WHY SAY ANYTHING?

Poor little Manchester United are considering expanding Old Trafford so that they can increase their rip-off seating potential to more than 80,000 fans because they don’t currently make enough money!

The additional seating would be installed in the Sir Bobby Charlton stand which raises a couple of issues when taking the surroundings into account.

Firstly, there is the fact that there are houses very close to the ground behind this stand and, secondly, there is also a railway line. For any lengthy construction work to take place there is no way the ground could stay open for matches because of the problems this would cause to residents and commuters.

So what are the options? Well, the obvious one is The Etihad. Neither club have ruled out the idea and City would be rubbing their hands at the prospect of massively overcharging their neighbours to share the house.

The Macron Stadium in Bolton would be another option although the capacity there is less than 29,000 which could be a problem given the amount of people who want to watch United so they can spend the remainder of their weekend whingeing on social media about José Mourinho, team selection, tactics and individual players!

Whatever the problems they will not be insurmountable, particularly to a club like United who, although slow to see the advantages of a women’s team and sleeve advertising, will have already calculated how much their revenue will increase by with the extra seats.

That is why it will happen and not for any romantic reason such as allowing more fans to watch them live, or however else they may choose to spin it.

Players…..

Mourinho also recently answered questions regarding the happiness, or otherwise of Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford. He did so by pointing out something which is pretty obvious to the average football fan but seems to be beyond the grasp of the collective intelligence of the media. He explained that, in a game of football, he is only allowed to select eleven players!

Ah! the press hadn’t thought of that! As we have already said, in a previous and very popular article, these two players are not George Best and Cristiano Ronaldo and neither are yet good enough to just walk into a Manchester United team. They need to be patient and bide their time and, most of all, they both need to improve and become more consistent.

Another award for José…..

In a rare move away from the norm, the League Manager’s Association chose Manchester United ‘s win against Manchester City for their (coveted?) “Performance of the Week” award.

This was strange for two reasons. Firstly, the award rarely goes to a big club just because they beat another big club and, secondly, the performance wasn’t THAT great. An award for “Comeback of the Week” or “Second Half Performance of the Week” would have been far more appropriate.

To the games…..

Southampton v Chelsea

In a comeback similar to that of Manchester United in last weekend’s derby match, Chelsea also came back from two goals down to beat Southampton at St. Marys.

Man-of-the-Match, despite only coming on as a second half substitute, was Olivier Giroud who scored two of the three goals in his team’s 2-3 win.

The result affects the bottom of the table more so than the top as Chelsea are well out of contention for a top four place at present but Southampton are very much still in danger of going down.

Liverpool v Bournemouth

Liverpool eventually eased to a comfortable win over Bournemouth but did manage, in the process, to make it look a bit more difficult than it should have been.

Having spurned a few chances to take a three or four goal lead into the break, at which time they only led 1-0, they finally ran out 3-0 winners with Mo Salah getting his 30th goal of the season

Tottenham Hotspur v Manchester City

This was the much anticipated game of the weekend with fans wanting to see if City could get back to winning ways or if Spurs would continue with theirs?

As with the derby last week, City started the first half very well and were in a comfortable 0-2 lead when they, yet again and inexplicably, switched off. This allowed Spurs back into the game and at half-time it was close at 1-2.

The second half, however, saw Spurs fail to have any shots on target, City score again and the game end with the away team heading back to Manchester with a 1-3 win and the three points.