Maresca ‘exposed as Chelsea fraud’ as Man Utd show ‘the pure unadulterated power of AmorimBall’
Ruben Amorim may be ‘gaslighting’ the Manchester United fans but he ‘exposed the fraud’ Enzo Maresca on Saturday, whose sacking should be one of two Chelsea priorities.
Benjamin Sesko is ‘still lost’, Casemiro is a fool and there’s excitement over how good Liverpool will be when the new signings ‘click’ into gear’.
Send your thoughts on the Premier League action or anything else to theeditor@football365.com.
Maresca sack one of two Chelsea priorities
It’s almost the end of the first half so while I could end up with egg on my face, I really don’t think I will.
That Chelsea didn’t sign a new no 1 whilst spending hundreds of millions of pounds on children in other positions was madness. That Maresca didn’t push for a new no 1 was madness. Sanchez isn’t good enough for a mid table side let alone one wanting top 4. Donnarumma was available although I can understand perhaps not wanting to completely shatter the wages structure. Maignan was decided against because £20m was deemed too much, but £40m for man child Garnacho was acceptable.
While being forced into the Palmer sub by accident, surely check with him of he’s ok to carry on before taking Estevao and Neto off for defensive subs, and then a central midfielder for Palmer. I like Santos a lot and he can be creative, but in a game where they are down to 10 men and the only other attacking minded player in the team is Pedro alone up front… I genuinely cannot understand what Maresca thought he was doing.
This start to a season, while not terrible points wise, has looked back to Maresca’s ineffectual, blunted and boring worst. He isn’t the manager to take Chelsea forward, he never was.
Priorities for the club, a new manger and a new number 1 and Chelsea might comfortably get top 4. If not then I don’t see any points or place improvement on last year.
Will (Maresca might be better off following in his dad’s footprints rather than as a football manager)
READ MORE: 16 Conclusions on Manchester United 2-1 Chelsea: Amorim passes the sack baton to Maresca
The ‘power of AmorimBall’
Well, I just wanted to write and admit how wrong I was. For those first 5 minutes we were all over them, summed by a great moment of Amorim’s tactics to have the keeper launch the ball long to the striker that forced the keeper into a huge error. You can’t teach that stuff, you have to *live* it.
Then the great moment of skill for Bruno to force Chalobah into keeping him onside by the smallest hair on his toes followed by absolute dominance resulting in the team forcing the sub keeper into another mistake and mighty Casemiro to nod home.
We can basically forget everything else that followed because that first 45+4 minutes shows the pure unadulterated power of AmorimBall. And that’s all that matters.
United in the top half! Amazing!
Badwolf
Amorim ‘exposes the fraud Mascera’
A week is a long time indeed! Last weekend the Red side of Manchester were clueless as they were dismantled by their noisy blue neighbours.Chelsea appear at Old Trafford and suddenly Amorim who was on the verge of being sacked has exposed the fraud Mascera who seems to becoming a serious joker.
For the first time, ManU have genuinely won a match and even Captain Bruno is smiling at the end of the match.
Thank you Chelsea for handing Amorim a lifeline at the Theatre of Dreams
Yiembe (life is strange), Mombasa, Kenya
READ MORE: Chelsea implode at Man Utd as Amorim gifted crucial win by inept Maresca
Sesko ‘still lost’
I’m grateful for this win. We get to rest from the consistent bashing. Amorim gets to hope in his philosophy and his fanboys have a field day in trotting about how it’s not about his formation but the players.
I like that the boys stepped up today. If we can see more of this every week. Regardless of scoreline, I’ll have to concede that I have been too harsh in my opinion.
Chelsea were simply out of touch today and Sanchez’s red compounded their woes. It sort of takes away the shine from United’s victory, seeing that at second half with the same number of players on both sides, United rarely were lethal as in the first.
Maybe it’s my prejudice speaking. I just want a United where players throw themselves into the ball and win duels and take shots and defend like their lives depend on it.
GGMU
P/S Sesko is still lost in that team and by the way anyone can get the point I was making about the 4-5-1 formation. 12 players or not.
Victor Enite
‘The least intelligent’ Man Utd star
I’ve no idea what’s going to happen in the second half of the United v Chelsea match, but if United don’t take 3 points and Amorim gets the sack, Casemiro should have to personally pay for some of the severance. The most experienced player on the pitch, and the least intelligent.
United’s ability to shoot their own feet is genuinely incredible.
Ryan, Bermuda
A fix for the Casemiro red
I am an older footballer, but I hated to see an obvious equalizing red card given to Casemiro in today’s game. I have found the referee’s call a make-up. Is he feeling guilty that a team ranked higher than MU should have to play a man down? So,he uses any excuse to find a ManU player with one yellow card as a possible way to make up for the yellow card that helped MU score two goals and lead in the match. Maybe the ref. really thought Casemiro committed another yellow card penalty, but my feeling is that many fouls called are so subjective that the referee is just using his own discretion rather than seeking advice from sideline refs or VAR if it helps to keep the game honest. I have a thought how to fix the problem:Return to the shoulder to shoulder challenge in the League. When I played there were only two fair ways to win back the ball: a shoulder to shoulder push the man off the ball or a fair sliding tackle. Yes, there might still be yellow cards for awkward pushes or sliding tackles, but I still remember Paul Scholes’ well-timed tackles. I think the game simply has to stop the use of hands to pull a player off the ball if they want a better game.
Yours truly,
Bruce Leonard
No pressure on the Liverpool signings
Apparently lfc decided to listen to the gallery baying that winning games in the 80th is unsustainable. So they decided this time to score 2 in opening half hour and bolt the door just enough that no further late goals are needed. 😊
Jokes aside, regarding jason soutar’s “lfc better against everton without 2x £100m signings”, it’s not a biggie and i dont see pressure on wirtz, isak, slot, data team, or lfc, for the two players taking a while to get on their match winning tracks.
Isak was lacking a full preseason, regular training sessions, and has a history of injuries, so going slow with him just seems sensible.
As for wirtz, he still getting used to the rough and tumble of the epl isnt out of the ordinary either. It’s only 5 epl games!
True enough, even against atletico madrid, in a european game, they thrived deliciously. Showed how good they can be, how easily they can slice through crowded masses, surgically, efficiently, indefensibly.
Maybe their latent skill sets need time to adjust to the faster tempo and greater physicality of the epl?
Even Klopp’s best signings excelled after half a season: fab, andy robbo, thiago. I’m not worrying about isak and wirtz until at least mid season, let alone 6 games. Barring injuries, they should come on nicely for the second half of the season.
Which is what slot is doing: managing their minutes given their physical conditioning, so they dont pick up unnecessary stress injuries.
Gab YNWA
PS how to get man u players to excel? Simple: transfer them to another club! (Rashford going from £30m player to £70m player immediately upon transfer lol)
PPS latest notice on Barca ‘s salary limit reduction. Is Rashy going to be de registered and becoming a wandering ghost unwanted Man U player yet again? Lol
The best No.6?
Delighted to have won today more than anything. Early kick off gives you a chance to lay down a marker and it was never going to look perfect when we played on Wednesday night. In that respect I give a lot of credit to Slot for rotating quite a few legs today. Kerkez and Bradley maybe looked risky before kick off but both performed very well.
Gravenberch is some player. I don’t really know what to say but I wonder if he’s the best No.6 in the league? I know Arsenal fans are in love with Zubi and Rodri before his injury would’ve wanted a word on this too but right now, he’s surely the one you’d want.
And the same goes for Ekitike who do so well today. Not easy being between Tarkowski and Keane but he handled the rough and tumble well and managed to occupy both whilst also nipping away and scoring.
Liverpool do need to ask themselves why they’re sitting back quite as deep as they have been once they get to 2-0 up. I accept the goal they scored was an amazing finish and essentially a stats guy would call it a low xG chance so he’d say variance says 4 Saturdays out of 5 we walk off with a clean sheet but the issue is that every week we are conceding and it gives teams too much hope. Today a few good counters could’ve yielded more in fairness and then it might’ve been 3-0 but generally I think we just look better when we are always looking forward.
Jones, Wirtz and Isak coming on today kind of helped to reverse our mindset which was what we needed. Wirtz and Isak weren’t strictly amazing but both got us playing forwards and I think that helped bring the game home in the end.
Looking forward to the Carabao on Tuesday. Would love to see Rio and Chiesa start on either side of Isak. Not sure it’ll happen.
Minty, LFC
Wait until they click…
So this time, no last minute goal.
Simply a fairly routine, humdrum narrow derby win secured by two early goals and a fairly comfy, if occasionally nervy, second half where Everton were surprisingly the most enterprising they’ve ever been under David Moyes’s management.
Once again, winning whilst not at their best, but showed moments of high-end class up front and defensive solidity when it mattered.
Wait until they click. No one’s going to touch them.
Andy H, Swansea
Amorim ‘gaslighting’
Having Ruben Amorim at your club, smiling away at cameras, making jokes while talking his regular BS is starting to feel a little abusive.
He is gaslighting us fans. While no one in their right mind (sorry, mate) would seriously suggest the squad is good enough to challenge for the title, the facts are that we won the FA Cup the year before he took over while struggling to 8th with a massive injury crisis. The year before, we finished 3rd. Then he came in and dragged us down to 15th. Or down to his level, if you wish.
Yes, they probably overachieved, but they still *achieved* it; that is what they’re capable of.
Now Amorim – while coming out with utter nonsense like his reason for using Bruno deeper is to “control the game more” even though he also “wants to have as much freedom as possible”; all fine because as he says, “what matters most is that the team plays well and wins games” (and we can all agree, that’s going great) – has dragged us to depths unknown in previous decades, making fans talk as though the squad isn’t decent. It IS decent. It’s not great but it’s decent. It’s top 6 decent, at the very least.
It’s well ahead of the match, so I’ve no idea what will happen, or what the line up will be but it will almost certainly involve Bruno still playing CM to give us his own brand of control and probably have Casemiro next to him.
I’m tired of this gaslighting and also of the Manager FC vs Player FC nonsense. I’m Club FC. It doesn’t matter which part isn’t working, or about taking sides, it’s about what is best for the actual club.
It’s idiotic to blame Bruno for not being a CM when he isn’t (and god knows I don’t like the lad), Shaw for not being a CB or Amad for not being a RWB. It’s not idiotic to blame a manager who is making those choices and refusing to accept they are mistakes.
Badwolf
(Prediction 1-3, Garnacho will probably score and I’ll laugh)
Amorim’s ‘more fundamental issue’
The relative merits of the 3-4-3 formation have been discussed ad nauseum so I’ll skip that to focus what I consider to be a more fundamental issue, his constant declarations of intransigence. If your performance appraisal at work was poor and your manager suggested some remediation and you said you would not change, what would be the inevitable outcome? Closer to home, what if Amorin’s wife told him something bothered her. Would he not be willing to at least listen and consider changes?
Amorin claiming that changing would lose respect of the squad seems to show an insecurity there. Good management is not a “one-size-fits-all” approach. This is perhaps not a great analogy but, I doubt Fergie would have treated any other player the same way as he did Cantona after the infamous “kung fu” episode. Furthermore, a seasoned manager has a number of formations up their sleeve depending upon the opposition. You don’t line up and play the same way against Real Madrid as you would against, say, Grimsby!
At the end of the day, many teams are full of talented individuals and winning (or losing) comes down to who wants it more rather than tactics. It is simply unfathomable that the squad can’t learn new formations, the desire simply isn’t there. After all, when you are earning upwards of 200k a week with a bunch of medals and trophies in your cabinet, what is some 39 year old upstart going to teach you?
This is really only going to end one way isn’t it!
Adidasmufc (I am seriously beginning to think that relegation may be better than another 15th place)
Arbitrary flights of fancy
Hello F365 and Mailbox,
here’s some things I was musing on:
What if Liverpool won every game this season scoring a winner in the 85th minute or later? Would we call this the luckiest title win of all time? Perhaps some would be parping that opinion, hopefully crushed beneath the overwhelming acknowledgement that this would be one of the single greatest achievements in any sport, ever.
What if every Arsenal player suffered a broken leg and they still finished 2nd? Would we say Arteta failed because he won no silverware? Despite playing through the Great Islington Broken Leg Epidemic of ’25, reaching a Champions League semi-final with a team of children, and losing the title to Liverpool on the last day (to a 98th-minute Alisson bicycle-kick), many would argue that he has, indeed, failed and Arsenal are nothing but massive blousy bottlers.
What if Ruben Amorim’s magical 3-4-3 suddenly clicked? They go marching back into the CL with a midfield engine room of Casemiro and Bruno Fernandes. Stop cacking yourselves. Amorim genuinely seems to think this is possible, or is prepared to fall on his sword attempting it. Big Jimmy Rat has somehow resisted the urge to fire the man, only because he knows how utterly incompetent it will look. But Ratty: we’re already laughing at you.
What if Nick Woltemade scored a towering back-post header in every game this season? The new-gen BFG would be a £78m bargain and the greatest Tyneside no.9 since wor’ Al. Look forward to an interminable transfer saga in 2-3 years before Newcastle double their money.
What if Keith Andrews is the next Alex Ferguson? He leads Brentford to respectable mid-table this term. He improves them year-on-year. He gets his chance with a top club and turns them from cracked-badge Conference-League clown car into title contenders, then champions. After a few years he dismantles a title-winning team, rebuilds and wins more leagues and his first CL. Rebuilds again and wins more leagues and another CL. Dominates the Prem for the next two decades. Bestrides English football like a colossus, his every word and whim treated like the wisdom of a master sage. We’d all be talking about this first season, the transition from set-piece coach to top bossman, the late equaliser at home to Burnley that saved his bacon early on, the tactical switch that led to the post-Christmas upswing in form. We’d be breaking down the evolution of the Andrews style, the Andrews method, Keithismo. The future will be a strange and unsettling place.
What if Man City are finally charged for the (alleged) 130+ times they breached PL financial regulations? There are flights of imagination, and then there are the naive dreams of an innocent child who thinks that right and wrong should apply equally to everybody, that rich people should not be allowed to take what they want and then change the rules so it’s actually fine now, actually, and that adult authorities will pursue and validate justice on behalf of the people’s interest and not be swayed by promises of personal enrichment. Naive, frankly pathetic child. Go back to bed and let the adults tear the world down.
Enjoy the weekend’s football!
Cheers,
Scriv O’Scoob, Wandsworth
