Leaderboard

Monday Jan 31: I watched the kids play in the youth cup on Saturday and what a roller coaster of emotions that was. For 70 minutes they were brilliant. They led 3-0 and had looked so fucking good. They played Chelsea off the park. Strong in defence, bossing the midfield and creative as fuck up front. They scored three great goals and had restricted Chelsea to very little. Then they conceded to the old ‘Lampard shot from 25 yards that goes in off a defender’s arse’ Chelsea trademark, and completely fell apart. A big part of it was centre back Lee Jonas having to go off and three players having to switch positions in the back four to cover for it, but even allowing for that this was a choke job of epic proportions. 3-0 with 20 minutes left and they lost 4-3. That’s it, no youth cup for them this year and it’s a massive missed opportunity for them as City are out and they had the chance to send Chelsea packing too. So frustrating. The main thing happening today is obviously the window shutting. Big Nat went on loan to Bournemouth. Apparently he turned down two PL clubs in relegation battles and I can see why he’d do that. Bournemouth are riding high and chasing promotion so it’s going to be a lot more fun playing for them than scrapping it out for survival with the likes of Watford or Burnley. Neco went on loan too. I don’t like that as he’s played well this season and he’s next in line should anything happen to Trent. Now we’ll probably end up with Gomez playing right back if Trent is injured or needs resting. I wonder if this was just done as a sweetener for Fulham to make it easier for us to land Carvalho? We agreed a deal with them and with the lad, but ran out of time. Letting them, have Neco may make it easier to complete Carvalho without the need for a tribunal. That deal looks like it will still happen and even if we had done the deal tonight he wouldn’t have been joining until the summer anyway so there’s no harm done. I’m just made up that it looks like he’ll be coming here. Adding Diaz and Carvalho to what we have makes us pretty fucking formidable up top. Of course someone will probably end up being sold now as we won’t keep all of those options when only three can play. Sadio may be the one under the most threat as Diaz (and Carvalho) both look like a natural fit for his position. Bobby should be the one under most threat but because he’s unique he may still have a role. I guess a lot of it comes down to who will sign a new contract on the terms being offered. If Mo doesn’t sign, he might be the one sold. Shit, they might sell them all because to extend them all would cost somewhere close to one million a week. Speaking of Mo, both he and Sadio have made it to the AFCON semis and they have been kept apart so could both make the final. Tuesday Feb 1: I’ve got COVID again so spent most of today in bed. I got up and had a browse of twitter to catch up on the deals done yesterday not involving us. Deli Alli signed for the Blues in the end after Newcastle made a late play to hijack the deal. Pretty bizarre transfer this because Spurs had to help out with Everton’s FFP problems. It’s a free initially, but when he plays 20 games its £10m and then after that there are all sorts of potential add ons that could take it up to £40m or so. What are the odds Everton play him for 19 games and then sell him? Unless Spurs have it in the contract they can’t do it, they’d be mad not to do that as he’s a spent force. It all went to his head and he’s done fuck all for years now. Look at this photo from last night though…. Those five fellas in there with him are, according to Fabrizio Romano anyway, his agents. FIVE OF THEM! Fuck me, even Ronaldo probably doesn’t need five agents. One agent and four lawyers maybe (at least Greenwood has someone to turn to for advice this week), but not five agents. Tell you something else too, see that red in his hair? Bet that’s gone by the time he makes his debut. I can hear Michael Ball grinding his teeth from here. Other notables yesterday were Aubamayeng joining Barca on a free and Christian Eriksen signing for Brentford. I wish Eriksen well and would be made up if he’s a big success there. As for “Auba”, he must have taken a massive pay cut but you would, wouldn’t you? Just to get away from Arsenal. He’s a cunt, Arsenal are cunts, Barca are cunts. Fuck all of them. Tell you what though, it shows how desperate Barca are now. Two years ago Xavi was saying Aubameyeng isn’t a Barcelona type player but that was before they were reduced to rummaging through the Premier League bins for scraps like mangy dogs. Wednesday Feb 2: Sadio scores and assists to help Senegal reach the final. Good for him. If it ends up with him against Mo in the final I don’t know who I’ll root for. Take our lads out of it and I’m going for Senegal over Egypt all day, but this would essentially be Sadio v Mo. I joked a couple of weeks ago on the pod that I’d be Team Sadio but that was more about wanting Egypt knocked out early as I’d rather Mo come back early than Sadio, because he’s more important. In terms of winning the thing, it’s tough because out would mean so much to both of them. For Sadio it’s just about Senegal, but for Mo he’s got more riding on it than just that. The title of best African footballer ever is up for grabs, then there’s the implications for next year’s Balon d’Or and various other individual honours. And no doubt his agent will be using it ion his contract negotiations with the Reds. Mo still has to get to the final first though, and Cameroon’s captain has stoked the flames ahead of tomorrow’s semi by saying that Salah “don’t impress me much”. Alright Shania Twain, settle down. Not sure why you’d be that stupid ahead of a game of such importance. Giving the world’s best player extra motivation isn’t smart, but it’s not really about that. Mo will already be hugely motivated. The reason this is stupid is because if it blows up in his face and Mo scores the winner, he’ll never live it down. It’s the kind of stupid shit I say on footy manager all the time in my pre-match press conferences, and even then it backfires more often that not. Do your talking afterwards, not before. It’s this level of disrespect that accounts for old man Ronaldo and over the hill Messi still raking in the individual awards over the likes of Mo and Lewandowski. Thursday Feb 3: Egypt went through on pens after a fucking dire game. I tuned it for extra time so was spared the previous 90 minutes of nothing. The pitch was a disgrace and the game was played in the stadium in which fans died a week ago. The Egypt coach was sent off, and then his assistant was sent off, and basically Mo was giving the team talk in extra time and before pens. Mo was angry too. I’ve never seen him like that, but Egypt have some beef with that ref which must go beyond just this game (which he didn’t seem to do much wrong). Cameroon’s pens were hilariously shit, especially the last one which the lad smashed wide from no run up. Egypt’s pens were brilliant though, which accounts for their tactical approach which seems to be “play for pens” in every game. They’ll do it in the final too, but when you compare the calibre of clubs their squad represent and compare it with Senegal, you can see why. Mo is their only star, the rest are barely even Championship calibre at best. If Senegal score first they’ll probably win easily. If not, get strapped in for more extra time and pens. Meanwhile, Lampard is unveiled and goes with the “it’s a People’s Club” line. I mean fucking hell, don’t they ever get tired of this shit? They think it winds us up but it just makes Reds either laugh at them, or shake their head in frustration and embarrassment. I’m in the latter category. I saw that quote and my reaction was “really? You’re doing that again? You sad, sad cunts”. Roy Keane might be getting the Sunderland job. I’ve told my Mackem brother in law if that happens I’m coming up for his first home game. I’m all in on Keane getting back into management at lower league level (he defo can’t manage Premier League players) as he’s either going to be great or it’s going to go up in flames. Either way it’s going to be interesting. I have a soft spot for Sunderland anyway because of the family connections, but add Keane to the mix and I’m well up for seeing them get promoted. Hopefully Newcastle go the other way and they’ll have derby games again. This Mason Greenwood thing is fucking horrific. United have done the decent thing by suspending him but how long have they known about this and did they continue picking him after they found out? Would be interesting to know, especially given Solskjaer’s previous for condoning and covering up this kind of thing back in Norway. Friday Feb 4: Diaz arrives and does his first interview. It’s in Spanish and there’s nothing especially earth shattering in it, but it still had me fired up anyway. I’m getting serious Luis Suarez vibes from this signing but I can’t explain why. I’m convinced he’s going to be amazing. Klopp defo wants to throw him in this weekend. He all but admitted it in his presser, but common sense will prevail and he’ll probably get 15 or 20 minutes at the end. Sadio and Mo will both be back for Leicester, and how hard is it going to be picking a team (and subs) for that one? We’ve got everyone available now. If we went with Alisson, Trent, Joel, Virg, Robbo, Fab, Hendo, Thiago, Mo, Jota and Sadio that leaves all of the following trying to make a nine man bench. Kelleher, Gomez, Konate, Kostas, Milner, Ox, Keita, Jones, Elliott, Bobby, Taki, Diaz, Origi. That’s without even factoring in talented kids like Gordon, Bradley, Morton etc This is by far the strongest squad in the history of the club. It’ll get stronger too, with Carvalho arriving in the summer and who knows who else. We’re being heavily linked with Saka again tonight, who has an escape clause of £43m if Arsenal don’t get top four (and they won’t because they’re shite). I like him and at that price he’s a steal, but City want him too and they need him more than we do. Unless this is part of the long term strategy as to why Mo hasn’t been extended. Phasing out the front three and replacing them with younger players rather than paying them big money into their thirties is very something I could see FSG sanctioning. I’m not totally against it in theory either, but it would break my heart of all three of them left when they still have so much footy left in them. It’s starting to feel like at least two of them might go this summer though now. On a lighter note, the Mancs were dumped out of the FA Cup at home by Boro tonight. I wasn’t watching it until Boro equalised and I thought “aye aye, might be worth checking this out”. And it was, but only just. If they’d sneaked through on pens I’d have been furious at myself for wasting the best part of an hour watching that utter garbage. I genuinely can’t believe how bad they are. It’s not like they have a team full of complete stiffs. There are loads of good players there but somehow they’re not just less than the sum of their parts, they’re less the sum of a set of old, rusty, broken parts covered in dog shit. It’s actually impressive that they can look so bad. Jadon Sancho. What the fuck is he? They could have saved themselves 80m and signed Aaron Lennon instead. Ronaldo is shite these days too. Can’t even take a penalty any more the shit preening cunt. The handball goal is a joke but that makes it even funnier. This is who United are when they don’t have the officials bailing them out. The only reason they’ve been around the top four these past few years is because of friendly officiating. Take that away and they have nothing. Both keepers in that shoot out were a disgrace though. Not just because they didn’t save any pens, but the way they were acting. That Henderson bum was bouncing around like Pickford after a bag of skittles, delaying kicks, trying to whip up the crowd, and then when the pen was taken he’d take a couple of steps in the wrong direction and fall to his knees. He’s SHITE him. I’m amazed people haven’t got onto it yet. I knew he was useless when he made himself tiny against Mo last season. Massive red flag, United should have cashed in on him immediately before people cottoned onto it. The Boro keeper annoyed me even more though. He got nowhere near any pens, committed himself embarrassingly early on the Fernandez pen and then had the balls to charge off like the conquering hero when some kid blasted one into orbit. And loads of his team-mates chased after him too! Honestly, I contributed as much to that shoot out win as that shameless twat, and I was sat on the sofa wrapped in a blanket because I still have fucking COVID. Made up for Lee Peltier getting the winning pen though. Disappointing there were no “you Scouse bastard” chants but then I guess they had no clue who he was. Also loved the ex Leeds lad Howson milking his celebration in front of the Stratford End. In the words of a wise old former LFC left back…. Get out Man United! GET OUT!! ….and that was the week that was.