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We have a selection of your lovely Mails. If you want to contribute, you know what to do: Mail us at [email protected]

 

Not the chosen Juan part II
To elaborate further on my point that Mata and United are not a good fit and this is going to upset GB from Dubai and he’s ‘F*ck of Mata patrol’, here is a list of games united have struggled to score this season against weaker opposition (home and away) which Mata has featured.

Home

0-0 Crystal Palace – Mata full 90.

2-2 Derby (LC) – Mata started, subbed off 70thminute at 1-1 with Derby about to take a penalty.

1-1 Wolves – Mata started subbed off 63rd minute with score at 1-1.

2-0 Reading (FA Cup) – Mata started, subbed off in the 62nd with score at 2-0 ambling to a win against lower league opposition.

2-2 Burnley – Mata full 90

Honourable mention to the Juventus game at home in the champions league (albeit against a very good side) Full 90 and never looked like scoring.

Away

2-3 Brighton (lost) Mata subbed off at half time whilst 3-1 down

1-2 Bournemouth (won) Mata subbed off after 56 minutes with score at 1-1.

2-1 Valencia (UCL lost) Mata subbed off at 2-0 down.

0-2 Newcastle (won) Subbed off after 63 minutes with score at 0-0

Not saying he isn’t a good player, he is, just United struggle to score goals and put teams to bed when he starts. Juventus away and Newcastle home (1-2 win and 3-2 win) are examples of how a late introduction he can add a different dimension – not good enough for the first 11. Is a number 10, United don’t play with a number 10, he can’t play wide and when he does is inferior to the likes of Lingard, Rashford, Martial, Sanchez, hell even Lukaku wide right would be better (for reference games against Liverpool/City/Spurs/Chelsea not included as we shouldn’t expect to win them), but when you play against a side like a Burnley who at 1 point had 7 players in their own 6 yard box and it wasn’t a set piece (embarrassing to call that football) he doesn’t pose enough of a threat to unlock sides. Over to you GB….
Dean

 

Defending Ole
Wanted to bring some perspective in for last night’s result for all those lauding United’s late comeback. Sure under Mourinho, United probably would have been labouring to create anything throughout the match. But let’s not forget – the same squad also showed the same self belief in the corresponding fixture last season with a late Lingard goal to level things up in December. And under Mourinho, United came back from 2-0 down twice (against Palace and Newcastle) to win 3-2 in the dying minutes. So it’s not like they’ve rediscovered their DNA and penchant for scoring goals under Ole – it”s always been there under the surface.

To defend Ole (it’s just easier than tormenting spellcheck for the correct spelling of his surname) – I don’t see how he qualifies to be the early loser. I would have thought either Brighton or City would have been strong candidates. If you’re providing him with a free pass to bring the joy back, you have to expect that he will keep tinkering to keep the squad happy and that results may suffer. Reading was a prime example of this. If anything, he’s doing a good job in probably determining the fate of the fringe players if and when the new manager comes in. Pereira has struggled for the last few times he’s started as has Fred. McTominay has been awful. It’s quite possible all three of them are moved on in the summer.
Budhaditya

 

History repeats itself!
First time writer but avid daily reader of the 365 site.

Yesterday’s United match brought back old memories. As a young and dedicated United follower in 1967 I kept a scrapbook of all their matches, lovingly cutting out newspaper reports of games and gluing them into a scrapbook whose cover was adorned with carefully drawn League and Cup trophies.

One phrase from a match photo caption always stayed with me – ‘You score twice against the champions and you still don’t win!’.

OK, we’re not champions now, but that match  – United vs Burnley, Old Trafford, 9th September 1967 was 0-2 in the 86th minute, and United went on to score twice and claim a point. It was destined to happen again yesterday!

Interestingly, Liverpool were top of the league at that time in 1967, with Man City lying 5th and United lying 11th. Who won the league that season – City, on goal average from Utd. Omen?
Paul (MUFC), St Albans

 

Where are you Cityzens?!
I opened up the mailbox at lunchtime today hoping to read plenty of views on Man City’s defeat last night, but all I get is a bunch of Liverpool fans thanking Rafa?!  I get that City are poorly supported globally compared to Utd and Liverpool, but come on readers, there must be some Cityzens fans out there willing to share their agony, excuses or optimism??  If this was United losing to Newcastle whilst in a title race with Liverpool (hard to envisage, I know) I can only imagine the volume of letters that would come flooding in.  It would be nice to have some balance for a change!
Robert

 

Ban the bottle
Have to agree with Rob Carey’s mail re; banning the phrase ‘bottled it’. It seems to have completely replaced loss, lose etc, and is losing meaning.

Every team who’s come second (either in PL or CL) over the last few seasons (bar the last PL seasons obvious one horse race) has been belittled by being told that they’ve bottled it. I’m not sure what the equation should be but it seems like a points ahead/games remaining measurement should be agreed upon before saying a team who’s come second has bottled it.

When City lost 2 games in a row at the back end of December all you heard in the pub or read in the mailbox was City have bottled it. That narrative changed only a week later when they beat Liverpool. Then Liverpool had bottled it… despite still being top of the table.

As a Liverpool fan I can admit the last team to truly bottle the league was Liverpool under B-Rodge. Tonight we have the chance to move into a 7 point lead again. But if we dont win the league this year I cant say at this very point in time it will be because of a lack of bottle. City’s wobble in December showed how quickly these swings can happen.

Which leads to the question… what elements warrant the use of the phrase “X bottled it”?
Dan

 

The real ref conundrum
It’s not about who, what or why, it’s about maintaining the status quo.

If ref mistakes were eradicated then the best team would win every time. Is it not that sense of injustice that keeps us talking? keeps us moaning and keeps us going each week?

Personally I don’t go to home games since Pierluigi Collina dumped us out of the Champions League. This was a guy who retired, then came out of retirement to referee one game. Made the worst decision you’ve ever seen him make, then afterwards earns a nice little line of contracts with UEFA sponsors.

Essentially, if you make refereeing transparent then you remove any chance of corruption. As we know, big clubs require big sponsorship packages and remaining at the top is their modus operandi, by any means necessary, for financial (read avaricious) reasons.

So it’s not going to happen, but not for the reasons everyone seems to think. It’s so that backhanded deals can continue to be made so that those in power remain so.

The Spanish duopoly on the european cup would end, Bayern might not have first dibs on all Bundesliga players/managers and Juventus would have to show Fiat shareholders exactly where their money goes.

It’s corruption and the upholding of corruption that is the core issue here – look at the way they have baffled everyone with VAR already (especially the world cup)
Fat Man Scouse (easy to not watch Everton I admit)

 

Some conclusions from last night

Apparently Marcus Rashford is a striker after all. I had written in a few times over the last season or two, questioning where his future really lay, but I think that these games under Ole have provided a pretty clear answer. When you compare his form when played centrally to all the previous times he’s been used as a wide forward there’s a stark difference, so hopefully that will be the end of that particular venture.
Lingard, Martial and Herrera have been key players in this recent resurgence. With all three missing last night there was a noticeable drop in the quality of our attacks. Herrera allows Pogba to roam about the attacking half more freely, while offering cover defensively, and attacking support when we’re trying to overload the opponent. Martial is such a threat down the left that it opens up space for both Rashford and Pogba through the middle, which we just don’t get with anyone else there. And Lingard’s overall work rate and movement is crucial in keeping the pace of our attacks going. Take those three cogs out of the machine and it doesn’t run quite as efficiently.
With Mata and Lukaku in the side last night we lost a lot of the attacking thrust we have been enjoying recently. They both have their strengths but, under Solskjaer at least, they don’t really have the same kind of natural fit in the team as their counterparts. It’s important to have alternatives for when your plan A isn’t working, but I’m not sure that either is really right for the current incarnation of our best team. As brilliant as he is, if he has a genuine chance to play for Barca then it might be better all round for him to take it. I still love him though.
I thought Pereira had a decent enough game up until his unfortunate slip but his confidence is obviously so fragile at the moment (and understandably so) that he lost all composure between then and his substitution. While I’m not sure that making the mistake will be good for him in the long run, I think Solskjaer’s reaction to it quite possibly will be – Mourinho would have been burning an effigy of him if he was still there. He’s a young player with nowhere near as many minutes at first team level as you’d like for his age, so it’s no surprise he looks a little off the pace at times. Last night isn’t cause for reactionary suggestions that he’s done at United, he just needs a more gradual exposure to the first team (off the bench for the last 30 minutes or so) to build him up a bit more.
I’m not normally an advocate of the tactical/cynical foul, but I can’t help but feel that a savvier defender would have cleaned out Cork (or whoever assisted the first goal) before he played the pass. While it’s commendable that Jones didn’t scythe him down, that’s probably what he should have done. He might have seen red for it but I think it would more likely have been a yellow, given the proximity of the retreating Pereira and Lindelof. I know it’s not in the spirit of the game but I reckon any one of the other top six teams would have done it.
As for the second goal, I think the blame can only be placed on Jones and Matic. Young was somehow having to mark both Wood and Hendrick (I think), and Lindelof had Barnes, but Jones and Matic were double-marking McNeil(?) while Westwood pinged in the cross unchallenged. This sort of defensive collapse has been coming; we’ve been riding our luck in previous games, and relying on a combination of De Gea’s excellence and our opponents’ profligacy to get us through. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that our defending was worse with Jones back in the team; a better defender would have been marshalling his side of the defence more effectively, and the goal situation could have been avoided.
The attacking was a little naive at times too; I don’t know why we persisted with the aerial bombardment for so long, when Burnley were so clearly comfortable defending those attacks. I don’t know if that was the instruction but Ole’s post-match comments seemed to suggest it wasn’t, so I’m not sure why they kept on like that. We still seem to be lacking a proper leader on the pitch at times – Young is an OK choice for captain but if we’d had Zlatan up front last night he would have been ripping the wide players to shreds for keeping lobbing in pointless crosses like that.
While I’m all for Fellaini going – he’s another one that just doesn’t fit into this style of play – it does leave us rather short of alternatives in the middle. Our first choice of Matic, Herrera and Pogba has been working very well, but if we need to change things up then our options are limited to Pereira, Fred and McTominay, none of whom are anywhere near the same level at the moment. If Fellaini is leaving then it would be risky to not replace him, though I’m not holding my breath that we will – it’s too late in the window now, I would have thought.
As for the rest of the transfer window, I would dearly love to see a proper defender come in to usher out Jones, Rojo and Smalling, but I know that’s just not going to happen. My worry is that we’re an injury to Lindelof away from catastrophe, so I would feel more confident about the next few months if we brought someone else in. It would make sense too – get them in early so they can acclimatise to the team for six months (like Evra & Vidic did), so they’re ready to start off next season right. I doubt if any players (aside from Fellaini) will leave at this point, so it looks like we’ll be continuing with pretty much what we’ve got now.
We should never have gotten ourselves into the position where we were looking like losing, but it was pleasing to see that we pulled it back to draw. I’ve said before that we needed to see how Ole deals with adversity and I think he did alright in the end. But it’s crucial that we go out and get positive results against Leicester and Fulham now, to set us up for the PSG game. I think the next 10 games will determine whether Ole gets the job; we’ve got PSG twice, Chelsea, City, Arsenal and Liverpool in pretty quick succession, so we’ll probably be a lot closer to an answer by mid-March.
Ted, Manchester

 

Do one Dyche!
I used to respect Sean Dyche. He’s been an absolute miracle worker for Burnely and has defied the odds on many occasion to keep Burnely in the upper echelons of English football. He then went a step further by quite extraordinarily leading them to the dizzying heights of European football last season.

This said, the more I hear from him these days the more he sounds like a prize bellend. He moans and whines about ‘modern football’ and in short accuses almost every other team of cheating against his ‘poor innocent’ Burnley. F**k off Sean! You blatantly encourage your players to kick seven shades of sh!t out of any opponent you come across (although I suppose this is what proper football men are supposed to do). Worse still you take the concept of timewasting to a level so advanced that you could almost Trademark it. Yet, you still have the nerve to ignore this and instead question legitimate decisions as a result of these actions in your post-match comments don’t you:

‘I’ve no clue where five minutes came from. I asked the officials, but it came from somewhere. We just said there were no physios on the pitch. It’s impossible it could be longer than three. Every minute counts. You just want a reason and there wasn’t a reason.’

Really Sean? Really? As brilliant as Heaton was (and he really was) it regularly took between 30-40 second to take a goal kick – and there were plenty of these to utilise. Every throw a similar pattern emerges, yet ol Dychey can’t understand why Charlie Taylor was inexplicably booked for one of these episodes where time seemed to stand still. Dwight McNeil is a chipper 19 years of age yet I’ve seen 92 year olds cover 75 yards in quicker time than it took him to leave the field when subbed off. In many ways you expect this sort of behaviour toward the end of the game or in the last few minutes when a team needs to see a result out. But this started on 51 minutes as soon as Ashley Barnes (for the record another prize bellend) put Burnley in front. It was utterly tedious. I was surprised to see only 5 minutes on the board when it went up. How Dyche felt he had grounds to question the 5 minutes injury time baffles me. Your tiresome timewasting tactics did this Sean. It was down to you!

Don’t get me wrong, I have no qualms at all with the result and you have to hold your hands up and credit Burnley for their resilience. They deserved a result and managed their game plan exceptionally well. However, on the other hand, Sean Dyche can take his tenuous comments (and his stupid f**cking disc beard) and can do one as far as I’m concerned!
Al Williams

 

Solskjaer’s fallibility
I think Sarah is being a little harsh on United last night. Having only seen highlights and read the commentary, it very much looked and sounded like Heaton had a bit of a blinder, and United were caught by a mistake and then a break when pushing for an equaliser. I may be wrong but it didn’t sound like Burnley caused a huge amount of problems otherwise. Nearly 30 shots, 8 or 9 on target, and 70-odd% possession suggests they were still moving the ball about and creating chances. It seems more like one of those “any other day” type performances rather than the turgid affair that it’s been made out to be.

Pep’s Newcastle blunder on the other hand…
Alex, Ayr

 

I’m not one of those readers that has ever thought the writers are overly biased but it wasn’t a great surprise to see the name of Sarah Winterburn under the Early Loser article. How she deems OGS to be a loser when he didn’t actually lose, his side came back from 0-2 to draw and he got much needed insight into the fight, spirit & quality of his squad is really beyond me. Maybe it’s because there’s no click generated like a negative United article or Sarah wasn’t aware that Newcastle United, with one of the worst home records in the league, had just beaten a title chaseing Manchester City? Surely Pep/Manchester City should be the early losers? They had an opportunity to close the gap to 1 point, no pressure at all and absolutely Spursed it up by dropping an easy 3 points against relegation fodder and in doing so they’ve handed the title to Liverpool in what will now be a procession. The title race ended last night but F365 decided that Ole was the loser rather than the team and manager that they’ve been lauding as the best ever, only recently telling us how 28-0 was the agg. from last 8 games for City. I don’t believe F365 are overly biased but i can understand why a lot of readers do think so.
Amir (I do enjoy the site and have done for years) F.

 

Poor Bizzle
That’s not a Haiku
Educate yourself young man
Write better poems
Lewis (High school English taught me something, apparently), Villa

 

A Haiku it’s not
Bizzle’s splendid Limerick
This is a Haiku
Phil (Jeez I have too much time on my hands) THFC

 

Bizzle’s attempt was OK, but let’s get it straight, that is a limerick and not a haiku. Shame on Ed allowing such silliness. This is what a haiku should look like.

An ode to Rafa,
You’ve given us breathing room,
You’re still a legend.
The Culk

 

Bizzle, you are wrong, As that was a limerick.
This is a haiku.
Day S. 

 

Poor old Bizzle is slightly mistaken

It was not a haiku he was making

The last line didn’t rhyme

And his verse was a crime

Which I am sure he regrets undertaking

“a haiku is a Japanese poem; much like a normal American poem except it doesn’t rhyme and its totally stupid” Mr. Garrison.

Thanks,
James Warren

 

While I salute Bizzle for bringing the poetry vibes to the Mailbox, he submitted a limerick not a haiku. (Also, no verbal contortion exists that can make “Rafa” rhyme with “Leicester” but hey ho.)

A Haiku would be something like:

Magpies peck at Pep
Citizens drown in the TyneA city believes

If you wanted to distort / ignore the syllable structure you might get away with:

Ten years away
He brings the title home
FACT

Fair play though: Jurgen is a fantastic name for a goldfish.
Max CPFC (Gonna get my head flushed down the metaphorical Mailbox toilet) 

 

Scrabble update
Dear lovely football 365 contributors,
Just wanted to thank you for ruling out Hadergjonaj in Scrabble. My nephew is livid. He made a right song and dance about it. I had played Enders after his East and we argued so much whether Eastenders was a proper noun or not I gave him Hadergjonaj as it was 2am and we were only playing 5p a game….

He’s currently on the phone to the Oxford English Dictionary boys asking how he can get Hadergjonaj added as an adjective meaning ‘tricky and fast’. E.g. Tony Daley was really Hadergjonaj in his day wasn’t he….’
Auntie (incline from the vertical) Cath xx