Many times supporters of various clubs will say things like, “he’s not a United player“, or “that’s not the West Ham way of playing“, or other such utterances about the team or player in question.
Although commonly heard around football stadia in the UK, there is some confusion as to what is actually meant by the comments.
So what exactly IS a “United player” and what IS the “West Ham way of playing“, or any other club for that matter? (more…)
Come on Ed! You can do it! Don’t forget to breathe! Breathe! Just a few short weeks to go now and then you can retire to your office in Mayfair and forget all about the football side of the game until January. You can concentrate all your efforts on getting obscure conglomerates to sign massive sponsorship deals.
Of course it will be easier in January because, by then, JosĂ© Mourinho will have worked out that, if he wants two players, he has to ask for four. He just has to be careful of the order in which he asks as he won’t want to be saddled with the two players he didn’t really want. (more…)
WSA gets the impression that José Mourinho is always waiting for news of something. It may be that he is about to get fired and would like to hear about it. It could also be that his wife and kids want to stay in London while he jollies off up to Manchester to slum it in a five star hotel for the duration of his United contract, but he wants to know about it.
He wants to know who is “with him” at Old Trafford and who is “against him“. Who will let him down by refusing to play when injured and who will ignore the pain and fight for the cause? (more…)
PART TWO – JĂśRGEN KLOPP, ARSÉNE WENGER AND JOSÉ MOURINHO
Continuing to answer our question from yesterday when, in part one, we focused on Antonio Conte, Mauricio Pochettino and Pep Guardiola, today in part two we look at the remaining three of the top six managers and assess the likelihood of them staying with their current clubs.
JĂĽrgen Klopp – Liverpool
Seems to be as loyal as they come nowadays and only left Borussia Dortmund because he couldn’t really take them any further and had ambitions to manage in the Premier League. (more…)
There has been a lot of rubbish written recently as to why José Mourinho bought Romelu Lukaku and why, supposedly, he wants to buy Timoue Bakayoko. Amongst the explanations given has been one which suggests that he wants to get one over his old club.
Why? What would that achieve? Personal satisfaction because they sacked him? We doubt that, particularly when all the evidence points to Mourinho having engineered his own exit so that he could take the United job. (Read here, if you haven’t already done so).
Apart from which, Mourinho may be a spiteful person at times, but he is much too professional to let that side of his personality affect his judgement when it concerns Manchester United. (more…)
Manchester United have won the Premier League title thirteen times. Chelsea have won it five times and Manchester City have won it twice.
Sandwiched in between City and Chelsea is Arsenal, who have won it three times, but that was back in the days when they were quite good, days which are unlikely to return as long as they, and their manager, continue to stick their heads in the sand in the forlorn belief that he will be able to compete with the new kids on the block at any time soon.
Their riches also do not amount to as much as any of the “big three” which means that they will either always be picking up players unwanted by the others, or scouting very good players for themselves, as they used to do very successfully. (more…)
Here we take a look at the transfer dealings of two London clubs, the two from Manchester and the two Merseyside teams.
CHELSEA
Chelsea have signed Antonio RĂĽdiger. He is a centre back and there was, as far as we know, no competition for his signature.
Chelsea have not signed Romelu Lukaku because they had competition from a bigger club. They may not sign Timoue Bakayoko because that same bigger club is now expressing an interest in the player. (more…)
The short answer is yes, it would be and for the following long reasons.
Leaving aside Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who is now no longer an option, Manchester United had nobody reaching double figures in the goalscoring charts last season.
That was one of the reasons  United didn’t challenge for the title and, in the end, didn’t even really challenge for the top four. Too many games were drawn at home and the annoying aspect of those draws was that the majority of them were 1-1 results where United had led the games for lengthy periods, with the obvious exception being the Liverpool game where they actually managed to come back and draw in the last minute. (more…)
That’s it! The transfer window is now officially open! Better than Christmas Day for a five year old. Better than your thirteenth birthday when you said “hello” to your teen years and much better than your eighteenth birthday when everything that used to be fun because it was illegal is now extremely boring and mundane.
So begins two months of anticipation, interspersed with long periods of frustration and boredom when, even though the window has been flung wide open, nothing happens at your club. (more…)
In fact, they have missed out on more of their preferred targets than they have actually signed.
A lot of this has only been happening in the last few years as other clubs, around Europe in general and the Premier League in particular, have grown thanks to the amount of TV money now on offer.
Twenty or so years ago, the main competitors when United were interested in buying a player would be Liverpool, maybe Arsenal and that would be just about it from the Premier League. At that stage players were not moving around Europe as much so no interest would be expressed from the likes of Real Madrid or Barcelona. (more…)
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 