Fred and Casemiro
Selling Fred and buying Mason Mount was a pathetic decision from United and ETH has to take some responsibility for it by allowing it to happen. Fred was turning from an almost constant liability into a great partner for Casemiro in United s midfield. I think a great deal of managers tend to ignore personal relationships when building a side and sometimes this can really turn around and bite them. I think for Casemiro having a young, energetic countryman alongside him in a new team, in a new country was invaluable and Casemiro s experience really rubbed off positively onto Fred. I think if they hadn t been split up and with the emergence of Mainoo, United were more than well stocked in terms of midfielders. Instead Casemiro s form has suffered from injuries and being played in defense and yet pundits are criticising him.
Ratcliffe is getting to be a joke even before he s made a player signing. His first few changes have been cost cutting measures in the organisation as if that s going to help our defense.
The next thing he seems to be fixated in are jobs for mates and potential mates in the organisation. I think Jason Wilcox was a decent player but which team has been knocking on his door after he stopped playing? And yet Ratcliffe has somehow identified him as an important jigsaw piece, I d be laughing if this was happening at a different club.
Mike, United supporter since the mid 70 s
I agree with the assertion that Fred s sale was the biggest mistake Man United made. I touched on it in my submission yesterday.
To improve on their third place last season, Ten Hag needed to maintain the players in critical areas that helped him to achieve that feat and Fred was part of that double pivot midfield with Casemiro that defeated Man City 2-1 at Old Trafford. This season, United lost both legs 3-0 and 3-1 respectively compared to last season s 6-3 and 2-1. That is the first point.
2. Ten Hag went in for 18year old Kobby Mainoo who is not experienced with premier league matches. Fred has been under Mourinho, Solskjaer, Carrick, Rangnick and Ten Hag. In fact it was Rangnick who first deployed Fred as an attacking midfielder besides his holding midfield role that led to scoring a vital 1-0 win against Norwich City at Old Trafford. Rangnick started preparing the player before Ten Hag used his first season to polish him.
How do you sell a player that could help you get your returns on investments the following season? Too bad and one of the major reasons United s midfield is bleeding this season when Casemiro is used out of position.
Ernest Tetteh Kabu
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INEOS Issues Doesn t Mean Ratcliffe Is Wrong
To George (Little Spruffleton on the Waters), my understanding is whataboutism is not cool these days.
Criticize INEOS subsidiaries pollution sure, but that doesn t mean Ratcliffe s criticism of the cleanliness of United s facilities as wrong. Rather, explain why Ratcliffe criticism is wrong and why it s fine for United s facilities to be messy and unkempt and how that is productive to the functioning of the football club.
As for the pollution problem. You can also write in to the local authorities of the local area and report it if it is not following to the prescribed local regulations. Raise awareness if it s not a widely known problem there and help ensure that the people there know the tradeoffs.
Yaru, Malaysia
Arsenal fans take the bait
The man does love terrorising gooners, does our Stewie. And his latest hypothetical, if Leverkusen complete an invincible treble would be better than Arsenal s version, well it tickles me.
Because it s already better. They could lose both cups and it s already better. We re talking 49 games undefeated in a row. With a mid-table team. And a rookie manager. With half a year to instill his way of playing .
Arsenal, by comparison, never went more than about two or three months undefeated at a time. Sure the league was carried through (a fabulous achievement, don t get me wrong) but they fairly consistently dropped games in all the other competitions.
Last night Leverkusen were winning the tie 4-2 on aggregate and decided that didn t matter – losing 2-0 on the night would not stand. Sure they could claim it was an aggregate win, and most sports writers would have gone along with it. But they didn t. They attacked, relentlessly, at a time when doing that only made them more likely to lose. And they pulled it back. It s the dumbest, most glorious thing ever.
49 games undefeated. No asterisks. No brackets. Just 49 in a row. From no-where.
If they finish it off, then it s probably the greatest football achievement I can think of. Yes. including Leicester. Just madness.
Andrew M
📣TO THE COMMENTS! Is this Bayer Leverkusen side better than Arsenal s Invincibles?
Ok ok ok Stewie, I ll bite because you ve mentioned it a few times now. I called Xabi Alonso flavour of the week but and here is the important thing you are purposely ignoring context.
It was mentioned on the bingo card of things you would say because it s just what you do, nothing to do with Alonso s talents but with your willful bouncing from whatever manager is doing well at that moment to the next to criticise Arteta. Off the top of my head, we had the comparisons with Conte and how much of a mistake it was not getting him onboard and how he d embarrass Arteta and Arsenal and then .silence.
Then we moved onto Edin Terzic at Dortmund and how he s embarrassing Arteta until Dortmund completely collapsed right at the death and then .silence. Until now though as Dortmund have reached the Champs League Final but that doesn t tell the whole story does it? They are also 5th in the league and 24pts off the top. I d love to know what mental gymnastics you d perform to use that exact situation as a stick to beat Arteta with if the situations were reversed.
Finally, we moved on to Xabi Alonso, I mean throw enough stuff at the wall and something will stick but that s your vibe isn t it? Broken clock is still right twice a day sort of thing (insert emoticon). Ultimately please stop dining out on words you ve twisted to suit your narrative, it s worrying, to be honest, how myopic you choose to be just to feed your own ego (insert emoticon), Trumpian levels of manipulation if you will actually your emails very much feel like emails Richard Keys or Jamie O Hara would write in such is your disdain for anything Arsenal.
Oh and in response to your question of course it s more impressive than the Invincibles, why wouldn t it be? Why even compare it? Oh yeah Arsenal . Surely if you want to ask something then the question should be is winning a treble with the Europa League but undefeated in the League more or less impressive than winning a treble with losses but including the Champions League?
Personally .I don t really care, winning that many matches and that sort of consistency is borderline perfection and each should get their flowers. Every impressive feat does not need to be compared to another, it can exist on its own. You don t need to dull others light to make yours shine brighter, more power to those managers and clubs and I hope they enjoy their success and football is better off for having young managers like them in and changing the game.
Lee AFC (insert emoticon) Bristol
I know Stewie is probably looking to annoy people or find yet another reason to be miserable about the club he chooses to support. BUT it s Friday and I m bored. Should Leverkusen remain unbeaten, it will be the a greater achievement than Arsenal s (also very great) unbeaten season.
Arsenal lost games in the champions league, league Cup and FA Cup. Leverkusen are unbeaten in the Pokal and Europa league. Leverkusen have already won a higher % of their league games and scored more goals. Leverkusen are a team greater than the sum of their parts. Arsenal had generational talents in Bergkamp, Henry (in a golden boot winning season) and Viera, along with the talents of Pires, Ljungberg, Cole etc. So for the Leverkusen team to remain unbeaten in every competition this season would be, unquestionably, a better achievement.
Kevin, Dublin
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Hating inverted full-backs
Is it just me who hates the inverted fullback ??
I do understand that its better to talk about football than not but also lets not give false praise to genius tactical thinking .
Basically the midfield cannot gain success so an extra player from defence is chucked up front!!
Its a shame these lads dont have a real union behind them.
How would you fancy going to work and then being given a completely different job to be done at the same time??
Imagine building a house
You are doing the plumbing
The blokes on electrics are crap so the boss says go on lad get in there and help them out but finish the plumbing too. Balls.
Anyway all the best and keep up the good work.
Mo.
Joey Barton gets a well-deserved kicking
Weird one for a Friday afternoon and perhaps weirder that I a semi-regular contributor to this revered mailbox am going to anonymise my contribution as I m sharing a few personal details to add some context to the absolute kicking I m about to give a certain someone.
In my crosshairs today is everyone s favourite rent-a-gob, Joey Barton. A man who I think has been described on these pages (and / or elsewhere) as a thick person s idea of what an intelligent person sounds like. A bully. A player with a tiny fraction of the skill he seemed to think he possessed. A failed manager. Now a professional online troll in a tragic, Katie-Hopkins-esque, desperate attempt to remain relevant to I dunno someone, somewhere. I know I shouldn t respond to his bullsh*t, get angered by it or give it the oxygen of any further comment.
But his recent Podcast garbage on Lionel Messi s growth hormone treatment has really got my fucking goat (no pun intended). I definitely don t want to stir up the tedious culture war debate about who is best footballer ever because we all know that is an entirely subjective and often an aesthetic choice. The one thing I think we can agree on is that it s not Joseph Anthony Barton.
What has prickled me, is the astonishingly ill-informed comments from Barton suggesting that Messi s irrefutably remarkable achievements warrant an asterisk because of his growth hormone treatment in his youth. Now the context. My 11-year-old son suffers from a mild but somewhat restrictive genetic condition which, amongst its major symptoms, includes a progressive curvature of the spine and a growth hormone deficiency. Aside from 19 previous operations, he has been treated with a growth hormone supplement, similar to that which was used to treat Messi, requiring a daily injection since he was around four years old. Since the age of 10, he has been administering this himself, which I mention only because I think that s quite a big deal for a 10/11 year old and will give you some context for the stoic way in which he has taken these physical setbacks. So I take that sh*t a bit personally
I m especially sensitive this week, as we re one week away from a significant surgery on my son s spine. Though the recovery will be tough, that had been cause for certain celebration as it was expected to be the last surgery that he would need. Unfortunately (and coincidentally, on the same day I read Barton s crap), we also learnt that his growth hormone treatment has essentially failed and that the best we can hope for is that my son creeps just above the height threshold at which his condition would be classified as dwarfism .
I don t judge people for their height. I m not exactly a tall person, myself, at (a non-genetically modifiied) 5 7 coincidentally around the same height as Lionel Messi, though that is where the similarities end who knows, maybe it takes some talent, hard work and discipline to become as phenomenal at football as he is, rather than just being boosted to a particular height. But as an adult man of barely 5 in height, I know my boy is going to have it tougher than many and, even with the hardest work imaginable, is unlikley to have the phyical attributes to become a top athlete, therefore Barton s nonsense about the corrective treatment representing an advantage really cut me up. If anyone saw fit to describe anything my son achieved as warranting an asterisk, I d likely respond in ways that would make Joey Barton himself wince.
So, Dr Barton, can you please look up the difference between hormone treatment and genetic modification, you ignorant cretin. I m not a trained expert in this field, but I know from experience that a growth hormone deficiency is a medical condition. Growth hormone treatment for someone with a deficiency is not juicing. It certainly isn t genetic modification. As mentioned above, it doesn t always work and it sure as shit doesn t suddenly produce one of the top four or five greatest talents in their particular field. Treatment of a childhood medical condition isn t grounds for diminishing someone s achievements.
