Listening to the radio out on a walk Friday evening I was listening to what seems to be the umpteenth discussion of why ManU aren't very good at the moment, often mentioning that they were second last season. This has been done on TalkShite so many times, but then I realised I was listening to R5Live, so they are at it too. My main point was there is all this deep analysis of all sorts of factors. Yet for all these pundits in all these discussions I haven't heard one of them say something that seems to me to be rather obvious. That obvious thing is that if you add a lot of penalties to a team in 6th-ish place, they are very likely to get top 4 and may even get second. So my question would be, how much different are ManU this season than last, other than not having anywhere near as many penalties? Of course it's more complex than that, but it's equally true that penalties are clearly a factor - so why does nobody mention this? Incidentally something else that one of the experts (I think it was a journalist rather than an ex player) said in relation to Fraudiola being a great manager, was that he got to grips with Citeh quickly after he took over. Really? Are we rewriting history? As far as I remember Fraudiola didn't do very well in his first season, but he "recognised the weaknesses" and addressed them. Which is of course code for saying he threw a huge amount of money at the problem. I've said it before but many managers can recognise a problem, but very few can simply spend their way out of it.
Some classic RCL'ing in the BBC live thread: Waqar Ahmed: Brilliant first half show from United. Now build on this and win with the clean sheet intact. One minute later: Leeds 1-2 Man Utd Rodrigo One minute after that: Leeds 2-2 Man Utd Raphinha
We've said it many times, but that sort of bias is much more subtle than dodgy penalties and other VAR "support", and hence not enough is said about it and over the course of a season it might be just as important.
Midweek: Dortmund 2-4 Rangers. Weekend: Dortmund 6-0 Monchengladbach. Dundee Utd 1-1 Rangers. Bookies must love this sport so much.
What did he say? I know lots of managers look up to him and Leeds are fun to watch but ultimately football is about results and they always seem to concede too many goals
Saying he'll walk in the summer due to lack of commitment - although he stopped short of saying if that commitment was from above or below
Right decision imo, he’s done well to get them promoted and will hopefully (for them) leave with them still a PL side. Will always be popular with their fans.
Considering the Wolves, Arsenal and ManU results, can you imagine how we would be feeling now if we hadn't (unexpectedly) won yesterday?
Can't imagine any of those were pleased by our result.. nor West Ham. At 5.30 yesterday arsenal would have expected to be 6 points ahead of us this morning, along with West Ham. Wolves would have expected to go 4 above us if they won and united would have expected to be 10 above us if they won. Yesterday could be a huge turning point...like the win over Arsenal in 2010 (just after losing an fa cup semi final) which saw us grab 4th spot. Or it could mean nothing more than a great memory. Over to Conte and the team to find out I guess. COYS
The fixture list for the rest of this month and March (last PL game is the 20th) is very interesting. A lot of the sides in 4th to 8th playing each other and the top 3.
