WHY SAY ANYTHING?

So England’s Cricket team have banned their players from playing football during training and in warm-ups. This follows Manchester United’s decision to ban their players from playing football during matches. The England reasoning was quite logical in that their regular knockabouts with the big ball had resulted in injury to Rory Burns which ruled him out of the second test against South Africa.

The Manchester United reasoning is less logical and must, unfortunately, be put down to the manager. After wins against Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City which came as a big surprise to United fans and, probably, an even bigger surprise to Ole Gunnar Solskjær, they reverted to type against Arsenal and put in an abject performance when deservedly losing 2-0.

Mike Phelan was conspicuous by his absence from the touchline although quite what he achieves by making the occasional appearance there is beyond us.

Michael Carrick, the so-called pass-master is baffling fans who are wondering what it is he actually does at Old Trafford. The team rarely manage to retain possession of the ball for longer than ten seconds or so and consistently pass straight to the opposition. After a couple of years of Carrick on the training ground you would be entitled to expect better.

The Milky Bar kid, whose name we are still not sure of and still can’t be bothered Googling, is still there without anybody, probably himself included, being quite sure what it is that he actually does!

Ole flits between the touchline and a comfy seat next to Carrick and the MBK. He sometimes waves an arm at his players in an obvious attempt to showcase his grasp of semaphore, a skill which his players evidently haven’t bothered to learn, whilst the rest of the time is spent in deep meditation in his seat, designed to bring divine intervention in the form of tactics, movement and skill. It hasn’t worked yet!

Carlo Ancelotti hoping to prove that Everton have it right appointing experience and that Manchester United got it wrong when sacking experienced managers such as van Gaal and Mourinho!

Everton have moved reasonably quickly in replacing a failing young manager in Marco Silva with Carlo Ancelotti, a big name with a big reputation.

West Ham have moved quickly-ish in replacing a failing old manager with a slightly younger model who at least has a short track record of relative success at the London Stadium.

Arsenal have replaced an experienced young-ish manager with an inexperienced even younger manager but hey, this is Arsenal, who are currently on year three post-Wenger so, using United as the yardstick, they have to fail for at least another three years before a fair comparison can be made.

Will Ole Sign anybody during this window? Will anybody want to sign for United this window? Will Ed Woodward appoint a Director of Football, effectively removing himself from the role he has carried out so poorly since David Gill passed him the cheque book?

Stay tuned for the answers to these questions and many more, as WSA exits one decade and enters another still leading the way in popular, (and sometimes unpopular), journalism.

Happy New Year to all six of our readers!