Many thought van Gaal and Mourinho were the right appointments. They both spent big on the wrong players. Solskjaer is trying to get rid of the high earners who are past their past/never good enough and bring in youth, but he needs to bring in quality players to support them. Solskjaer has no experience so people will question whether he can do it, but handing the reins over to someone else who might have different ideas is not a very appealing alternative. There needs to be a period of some stability. Perhaps a DoF for Ole might help. I thought you looked just as woeful as Utd last Monday - although you appear to be able to step it up a few levels at times, albeit not on any consistent basis.
I'd agree with you on the DoF matter, but I still have big question marks over his ability to transform the fortunes of a club the size of Man Utd around. You need to have certain qualities to be a top manager, and Ole just doesn't seem to have those from what I've seen. Moyes, van Gaal and Mourinho all had different footballing philosophies and differing ideas about how to approach games. I believe there was good groundwork laid by van Gaal when he left, in terms of playing a more possession-based game. But you then appointed Mourinho, who is the complete opposite of that, and has a history of alienating players. There was no continuity in terms of football values, which does impact the players and the process of rebuilding. Managers come and go, but the type of football you play can be consistent. This lack of coherent footballing style is precisely why I am not keen on Emery and would prefer him to go.
Why not? With those resources his job isn't difficult. Give them to any one of a dozen managers and they'd win the league.
Was he kicked? Tick From behind.? Tick In the box? Tick Did the defender get the ball? Nope Did the ref give it? Tick Did var think he dived? Nope Are the spuds still very salty that we beat them in the CL final? Tick
It's not a no contact sport. The contact was insufficient for the way he went and didn't impede him. Did he dive? Tick. Again.
We've been criticising Mane for diving on here since he played for Southampton, FFS. I know that it's something of a predictable move, but we're not that prescient on here, frankly. There's simply no way that we'd have got that decision, all else being equal. The ref would've waved it away, VAR would've stuck with his decision, as that's what it does and we'd have had a week of moans in the media about diving. It's never a foul and it's laughable to claim that it was.
I prefer the term, bought the penalty. You make a very good point, a dive for me is no contact whatsoever and cheating the ref with no cause. Buying a foul for me is when there's contact so you go down. Is it right or wrong, that's another argument. It's wrong imo but it's been part of the game for an age now so when it happens to us it's **** and when it don't its great.
It never takes you long to pull that string mate. You cannot possibly say you wouldn't have got that decision. Unless you can see the future? Just sounds bitchy tbh. Football is about opinions of course mate, you say he dived I say he bought the foul and had the right to because he was kicked from behind in the box. Mane was swiped last week against sheff utd, it was a million times more a pen than this weekends, but Mane surprisingly didn't make a meal of it and it was waved away. So whaddya do
And let's be honest all rival fans are gonna say we fluked, cheated, was given, pretty much anything we win so fuk um I'm sure you'd feel the same
Diving is not the offence though. The offence is simulation and that is what happened. A non foul turned into a penalty by simulation
I can say it based upon what we've seen so far this season and in previous ones. I'm not predicting the future, as it's not a future event. In order for us to get a penalty in the Premier League it has to be something really blatant, like Xhaka going in two footed nowhere near the ball. Failing that, some other Goon twat doing something utterly stupid, as our last 3 league penalties have all been against them in different games. Even Sokratis couldn't manage to **** that up though, as he contacted Kane in the box, who went down and still didn't get it. Hmm...
Staying the rules by the word doesn't change the fact that this has been happening for an age now, and will carry on imo, they'll never get rid of simulation unless 3 match bans are handed out retrospectively imo. So as not to go around In circles here, yeah he simulated the kick was more than it was 100% Imo he had every right to because there was contact from behind with no chance of getting the ball. Mane knows the refs giving that all day if he rolls around a bit, as I said he didn't the week before against sheff utd and never got nothing for an even more obvious shout imo. To me this is very different from my own definition of a dive. Which would be no contact at all and a player simulating the contact and rolling about. But tomato tomatoes I spose
My point was youre stating your opinion as fact. Like above. Your problems obviously with the rule makers the bent refs and FA and whoever else is conspiring to keep your cabinet empty not me mate
I stated facts. You just don't like them. Let's take a look at a penalty shout that we had against Leicester for comparison: Hmm...
Sorry sucky but when the supposedly 'top official in the country' comes out and acknowledges that he actively sought to drive the narrative of a certain agenda in a crunch match between us and Chelsea barely 3 years ago, you cannot blame us for donning the tin foil hats the more we see evidence of various narratives at play throughout a season. Does it surprise me that liverpool are awarded so many penalties? No, as a team such as yours will spend a far higher than average length of time in and around the opposition box. But when other teams are not awarded penalties for identical incidents or worse, we are more than entitled to criticise the absymal standard of officialdom in this country. Clattenburg's stated agenda was that he purposefully allowed the match to flow in such a way that it would be more entertaining for the neutral - the ultimate end goal of which was of course for Leicester to complete their fairytale title win so that the nation could ogle at Gary Lineker in his cottons. And when there is such a narrative - justifiably so by the way - surrounding Pool winning the title after 3 decades of waiting, and when so many high profile pundits and co-commentators are ex-Pool players that only adds to the narrative's tidal wave. Am I claiming that officials are being instructed/deciding to treat Pool slightly differently as a result? No. But would it surprise me if we woke up tomorrow to a panorama scoop confirming that to be true? Again, no. And it is Mark Clattenburg's fault that I feel that way.
