Real Madrid ‘entitled narcissists’ are giving Donald Trump vibes

Real Madrid losing always amuses everybody who doesn’t support Real Madrid. And let’s face it, there’s very little to say about Arsenal.

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What are Arsenal good at now?

40 mins into first half, I find myself wondering, what are we actual good at? No pressing, no longer good as set-pieces (corners), slow passing, zero movement of players without the ball and our defence look shaky whenever a team attacks us.

A couple of seasons back we use to start quick and score goals, pressing and squeezing teams closer to their goal was one of our strength.

I am guessing the blame has to be on Arteta and the coaching team for changing that.

We will be luck if we geyt a draw against City, more especially with no midweek game for them.

I still say the league is gone and no trophy again.
Lwazi (South Africa)

READ: No fire, pure fear as Arsenal scrape into Champions League semi-final with fraught 0-0 draw

Real implosion is beautiful to watch

Watching the entitled narcissists of Real Madrid implode at the end of their March against Bayern was a thing of beauty.

Bellingham looks like he fits that mold perfectly.

Reinforces Tuchel’s decision to build a team without him. No?
Paul McDevitt

READ: Mbappe exposed for Real Madrid as dawn of BVM crippled by stupidity in brilliant Bayern defeat

…Many say sports and politics don’t mix but I think I have found the ideal recipe.

Real Madrid’s perennial attitude and response to being beaten are vastly similar to the US President’s temper tantrums when someone dares to fight back. But a solution is at hand.

Trump resigns as President on the final day of La Liga and takes over as Real Madrid overlord, President, coach, sporting director, manager – all of it.

He issues a statement, ‘I’m from Madrid, I grew up here, my family are Spanish, its the club I supported as a boy (brings in Robbie Keane as his assistant at this point) and it’s always been my dream job.

Any time Real lose from there on, Trump issues more statements that ‘we won anyway,’ knowing Infantino will interject and award Los Blancos the game and other trophies yet to be invented.

McDonald’s receives free sponsorship of the team. The Jude Bellingham, Vinicius Jr and TAA problems are solved as each put on 25KG, falsify their ages on their birth certificates and are sold to Chelsea on 35 year contracts. Armed ICE members replaced them in the squad.

The Bernabeau and Mar a Lago will be infinitely better places and the whole world will benefit from their unending victories and the resultant global happiness.

Trump and Mbappe are also awarded the World Cup and the tournament cancelled. Infantino receives a 50M bonus for cost savings.

This is for the good of the planet.
Steven McBain, Singapore

The new Gerrard?

Am I the only one that sees Gerrard reborn in Valverde? Everything about him. The way he runs. The way he passes. The way he shoots. Everyone likes to make comparisons about other English players being the new Gerrard but I’m afraid he was reborn in Uruguay.
Alex (New York)

It’s all going a bit Pete Tong

Or is it?

Perhaps for some I suppose, but we are in that final stretch – we still call it Squeaky Bum Time, right? Good, then I shall continue.

Where was I? Oh yes, ‘Pete’. So I think we can all see what’s going to happen come the final day of the season, although the fact that Spurs are involved, something about bottles, TIMUWATA can’t seem to get their shit together despite being the top of the Shit Table, Slot- look I could be here all day with the ‘anything could happen and guaranteed someone is going to screw these cast iron predictions up’ – so let’s just go through the majority players in this the worst/best season ever.

Arsenal – FWIW I think Stewie is a cretin (sorry, but c’mon, pal, buy a new pack of crayons), and their 2nd place finish will bring them all out. God help us all.

Manchester City – they are going to win it. Many will rejoice and celebrate, and not just Citizens, but it is happening. Naturally there will be ludicrous cries of some random number, and also about some sort of injustice against poor people, but we will get over it come August. And we all go again.

The Tottenham – they will survive. There, I said it. They are not too big to go down because they’re not big. What? Which do you want? Go down for being actually big, or stay up because you’re a shit Crystal Palace with ideas above your station? Please see below before you start beng stupid wanting Levy back.

Leeds United – Farke will get offered some ludicrous positions, but turn them all down, fella; you figured out the job you currently do, not all the other ones you might try. Stay, and Leeds will become Yorkshire’s Everton, with or without Moyes. They stay up.

Liverpool – f*** me, even I am disappointed, and I can’t stand you lot. You get CL, not that you deserve it, but nobody can have nice things anymore.

Nottingham Forest – owner is an ass, so that deserves going down. As luck will have it you will, and every man, woman, and child (plus pets) will despise you forever, because Spurs.

Aston Villa – my God, you get us all excited and then let us down, but you’re gonna make it. CL, baby! Your accounts, however, will not, and the PL, UEFA, FIFA, and that bake sale you did last month will destroy you. Again.

Brighton – I do alopogise for bringing them in here, but we don’t talk enough about this southeast club enough. They are included for no other reason than giving us joy throughout the season. They wont do anything beyond being brilliant, making money, being sensible, but never being allowed at the table, but my God I fucking love them for being in our league.

So there you have it. Sorry if your club wasn’t mentioned, but I have better things to do than talk about what a waste of time your club is.
Mike D (currently somewhere you would like to be)

Bring back Nunez

With Ekitike out for at least 7 months and Isak’s injury history we are likely going to need to bring in some sort of replacement, most likely signing a winger that can play as striker or a rotation striker. While I do think both are a good idea, I have an alternative solution: we should bring back Nunez on a short term loan. He’s not getting game time at Al Hilal, he has expressed missing Liverpool and would likely come back, and most importantly of all he is exactly the hard working, good leadership we need to back to this team.

Even if we bring him in as a bench player, I think he is exactly the unpredictability and grit we have been missing this season. He had a good preseason right before he left and I’d be willing to give him one more chance. Definitely a far flung fantasy but I’d love to see it.
Henry, LFC

Liverpool need an attitude injection

Hats off to the Liverpool fans for getting behind the team and doing everything but pull the ball into the net. It showed how the crowd can help the team up their game.

On the downside, Slot picking Gakpo over Ngumoha at half time. In need of a game changer and he puts on the most predictable player. I am sure the PSG defenders were happy to see him come on and not Rio. Watching the other game, Yamal was the most influential player and not much older than Rio. And it’s not as if Slot has overplayed him. You can see the youthful confidence and energy he immediately brings – and if there was one thing the team needed to go up against PSG it was energy: to make their defence thing twice and help keep them pegged back.

While Slot may deserve to stay on until the end of the season, especially with injuries and poor player acquisition out of his control, he is still showing he is way too cautious. At the very highest level teams have to be confident to go for it – and risk letting one in. I would rather Liverpool played like they did last night and lose 2-0 than they way they did in Paris and lost 2-0. Looks the same on paper but…

Just look at the way Bayern and PSG are playing and a lot is down to the coaches. Totally different attitude than Slot.

Not sure who would be best to replace him but it does look like the team just need someone different.
Paul McDevitt

…Tuesday night wasn’t without its positives:

My daughter made me a loom band bracelet, I watched the game with my Mother whose hysterical screaming at the telly provides entertainment when the game doesn’t, we looked like we could compete with the best team in Europe for a bit, we weren’t humiliated.

But that’s probably about it, and the cons far outweigh the pros. Slot’s selection of Isak was criminally inept – against Fulham he looked barely interested, let alone fit, and 5 touches against PSG show that he should never have been selected. Slot’s justification that “there are goals in him” before the game was risible – not when he is clearly unfit, so unfit that Slot broadcasted to PSG and the world that he would only be good for 45 mins tops. Amateur hour.

The selection, formation and tactics were amateur too – if only because it was the third formation in three games – elite managers stamp their authority on the team, and always play to their strengths, opposition be damned. Slot is clearly not elite, he’s still flailing around for a formation and performance in our biggest game of the season. Julien Laurens has it right – we should have started in Paris with the team that started the second half at Anfield, Slot let everybody down by basically ceding three quarters of the tie like the milquetoast coward he is.

Not starting Rio in red-hot form as well, along with the abdication of responisbility of actually trying to score in Paris, just crystallises how far from a Liverpool manager he is. He’s hollowing out the pride and confidence in the badge, the fans, the stadium – all the mitigation in terms of injuries and the squad he was handed doesn’t remediate his craven timidity – he will never have the balls to command the Kop in the way that Klopp and previous elite managers did.

That said, back in the day I sullied the mailbox with some nonsense about Klopp being always the bridesmaid and was soundly proven to be the fool I undeniably am, so maybe Slot will prove me wrong again, but I very much doubt it.

The bigger concern is the players Slot or Alonso (no guarantee to be better) or whoever will have next season. Every player signed in the summer falls well short of the elite price tag we were duped into paying for them. Isak is a lazy selfish primadonna who is weeks if not months away from being fit enough to perform – can you tell me of any genuinely elite player who would allow themselves to fall so far off the pace? There isn’t a single one. Kerkez runs about a lot – that’s it. And as for Wirtz, I’ll copy what I messaged a mate last night as it neatly sums up the oompa-loompa with two left feet that we wasted 100m on:

“Wirtz is f*cking terrible, really atrocious – he can’t even kick the ball hard enough – every pass is underhit, so slow the defender can either intercept or get back in position. He gives the ball away constantly, every attack breaks down when he gets it. Total waste of way too much money”

Recency bias is definitely a thing, and I always prefer to give players a whole season to bed in before judging them the next season, but the above aren’t things that will be resolved with time or a new manager – they are fundamental and permanent failings in individuals who have been over-promoted well out of their depth.

Regardless of whether Slot stays or goes, Liverpool now have an unbalanced squad of hugely over-valued players that we will only be able to punt on at a huge loss – remind you of anybody, including the weirdly idealogically dogmatic charisma-vaccuum at the helm? Yep – Liverpool are becoming Amorim’s United – in fact I think an F365 article called this out in terms of the consistently abject performances since the Title was won last season?

Slot deserves thanks for winning the Title last season – the improvement in Gravenberch and the tightening up in the back are the only good things he has done in his tenure – but he is now doing more harm than good, and needs to go before he achieves his apparent goal of turning us into United in an interminable wilderness.
Gofezo (looking forward to a fourth formation at the weekend – VVD up front maybe? Clown)

On Man Utd refereeing again (and again)

Ryan from Bermuda wants to talk about refereeing again. Let’s firstly say that this is exactly what it feels like to be a run of the mill Premier League team without the permissiveness and subconscious bias shown by referees when reffing a big game involving a big club. Welcome to reality and the life of most football fans up against the big six (LOL).

He firstly states that the hair pull should not have been considered a red card (rules and precedent says otherwise) but in the same email states it’s a physical game.

So which is it? It’s a physical game in which you can pull someone’s hair to prevent them from retaining the ball or gaining an advantage, but not one in which you can use your arms to generate lift when heading the ball?

It was probably one of the better refereeing performances i’ve seen all season – balanced and fair and let the game flow.

I don’t get why it’s so hard for Man Utd fans to just say “Well Done Leeds, completely boss the game for large periods, set an intensity that we couldn’t match, and left their hearts and guts on the pitch because there is plenty at stake”. You see, not so hard.
Mat, Leeds

Having your hair pulled DOES hurt

As a man whose hair reaches halfway down his back while seemingly everyone I went to school with is now going bald, I feel obliged to respond to Ryan, Bermuda. Pulling hair really hurts, particularly if, as Lisandro Martinez did, you do it with enough force to remove whatever someone is using to tie their hair up. “If Calvert-Lewin had short hair, Martinez would have pulled his shirt instead” is not really a defence, the same way that “if he’s 6’6″ he gets punched in the chest, but he’s 5’6″ so I caught him straight on the jaw” or “he’s got size 12 feet, if he was a size 8 I would never have stamped on his foot” are not really defences for other acts of violent conduct.

There are precedents in both the men’s and women’s games of hair pulling being classed as an act of violent conduct and therefore punishable with a red card. That’s why Sonia Bompastor was so angry the other week. I’m sure you’re not suggesting that the laws of the game should be applied differently according to who is involved, and I’m doubly sure you’re not suggesting Manchester United are somehow good enough to merit exceptional treatment from the officials.
Ed Quoththeraven