Prem fans need to ‘doom’ pay-per-view ‘insanity’ to failure…
Keep those mails coming to theeditor@football365.com…
All centre-backs are terrible now…
All the recent debate about whether Harry Maguire is any good or not seems to be missing the most interesting point:
All the centre backs are s**t now. I don’t mean all the Man Utd centre backs, or all the English centre backs.
I mean every centre back.
No one really seems to want to admit it, maybe they don’t realise it. But just look at the centre back pairings of the Big 6 teams and some of the names in there: Holding, Matip, Dier, Sanchez, Zouma. Even the supposed good ones like Van Dijk and Laporte have been embarrassed recently.
There’s a reason why journalists tend to say that Utd and other teams need a ‘top class centre back’ these days, instead of naming an actual player they could sign. It’s because these players don’t exist.
What’s that you say? Koulibaly? Upamecano? Skriniar? Oh, my sweet summer child. Give these players a few weeks in the Premier League and actually watch them play and you’ll see they’re just as nervy, slow, or braindead as the ones you’re currently yelling at for letting Neil Maupay clear through on goal again.
Maybe its because the modern game, with its demands for high lines and constant pressing of opposition forward lines, makes it an extremely difficult position to play now, but it’s been a problem for a few years and it’s getting worse.
So no, Harry Maguire isn’t very good. But he’s the most expensive defender in the world, and Pep and Mourinho both wanted him. He’s pretty much undroppable for club and country. He’s one of the best centre backs in the league, and arguably in the world.
Because they’re all crap.
Unknown J
Man Utd centre-back solutions…
I know alot of people have spoken about this before but I will bring it up again: turn Wan-Bissaka to a right sided centre back. He has pace, he can tackle as well. Positioning can be taught. Then who goes to right back you ask? Jesse Lingard! Now hear me out: if memory serves me correctly J-Lingz’s first game for United opening day under LVG was at rightback. Correct me if I am mistaken please. He is perfect for the position. It’s the natural progression of an average United winger. Valencia even became one of the best in the league after moving there. Ashley Young plays for freaken Inter Milan went to a world cup as starting LB after making the move. Jesse Lingard needs to move to right back, AWB to Centreback. Has anyone thought this for Jesse? There is a decent footballer somewhere, he needs the right position
Thank You Very Much
Dumi Koza, East London(The one in South Africa)
Pay-per-view Football
Dear MC,
I write this evening with a heavy heart and a light wallet. As a mostly ‘armchair fan’ I, like so many others, have lived through the ever-increasing prices of following the game we love. And the often ludicrous justifications of them.
The first line of pure bullsh*t I remember well was when games were split between multiple broadcasters.
Lie: “Increased competition between brodcasters will be good for consumers”
Reality: Want to watch your team? You’ve now got two (or more) subscriptions to pay, not one. £££££
Good for consumers my arse.
The other real stickler has been the cost of these services. Steadily increasing over the years, to the point where current estimates are the average armchair fan forks out £1000 per annum. A quick tally tells me I’m coming in a bit below that (£768), but that’s mainly thanks to an aggressive renegotiation of my Sky contract about 12 months ago. (Threaten to leave, the ‘retention team’ can always offer the best deals)
Which brings me to the current £14.95 single charge for non broadcasted games. What in the actual f*ck? Who thought that price point was justifiable? Hey, we’re only getting £64 a month out of this chump. How can we further screw them? Let’s start charging an obscene amount for something we’ve been broadcasting free for the last six months. Because we aren’t all in this shitshow of a pandemic together, it’s all about the bottom line.
Stepping back and attempting to analyse this calmly…
This insane price will adversely affect the older and less tech savvy generation who feel they have no other choice. The ‘younger’ folks (and I include myself in there, despite being old enough to remember Crown Paints sponsoring Liverpool) will simply begin relying even more heavily on the multitude of ‘online solutions’.
Of course, this will also affect fans of clubs in the bottom half of the table proportionately more. Games involving the top six are televised more often than not. What about the bottom six? Should Sheffield Utd, Fulham, Brighton & Man Utd (lol) fans be penalised? Of course not, it is an unquestionably unfair proposal from the Premier League and the major broadcasters.
So, a display of unfathomable greed by an out of touch, greed fuelled and technologically outmatched bunch of dinosaurs. One which will further alienate the next generation of fans, ensuring an even quicker death for what is already fast becoming an outdated payment model.
Who on earth is making these decisions? Who is advising these morons? Who thought this was a good idea? Who the fuck is going to pay £14.95 for some half arsed coverage of a game not deemed one of the top five fixtures of the weekend?
Insanity. Doom it to failure by not supporting it. Without us, they have nothing.
Spoons LFC
Hi everyone,
The premier league can go f*ck itself. £14.95 per match to watch on Pay Per View is criminal. There’s no justification whatsoever for this fee. None. If the Premier League feel streaming is the future and this is their price model they will be crushed even further by illegal streams. The bubble will eventually burst and everyone will act surprised. I’m absolutely disgusted with this decision.
John, Villain, Ireland
Dear 365,
The millionaire players refused a salary cut, while working fans pray they will not lose their jobs in the growing recession. Now, the Premier league comes, bowl in hand, to their loyal customers saying “Please, I want some more”.
Let’s not waste our time ranting at an organisation that has shown no interest in its customers opinions for years.
Fans of all clubs, let us vote with our wallets. Refuse to pay a penny extra to watch any match. Without fan payments, the new pay per view system is unworkable.
Yours,
J Wilsdon
With the announcement of the per game costs of the matches that are to be televised, NOW can we say that the Premier League and FA are bringing the game into disrepute?
TX Bill (Liverpool still the favorites next week) EFC
£15 a match so yous can continue to dish out £250,000 a week to new signings?? Kiss my ass you money grabbing c**ts
Duck
F*cking Joke
Dale, Leeds
Leave ‘Arry alone
First and foremost this is a basic statistical defence because people’s eyes tend to show them what they want to see. Harry is good, very good in fact. So good that someone deemed him worth 80 million and someone deemed that acceptable to pay. But why? Well the proof is in the pudding..
Let’s take five high quality centre backs from the premier league.
In my order they would be Virgil VanD, Harry M, A Laporte, Toby Alderweirld & James Torkowski.
I went to Whoscored.com to see their average ratings over the past 5 years. All being spent in the Premier League except for A.L. spending 1 & 1/2 season at Bilboa too.
So here are the averages in the league for the last five seasons (Brackets excluding this season)
VVD: 7.17 ( 7.35)
HM: 6.8 (7.07)
AL: 6.88 (7.02)
TA: 6.79 (6.83)
JT: 6.97 (6.97) (7.17 if you exclude his first season in PL)
What this shows me is that VVD is a monster and well ahead of the pack. Truly astounding figures.
JT is far more impressive than would be first suspected, but that said he does play in a highly structured low block based around solidity. That also said, take out this and his first and that is the Premier League second highest rated defender. Wow.
TA has struggled for some time now so that is not a big surprise, what is is that he hasn’t hit over a 7.00 average in five years.
AL is a solid defender it seems. Consistently hovering around the 7.0 mark.
Last is HM, and as you can see he has not been that bad. Harry Maguire has been the 2nd/3 best in the league over the last 5 years. He was the 3rd best CB last season (7.17) after VVD (7.35) and JT (7.19).
I would say give him a break, everyone goes through bad patches(VVD is at 6.47 & AL at 6.33 this season, granted HM is 5.73). The Man Utd defence is a shambles right now but I think that is more down to structure than personnel and personal choices rather than tactical ones. Harry arrived at United and the defence got better. Really is as simple as that.
Was 80 million too much? Yes, But with VVd at 75, AL at 57 and James tarkowski bids being rejected at 35 million, I think Harry’s true value should have been anywhere from 40-65 million. Which I believe is what City were willing to pay but Leicster wanted more. And if there ever is any player who is overpriced, you god damn better believe it’s Manchester United who will buy them.
Calvino Ps I like my last line because it’s true, except when it’s a really good player (Sancho/Zaha)
I love Twitter
Where else can I watch the superlative clips from @Crap90sFootball and the random swearyness of @GrumpySkeletor
The trick is that you should never post/comment anything and never read the comments of others.
Watching clips from what football was like 20 – 30 years ago, an era when I regularly watched football in person, brightens these dark days.
Simon Kitchener
The total package. #TUFC #ECFC #Crap90sFootballpic.twitter.com/617LSJKQsi
— Crap 90s Football (@Crap90sFootball) October 9, 2020
Lookalikes…
Loving the recent football lookalikes.
A few more for you;
(Original) Ronaldo and Craig “Red Dwarf” Charles
Dimitar Berbatov and Andy Garcia
Alessandro Del Piero and Bruce Springsteen
Dario, Herts
Mikey wrote in this morning to mention a bunch of lookalikes. I’ve been reading the site since the Danny Kelly days 20 years ago when I went to uni. Younger readers (and maybe even some of your writers?) might not be aware, but F365 actually had a “football lookalikes” feature where readers often sent them in. The footballer would, amusingly, be captioned with the lookalike’s name, and vice versa. I had a few published back then, but the only one that sticks in my mind is Gabriel Heinze and Barry Manilow. I was gutted when you got rid of it, and have always thought you should resurrect it. Quality light relief.
How about film star Andre Lacazette and goal-machine John David Washington?
Matt, Sheffield
Harry Maguire…
Watson,
What a crap vile vindictive article about Maguire you should be ashamed to write such tripe about a talented England centre half you remain in the press gutter!!
Andrew Maguire