Solskjaer is Darth Maul and a ‘patsy for the Glazers’

Keep your mails on Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and anything else coming to theeditor@football365.com…

Ole is Darth Maul
Having been the best runners up, I much prefer being the worst champions. I hope we are even worse champions in 2023. If you think only finishing third with five missing centre backs, at least four players missing from covid and two losses of immediate family is the sign of being bad champions, you wait until we have the delayed party for winning the league in the summer!

Klopp has made this Liverpool as good as any team that has been in the Premier League. Ole has made Man United fans think that they can get involved in the banter with them again. Which is click-tastic and great for whoever buys the overseas TV rights. Personally, I think Ole is a patsy for the Glazers. He is selling nostalgia to cover up for how far away this United side is from competing with City. He is the Phantom Menace to Fergie’s Empire Strikes Back. Maybe they’ll buy Kane and they’ll get to 85 points. But City will get 90-95. Shit, they’ve already proven that they’ll get 99 if they need to.

Klopp can get 90+ points out of this Liverpool with a normal level of injuries. He’s already done it twice. We don’t know what Tuchel can do yet with that Chelsea team. Maybe he’ll get Kane or Lukaku and he’ll get 85-90 points.

Man United not competing with Man City or Liverpool is a disgrace. Man United colluding with Liverpool to create a European tournament that they can’t get dumped out of at the group stages whilst being dumped out at the group stages of the champions league is a disgrace. Even winning the Europa league whilst Liverpool and City have been in three of the last 4 Champions League finals should be enough to demand the manager out. But he did that goal that one time and is a happy chappy.

All of that in consideration, Shehzad Ghias hit the nail on the head this morning by saying “For everything that Ole lacks, I’ve had the most fun supporting United the last two and a half years.” And isn’t that the point of all this? Its been quite good to have some football banter back with United fans. To watch them weasel and back track on their definition of success so that includes playing nicely, feeling nice and the Arsene Wenger Top Four Trophy rather than winning everything and having the best and most expensive players. If they are enjoying it then who are we, The Internet, to say otherwise. I still enjoy the memory of the Torres Vidic 4-1 game and I’m pretty sure we won f all that season. Again.

Oh and as for Pep, Lewis Hamilton is the best driver, in the best car, with the best team and the best strategy so he wins everything. Pep is the same. Fergie, Shankley, Paisley were the same.

See you after the Euros!
Alex, South London

Falling upwards in Europe
Good luck to Manchester Utd tonight in the Europa League Final. I have heard a few comments along the lines of a win tonight will turn an average season into a good season or a good season into a very good season. All lovely sentiments but Utd are only in the Europa League because they were knocked out of the group stages of the Champions League. A more successful season would have been qualifying for the last 16 (or further) of the Champions League.

Next season things will get even worse with the introduction of the Conference League. Take Celtic. They will enter the second qualifying round of the Champions League. If they fail there they will fall into the Europa League Main Path qualifying round (snappy). If they lose in this round they will fall into the Europa Conference League Main Path play-off round (I kid you not).

Oh, and by the way, this is the stage Spurs enter the Conference League. So, Spurs have reached the heights of making a competition for Scottish clubs already knocked out of two other competitions.
Micki Attridge

Jekyll & Hyde
Ahead of the final tonight I confess I’m not feeling too confident for a United victory. It’s not an uncommon feeling with this United side, they definitely have a touch of Jekyll & Hyde about them and it’s difficult to predict if we’ll see the tame scientist or monstrous force of nature walk out for kick off. However for tonight’s game my main concern is central defence. Maguire, though a little slow and prone to the odd gaff, is our most important defender not only for his actual ability but he’s also a calming influence on the team as well as a leader who directs the players around him. If he doesn’t play tonight, as is expected, then its either Bailly or Tuanzebe next to Lindelof and though I have a lot of love for those guys they really should come wrapped in bright yellow hazard tape. As the saying goes ‘there’s no accounting for stupid’ and with a McFred midfield in front of a hazardous CB pairing there is a lot of scope for stupid.

I just hope that Hyde turns up and rips Villareal into shreds
Dave, Manchester

Wenger revisionism
I think most Arsenal fans agree that the team is currently sh*t and I concur that we’re clutching at straws trying to find a silver lining in a miserable season (Although, what’s the point of watching football without a little bit of hope?). However, this Wenger revisionism from loads of Arsenal fans and other clubs’ fans (e.g., Ebrahim, MUFC, Seattle) needs to stop. This gradual decline into mediocrity was not something that started after Wenger left the club, it started when he was still in charge. Let’s not forget that Arsenal finished in Europa league places in his last two seasons at the club. The 5-6 seasons previous to that when Arsenal were in the Champions League, they kept constantly getting knocked out (and getting spanked by Bayern 5-0) in the last-16. In his final few seasons, Arsenal kept getting smashed by other top-4 teams by five or six goals (Arsenal lost to Chelsea 6-0 in Wenger’s 1000th game, and there’s the infamous 8-2 at Man Utd). Arsenal’s best shot at winning the title since the 07 season was the 2015-16 season, they were top of the table in January. As was the case under him around that time, they blew it to eventually finish fourth.

Wenger (and Gazidis) are more than responsible for the current levels of stagnation and it hasn’t helped that the club hasn’t had a coherent transfer or tactical strategy since Wenger left (thanks to Gazidis/ “Don” Sanllehi). I love Arsene Wenger and his brand of football and what’s he done for the club, but let’s not re-write history that everything was rosy under him and somehow forcing him out was the reason for Arsenal being currently sh*t.
Monk, AFC, Boise

‘Dropping down a level’
Hi there,

AY is absolutely correct to say that Pep Guardiola has no need to drop down a level to prove himself at all, and also correct to say that it’s very rare for an elite footballer or manager at the peak of their powers to voluntarily drop down a level. However, if you were to think of a player who had voluntarily dropped down a level surprising many people, a good contender might be Guardiola himself, who chose Brescia over several other clubs, including Manchester United, when he left Barcelona aged 31, then, after a stint in Qatar, randomly popped up in Mexico because he’d befriended Juan Manuel Lillo on a coaching course.

So, while Guardiola doesn’t need to go and manage, say, Newcastle to prove himself, you could see him popping up at say FK Kobnhavn, because he wants to go to that mad restaurant you have to swim to and has befriended a jumper manufacturer, He’s an unpredictable man.
Dara O’Reilly, London

The United Way
So I watched The United Way on Sky last night. A few observations:

– There was a crazy booze culture at the club until Ferguson arrived and cleaned it up. Robson, McGrath, Whiteside the main culprits but the whole team were piss heads.

– Big Ron was a brutal coach. 5 a sides only in training, with him heavily involved in the play. No team talks, tactics, consideration for any sort of healthy diet. The drink culture, which he encouraged. What a joker.

– Ferguson struggled at the start. So much so the fans turned their back on him. Match day highlights showed fans holding up signs reading “Fergie, Fergie, Dole queue”. Shocking treatment, but we still see that carry on today.

– The documentary was good but could have been so much better. It came across as a homage to Cantona most of the time.

– Cantona, by his own admission, loved playing football. He loved the buzz from the crowd, the excitement of match days, performing on the biggest stage. And then, out of nowhere he retires. Is it safe to say his time with United killed his love for the game?

– Following on from that point, what is it with United in that their big players always seem to leave the club on bad terms? You’ve Robson, Hughes, Bruce, Beckham, Keane too.. all great servants that deserved better. Why can’t the club part company on good terms with great players/ servants?

– Why does Giggs feature so much? At all? He shouldn’t be anywhere near this.

– Seeing the highlights of the Bayern Munich final, United got walloped for most of the game. It was Men v Boys, they hit the post, crossbar, several more sitters.. the gods were smiling on United that season.

–  Overall it was ok. Very few references to Ole and current day United so it leaves you with the feeling that the club is clinging on to its past as the present/ future is quite bleak.

Any thoughts folks?
Cathal

A little game…
So here’s the game. You can pick 1 player from each of the 4 sides closest to you to make your team better. For Spurs that’s The Foxes, Irons, Gooners and Leeds.

If you’re relegated you shouldn’t play but if you’re a promoted team you’re picking from the other 2 promoted plus Brighton/Burnley.

If you haven’t got 2 sides beneath you or above you, pick the closest 4. City fans probably will see little point in this game but Man U, for instance, may enjoy the idea of Dias of KDB joining their team as well as Salah or VVD. You get the point. The Seagulls and The Clarets have the greatest flexibility as you can cherry pick from any of the promoted clubs and 2 of the PL teams above you. Just as long as it’s 4 teams.

Reasoning is not needed. Present or future, whatever your goals, pick what you fancy. Then list next seasons starting 11.

I pick: Fofana / Rice / Tierney / Raphina

Formation: 433

Lloris
Tanganga / Fofana / Toby / Tierney
Rice / PEH / Tanguy
Raphina / Kane (lol) / Sonny
Glen, Stratford Spur

Matt Stead again?
Now that’s one absurd rating

Bisouma, Phillips in and Fred and Mctominay not.

Really bizarre. The Man utd vs Leeds utd (first leg) is enough to ridicule your judgement. Mcsause outclassed your so called Phillips. Bisuoma scored once? Mcsause got hw many? Cmon now, you can do better Stead, Prejudice is the word , do sth about it and you’d be a great analyst.
Ahmed Abdulrasheed

Bad champions
My vote on the bad champions list would have to go to man United. The defence of their last title win is 9 years and counting, I don’t think anyone can realistically say that they’re going to bridge the gap between them and city next season! For such a dominant premier league club to have now gone 9 years without winning it & having spent ridiculous amounts of money in trying is the epitome of “bad champions”.
Marcel g, LFC.]

Worst Defending Champions are Man City, and I’m a Man City fan!.. and I’ll be at the final in Porto on Saturday.

1937 City won the title then got relegated the following season, scoring more than any other team including the Champions Arsenal and having a positive goal difference!

I reckon the ‘Typical City’ tag started then!
Alan M

To all the (as per usual) defensive Liverpool fans who have not taken well to the “bad champions” mantle, the only reason is because you went from “greatest ever champions” (albeit after one title) to a struggle for champions league. None of the teams ranked as the best champions struggled to qualify to the champions league the following season. Most of the other “greatest champions” went on to at least go back to back . Fair enough with both CB’s out winning the league is a stretch, but only last year one of the other “greatest champions ever” made champions league qualification look breezy (with exactly the same defensive problem). Hold the L. Deeno 

Irony
I hope the Editor of this afternoon’s mailbox enjoyed smugly putting David’s email yesterday saying ‘Liverpool fans aren’t biting F365’ below three emails from the same old Liverpool fans that always write in raging about F365’s audacity to call them out for having a pretty bad season.
Calum, MUFC, Wokingham