Monday Oct 25:
Just basking in the glow of yesterday. I’ve watched loads of analysis from the game on YouTube. Carra and Souey absolutely rinsing Neville was a thing of beauty but I feel that Sky missed a trick by having Jermaine Defoe in there instead of Keane. Imagine that. I also watched Owen and Scholes dissecting it. Scholes is really good when he’s talking about United as he doesn’t seem to give a fuck whether his assessment makes his mate look bad, he’s just honest.
It was funny when they went over to Owen Hargreaves at Old Trafford though and in the background you can hear the Reds who had been locked in afterwards singing “Paul Scholes, he sucks his daughter’s toes”. Hargreaves seemed oblivious but Scholes must have heard it. I almost felt bad for him, but if you bite your daughter’s toe nails and let her film it and post it on social media, you have to expect some degree of piss taking.
Some of the fan videos were glorious too, especially Goldbridge’s best bits. “We’re now Tits on a Nun FC - absolutely useless”. I also watched some of the key incidents from the game back to see if I still felt the same way about the decisions. Loads of Reds are saying United should have had five red cards so I wanted to take another look at those. I still feel the same way. Pogba deserved a red, Ronaldo only escaped one because he kicked the ball and not Curtis, Fernandes was defo just a yellow for me, same with Fred as he didn’t actually even touch Naby with that high boot so it was different to Griezemann the other night.
The only one Taylor got wrong was Maguire. At the time I thought he got the ball and then caught Jota and I wasn’t even sure it was a foul. Still, having given a foul outside the box, it needed to be a red because it was a goalscoring opportunity with no other covering defenders. Having watched it again, it’s defo a foul as he went right through Jota to get the ball. It should have been a red, but it was 5-0 and Taylor didn’t want to kick them while they were down. I can’t complain, considering Klopp and half of our team took the same approach and let them escape with just the 5-0
One thing I noticed today that I missed at the time, and it’s fucking incredible really, was Robbo on the first goal. He plays a pass down the line and then sprints forward. He runs by FIVE United players and by the time Mo rolls Naby in, he could just as easily have played it Robbo as he’s right up there alongside him. It’s great from Robbo but that’s embarrassing as fuck for United. Five players never bothered trying to stay with him. I expect there are loads more examples of it as they’re. Fucking disgrace aren’t they? Genuinely, a disorganised, arrogant bunch of lazy fucking wasters.
I was talking to my Dad after the game last night and when he was referring to Solskjaer he called him “ogs”. I didn’t think anything of it at the time as names aren’t his strong suit. He can’t even remember Jota’s name and calls him either ”Josh” or simply “J”, so he’s never going to remember, let alone pronounce, Solskjaer. Today though I saw a still photo of Solskjaer doing his post match, and he’s wearing a coat with his initials on. That’s what my Dad was looking at on screen when we were talking so he just called him “ogs” and I can’t stop laughing about it.
Tuesday Oct 26:
I do love a Pep Ljinders press conference. Highlights from today were him describing Divock as “one of the world’s best finishers” and him repeatedly banging the desk enthusiastically as he spoke about how boss Tyler Morton was at Norwich. People will laugh at his Origi take but it’s something I’ve been saying for ages. Not necessarily that he’s one of the world’s best, but he is a fucking good finisher. He doesn’t miss many chances. His problem is he doesn’t get enough chances because he’s either stuck out wide or just not in the game enough. He is pretty clinical when he gets opportunities though.
Naby just has bruising so won’t be out too long. Milner is out until after the international break (yet another one, fucking hell) and Thiago is close but not close enough for the weekend.
“Ogs” is still hanging on despite a lot of speculation he’s about to be sacked. He won’t be. All the talk about them considering getting rid is just a smokescreen. People at the club will put that out there just to make it look like they are considering what they are doing when the fact is they’re sleepwalking through this. They aren’t sacking him, Gary Neville has been so adamant about that because he obviously knows something.
The problem here is they have a brutal run of games coming. We need them to regroup, pick up a couple of battling draws and then somehow beat City. That’ll keep him in the job for a while. If City go there and destroy them though, they’ll have to duo something otherwise there’ll be fans breaking into the stadium and kicking off again.
Wednesday Oct 27:
Preston 0 L 2 That was fucking shite but we got away with it. I say got away with it, but we just about deserved the win as we were better in the second half. Still, we needed Adrian to pull off two good saves before the break and Neco had to clear one off the line. Preston are crap. They’re fighting relegation from the Championship and they made nine changes for this game, so even with our much changed line up we shouldn’t have made this much hard work of it.
Players who you’d want to really put in a performance, like Curtis and Ox for example, didn’t. Kostas was poor as well. Divock and Taki weren’t up to much but at least they both scored. Quality finishes as well, especially Big Div’s which was genuinely stunning. Bet Pep Ljinders was sat on the bench like this when that went in....
You know what else was shit tonight? The “Ole’s at the wheel” chant. That’s fine when we’re playing them but small time as fuck when we aren’t. Just knock it off. And while I’m on my soapbox, something else that has crept into footy now and I can’t stand it, is this shit with fans holding up messages asking for a player’s shirt. It’s the absolute worst kind of wool behaviour of all time but it’s creeping in here now.
And what we’re seeing to combat that is kids just running onto the field at the end and pressuring the player to give them their shirt. This is one of those things where maybe it’s me being a miserable old bastard, but I don’t like it one bit. Players should be able to do what they like with their shirt. Swap it with an opponent, keep it for themselves or if there’s a fan they want to give it to then do that. Having some spotty teenager running over and screaming “giz yer shirt lad” isn’t what they need.
Half of these fuckers are selling the shirts on eBay anyway. I mean, a lot of these kids you see on telly are defo being put up to it by parents wanting to make a quick buck on a Ronaldo or Salah shirt. Modern football.
Elsewhere tonight, City went out on pens at West Ham meaning they’ve finally relinquished the league cup. Amazing what happens when they don’t get drawn against a League Two side isn’t it. I don’t want West Ham in the next round because they’re going to be picking their best side for it (as they should). Same with Leicester, I’d like to avoid them as well if possible. Sunderland would be ideal but we’ll probably get Chelsea or Arsenal, as we always seem to.
Thursday Oct 28:
Barca are hiring Xavi to replace the sacked Koeman. This is going to end in tears if they let him pick which players he signs. This soft cunt thinks Scholes is the best midfielder he’s ever seen so if they let him loose with any sort of transfer budget he’ll be spunking it on Steve Sidwell and the younger of the Longstaffs. Loves an over-rated English ginger does arl Xavi.
More reports about us wanting Bellingham, while we’re also said to be after Kalvin Phillips too. There’s no way we’re spending big money on anyone. We weren’t big on doing that anyway, but then Covid came, and now we’ve got the Anny Road to pay for. We spend big when we sell big. Otherwise we look for singings in the £30-40m range. That won’t land either Bellingham or Phillips. I’d welcome either of them, but it’s moot as it ain’t happening.
We’re going to need to replace Milner at some point, probably this summer. There’s talk today that he’s joining the coaching staff. He was sat on the bench last night even though he’s injured so there might be something in that. Why else would he not just be sat at home in the warm watching on the telly? I don’t think any of the other injured players were there so it does feel like Milner is already taking on a bit of extra responsibility.
Friday Oct 29:
Well this might be a new low in ‘journalism’. Some fella with 150k followers on twitter and who writes for publications in Spain and Italy, has linked us with… wait for it, you’ll love this one…. ok rather than reveal the identity let’s play a little game. Who is the last player on planet earth who would fit into a Klopp midfield? Some of you will have it already. If you haven't, here's a clue.
He’s also one of the highest paid players in the world. Still not got it? Ok, he plays for a club where players never leave them to join us, and vice versa. You must have it by now, but if not it’s a player recently sent off for almost crippling one of our lads.
This tit trying to peddle this rumour actually suggested it was to replace Milner. Imagine replacing James Milner with Paul Pogba. They are literally polar opposites. Still, it was almost worth him peddling that bullshit just to read the replies. My favourite was some fella posting a picture of a boxer lying face down, spark out, with the words “Jogba after 4 minutes of gegen pressing”.
Of course you also had the utterly clueless ones too, like this “Hmm. I don't think Coutinho ever contributed much to our pressing game. So why the hate for Pogba? He's a world class midfielder who has won the world cup. He would definitely improve our team under Klopp.” People like that shouldn’t be allowed to watch footy. Not even kidding, I mean it. Fuck off and watch something else because you clearly have no understanding of how this works.
Meanwhile, I saw some smug tweets last night about how smart we are for signing Konate instead of Upamecano, who went to Bayern and is struggling. Way too early for that kind of hubris. Puts me in mind of how much we were smelling ourselves when we got Le Tallec and Pongolle and United got Ronaldo. Our kids had a bright start, Ronaldo was all stepovers and no goals, and some of us (me included) were pretty smug about it. Wasn’t long before we looked like knobheads.
Keita and Thiago both in full training but Fabinho still not ready. Thiago won’t play either as he’s been out fucking ages and will need at least a week training with the team before he gets picked. Naby should be ok though as he’s only missed a few days. He’s probably got a badly bruised shin but you can play through that. Whether he will remains to be seen as he’s not exactly iron man is he? I don’t think he’ll get a choice though. We’ve got no-one else so him crying off isn’t an option.
Saw an interview with Klopp on Sky where he was asked if he’d seen Squid Game. He said he watched the first episode but then the doll started shooting people he decided it wasn’t for him and switched it off. My respect for that man…… just fucking plummeted.
….and that was the week that was.
Recommended Comments