Someone's having a real laugh - sperm of gollum to Utd.

[Guest Alex_K]

12 minutes ago, Ronnie Whelan said:

Part of it may be that he wasn't able to relate to Millenial footballers as well, whereas jurgen, pep and poch can.

 

Are these players really that different though? I mean we had the Spice Boys in the 90s, Beckham clearly flew the flag for "Millennial" behaviour in the 2000s.. Oezil loves himself some video games but then so did David James. I just can't believe these players are really that different -- weak characters are always going to be weak across generations.

 

Us, Munich, City etc.. are filled with players who are hard as nails and consumate professionals.It's in vogue for every generation to see their young players as softer than the last.. Ultimately it's probably just a shoddy excuse for really bad player recruitment & management. Mourinho comments on pogba, Shaw, martial etc were absolutely absurd regardless of context. It's one thing not relating.. Quite another wilfully blowing the whole thing up which is what he was basically doing through his actions 

[Section_31]

Okay it's not funny now.

[Boss]

In fairness to Mourinho, Willian and Perisic would've been good signings. That team has no width whatsoever. All their forwards are strikers playing out of position, or well past it wingers played as full backs.

 

Willian would've ran through a brick wall for him and given him 10x the effort Martial or Pogba put in. Maguire wouldn't have been bad either, especially considering the board went over his head and spent nearly £60m on that shite midfielder Fred.

[3 Stacks]

Willian, despite being extremely overrated, is the type of player you want to put around Lukaku. Even more true of someone like Perisic. But there's no justification for spending 50-60m on 30 year old's who are good not great and marginalizing players like Rashford and Martial who are seen as the future of the club. It was also asinine to ask for big money for a CB when he'd already bought two. 

 

The fault lies with Woodward for getting a short-term manager like Mourinho in the first place but not indulging him after he made the situation toxic was the right call.  

[Guest Alex_K]

Willian and Perisic would have a combined age of 60, would cost upwards of 100£ million in fees for the pair with sickeningly high wages and have 5 goals in their past 50 games between them. Awful awful prospects for any clubs trying to plan for the medium-term, never mind long term!

 

Van Dijk, Salah & Mane or 2018 Willian, Perisic & Maguire... yeah, about those plans Jose...

[Boss]

37 minutes ago, 3 Stacks said:

Willian, despite being extremely overrated, is the type of player you want to put around Lukaku. Even more true of someone like Perisic. But there's no justification for spending 50-60m on 30 year old's who are good not great and marginalizing players like Rashford and Martial who are seen as the future of the club. It was also asinine to ask for big money for a CB when he'd already bought two. 

 

The fault lies with Woodward for getting a short-term manager like Mourinho in the first place but not indulging him after he made the situation toxic was the right call.  

 

He didn't marginalise Rashford though. Rashford played over 50 games each season with Mourinho - which is an insane number of games for a 19-20 year old kid. Martial wasn't marginalised either - he played over 40 games in both of Mourinho's full seasons at the club. 

 

His biggest mistake was bringing in Pogba in the first place. He was unlucky that Zlatan got injured when he did, because he was one of Mourinho's soldiers and instilled a winning mentality into that twat-fest of a dressing room. However he was right to bring more of his disciples in, it was just too late. He should've jibbed both Martial and Pogba off after the first season.

[3 Stacks]

22 minutes ago, Boss said:

 

He didn't marginalise Rashford though. Rashford played over 50 games each season with Mourinho - which is an insane number of games for a 19-20 year old kid. Martial wasn't marginalised either - he played over 40 games in both of Mourinho's full seasons at the club. 

 

His biggest mistake was bringing in Pogba in the first place. He was unlucky that Zlatan got injured when he did, because he was one of Mourinho's soldiers and instilled a winning mentality into that twat-fest of a dressing room. However he was right to bring more of his disciples in, it was just too late. He should've jibbed both Martial and Pogba off after the first season.

Watch Rashford and Martial now. On form, you could argue that besides Salah, Rashford is the best striker in the league. Martial is wreaking havoc and playing every game. All since Mourinho left. 

 

Mourinho never liked them, never used them like he should have, and tried to sign players to replace them. Bringing Sanchez in was an effort to play them less, so would have signing Willian and Perisic. 

 

Selling Pogba and Martial would've been nuts. Completely disagree there. You can win trophies with those two and they're still young. 

[Guest Alex_K]

 

Mourinho's biggest mistake was playing shithouse, by-the-numbers football that totally negated the quality of the young, pacy talent in his squad in favour of playing the ball long to lummoxes like Fellaini and Lukaku regardless of whether the opposition was Bristol City or Real Madrid, all the while pursuing more shithouse, over-priced lummoxes in the market while Klopp & Guardiola have simultaneously built two of the most exciting, dominating domestic football teams in the 130 year history of the English football league.

 

His biggest mistake was not the signing of World Cup winning, top-scoring midfielder in the league Paul Pogba, nor was it his inability to force through a bargain-basement sale of recently nominated best under-21 player in Europe Anthony Martial. Which would, of course, have complemented his other recent magic tricks, like marginalising Kevin De Bruyne and Mo Salah at Chelsea. His signings over at United generally smacked of something Hodgson or Rodgers would have come up with on steroids.

[Boss]

An amateur does something for the love of it, a professional performs regardless of their feelings. That's what a professional does - they take care of business in a professional manner.

 

How can you have a player turn around and say "when i'm happy I play good" after a manager gets sacked? Do you know what that says? That says, "the moment I'm unhappy, I will not play for you". You may as well have Paul Pogba picking the team and devising the training sessions then. Ferguson would never have allowed that. Klopp wouldn't allow it. Guardiola wouldn't allow it. No manager in his right mind would allow that transgression to pass.

 

Ole allows it because he has no power, and because he's a sycophant. I'm sticking up for Mourinho on this one. Calling out a bunch of dabbing fools for their shit attitude was the right call.

[Guest Alex_K]

Rooney held Ferguson over the barrel at least twice -- mooting moves to City in 2010 & 2013. What did Ferguson do? Absolutely nothing -- other than to sign Rooney up to a bumper contract because United knew that in that moment, with Ronaldo recently departed and City/Chelsea lurking, Rooney had the power. And speaking of Ronaldo - he spent years being indulged & having his ego massaged at United until he finally got the move to Madrid he'd agonised for. It was well-known under Ferguson that the really great players at that club got different treatment to the rest (see: kung-fu kicking liability but genius-on-the-pitch Eric Cantona). So this "Ferguson would never have allowed that" is a tired analogy that doesn't chime with reality. And closer to home, how long did we play to the whims of Suarez and then Coutinho while both were verging on kicking & screaming to get out of the club? 

 

The Pogba-phenomenon is nothing new at all: there's been a Paul Pogba-esque character at many of the most successful club sides in history & its down to the manager how they handle it. Mourinho fucked it up big time -- as he's fucked up the relationships with many of the players across numerous clubs during the latter part of his career. When you take some of the finest technical footballers in the world (talking top 100, 200 players here) and try to shape them into the grotesque tactics Mourinho was adopting its little wonder that some of them will rebel.

 

Mourinho is the anti-Klopp: whereas Klopp has always worked by unifying clubs & fanbases behind the team, Mourinho has thrived on summoning hate and bile. He's the Donald Trump of football, pursuing a boom-and-bust cycle of success with a neverending stream of convenient reasons as to why it all went tits up. This narrative of players downing tools is a really convenient way of disguising a simple truth - Mourinho bought shit players and employed shit tactics which bore fruit of shit results.

[Boss]

Ferguson got rid of Beckham, Keane and Stam because of player power. He was also in the process of phasing Rooney out when he retired - until Moyes gave him that horrific 300k a week contract. He might've kept players on that agitated for moves away, because they were great players, but he wouldn't tolerate any threat to his authority. Rooney and Ronaldo weren't a threat. They just wanted to be paid more (in the case of Rooney), or in the case of Ronaldo move to their dream club.

 

What Coutinho did was a disgrace, and it was entirely orchestrated by Barcelona. Klopp did everything he could and then cut him loose. But the point is Coutinho, Rooney and Ronaldo didn't purposely play badly for a sustained period to get the manager sacked. Coutinho was fantastic for us when he played and gave 100%. It was testament to Klopp and Coutinho's own professionalism that when he played, he handled himself as a professional. 

 

That's a clear line that runs through Klopp's time here, and his time at Dortmund as well. Look at the way Emre Can's free transfer to Juventus was handled. Look at Klopp's handling of Gotze and Lewandowski. Non of them downed tools. Klopp demands professionalism at all times. He wouldn't have tolerated what Pogba and Martial did, i can tell you that for nothing.

[3 Stacks]

It's a different situation. Mourinho is a mercenary. It costs him nothing to throw players under the bus and get rid of them because he'll be gone within 3 years tops. 

 

A manager like Mourinho shouldn't have the right to make decisions like selling a Pogba or Martial, he's proven that. He wanted to sell Martial in the summer because he took some time to go see his wife give birth. I mean, come on. 

 

Klopp, Ferguson, Wenger, managers who build something, those are the people you trust in the handling of egos. 

[Guest Alex_K]

There's a lot of caveats emerging in your arguement here. "But ..but". Ferguson moved Keane on at age 34. Keane's body was broken. He managed one season in Scotland before retiring.  It had nothing to do with 'player power': he had simply outlived his usefulness. Maximising the usefulness of players is the manager's job. And if Ferguson can artfully do that to the point where even when he is bending to whims there are 'but' arguments as above to justify it ("But Rooney wasn't really questioning Ferguson's authority when he said the club had 'no ambition'" .. "But Ronaldo was only seeking a perfectly understandable 'dream move' when engineering a transfer to Real Madrid for season on season") then it really is what marks the masters from the rest.

 

Coutinho was immaculately trained by Klopp and played in the position best suited to him. Barcelona are playing him elsewhere on the pitch and, surprise, he is not as effective. Would you suppose that Coutinho is "purposely playing badly" for Barcelona? Or is it that his manager is not maximising his potential? Why must Pogba be "purposely playing badly" then-vs-now, when really he is occupying an entirely different role on the pitch in a team reliant on entirely different tactics? The frameworks are not the same so you cant judge accordingly. 

 

Gotze announced he was leaving Dortmund to join Bayern 36 hours before a Champions League semi-final which would see Dortmund play that very Bayern team in the final - a game he, surprise, did not play in. Professionalism, you say? Again, this behaviour isn't particular to one club or one generation so its really not an indictment on Klopp personally - but to pretend all managers don't have to deal with these circumstances is, again, to fall victim to Mourinho's woe-is-me charade.

[Boss]

2 hours ago, Alex_K said:

There's a lot of caveats emerging in your arguement here. "But ..but". Ferguson moved Keane on at age 34. Keane's body was broken. He managed one season in Scotland before retiring.  It had nothing to do with 'player power': he had simply outlived his usefulness. Maximising the usefulness of players is the manager's job. And if Ferguson can artfully do that to the point where even when he is bending to whims there are 'but' arguments as above to justify it ("But Rooney wasn't really questioning Ferguson's authority when he said the club had 'no ambition'" .. "But Ronaldo was only seeking a perfectly understandable 'dream move' when engineering a transfer to Real Madrid for season on season") then it really is what marks the masters from the rest.

 

Coutinho was immaculately trained by Klopp and played in the position best suited to him. Barcelona are playing him elsewhere on the pitch and, surprise, he is not as effective. Would you suppose that Coutinho is "purposely playing badly" for Barcelona? Or is it that his manager is not maximising his potential? Why must Pogba be "purposely playing badly" then-vs-now, when really he is occupying an entirely different role on the pitch in a team reliant on entirely different tactics? The frameworks are not the same so you cant judge accordingly. 

 

Gotze announced he was leaving Dortmund to join Bayern 36 hours before a Champions League semi-final which would see Dortmund play that very Bayern team in the final - a game he, surprise, did not play in. Professionalism, you say? Again, this behaviour isn't particular to one club or one generation so its really not an indictment on Klopp personally - but to pretend all managers don't have to deal with these circumstances is, again, to fall victim to Mourinho's woe-is-me charade.

 

Ferguson got rid of Roy Keane because he made some very disrespectful comments about some of the younger players in the squad during a MUTV interview - that Ferguson didn't allow to air - and he felt he'd way overstepped his mark and had to do something otherwise the younger players would lose respect for him. That was the reason why Keane was unceremoniously dumped - it had nothing to do with his age. Giggs played into his 40's and he brought Scholes back at 38 years old. Keane could've easily played on for 3-4 seasons in that team - in some capacity.

 

Coutinho is not purposely playing badly because it's self evident how frustrated he is with his own performances on the pitch, and his poor performances have been way overblown. Pogba would lose the ball 6-7 times in a game and not even bother to make a recovery run to reclaim it. It's very obvious watching him that he was giving minimal effort. It's not like i've just imagined this either - it's been a topic of conversation for months. Even when Mourinho was fired Pogba was posting cryptic things on social media to mock the sacking.

 

Gotze didn't play because it was a conflict of interest. I'm sure if we played Juventus in the knockout stages last season Can wouldn't have played either. I'm sure Gotze wanted to play. I don't think he was the one that asked to be dropped for a Champions league final if that's what you're implying. 

[Code]

Solskjærs agent was at the game against Fulham with Woodward and Glazer.

I'm pretty sure he will get offered the job fulltime.

Norwegian press has been unreadable for months now, it really is pathetic.

[Bjornebye]

Lets hope PSG slap the smile off their faces tonight. 

[Jairzinho]

Code, when you're prime minister you can just ban the cunts.

 

And expunge Roy Hodgson from the history of Viking football club.

[Bobby Hundreds]

United will snot PSG I reckon.

[Nolongerathletic]

2 minutes ago, Bobby Hundreds said:

United will snot PSG I reckon.

Too fast upfront...having said that PSG are pretty pacy - but depends if they give a shit or not...Cavani and Neymar both out, but at least they have Veratti back, he's a top player!

[TheHowieLama]

No Neymar, no Cavani - PSG out

[Aventus]

I hope they both lose. 

[Babb'sBurstNad]

PSG looked shit scared coming to Anfield, so I'm expecting them to be similar tonight. They're a show pony side who can be got at with pace.

 

I've got a feeling we'll see a Manchester derby in the CL this year.

[Nolongerathletic]

8 minutes ago, Babb'sBurstNad said:

PSG looked shit scared coming to Anfield, so I'm expecting them to be similar tonight. They're a show pony side who can be got at with pace.

 

I've got a feeling we'll see a Manchester derby in the CL this year.

Wash your mouth out...even though you might think it, keep to yourself..... the idea of Utd winning a CL under Gollum is soul destroying! You have now confirmed my worst fears...thanks

[Bjornebye]

11 minutes ago, Babb'sBurstNad said:

PSG looked shit scared coming to Anfield, so I'm expecting them to be similar tonight. They're a show pony side who can be got at with pace.

 

I've got a feeling we'll see a Manchester derby in the CL this year.

I think the atmosphere scared them more than anything plus we are far more frightening up-front. 

 

They won't get it that bad tonight. 

 

Neymar being out is a bit of a blow for PSG but Cavan is garbage. Mbappe leading the line.... Di Maria with a point to prove.... I reckon it will be a good game. 6 all with 13 red cards. 

[lebron]

A 2-1 win for Utd tonight, just to keep them busy ahead of our meeting with them, and then all their dreams come crashing down in the following weeks. Defeats to us, Chelsea and PSG to end their season would be sweet.