As Real Madrid complete the signings of Luka Jović, Ferland Mandy and Eden Hazard, Barcelona seem to be favourites for Matthijs De Ligt having already agreed the signing of Frenkie De Jong, Manchester City and Liverpool are being linked with some big name signings and even Arsenal and Tottenham may spend a few quid, what are Manchester United doing?
We’ll tell you what they’re doing shall we? In an attempt to strike fear and panic into the rest of the Premier League clubs they have made a short video of Chris Smalling telling anyone who will listen, (an audience which does not, to our knowledge, include any United supporters), how much he is looking forward to next season.
The fact that Smalling will even be at Old Trafford next season is likely to spoil the close season for a lot of Manchester United fans. They thought, like the rest of us, that the club had finally decided to enter the 21st century and appoint a Director of Football, an appointment for which we are still waiting.
They thought there would be BIG changes in the playing staff with many supporters far more interested in seeing some of the deadwood thrown out than in seeing lots of new players come in.
Whilst it is still early days in this transfer window and, to be fair, United have signed Daniel James from Swansea which is certainly a step in the right direction and reminds us of past days when signing players like Steve Coppell and Gordon Hill from lower league teams was the norm, the club still has to get it’s act together reasonably quickly as they depart for a money making tour of the Far East in July.
Instead of infuriating their supporters with videos of Smalling talking about next season, they would be far better served if they filmed a few saying what a pleasure it had been to play for United and how they were going to miss it now they’re going. They could have started with Smalling and received nothing but praise from fans.
England and Southgate to remain an item…..
Gawpy Gareth is sticking with England which is good news for their future opponents. He has stated his intention to turn down the Chelsea job which, to our knowledge, he was never going to be offered nor indeed is he on any short or long list of candidates.
Having beaten a couple of decidedly dodgy teams to reach the World Cup semi-finals, (which he then immediately lost against a half decent team), he followed up by reaching the Nation League semi-finals which he also managed to lose against a half decent team.
In other words, Southgate is an average manager. We have said it all along and he has proven it to be the case on several occasions now.
His wins have all come against teams that England should expect to beat quite comfortably, even if some of them haven’t been too comfortable. The outstanding performance was the hammering of Spain but hey, every dog has it’s day.
Then, as soon as England meet a team who are ranked similarly to themselves, they lose. This is not good management. This, in fact, is bad management and England fans can now look forward to a while yet of bad management as Southgate appears to think that his record is a good one.
The only pity about all this is that if Southgate really was offered the Chelsea job and he took it, he would be out of work by Christmas because, as he knows only too well, a club manager has to get results every week, not every three or four months like an international manager.
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 