Man Utd treble winners are way above any other English sides…

Keep your mails on the Man Utd treble winners and anything else coming to theeditor@football365.com.

Liverpool fans and VAR conspiracies…
I’m a Liverpool fan and I’ve written in before on VAR conspiracy theories being ridiculous whether coming from my fellow supporters or supporters of other clubs. Reading Cathal’s email about how VAR is intentionally penalizing Liverpool to keep the league interesting just left me astounded- do grown men actually believe this? That’s a rhetorical question of course- I know plenty of my fellow supporters do and I fight with them about it all the time.

How would the conspiracy work exactly? The FA and the refs and VAR would all be in cahoots with the mission of denying Liverpool positive reviews from VAR? Does that sound likely to you? As recently as 2 games ago, we got a penalty given for us and a penalty award overturned for our opponents. How does that factor into the conspiracy? We’ve had more calls go against us than for us, but many of them have been pretty marginal and we are only a third of the way through the season anyway.

What’s even funnier is that last season we were dealing with people calling us ‘LiVARpool’- the arguments from our fans was that it would be ridiculous to believe that the entire Premier League refereeing and administrative machinery would be rigged and it was obvious that things evened themselves for most clubs over the season.  Guess many of them changed their tune real quick.

The idea that there is a vast conspiracy against us is ridiculous but I guess it is quite fitting for the Trumpian world we live in today. I can only do my part and stand against that nonsense.
Turiyo Damascene, Kigali, Rwanda

I’m not surprised to see that like most Liverpool fans, Cathal has failed in basic comprehension. If Liverpool have had the most points ruled out because of dodgy VAR, it merely shows how blatantly biased refs are towards Liverpool. Clearly, refs blindly give incorrect decisions in favor of Liverpool, which have to be corrected retrospectively by VAR. Imagine, for instance a world without VAR. By his own calculations, Liverpool would have got 21 undeserved points from decisions made by referees that should have gone the other way. I can see why they’re getting desperate to have fans back in the stadium. They certainly feel that they need every advantage they can get. Curiously though, I would have thought other teams would also have benefitted from fans and not just Liverpool. Ah well, what do I know. I guess their fanbase really is special.
MM, Man United, India

Luck vs talent
Paul from Dublin inadvertently brings up an interesting topic in his email dismissing United’s treble winners as more lucky than brilliant.  In the interest of not going down this rabbit hole until something interesting happens in a few days, I wanted to ask the Mailbox a question on your favorite result.  Was it because your team was inferior and got lucky or was it because they were better than the rest by a country mile (I assume this is longer than a city mile?)  Take my two examples for instance.  Liverpool beat A.C. Milan in 2005 despite being inferior at every position.

It was pure luck and you could play that game one hundred times and A.C. Milan would win 99 times.  Liverpool beat Spurs in 2019 and you could tell the minute the match started that Liverpool were not going to lose.  It was like the final the year before where you could just tell Real Madrid were better than Liverpool.  For me, I’d take the 2005 game every single time.  The surprise and shock of it all.  So for Paul, I’d suggest that a team that lives in the heads of supporters in terms of the magical moments created is all that matters, so while he may be right, it’s not really an interesting point to most fans of the club in question.
Niall, Denver

Can we please dispel this myth one and for all that Bayern Munich dominated Manchester United in the 1999 Champions League final?

By every single metric, United bested Bayern starting with an xG of 2.26 (Utd) to 1.54 (Bayern). Think xG is a load of nonsense? Fine. Total shot count was 19 to 18 in United’s favour, with 7 on target vs 5 for Bayern.  Oh, but Bayern hit the post twice, I hear you say. That’s a miss, any which way you look at it.

Now the tiki-taka purists might want to point to possession stats instead. Again, surprise, surprise, it is heavily in United’s favour – 61% to only 39% for Bayern. Pass completion rate? 72% to United, 68% to Bayern.

Not enough? There’s more! Total passes (and passes completed) also heavily favour United with 468 (336) to a measly 303 (205) for the Germans. And this was done without both their first-choice central midfield pairing of Keane and Scholes.

Obviously though, and most importantly, the only stat that truly matters was the final score: 2-1 to United (mirroring their xG, rather unsurprisingly). United played Bayern three times in the Champions League that season, and not once did Bayern come out on top, so there’s no complaint that it was an off night for them, or that United got lucky.

Winning in the last minute is not lucky, it’s the hallmark of champions. The most basic thing you learn in football is to play to the whistle, and as long as that final whistle hasn’t blown, the game’s not over. This never-say-die attitude is what everyone wishes their teams had.

@Paul, Dublin – FYI, Bergkamp didn’t miss his penalty, Schmeichel saved it, which is, you know, what goalkeepers are paid to do. So, maybe stop peddling that myth as well.

Also, according to you, it’s blind luck that United kept on finding a way to win, nothing at all to do with having a winning mentality and being better than the opposition over the ENTIRE 90 minutes. Although to be fair, I’m pretty sure it’s purely down to skill when your team does it, eh?

I know it’s hard for Liverpool (and Gunners) fans to accept the fact that there is a team out there who is actually better than yours (both past and present). In the 1999 season, United lost only 3 games (going undefeated in the CL as well), which is less than the so-called ‘Invincibles’ managed. Yes, pipe down you lot.

In their ‘Invincible’ season, Arsenal were beaten by Manchester United in the FA Cup semi-finals, Middlesbrough in both legs of their League Cup semi-final, and Inter Milan and Dynamo Kyiv in the Champions League group stages. They reached the knockout stage of Europe’s premier competition, but were beaten by Chelsea at Highbury to fall out of Europe. So, 6 games lost then.

How many games did the bestest ever™ Liverpool team lose last season? EIGHT.

Until some other team comes along that can actually match or exceed United’s accomplishments in a single season, the Treble winners (Quadruple, if you count the Intercontinental Cup), will always be head and shoulders above all.
Sanjit Randhawa, Kuala Lumpur

I think Paul, Dublin has a point but equally is being quite harsh on the treble winners.  Lets not forget how they managed to get out of their group (has there been a more difficult group to escape from) and completely bossed a very good Inter Milan, defeated the then European Royalty of a Del Piero and Zidane led Juventus who were looking to get to their third European final in a row, and were made to look inferior to Bayern because they conceded in the 5th minute and literally had to spend an entire match chasing a goal against a tough side just itching to pick them off on the counter without Keane or Scholes.  It’s well worth remembering that United won THREE major trophies that year, a task that even last years Liverpool or supermoney Chelsea or Man City have failed to do. They also won the league the following year by 18 points and let their foot off the gas once the title was secured.  The 99 team was the beginning of a 3-year iconic team, which itself was the beginning of an almost unparalleled 13 years of success.  The treble winners were not the final product.

Anyway, I actually think Paul is on to something but for slightly different reasons.  When Shinawatra owned Manchester City and had Sven as their manager, I remember watching a MOTD highlight of a Man City match that showed a lovely bit of skill from either Stephen Ireland or Elano.  It was used as an example by Mark Lawrenson of how the league is just chock full of quality that even a team like Man City, who at the time were still somewhere in mid-table, had Sven as a manager and players capable of great skill.

It’s very difficult to compare teams from different eras.  Without wanting to take anything away from the treble winners, who, whether they had a strong league or not that year, were unquestionably the best club in the world and couldn’t do anything more to prove it, todays leagues seem to have a really rich spread of talent across the length of the table.
Samwise, MUFC

Impossible to compare quality of seasons…
Hi,

There is a saying that goes “whoever is top of the table at the end of the season deserves to be there” or something like that. It’s not so much a saying as it is a bleeding obvious statement that only exists as a retort to the type of idiotic shouty football fans who think luck is a determining factor in winning a 9 month long competition consisting of 500 millionaires. If Paul, Dublin truly believes United or any title winning team was lucky in their success then there is no hope or point in debating you, and yes that kind of obtuse insistence on your opinion as fact in the face of overwhelming evidence to contrary does sit you right next to the flat earthers in the never ending ‘tolerated because your essentially harmless’ procession of human tragedy.

Back to original point of this twisted thread. Here is a list of things that change from season to season; teams, managers, players, coaches, owners, referees, rules, stadiums, technology, pitches, weather, fixture scheduling, and probably loads more things that are beyond me right now. My point is how can anyone reasonably suggest that they can directly compare the competitiveness or quality of any season with another when so many variables exist. It’s ridiculous. If a team wins the league it’s because they were the best that season, you can’t know or judge how much better or worse that team is than the team who won it the year before because those two teams will never and can never play each other, the same applies to all the other teams in all the other seasons.

For me the only metric by which to judge a particular season is how much I enjoyed watching it, which is incredibly subjective and not up for debate, but obviously the seasons where United won the title were definitely the best and nearly all the others were crap.
Dave, Manchester (2011/12 was one of my favourites, it was so much fun, even with the soul crushing ending)

No sore loser here…
Joe AFC, sorry to disappoint you, but there’s no sore loser here. My first mail literally contained the line “I do not begrudge Liverpool the win, that is the potential hazard of the methods Jose uses, as 16 Conclusions highlighted”. Not sure how you read that and jumped to your conclusion, but hey ho; perhaps you are another fan who immediately sees tribalism in everything?

The intention of that original mail was to give people who I read complaining about Jose’s line, a potential explanation for why Jose stated he felt the best team lost, and to explain why i think his philosophy and approach to football might have made him come to that conclusion. If I failed to be clear with that, I’m sorry.

I then went to on give examples of how I think other managers come to different conclusions based on their own philosophies and lastly, I wanted to defend the art of defending and keeping clean sheets, which I personally really value as part of football!!

I’m disappointed Spurs lost, I felt we played well enough to get something from the game, but I accept the outcome. You’ll hear no Trumpian demands to “Stop the Steal” or so on from me.

The intention of yesterday’s mail was to respond to Lee and Joe, one of whom I felt did a hatchet job on my original points and the latter who I just disagree with on the emphasis sport/football should put on being entertainment.

I’ve literally never watched AFCTV, though I’m aware of its existence; so I’ll pass on any comparison between yourself and that section of your own fanbase if that’s ok with you!

Thanks
Paul, (Spurs), T.Wells

Why Mourinho and Spurs are made for each other
The perfect combination. A manager who prioritises 3 points/ not losing over anything else. A fan base that are so desperate to be part of the conversation that they will accept whatever version of football is presented to them, so long as it keeps them in the race.

He’s found the perfect club/ fans.  Let’s hope it brings them some version of success, it’s a hefty price they’ll have to pay.
Cathal

Merry Christmas!
Just wanted to say a quick thank you and Merry Christmas to F365. I know you’ll be working through, but unfortunately with family around I can’t be seen typing emails to a football website…

In what has been a suboptimal 2020, your biases against Man U / Frank Lampard / women’s football / capitalism / Ole / Steve Bruce / Mourinho / teams outside the big 4 / teams outside the Premier League / the nickname Heccy B (yep, its a thing and i’m sticking to it) has helped the year feel ever so slightly normal.

Feels like we might need more of the same for the start of 2021 too…
Simon, Formerly of London