Man Utd ‘oil tankers’ make tactics ‘unfathomable’
Keep your mails coming to theeditor@football365.com.
Maguire to blame
Harry Maguire should take the full brunt of the blame for Sheffield’s first goal. I know Henderson’s touch let him down, but all footballers are capable of mis-controling a pass, and most players will do so at least once in a match, why should goalkeepers be any different. The difference for goalkeepers is that when it happens to them, there’s a higher likelihood that it will lead to a goal by the opposition. Knowing this, why the f**k is Maguire passing back to his keeper when under pressure, when just to his right (he was facing his own goal) he had Telles, completely free. All the slab-headed dunce needed to do was look up to get a picture of the field and the pass to Telles would have been on. Instead, the big, one-footed idiot passes back to his keeper (with his right foot, because using his left to make the pass to Telles is just way too difficult for a professional footballer who is paid to do nothing else but master the game). Now I know football these days is all about playing out from the back and using keepers like one more out field player, but knowing that mistakes will happen, passing to keepers should be avoided when not absolutely necessary. This is why in my mind the blame lies fully with Maguire. He’s the captain, FFS, he should know better! After the goal was scored he didn’t even make any attempt to apologise to Henderson for putting him in that position. Some leader! Another reasons I’m so annoyed by it, is that it’s these type of avoidable brain farts that he is so often responsible for that end up costing England at international level.
Rob
Man Utd oil tankers
As I watched Matic and Maguire today, with their oil tanker turning radii, and Pogba faff about and lose the ball a billion times, I can’t help but wonder if Solskjaer isn’t getting enough credit for getting this team this far. It’s simply unfathomable how a team that’s so lethal on the counterattack, and frequently relies on this tactic to win games, can do so with players who are that slow and/or careless.
I’m only half-joking when I say that, by the way. It really is tremendously baffling.
DJ, MUFC (6 wins from 6 on the road – shame we’re a bit shit at Old Trafford now) India
United treble jamminess
Fair play to Minty, Lfc and Ferg, Cork for broaching the unbroachable – a non-giddy assessment of the United treble-winning side.
The only tones in which we are ever allowed speak of this almost mythical team are hushed in the extreme. To mention them as anything other than The Greatest Football Team in History is to leave oneself open to ridicule and comparisons with flat-Earthers.
Well, this ‘flat Earther’ has always held the very firm opinion that the Treble-winning side were bang average in ability but world-beaters in sheer blind luck!
As the boys (sorry, I’m assuming Minty is male!) have mentioned, United won the title with 79 points that year, only securing it with half an hour of the season remaining. They dropped points in SIXTEEN games (ie, almost half) and their final points tally was the same as Liverpool achieved last season…..in February!
In the FA Cup they were a last minute Dennis Bergkamp missed penalty away from being knocked out at the semi-final stage and in the Champions League final, they performed the greatest ever smash n’ grab, after being absolutely schooled by a clearly superior Bayern side for 90 minutes.
Would The Greatest Football Team in History really need to rely on so many fine margins and sheer blind luck? I think not.
Ask yourself this; if they were one of the greatest sides in history, how come they didn’t reach another Champions League final for another nine years?!
The treble win was an extraordinary occurrence, however not in terms of football ability, but rather in stratospheric levels of good fortune, the likes of which we will never see again.
Perhaps this season’s title will be won with a points total in the 70’s but if it comes with even 5% of the sheer jamminess United enjoyed in 1999, the winners will also taste Champions League success, a Euromillions windfall and to never again have to watch a Jose Mourinho team play football.
Paul, Dublin
Wide open nonsense
I keep hearing how the EPL is “weird” this season.
“Isn’t it weird. Anyone can win it!”
“I think we can have another season weird season, like when Leicester won it”, and in the previous mailbox we have Morgan saying “Much like the 2016/17 season, any team that puts together a run of wins could win this league!
Here’s the truth on it. It’s not weird, and it’s not wide open. Any team that has lost 3 games or more already this season will not be in the race.
Leicester – 5 losses. You can rule them out. Everton – 4 losses. United, Chelsea, Southampton all have 3 losses each so you can rule them out.
You’re unlikely to win the league with any more than 5 defeats. These teams will lose a lot more than that. Even the season that Leicester won the league, they only lost two games.
So in reality it’s between Liverpool (1 defeat), City (2 defeats and just because of what they’ve done in recent seasons) and Spurs (2 defeats), because they have a Jose in charge and are playing counter attacking football that so favoured Leicester when they won the league. There’s no point in comparing points totals to the last few seasons. Those were exceptional points tallies.
So lets stop all this “wide open” nonsense. Even with all this, Liverpool should probably run away with it, although I do feel Spurs will be the team to push them.
Vinnie Brownlow, LFC, Glasgow
Liverpool v Spurs
Dear Liverpool fans,
I’d love to have Klopp as our manager, I’d love to steal a few LFC players and get them wearing the lillywhite & blue of Spurs. I’d love us to have the ability to spend more than £70m on a centre half* and I’d love us to play in the swashbuckling style of football that scores a vertiable sh*tload of goals and is easy on the eye.
We don’t. We have some fantastic players and some good players. We have little prospect of spending what you do on transfer fees or wages, and then we have Jose. I’m not his biggest fan, never have been, never will be. He coaches a style of football that is undeniably effective but it’s not much fun to watch the other team with 75% of the possession.
I do think that some of your fan base need to pull their head out of their collective asses though. Showing up at Anfield, even a quieter 2,000 fans Anfield, and playing on the front foot against a front-line of Salah & Mane is asking for a spanking, regardless of your rear-guard. We don’t have the creative players in our squad at the moment to play on the front foot and honestly, we haven’t since Eriksen’s form dropped off a cliff about 2 years ago. Lo Celso and Ndombele might give us that in time but they haven’t shown it enough yet for us to rely on them producing it yet.
What’s the point of this mail? I guess it is part congratulations, you’ve got the squad and the playstyle others envy. It’s also a reminder, you’re now the Man Utd of the premier league that everyone now loves to hate** while we simultaneously admire you and wish it was us. Don’t expect other teams to do you the favour of bending over and taking it up the tailpipe, you’re at the top of the pyramid and the rest of us are trying to knock you off your perch. Enjoy it while it lasts and don’t get so whiny when we get close!
*I’m actually quite proud that my club has a financially responsible model but still jealous of the big players we thus miss out on.
**I don’t actually hate Liverpool, I don’t even hate Arsenal. I save my hatred for fascists, Tories (same thing really) and tax-avoiding international conglomerates.
Thom, Bristol-based Spur
My first thought on reading Lee’s mail was to ignore it. If he can’t bring himself to refer to Spurs by their proper name, instead reverting to the oh so unfunny moniker of “Spuds”, is he worth replying to?? Did you see me calling them LiVARpool or any other unfunny derivative? Can we just debate and discuss football as adults in a civilised manner please??
“spent the match handling the ball as often as they could”. There was literally one single instance of handball all game!! And under current laws, it was at very least debateable whether the ball struck Dier’s shirtsleeve (not a handball) or just below it on the skin (handball); the fact that he had a black armband on in honour of Gerard Houllier (Repose en Paix!) hinders this judgemebt somewhat as he was wearing it in a way that masked where his top actually ended. I’ve subsequently seen still images to prove both sides of the argument, so let’s chalk that one down as a 50/50 that the ref was entitled to decide against. Had he given it, I don’t think Spurs could have complained as the arm was up high enough when it didn’t need to be.
On the point of 3 quality chances for Liverpool’s front three – they were half decent, but as I said, they were not 1v1 chances like Son’s or Bergwijn’s two. Each one had a defender in close proximity, and whilst I don’t want to base my argument solely on statistics – historical data used as part of building the xG picture shows that each one was harder to score than miss – each resulting in a less than .5 xG rating, so they were perhaps not as easy as one might imagine. Yes, we’ve seen people score them before; we’ve even seen these particular players score them; but they were not as gilt edged as your memory might have you believe I’m afraid – that’s the benefit of detailed, historic statistical analysis that xG is built on.
Then comes the strawman argument of Kane and Son being the best ever apparently. Literally no one has said that. What had been said is that both are world class finishers currently playing at the peak of their game. Doesn’t mean they can’t have off nights, or they can’t be negated (which Liverpool did quite well on the night, forcing out best chances to have to fall to players who are less clinical).
On the point of putting in similar players from Pool’s defence into the Spurs one leading to a different result. I seem to recall a young lad by the name of Japhet Tanganga did just that last year. The result? No goals for Mane, his direct opponent, and a Liverpool win by 1 goal – so not the vastly different outcome that Lee expected!?!
Again – there were little to no dark arts involved in this game (assuming you mean “dark arts” to be the subtle breaking/bending of the rules in order to gain an overall advantage)!! If you mean “darks arts” simply as a team thats defensive in mindset, then I disagree. As I said before, defending well using good positioning and organisation is a valid, legal part of football, so you don’t get to just dismiss it!! You may not like it and that’s fine, but you can’t just attempt to invalidate it for everyone else including those who attempt it. Defending is actually the hardest part of football; we should celebrate those who do it this well!!!
Joe – I’m nearly forty; I’ve watched Jose as a neutral and as a fan of the club he now manages. I’ve never had an issue with how he sets his teams up, so doubt I’ll ever get bored of it all of a sudden now. I guess the difference is, I think about sport in a different way to you. It’s entertaining – but not entertainment, which is a separate business covering music, theatre, TV and film for me.
Sport has always been/ and should always be about who is the best at something, framed within a set of rules for that particular event. That I get enjoyment from seeing people strive to win is a bonus, I don’t think it is the point of the whole thing, especially for the participants. That’s why I think it’s different from entertainment, where the very objective of the participants is to invoke feelings and reactions in the audience, not to derive something from it for themselves. That’s not to say your view of it as entertainment is wrong, just that I come at it from a different mindset, and thus derive pleasure from it in a different way, whether it’s my team involved, or as a neutral.
At the end of it all, Kevin hit the nail on the head for me! Both teams played their preferred style very well. Klopp probably would have liked to generate more chances and goals for their dominance of possession, but is ultimately happy for the win; Jose will have been very pleased his team defended so well and that they generated the 3 best chances of the game, but be disappointed with the last 90 seconds!
Paul, (Spurs), T.Wells
A reply to Lee’s letter this morning. What a hate-filled, spiteful letter. I suspect Lee is one of those fans that spends his time attending games only to shout sweary comments at the opposition rather than enjoying his own team’s work. We can all agree to disagree with how the game on Wednesday played out and the different approaches to the game by the managers but his entire analysis of the game is beyond sad and appears to have been written by a 12 year old. It’s as follows:
I’ll call Tottenham “Spuds” because that’s so funny and insulting
I cannot bear to praise Kane and Son who have both been fantastic this season (presumably because you feel a Liverpool player deserves more praise)
I’ll bizarrely claim that TAA is not fit so that means that Spurs (sorry, Spuds) are terrible
I suspect that every season Lee’s team of the year is filled 1-11 with Liverpool players whilst he angrily shouts at his computer that other players have somehow made the actual team.
For what it’s worth, Liverpool are unbeaten at Anfield for god knows how long so is it any surprise that a team might turn up there and show them some respect and try to play a cautious game to start with? Keep it tight and then grow into the game like Spurs did in the second half. Take it as a compliment that Liverpool are rated so highly by other managers.
J
Unlucky Liverpool
Liverpool don’t usually get the rub of the green. We’re generally at the bottom (low negative numbers) of any table that shows league points lost due to dodgy refs, and now dodgy VAR. I think we’re on minus 7 points just after 12/13 games this season, keep that up and we’ll be 21 points further back than we genuinely should be. It’s shocking really, but I get it – it keeps the league tight. It’s bad for business seeing Liverpool romp home.
However, given all the injustices I think it’s also right to flag up some good fortune (we finally got some) – fans attending games. It should be all other nothing, its not right that some clubs get a huge lift at home games while others don’t. I’m surprised the league didn’t look to vote this in, and there’s been very little said about it too in particular from the likes of Wilder, Dyche, etc.
It’s an advantage we have over clubs that aren’t allowed bring fans back. Will we take it – Yes. Does it make up for the weekly VAR abuse we receive – No. Its just nice to have something positive work in our favour. Level the playing field.
Cathal
All hail Bronze
I know it’s not normally in F365’s mandate to cover women’s football (although the reasons for that are unclear considering you regularly share clips from the likes of the Polish mens league on things you loved from the weekend), but surely you can find room for a short piece about Lucy Bronze? I feel like this is a bit of a must because (1) it’s nearly 2021, and (2) she’s the first English player ever to win an award for best player in the world (allowing for the fact that the Ballon D’Or used to be European footballer of the year only). What an achievement and what a player!
Thanks, Jamie
Spurs fans bleeting like Jose
You lost – wow especially Paul (Spurs) T.Wells- cmon you lost – wrong tactics – two of the best attackers in the world – which makes me sick to say – but you didn’t attack – xg this, laughing at 76% possession for the other side – you now sound as f*cked up as your coach – you can bleet on all you want – you lost, sore loser’s – can’t you see the irony in your complaining!
Joe (AFC – at least we know how bad we are – AFCTV does not represent real supporters – but you do – hahaha)
Historical league positions
With all this talk of managers, players, Covid, VAR (ugh!), this insane batshit mental season, and so on, and so forth, it got me thinking: Where historically should teams, and where – based upon the last couple or so seasons – be in the league?
As a Man City fan I will freely admit that historically we should be around 10th to 12th (checks actual table, and chuckles), but if the last couple of seasons are taken into account, then an absolute bare minimum of 2nd. Obviously we ain’t so that’s not so good.
Similarly, Liverpool, to me at least would historically (we are talking the PL years here to be fair) would be hovering around 5th to 7th, but recently should also be a minimum of 2nd.
It’s a pointless exercise, granted – I do appreciate that – but it does go to the heart of long term fans and their expectations. So I am asking the mailbox about your team and where they are today and where they traditionally were, and your thoughts on that change.
Mike D (Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals)
