martinez etc) won’t be joining in a month of Sundays. The notion that Napoli, or any club in contention in Europe or their league, will be persuaded to sell a top class striker is surely ridiculous.

Why the hell would Villa let Watkins go? Ditto Newcastle with Callum Wilson. Everton are battling for their existence both in Our League and as an institution. DCL has to be considered a huge piece of that, even when his fitness issues are considered.

Which leads us to the Ivan Toney, the man most often cited to spearhead our title push. ‘What’s his form like?’ you ask. Well, he’s not played for 7 months has he? And it’s a big ask for him to step up to the pressure of a title race with no match sharpness.

I’d argue whether he’s actually any better than the incumbents given his non penalty xg per 90 of 0.40 last season. Gabriel Jesus and Eddie Nketiah are both slightly higher at 0.48 and 0.46 respectively this season.

Indeed, the big problem appears to be the drop off from 0.68 last season of our current number 9. It would appear unlikely that Toney could produce at a rate 50% better than his career best after half a season in the stands.

Also, why the hell would Brentford sell? Mbuema is injured and they’re in a terrible rut of form – you’d think they’d be desperate to get him back on the field leading the line with only a comically large offer being tempting. Which we probably can’t give. And I’m not sure that we should frankly.

So who else? Dunno. Sorry, but I don’t. Does Edu know of someone in Brazil? Are Barcelona so cash strapped they’d want Lewandowskis’ salary off the books?

Do we burn some sage and newt eyes in a bid to get Martinelli and Odegaard back to last seasons goal scoring form? Hypnotise Jesus into thinking he’s R9?

Over to you Edu and MA, but it’s far from clear the spending £70m+ on Toney will improve us, never mind guarantee a title. We can but hope.

Happy New Year
Roscoe P Coltrane

Arsenal mentality talk is silly
Why is it when Arsenal fail to take maximum points it’s always some physiological or mental weakness? It’s a tired cliche that’s trotted out but never for other clubs.

Are Man U, spurs and chelsea mentally weak considering their positions in the table? Are Newcastle not mentally strong enough to cope with the extra games? Were Liverpool mentally weak last season to fall to 5th after such consistent top 2 points hauls?

It also ignores all the times this Arsenal team have been bloody mentally strong. Away wins last season at Villa, Spurs, Brighton, Newcastle – all seriously impressive. Last-minute winners against Bournemouth, Man U, Luton etc, beating City 1-0 at home.

If you’re going to pick and choose any defeat and put it down to psychological frailty then you have to be open eyed enough to view the other games when the opposite has happened. Sometimes teams can just be not good enough on the day and your opponent can be better than you.

It’s like narratives are pre written on the expectation and anticipation of failure. Are there going to be 6 big 7 sides who fail this season as only 1 of them will win the title and 3 of them will finish outside the top 4? Which teams were genuinely expected to win the title this season, expected to beat City to their 6th title in 7 seasons?

One bad result and suddenly Arsenal have been found out, except before this result Arsenal were top of the league and finished top of their Champions League group.

Are Arsenal likely to be champions? Probably not, there are still gaps in the side. But people can’t have it both ways.

Before the season we were simultaneously told last year was a fluke and every other team will get better, and also that because we’d spent £200m and finished 2nd then we must win the title. Talk about getting your ducks in a row to call a team a failure no matter what!
Rich, AFC

Dyche is an early loser
Has been in your “Winners” column a few times over the last month and rightfully so.

He needs to be heading up the “Losers” column this weekend.

Terrible initial setup against Wolves, inviting them on, and giving us zero midfield presence. Everybody and their dog could see this wasn’t working.

What’s he do at halftime when changes are definitely needed? He comes out with the exact same starting 11. Wolves proceeded to score 2 more goals, and clearly put us out of the game.

How does a premier league caliber manager make that big of a mistake, and then compound it? Loser indeed.

Also, Hwang is one odious player, looking for a dive at every opportunity.
TX Bill (game isn’t even over yet and Wolves pushing for four) EFC

Referee bias
So some fans disagree with my email that Tierney may be biased and that there may be more bias in there?

To reiterate I’m not saying everyone is against Liverpool. I’m saying all refs have bias and they don’t control it as they should – with Tierney being the example of a ref that’s anti Liverpool.

I am 100% confident that the refs have a big club bias. People want to disagree? You think refs treat all teams equally?

Show me the data and ill agree.

You’ll notice in my examples I did not use the obvious Diaz offside Vs spuds – why? I think that’s an error not a bias because I can’t examples of Oliver favouring a particular team.

I think there is likely a ref which favours Liverpool too, I just cant find it. You honestly believe refs are totally unbiased? I don’t. Because I’m not a moron and dont believe anyone can ignore their bias. For or against Liverpool. We all have bias and affects how we judge things.
Lee

READ MORE: Liverpool bias of Paul Tierney irrefutable ‘considering the data’ as PGMOL urged to act

…You’ll allow a Liverpool ref conspiracy theory with no merit. But when I say united are being held to a higher standard by referees nothing… Why was Gibbs-white on the field for something dalot got sent off for 2 weeks ago? And nunez wasn’t…
Anon

Poking the Old Tiger
My word. How times change. On the same day Manchester United go to the City ground and are beaten for the first time since 1992, outside of the Borough of Trafford, and in the City of Manchester (Some City fans love to claim that the only PL team from Manchester is City. Not strictly true. See Newton Heath and the boundary changes of 1974) Manchester City paraded the first five major trophies won, ever, by an English club in a calendar year.

And, in the same year, in the PL, most wins (29), most points (93), most goals scored (95), and fewest goals conceded (38). (Thanks Sky).

I genuinely don’t write this to crow. I’ve bored all of you before with the fact that I watched my first game at Maine Road in 1972. We lost.

Something, having chosen City as my team, I/we have had to suck up for over 30 years.  The high points in that time?  Trying desperately to stay in the topflight and failing to do so more than once.  Biggest game?  The derby.  That is to say, it was for us, but not for the majestic United.

Personally, I hated those games because, if we ever manged to score first, I always had the feeling that we’d just poked the sleeping tiger with a big pointy stick and, more often than not, the tiger woke up and properly bit us on the arse.

But that was then, and this is now.

I’m writing this because I would never, in my wildest dreams, have thought that Manchester City could have achieved what they have thus far.  Feel free to write in with any ‘115 charges’ and ‘Guardiola only buys teams’ mails that you think fit.  It’s your absolute right to do so.

But, as an Old Fart in his 60s, forgive me when I tell you that I really don’t care.  Manchester City is, on the 30th of January 2023, and by definition, the best football club in the World.

One point further, and I’m sure I’ll get pelters from other City fans about this, but I wouldn’t be overly or massively upset if we didn’t win the PL this season.  I hope we will, and I think we will, but a perverse part of me hopes that Villa or Spurs will. (Liverpool might but Arsenal won’t).

Which, finally, brings me to Kevin CFC.  Awright Our Kid?

In reflection, instead of pouncing on one sentence in a particular mail, have a gander at the one I wrote in the morning mailbox of the 29th of November.  And then the replies, the same afternoon from both Mike, LFC Dubai and the hilarious, but true, equivalent, from Bladey Mick.
Mark (You’re welcome, Kevin) MCFC.

…Hilarious to see cuddly media favourite Ange ‘mate’ Postecoglu move away from his ‘I’ve never complained about refs and we MUST respect them and their decisions all all times’ to complaining about the ref and var as soon as there were a couple of decisions he didn’t like in the Brighton game.

It also shows that the media and fan pile on to Arteta was completely unjustified as every single manager is just as bad as each other when it comes to complaining about a ref’s decision they don’t like.

Not that it was coveted heavily in the mailbox but the independent hearing showed that the FA admitted they considered Arteta and Arsenal worthy of more harsh punishment simply because of his higher profile in the game….if the FA considered this fair game then why wouldn’t this extend to referees thinking the same?

Surely to believe that refs are totally immune to any outside influence and personal feeling to certain players/managers is more naive than believing some have an outright conspiracy against their team (ie: Tierney and Liverpool fans)

Can we please have someone a bit more hard hitting than Michael ‘apple thrower’ Owen to take Howard Webb to task on the awfulness that is officiating and var in this country? Instead of picking and choosing which incidents to review which tend to be clear examples of good process or terrible process show the inconsistent decisions that fans moan about.

Why is one tackle a red when an identical one isn’t, same for penalties. Let’s hear the var audio to those identical incidents, I’m sure you can find ones where the same ref gives alternate explanations from game to game. Or just release every var audio from every game for people to come to their own conclusions.
Rich,AFC

Emery out!
Unai Emery was my candidate for the manager of the season. But any manager that loses to this Man Utd team shouldn’t be considered as a top manager. Emery out.
Yusuf, Abuja

READ MORE: Erik ten Hag sneaks into top 10 Premier League managers of 2023