Mbappe and PSG are stuck with each other, and Casemiro ‘a breath of fresh air’ at Man Utd…

The Mailbox has praise for Casemiro and Man Utd despite their Europa League sloppiness. Also: Kylian Mbappe and PSG have stitched themselves up.

Get your views in to theeditor@football365.com…

Dominance despite sloppiness
United were clearly the better team and had over 78% possession and over 30 shots but they were just disappointing in the final third.

The first half was dominant from United but lacked speed in the final third to create good chances to finish. Dalot and Malacia played very narrowly but still did their defensive work. Casemiro was excellent and showed the difference between a fantastic defensive midfielder and an average defensive midfielder like McTominay.

The second half was better as we played with a bit more speed on the ball but was just lacking any type of quality in the final third. It also did not help that the second-choice goalkeeper for Omonoia had the game of his life in that game. We did score in the last few minutes with a well-taken shot by McTominay but the fact it took till the 93rd minute and after over 30 shots to get a goal shows that United are still clearly early in a rebuild of the club and the introduction of Ten Hag’s style of football.

Overall, a positive from the game was we were very dominant which is a nice change from having to play counter-attacking football. Casemiro was my man of the match as he is just a breath of fresh air compared to what United have had for the last 6-7 years in midfield.
Max Of Whitegate

Mbappe and PSG are stuck with each other
I can’t remember when (or if) I actually sent a previous letter about mbappe but I pointed out that whether they like it or not psg and mbappe are stuck with each other forever now unless one of them climbs down.

The level of influence they gave mbappe in his contract on signings and team selection is absurd and no manager will want a player in their squad who can override their selections.

His wages are so high that even crack smoking finance crashing Barca transfer team would run screaming from the room.

the transfer fee and signing fee would be big enough that Newcastle would say “I’m out”

Finally the agent fees are big enough that even Mino raiola is looking up (he’s definitely taken the elevator to b1) and saying it’s a complete rip off.

And while his contract is only for three years when was the last time you saw a 27 year old negotiate lower contracts when his current one expired?

Neither party had no idea just how hard they were fucking themselves when they struck that deal. There stuck now until mbappe retires or fades so much he can’t justify better contracts…
Lee

…Tim Sutton (Mitro 6 – 2 Nunez), some things are worth repeating, a snippet from your mail on how no-one can afford Mbappe.

“So that just leaves Barcelona, who are a massive basketcase already. They can’t afford anyone, but since their buisnis pln comprises hurling bits of their house at creditors, screaming “F*ckityolo” while rolling naked on a bed of crumpled player contracts and signing them at random with the large pen in their anus….”

Love it, pearls of wisdom so eloquently put are one of the reasons I come back here every day, thank you buddy.
Jon, Cape Town (Haaland is finished, he has been figured out. Last 4 games he’s scored 3, 2, 1, 0 – all you have to do is keep him on the bench for 90 mins and he can’t do nuffin, he’ll need an own goal against the scousers to continue the trend)

Enjoy Bobby
Just a quick one from me today. I guess, or least I hope, you get lots of these emails. But I just wanted to talk about Bobby Firmino.

This season looks set to be a strange one for Liverpool – we are not at the level of previous seasons – but as with many teams in a bit of transition we are capable of great performances. It is looking very 2017/18, and the reality is we could just as easily win 4 nil on Sunday as lose 4 nil.

But a word for Bobby. Rangers weren’t great, and Liverpool weren’t in the first half either. But what a show from the man. His vision remains incredible. Work rate is second perhaps only to James Milner in the annals of the Klopp years. His performances this season are a reminder of how he helped knit that front line together in first place.

For me, it’s a true measure of football knowledge – as soon as someone says ‘Firmino doesn’t score enough’ I know I can immediately walk away from a conversation that’s not worth having. It’s one of the worst takes in modern football.

At 31 he may not be around in that attack for too many years. But we need to treasure days like that. A Liverpool legend.

Cheers,
Marc

Lost time
I’m well aware Liverpool could still lose to either or both of Ajax and Napoli and render this moot but last night in the Battle of Britain there were 9 second half subs and yet only 1 minute of added time.
It’s possible (although not probable) that Liverpool catch Napoli on points in Group A and the winner be decided on goal difference.
So it’s utterly wrong that just because Rangers took a hiding the match was effectively stopped early. It’s not schoolboy football.
Did the fourth official decide to show the Gers clemency? Who authorised him to do so?
Fred Riley

Sit tight for 47 years
I remember being in Menorca on holiday when Newcastle signed Alan Shearer for £15 million pounds. I remember turning to my friend at the time and saying, ‘no one will ever pay that much for a player again surely?’ … how spectacularly wrong I was.

Fast forward almost 30 years and we’re seeing Haaland on reported wages of £900k A WEEK , with all his added bonuses, and the contract and fees being suggested for Mbappe are insane as outlined by Tim Sutton.

Which begs the question, at what point does this pyramid of money and agents and fees and wages collapse? Surely they cannot continue exponentially? Surely we don’t want them to. At what point does our love of the game give way to disgust at the excess?

Football used to be a working class sport, where people could go after a hard week’s work, meet friends, and cheer on people who were not so far removed from themselves. Their wages weren’t that much higher than those in the stands cheering them on. I’m not painting the past as some rosey perfect world, but football truly was for the masses. Fast forward to now, and as an Arsenal fan, its taken a long while for us to see ourselves reflected in our team. One of the benefits of a young squad is that they haven’t quite yet accrued the trappings of wealth and they have a hunger that emulates the fan in the stands. Yet if rumours are to be believed, even prodigal sons like Martinelli are now asking for doubling of their wages. Can we, as a non-petro-national team truly afford to pay him that? Do we want to?

But there is hope, footballing hope rather than climate hope, as a planet, we are past peak oil production, and have approximately 47 years of natural resources before we have exhausted everything. So we probably have another half a century of petro-clubs like Man City, Newcastle, PSG et al before others get a chance to win stuff. So you know…every cloud.
John Matrix AFC

Like Tories on Tinder
Every few weeks or so, it seems, some young person, possibly a recent graduate from Edinburgh or Bristol or Durham, who looks like they were grown in a vat from a strand of Michael Gove’s hair, has an article in The Daily Mail bemoaning the fact that they can’t get anyone on Tinder, or Bubble or more daringly Grindr, to swipe right because they’re Tories. And it’s quite tiresome because it’s not enough for these people to know that they’ve won utterly, that their grand project to reorder society for the worse is well underway. They feel hard done by because they’re not liked in the process. Just because they’re willing architects in the immiseration of the nation, ripping the drum of the global economy apart to see what makes it go “bang”, isn’t a reason for people not to want to kiss them! It’s just really unfair!

Anyway, a lot of emails seem to be coming in from Manchester City and Newcastle fans recently. Not sure why it made me think about that.
Dara O’Reilly, London

Be careful what you wish for
Richard, you’ve asked the question why an owner can’t invest in his own business. The answer is that he can. There are no limits on investing on infrastructure, training facilities etc. What FFP is designed to do is prevent owners from ‘lending’ their clubs huge amounts of money for depreciating assets (players transfers and wages) in the chase for success. This is so that if an owner departs they won’t collapse the club by calling in those debts.

Plus, and this seems fairly critical, clubs can spend whatever income they earn on playing staff. Amazing, I’m not sure why no one thought to look into that. Oh, that’s right, every other team does that. They spend TV money, commercial income, income from player sales.

Of course, in the paranoid mind of a City fan FFP was created by the cartel solely to keep them at the top table and keep City out. Let’s have a look at the result of FFP 10 years after its introduction:

In 2019, the net loss in European football was €125 million (a 92% fall from 2009) following the first-ever consecutive years of overall profitability in 2017 and 2018. These figures suggest that FFP has had the desired effect in moving clubs away from losses.

You mention ownership investment in other industries as if that’s remotely comparable but to play along, what your ownership is doing is not investing, it is underwriting losses. Your club is a vehicle for sportswashing and even if it were a business seeking growth in value, the fact that so much Abu Dhabi related sponsorship is propping up the club means that no serious investor would ever seek to purchase them because the income streams would fall off a cliff once Abu Dhabi are no longer involved.

Moving on to another point, incremental success has been possible, I gave you 3 examples of clubs that had recently achieved that (from positions outside of the Champions League which I thought was rigged to keep everyone in it at the top so I’m confused now) and 3 examples of clubs that have spent similar amounts which haven’t. You’ve completely ignored that point as it doesn’t suit your argument that the ONLY way to achieve success is to outspend all other teams.

It appears that what you’d prefer is unlimited owner investment so that clubs with state ownership can make the PL their plaything as if that’s fairer than clubs spending the money that they earn. We’re probably not far off that scenario so we’ll see how much fun that is.
James Outram, Wirral

…Oh no, James Outram of the Wirral is sitting in judgement on Manchester City.

What are we to do?

After all, the bothered and obsessed James Outram appears to be more interested in our little club than he is in his own. Is it because the magnificent Manchester City have stymied his team? Denied his team the trophies they so richly deserve?

Well, he can stamp his feet all he wants because, despite what he clearly wanted to happen, and he can/does lay his own misinterpretations on what was said or emailed, but the fact remains that football was flabbergasted at the paucity of UEFA’s case against us and CAS agreed. In fact, there’s an excellent case to answer that this was only brought against City because of the malign, undue influence of clubs like Liverpool and united, insisting on it.

That’s the top and bottom of it.

CAS agreed with City.

Bitch and whinge all you want but it’s gone. It’s over and has been over for a couple of years now. I hate to break it to you but it’s over. Shall I repeat it as many times as you repeatedly bore the bejesus out of the Mailbox with this? I know you consider it to be a mission in life but cleaning graffiti off a Birkenhead wall would now be more productive.

It’s over. Your furrow has been ploughed.

Now, can we address the malfeasance of your own club, pleae? In the last few years, whilst the American hedge fund capitalist billionaires who own them have been sanctioned in America for cheating in the NFL, Liverpool have had a transfer ban, hacked another clubs database and paid compensation for it, bought houses around Anfield to buy the land to extend onto but allowed the area to go to shit so they could buy other houses on the cheap so cheating the householders of a fair price for their house, incorrectly defended a racist who bites other players, decried other clubs’ transfer business and then broke world records themselves, been caught tapping up other clubs players and had to issue a public apology for it, wrote to UEFA to interfere in another clubs business (out of the goodness of their own heart? No. It would benefit them. Pretty distasteful really) and their sponsors have been fined over a billion dollars for money laundering and breaking sanctions with Iran and conspired with United (how low can you go?) to produce Big Picture and the European Super League. Admittedly, City were in there too but both City and Chelsea weren’t in on the start.

So, you can choose to wash over the above if you like/probably will but the fact remains that your snotty nosed club is as dirty as the Mersey.

Glass houses and all that.

And whilst we’re on about glass houses, perhaps Mr Paul Murphy can convince the rest of the world that the double, reigning champions of the worlds most favourite league are “irrelevant”. Have to say, I’ve seen some choice plums in the Mailbox but you really take the biscuit. The very bitter Mr Murphy says that whilst his own club is currently spending hundreds of millions in the event of trying to become relevant again. Still, he can always be REALLY cutting and just call us names, can’t he?

Pot. Kettle. Black.

Just trying to help….as ever
Levenshulme Blue, Manchester 19

…There has been a lot of discussion about City and FFP rules over the last couple of days. Whether City broke the rules or not is a long debate that will never be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction, but I for one think the FFP rules should be abolished.

If you can afford something, why should someone else have the right to stop you from buying it and tell you what you can or cant do with your own money ( as long as its legal).

I understand that the rules are there to protect clubs from insolvency and players/manager wages* but these issues can easily be solved with a different solution. ( * in theory, but we all know they are really there to keep the big money with the rich club cartel and stop others breaking through )

For transfers, the full fees with any potential add-ons should be placed in escrow. as terms are met the funds are released to the selling club, if at the end of the player contract some add-on conditions are not met, the remaining funds return to the buying club.

Similarly for players/manager wages, the entire cost of the contract to be placed in escrow and as players earn their wages and get bonuses the funds are released, at the end of the contract any remaining money returns to the club.

This means that clubs biggest financial commitments are met upfront and if you can really afford it, put your money up.
JD

Sarnie craic
OK Rocastle7 has a point but it has highlighted a gross misuse of the descriptive use of the word sandwich. Lets imagine that England are defending a corner in their WC game against Wales. Harrys Kane and Maguire are marking Bale, pressing him from each side. FAR TOO MANY PEOPLE, PUNDITS AND COMMENTATORS refer to this situation as a “Harry Sandwich”. This is nonsense.

A sandwich is defined by its contents between the bread. So it’s a Bale sandwich, with Harry bread. No one eats a bread sandwich. This has enraged me for years so I’m delighted to finally get to talk about it.
Kev (tackling the important issues of the day)

Read more: Time to talk terms: Every Premier League club’s most urgent contract decision