Time to change the narrative around Ten Hag. Manchester United are the Prem’s form team, FFS…

The Mailbox makes the case for giving Erik ten Hag a break with Manchester United going well despite many hurdles. Also: plenty on Chelsea 4-4 City; knackered Newcastle; Mikel Arteta; and more…

Get your views in to theeditor@football365.com…

United are back
Having a terrible season, according to everyone. Rabble of a team, ‘awful’ according to the latest F365 mailbox. Perennial crisis club.

Yet somehow ahead of Newcastle and only 6 points behind Arsenal. Almost like Ten Hag is doing a good job amongst dealing with a colossal injury list, various off field issues, and the ongoing uncertainty the ownership situation is creating.

Funny how the narrative of the season gets set and doesn’t change no matter what the circumstances.
Kevin, Dublin

…If not a conspiracy theorist but…

A long time ago, the media discovered that tragedy and drama sells (in the old days it was newspapers but now it’s web clicks). They also discovered that if you tell a lie loudly and often enough, it eventually is considered true. It is prosaically referred to as the “narrative”.

You know the drill – the media pressure builds, the manager wilts, the fans turn. I sometimes wonder if the journos have some side bets going.

Currently ETH is the target. He’s too strict, he’s lost the dressing room, results are poor, etc. However:
– I don’t think he has played his first choice back four once this season
– He has had to deal with a number of internal personnel issues
– He got us to 3rd last season, won one trophy and finalist in another
– We are currently ahead of both Newcastle and Brighton, the current darlings of the media
– ETH has more points than Klopp at the same stage of his career
– ETH has a better win percentage than the last 4 MUFC managers
– MUFC could easily have won against Arsenal and played Spurs off the park for 20 minutes

Yes, their play is currently abysmal and probably don’t deserve all those points but the club is in turmoil from top to bottom and they’re just trying to hang on. This rubbish about “this is not what United are about” is nostalgic claptrap. That was almost a generation ago. You got to learn to cut crooked before you can learn to cut straight.

Chelsea are probably in just a bad a state but their negative media coverage is a fraction.

I appreciate that we have been a victim of our own popularity, but any chance of a slightly more balanced view? Because sooner or later, it will be your team and manager next.
Adidasmufc (Have not mentioned VAR once!)

…So, form team in the premier League, last five games?

That’s right,

Man Utd!
Hartley MCFC Somerset (should we start talking about a big 8 [eight] – inc. Villa?)

Poch > Ten Hag
After watching that Chelsea Vs City match, my only question is

“Did the Manchester United hierarchy really interview Mauricio Pochettino, and then decided to appoint Erik ten Hag instead?”

That’s next level irresponsibility.
Tunji, Lagos.

Read more: 16 Conclusions on Chelsea 4-4 Manchester City: Sterling, Dias, Palmer, Rodri, Jackson, Southgate

The great entertainers
I wrote in earlier this week about the chelsea spurs game and strange love for big Ange for losing 4-1. But I’m about to dismount my high horse and apologise for my opinion. Call me 180, for I have turned.
I get it now.

Seeing a passionate performance that makes you realise the future is bright. Understanding that mistakes are made due to inexperience/early days of a process under a new manager, but determination to achieve is clear.

Chelsea. Around 92% of all senior staff – owners, coaches, manager, and players – have been at the club less than 2 years or have less than 2 years of first team experience. But just went toe to toe with treble winners. City are years ahead of us and deserved a point. But so did we. The future is bright.

So sorry to spurs and big Ange and all that. I get it now.
Poch is winning me over. Jackson is winning me over. This team are going to grow.

Even if Anthony Taylor and VAR don’t like it. (Never a pen)

Yours forever,
Ash, Cole Palmer for PM, Kent

…Looking forward to reading your 427 conclusions on Chelsea Man City…
@rubym83 (Written in the stars that Sterling would score. I blame Southgate)

On the slide
A word for the slide celebrations;

Rodri takes the gold, with Jackson unlucky to get the silver. Haaland – the flat-track bully – brings up the bronze!
Neill, Ireland

Spurs soothing
Sometimes I write in after a poor performance as an act of catharsis. It’s more like the ‘old man shouting at clouds’ type of behaviour, but whatever.

Although I kind of wanted to highlight a few things I, honestly, just couldn’t be bothered. But todays a new day. A new mailbox. New opinions.

SE, I think you might have the old rose tinted specs on, my old son. Wolves deserved the win; plain and simple. We had, what was it, 2 shots on target. One was the goal and the next was Gio’s effort in the 89th minute (I think).

One thing that really got on my tits was the praise from the commentary team for Davies and, more specifically, Dier for simply doing the basics and not completing f*cking up. It’s some low bar when not doing something really dumb gets your praises sung. Tbf, Davies actually defended quite well at times. Wolves goal came from a throw-in. A throw-in they won because Dier simply knocked the ball out of play. It wasn’t the first time he did it. He looked completely uncomfortable using this system (you know, the one where you play a pass to a team mate who’s in a useful position to receive the ball). Nearly every pass he made was somehow managed to look like the wrong one. The whole ‘lemme get rid of just so I’m not the one with it’ type of panic. No amount of training or game time will make Eric sufficient. I’ve said it before, he seems like a genuinely nice chap off the field. He’s just a bit shit on it.

What else came to light was Sonny can’t be Batman without his Robin. He was more Adam West than Christian Bale yesterday. Maddison was always going to be a huge miss and I was really sad to see – although not a like for like replacement – Bentancur not start. I also appreciate we need to be careful with him. Also, Yves was making all kind of deep lying runs with the ball earlier in the season. When we needed it most, it just wasn’t there. He seemed to be acting as the anchor, just making short passes into whoever else was available. Where have the marauding forward runs gone? That midfield 3 was neither the right combo, nor the right setup.

Happy to see Johnson start and score. He’s a little raw but he could be a diamond in the rough for us.

Gonna go full circle here. It appears to me the number 1 quality an Ange player must have is composure. Dier ranks last in the entire squad for this trait. He used to be a big problem for us and he is is again now.

I’m never angry at snatching 3 points we don’t deserve. I actually quite enjoy those results, if not the performance, because it somehow makes you feel like some kind of football karma is in place for all the times you’ve been wronged. But we didn’t win. Wolves did and kudos to them because they thoroughly deserved it.
Glen, Stratford Spur

Magpies mercy
Bizarre to get schooled by Bournemouth of all teams, but schooled we were. They obviously reckoned we’d be tired and wouldn’t be able to handle an intense game and they were right. All credit to them, they didn’t rest at 1-0 and were probably more likely to score towards the end than us.

Still have faith in Howe, of course, and the players gave what they had, but they are clearly running on fumes, and the injury to Miggy is more salt in the wound. Nice for Miley Lewis to get a start and he acquitted himself well, but when the only attacking sub you have to bring on is Matt Richie you know it’s going to be a tough day!

On the Trippier confrontation, he should have known better than to get involved, but you can see how frustrated the team are right now. There’ll always be a few unreasonable fans, who, to be fair, are entitled to their opinion but I would think 99% of the fans can see the current challenges and are sympathetic.

International break hasn’t been this welcome in a long time.
Derek from Dundalk

Naughty boy
I am wondering why would your readers care who Will Ford personally “likes” or not. I’ve never read such a nasty and empty/ unnecessary piece of sports writing before. As he doesn’t really articulate his reasoning and says he ” likes watching Arsenal” (again not very useful analytics!) I imagine he has some kind of discrimination against Arteta.

In summary, please reprimand Will Ford for a poor and unnecessary childish article.

Regards
Lynne Jones

Read more: I still really, really don’t like Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta, and now I know why

Keep VAR out of it
This weekend there were at least two goals where a VAR review was clearly not necessary. (The 2nd Haaland goal was one of them.) That is the real issue with VAR: the desperate need for them to be INVOLVED in everything. VAR should be scrapped because those running it cannot keep themselves from trying to justify their existence at any cost. I don’t remember – having watched football for four decades prior to VAR’s existence – officiating ever being so bad without VAR. (Hand of God ball aside – it was far too enjoyable watching England supporters cry for years.)
Scott, LFC, Toronto