Manchester United were predictably poor against Bournemouth again but can it be Ruben Amorim’s fault? Plus, Villa, West Ham and more.
There is a Mailbox full of Liverpool title gloating here if that’s more your bag. Send your views on all subjects to theeditor@football365.com
Man Utd’s problem is obvious
So United have one point from the past two matches, despite only conceding 2 shots on target across both. Amorim’s much maligned system is working defensively, but it’s very simple: you can’t win football matches if your players can’t score goals.
Ryan, Bermuda (we all said he needs time and players, let’s give him those eh?)
If this Man Utd side was managed by anybody else…
Alan Smith is as poor a commentator as Amorim is a coach and Bruno is a captain. “He slipped!” Did he bollocks, or at least, only after he was already flying in with a scissor tackle. If it was a United player, it was a red card without hesitation. Dorgu got a yellow for winning the ball for God’s sake.
Sorry, but “we’re focused on Europa” isn’t an excuse for this kind of limp performance.
If this was Ten Hag, Moyes, Van Gaal or bloody Ole, the knives would be out across the media and fanbase. A good manager adapts to the circumstances. Why are some people so desperate to believe in this appointment that they will blindly back this entrenchment? It might work with a new squad of players, but it isn’t right now.
At least we had the amusement of watching Maguire – apparently a professional footballer – require huge concentration (and time) to make 10 yard sideways passes that put teammates under pressure.
It’s far beyond time that we held all players and managers to a higher standard, not just some of them.
Badwolf
READ: Hojlund saves meek and mild Man United from yet another Premier League defeat
…Sky can cry all they want about Evanilson slipping…they were lucky Tyler Adams got away with the same thing. Physical Bournemouth can’t stay on their feet on a dry pitch?
Sure sky were already celebrating Liverpool for the 60th consecutive month so poor Jamie and Alan Smith will have to console themselves with that.
Anthony Fox
Might not have been a bad Man City season…
Ahhh….some things never change, eh?
Things like your noisy neighbors, who are currently en route to winning silverware. But on the real though, was Man City’s season really that catastrophically bad? I’m starting to get the sense that the media blew their slump out of proportion. Granted, it was an unexpected slump.
These guys are currently 4th, FFS. I say we should judge them next season, when Pep either goes out with a bang one last time before riding off into the sunset somewhere to play golf or drops further into the abyss.
Then we’ll know how to truly judge this rebuild.
Gaptoothfreak, Man Utd, Somewhere On Earth
WTF is wrong with Real Madrid?
First things first, I am what you’d call a casual fan of Real Madrid. They are not the team I mainly support, but a team I support in La Liga over Barcelona. But I am not blinded by my fandom for them, so maybe that’s why this is such an easy mail to write in,
All the bickering and whining is usually a fun wind up before a match, and there is always some joy to be gotten when a team implodes spectacularly in a cup final. But what this week has shown is a very very unfortunate series of events for which there is only Real Madrid to blame. You ABSOLUTELY cannot throw things at the referee. Rudiger needs to get a long long ban from football & Real Madrid have to be fined massively for the way their players reacted like a bunch of entitled children throwing their toys out of the pram. It was embarrassing & atrocious behavior by one of the supposedly biggest clubs in the world.
And honestly, this is a La Liga/Madrid & Barcelona problem. Media mind games, paying millions under the table, personal attacks, frivolous statements & more have sucked the joy out of such shithousery and made it seem like a genuinely evil minded thing to do. Flopping around most of the game, trying to get others sent off, waving imaginary cards etc etc. Madrid are in general more at fault than Barcelona for these things, but both clubs really need to grow up.
On the other hand, do the referees have any guts? Are they not supported by the league? I saw 5-6 instances of players waving imaginary cards, 1-2 players kicking the ball away & more, yet no yellows shown for that. Compare that with the EPL where even a minor infraction is a straight yellow, no questions asked. La Liga has abandoned its referees it seems. The poor ref tried his best to do a good job, and you could see the stress on his face during the match.
Detest them as I may, I cannot imagine a City, United, Liverpool or Arsenal player behaving the way Rudiger did. He wouldn’t have dared to when he was at Chelsea. Sure, head loss resulting in a red card can happen, but a physical attack on the ref? half the team and subs running onto the field? That’s disgusting. And I say this while knowing that the Barca player flopped hard and that wasn’t a foul AT ALL. But that is no excuse for what followed.
When you accuse half the league fans of throwing shit at Vini Jr or other players, and you end up doing the same thing to a referee, then you deserve to get struck with a glass bottle to the head to understand the reason why this is abhorrent behaviour that you are condoning and actively encouraging it in fans.
So yeah, Rudiger & Madrid need to be made an example out of. Hope the La Liga has the balls to follow through.
Aman
Potter out
Following up on last week’s feeble surrender to Southampton, Potter has managed to outdo himself on Saturday. 2-1 up with 5 to go, bring on Coufal, a hard working but very slow and limited right back, to play what can only be described as left back in a flat back 6. Cue free headers on our left, 2-2, then 11 men lined up on the edge of our area, not closing down anyone whatsoever, 2-3. I’m not even angry, I’m already just depressingly accepting of this being is now for the next 18 months.
It’s Moyes-ball at its very worst. Cowardly, lacking in any tactical nous, the ChampMan equivalent of putting all of your players into the furthest slots back. Please don’t give this man a summer transfer kitty.
Mike (2 years since trophy blah blah, who cares, Potter Out)
READ: Even Man Utd can’t ruin Cunha, Ipswich down, West Ham somehow s**tter – 3pm Blackout
Football is brilliant
Been thinking a lot about SC’s mailbox entry from last week which so perfectly addresses everything that is wrong. On Saturday I was lucky enough by chance to find myself around a whole bunch of Palace fans waiting for their coach to arrive to take them to Wembley. Multi generations of fans who got to experience something which rarely happens to that club. And you can’t help but smile – and this was before the result – because that’s why you go every week, to experience moments that you’ll never forget.
Modern football discourse is so utterly broken. The willingness to draw long term conclusions from individual data sets; the absolute insistence on making sure that it isn’t enough for one team to do well, another or more preferably, a number of other teams have to be failing because of it; Rio Ferdinand. None of that matters. And if Palace had lost on Saturday it still would have been an amazing trip for 1000s.
Anyway, this sounds like a pat on the head for Palace. It’s not – they’re absolutely brilliant and you can’t help but wonder what might have been if they’d started the season in August. I hope they win it so we can then have the ‘Did Palace have a better season’ than a whole bunch of clubs which finished above them in the League 😉
Simon, London
Are Villa done?
Fair play to Palace. 100% deserved that and completely have our number.
Villa’s season falling apart.
With PSR issues and likely sales and loans going back we may have peaked.
Paul
…So, Villa’s performance in the cup semi: Just tick a box for everything said after the City game in the week. First shot on target going in; goal conceded in injury time; Martinez, Torres, Konsa all rubbish. Mad substitutions.
The absence of Mings and Onana from the 16 players used was confusing. Ross Barkley as supersub also. Hopefully when someone at the club finds where Ollie Watkins spent the day hiding, they can explain to him that performances – if that even qualifies as a performance – like that are why you don’t f**king start every game, and are also why you do not have permission to go to the media to bitch about it.
On the plus side: Bailey coming back is good, as it might stop us wasting Rogers on the right wing. We didn’t play a competition winner at right back. Martinez didn’t try and shag anything after the penalty miss. I didn’t fork out for the ticket. Erm…Sam Matterface wasn’t commentating? I’m struggling. Oh, maybe If incels who want 100% men’s punditry for men’s football are given the Malcolm McDowell treatment, ie they watch a certain amount of Wayne Rooney, perhaps they’ll consider a different perspective.
And for Palace, well done. I would say that’s the best they’ve played against us in the 5 games in the last 12 months, but I don’t even think it is? Seeing as the aggregate over those games is 16-4, and they could easily have got another 4 on Saturday. But hopefully you or Forest beat The Empire to the cup. I am upset and very envious but fair Fs to you.
Now to hibernate until football media isn’t full of Palace scoring bangers, Patrick Bamford being a smug prick, and Small Heath pretending to be important.
Neil Raines UTV
READ: Crystal Palace’s trio inspire statement win with Aston Villa struck by kryptonite in Carabao final repeat
Make football make sense
Among all the noise around whether this year has been poor, as Liverpool romp to the title (no it hasn’t ) – I’d like to highlight how any team can beat any other on any given day.
In consecutive weeks we have had the following results:
Newcastle 5-0 Palace
Villa 4-1 Newcastle
Palace 3-0 Villa (and Palace could have won by 6 or 7)
Just goes to prove how competitive the league is – and I love the unpredictability of it.
Tom (Geordie in Toronto)
