The truth behind Newcastle’s Manchester United ‘warning’ and Ratcliffe’s REAL thoughts on the Glazers

Eddie Howe has hit back at Sir Jim Ratcliffe with a ‘warning’ which will stun Manchester United as much as the truth about what the Glazers are REALLY like.

Double Glazing
Excellent work from the Daily Mirror website to start off Friday morning, with Sir Jim Ratcliffe apparently revealing ‘what Man Utd owners the Glazers are REALLY like behind closed doors.

The results will apparently ‘surprise’ us. Has Ratcliffe called them debt-loading capitalist ghouls or European Super League merchants? Did he say Joel is class but the rest are awful? Did he get ‘LUHG’ tattooed on his arse as a show of contempt?

What are the Glazers REALLY like, Sir Jim? We simply must know.

Very nice people, very courteous and they are avid supporters of Manchester United believe it or not.

Billionaire Manchester United co-owner says fellow billionaire Manchester United co-owners are actually alright. Weird that he didn’t decide to verbally abuse them in public. But good to know what the Glazers are REALLY like, shocking as it is.

It’s a date
The same outlet reports that ‘Erik ten Hag discovers date for talks with Sir Jim Ratcliffe over Man Utd future’.

Very interesting indeed. The Dutchman’s contract at Old Trafford runs until summer 2025 and it was already widely assumed that Ratcliffe would want to get his own manager in, or at least explore the possibilities. This being Ratcliffe’s ultra-organised and professional Reds, they have even pencilled a proper date in.

Erik ten Hag will meet with Manchester United bosses for talks over his Old Trafford future at the end of the season.

Well that’s not a ‘date’ at all, is it? It’s a vague time period at best which will likely lead to a little bit of confusion unless they nail something more specific down.

Mirror Football understands that new Man United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe intends to wait until the end of the season before making a decision on his manager who earns £9million-a-year.

Mediawatch understands that is pretty obvious. You don’t really need a club source to tell you that Manchester United aren’t going to offer Ten Hag a five-year contract in March with Champions League qualification uncertain.

Howe about that?
Ratcliffe said some pretty silly and incredibly problematic things during a recent sit-down chat with some selected journalists, during which Manchester United’s continued pursuit of Dan Ashworth inevitably came up.

He might well be interested to learn the reaction from within the Newcastle camp, as revealed again by those busy bods at the Daily Mirror website:

Newcastle boss Eddie Howe fires warning to Man Utd over deal for Dan Ashworth

This is more like it. Gone full Keegan, hasn’t he? Given it the proper “I have kept really quiet, but I’ll tell you something, he (Ratcliffe) went down in my estimation when he said that. We’re still fighting for this sporting director, and he’s got to go to his garden and get something,” hasn’t he?

Not quite.

In these situations it’s about Newcastle from our perspective. Events this week have given us certainty, and we can look to the future. We need to reflect and move forward stronger than before. That has to be our aim. I can’t respond to (Ratcliffe’s comments). I am not involved in discussions so I will stay away. It is for other people to make those decisions, I’m not involved in that in any way, shape or form.

It turns out Newcastle will make the best decision for Newcastle. Consider yourselves ‘warned’, Manchester United. They would love it if they beat them. Love it.

Curle ups
Matt Hughes is perennially AHEAD OF THE GAME for the Daily Mail, who presumably hold the column particularly dear because it means they get to shout things in ALL CAPS.

Even without that, their headline to his most recent collection of vital titbits is eye-catching:

The remarkable reason former England defender Keith Curle abandoned his shift live on Sky Sports News midway through Arsenal’s Champions League defeat by Porto

Now perhaps Mediawatch’s definition of ‘remarkable’ simply differs from that of Hughes and his colleagues. But it feels like Curle having to leave to catch a 10.30pm train from Euston to Sheffield would only qualify as ‘remarkable’ if it actually turned up on time.

Jesus, Chris
A simple question now, posed at Chris Sutton after he delivered this point on one of those Daily Mail podcasts:

It’s like a World Cup final for Pochettino because this season has been so disappointing.

As one of the chief Arsenal-hating Celebration Police officers, is this official clearance for Pochettino and Chelsea to celebrate like they’ve won the World Cup if they beat Liverpool on Sunday?

Worst headline of this and most days
‘Dani Alves seemed like one of the good guys – now we know he wasn’t’ – The Guardian.

Mediawatch appreciates the wider point about the dangers of mythologising people for their athletic brilliance despite knowing nothing about them personally, and the whole ‘can you separate the art from the artist?’ strand of argument. Jonathan Wilson starts ever so well with an opening paragraph that stresses how ‘the first emotion has to be of sympathy for the victim’, while sagely concluding ‘we don’t know players at all, not really.’

Just a real shame about that stuff in between, the whole fawning tribute to how phenomenal a footballer this convicted rapist was, including a line about how ‘Dani Alves seemed like one of the good guys’ with absolutely nothing offered to support that argument other than him being great on the overlap.

READ MORE: Manchester United ‘must’ not keep any Mason Greenwood sale profit? A clever but stupid argument