Just in case anyone's missed the context of this, they visited a Man Utd fan on his deathbed. He was 73 and suffering from prostate cancer, so his grand-daughter appealed for some players to see him. They turned up in their own cars after training on Tuesday and he passed away less than an hour after they left. Spending a little time, signing a few shirts and chatting for a bit is a minor diversion for most players. It can mean a hell of a lot to people going through tough times, though. Nice to see someone willing to give a bit back.
Surprisingly, the least well known and least experienced team in the EL tonight are Italian - Sassuolo. One season only in Serie A - 6th last year and this is their first European competition.
They did well to keep hold of Berardi during the summer given he was being linked with Spurs, Juve, and a couple of clubs from Manchester (among others) throughout the summer.
I watch Pogba and honestly cant see what all the fuss was about. Similar to when I watch his current manager.
Big win for Austria Vienna, winning 3-2 against Astra fahkin' GooGoo I'm wondering if UEFA will be having a look into the Maccabi tel Aviv/Zenit St Petersburg match: Maccabi went 3-0 up in the 70th minute, yet the game ended with Zenit winning 4-3 in a capitulation not seen since the local derby between Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius.
I've just heard Man Utd are playing Northampton next week which immediately reminds me of an 8-0 thrashing with George Best scoring 6 I think. Careful Northampton as I don't want history repeating itself. The more anguish heading Mourinho's way the better for me.
At best he's a bit of a Yaya Toure. He's a very skillful footballer but he's not very good at adapting his game and he doesn't seem to put in much effort unless he has the ball.
Utd were very poor this evening. Mourinho gave game time to some first team squad players who've been on the bench so far. I'd liked to have seen him play some of the young kids (Fosu-Mensah, in particular). Schneiderlin and Depay haven't produced the form they showed for their previous clubs. Darmian and Rojo just don't look suited to playing in defence for an English team (ditto Blind, who was rested tonight). I'm sure Mourinho would have liked to have shipped a few of these players out and brought a few in, but the club said he needed to sell before he could do any more buying (!!) and there weren't many interested buyers. There is a problem with the balance of the squad - there are too many expensive players who are not motivated to sit on the bench and play occasionally in the League Cup and EL. SAF had big names, but he also had hungry players on the way up who had shown promise elsewhere and promising kids. He didn't look to buy players older than 23 or 24 in general (the exceptions were usually proven and delivered). Having big money 27 or 28 year olds on the bench is not likely to be productive for the team or the players concerned. Pogba has great energy and is very difficult to knock off the ball when he carries it forward, but he's yet to show that he's able to perform consistently throughout a game and over a period of games. By paying that fee, Mourinho obviously believes he can improve and become a game changer, who strikes fear into the opposition when he runs at them with the ball. But the best players in world football have the mental strength to do that - confidence in their own ability and the commitment and determination to get the best from themselves (which includes maintaining peak fitness and putting effort into every game), It remains to be seen if Pogba can emulate them and exploit the obvious physical attributes he has.
Players In: £149m Players Out: £4.5m That sounds fair enough to me. And while I'm at it. If we can shift Paulinho for £10m, you can ditch more than Will Keane, Paddy Macnair and Donald Love across an entire summer
We placed a £20m bid for Schneiderlin on Deadline Day, but Moronho said he wanted to keep him for the Europa League - because nothing boosts morale like publicly saying the only reason a player is still at the club is so they can make up the numbers in a secondary competition!
There are too few quality defenders who are fit and have PL experience. I'm not sure that there's actually 4 decent ones to create a defence to compete to win the PL. There are too many attacking players wanting to play in the 3 behind Zlatan, especially in the no 10 role. United have been praised for their TW but it's still not produced a balanced team of any real quality. There's a lot of purchases still to come unless the kids are given a real shot which seems unlikely with Mourinho as manager. Interesting times ahead.
Palace have given an update on Pape Souare's injuries and it looks like he might miss six months of football. His thigh was broken and he also sustained various muscle injuries. Pardew mentioned the contribution of the London Air Ambulances, again. I think it's a disgrace that such an important service has to rely on charitable donations to maintain itself. They do a wonderful job and I doubt that many people even realise that it's not part of our health service.
They are like many big organisations which provide important services that should be given state funding - Macmillan nurses, RNLI, NSPCC, RSPCA, Cancer Research, British Heart Foundation etc. Where would we be if people stopped donating? Many state funded public services are receiving less and less funding too - the NHS, the justice system, local authorities etc. Soon, if you can't pay for access to health care, justice and other public services (even getting your bins emptied), you won't have access unless you're fortunate to receive the benevolence of some charity or other. We have a government which has taken us back to Victorian values and principles when it comes to the provision of services and amenities for everyone. Those who can pay are fine, the rest rely on charity. From the early 20th century onwards, successive governments have taken on and funded the provision of these services as a right for each citizen. Now we're going back to the Victorian practices of great wealth living alongside poverty - with some of the rich showing philanthropy towards the poor.
Spot on. What do they think's going to happen when the medic can no longer spin this crap? Labour's utter ineffectiveness isn't going to help them, it'll simply blow up.
Is anyone else secretly hoping one of Conte or Norbert slip on the wet grass when they're doing their calisthenics routine on the touchline?
