Mails: So Rooney wasn’t the problem, then?

Mails: So Rooney wasn’t the problem, then?

Keep your thoughts coming on Saturday and Sunday’s games to theeditor@football365.com…

Liverpool will destroy your nerves
It is so frustrating watching Liverpool. While you’re undeniably excited and exhilarated watching Liverpool attack, you’re a nervous wreck watching them defend. You guys wrote earlier in the season that they will be fun to watch. That 90 minutes just surmised your point.

*On form, is there anyone better than Coutinho? Obviously the links to seductive Spanish eyes will increase, but at 24, it’s incredible the ability he possesses.

*Throw Roberto Firmino into that category. Possibly slightly offside, for his goal, but what a finish.

*I could be wrong but I believe they were the first goals the team has scored from corners. It’s surprising considering the threat Lovren and Matip pose. Long may it continue.

*Mane, although missing a sitter in the first half, is a huge player for Liverpool. His pace and drive continued to work the Palace defence. They must’ve been exhausted.

*You feel for Daniel Sturridge, because considering the amount of chances they created, you’d like to believe that he would have taken one.

*Henderson continues to quietly go about his business. He does it quite well. Understated, absolutely, excelling, you’d better believe it.

*Karius in my view had a mixed bag. Bit of rushed kicking and I thought he could have done better for the first goal. Yet the saves (although routine) from Benteke may boost his confidence. I’m hoping anyway.

*And now the elephant in the room. Liverpool won’t win the league unless they sort out the defence. Klopp said in his post press conference that they will and its hard to factor in brain farts like Lucas at Leicester and now Lovren today, but it needs to stop. Who knows, maybe goal difference could decide it this year? It’s worrying.

*Id love to get Ed Quotetheraven’s view on Benteke. I have a soft spot for him, and genuinely felt that Palace would work for him but his finishes suggested a player bereft of confidence. What are the views of the Palace contingent?

*10 points from a possible 12 in London. It’s an excellent return and 4 tricky away ties out of the way.
Miguel Sanchez, LFC, Eire (Tom Heaton is going to keep Burnley up)

…Crystal Palace 2-4 Liverpool.

This is why we’ll win the title.
This is why we won’t win the title.

Welcome back 2013/14. My heart’s ready to be broken once again. I’ll try to be more prepared and gauged this time around. Deja-f*kin-vu.
Abhinav, LFC, Chicago

…Rob: Sometimes it still hurts. You know how it is, man. It’s like, you wake up every day and it hurts a little bit less, and then you wake up one day and it doesn’t hurt at all. And the funny thing is, is that, this is kinda wierd, but it’s like, it’s like you almost miss that pain.
Mike: You miss the pain?
Rob: Yeah, for the same reason that you missed her… because you lived with it for so long

From the 1996 classic, Swingers. Sums up how I feel at the moment as a Liverpool fan under Klopp.

It’s great, the best I’ve seen in nearly 30 years supporting the club, but sometimes after another scintillating display of attacking football I feel a little….empty.

But it’s ok man, I’m getting there, just missing the pain of supporting Liverpool because I’ve lived with it for so long. I can get used to the joy…eventually.
Dave LFC

Manchester United are cursed
Football bloody hell!

I’m starting to think Sir Alex sold his soul to Satan and now we’re cursed! 36 shots, 3 penalty shouts, horror of a red card, Heston possessed by the ghost of Lev Yashin.

What’s going on at the theatre of screams!
Frank N. Stein, MUFC
(MC – We will have no more Halloween puns. Please)

Bring back Rooney
So, are you ready to accept that maybe the problem with United wasn’t Rooney after all yet?

The facts are simple, we have a better win rate with him than without him. In his place up front, Zlatan has failed to score or lead and missed many very decent important chances (while receiving curiously scant criticism from f365).

In his place behind the striker, Pogba has failed to set our attack alight (bar the games where Rooney has played). Our defence is still dubious and in constant need of protection (thanks mainly to Smalling, with dishonourable mentions for Rojo and occasionally Blind who in his defence is still not a centre back any more than Rooney is a midfielder).

Yes Rooney is not his old self. Yes his touch can let him down. Yes sometimes he tries to do too much and other times passes rather than shoots. But we are a better side with him on the pitch, whether it grits your sh*t or not. Whatever it is that he does, it makes a difference.

The problem is a defence that is seemingly worse than Moyes inherited. Thank god for Bailley.
Guy S
(MC – We never said Rooney was ‘the’ problem, merely ‘a’ problem and not good enough to demand a place in the team. FWIW, this MC’s attack for next weekend would be Martial left, Rashford central and Mata right with Mkhitaryan in the squad)

Oh do p*ss off
On a day when the biggest match in the country was Spurs v Leicester you deem it appropriate to have five( yes 5 stories) that involve Arsenal on the front page of your website.

What an astounding achievement it was for the mighty Arsenal to beat such a demanding opponent.

Perhaps everyone at Football365 has always been in love with Arsenal after all.
Ian
(MC – It’s almost as if we pick a game to cover with one person in, and cover it, while also providing reports on the other games. If only there was a Monday column that covered everything from the Premier League weekend)

Sometimes you get ‘one of those days’
First things first, the Spurs-Leicester game. Fair play to Leicester, you played quite similarly to last season for maybe the first time this season.

In other words, your defense started to perform unlike against Man Utd and Chelsea. Now I see a lot of Spurs fans being angry. Another bloody draw!? Janssen is Soldado!? We need a world-class striker!? Erickson (sic) is shite!? Hold up, hold up. It was a fun game to watch, we played way better than against Bournemouth. Janssen was really good and defensively we were still quite solid despite Toby’s absence. ‘We can’t score without Kane!?’

Yeah sure, just disregard the two unlucky chances that hit the Leicester post (Dele’s and Jan’s) and Schmeichel was beaten or the 2-3 chances that were a foot wide and Kasper beaten again? All in all, we were really unlucky. Frustrating, yes, it’s 2 pts dropped and we’re 3 pts off the top, but we’re without our two most important players: Alderweireld and Kane.

We had too many draws last season too, but everyone was fit back then, or at least Toby and H were always there. Unbeaten is a good thing to be, especially when you know you’re not fielding your best XI.

Now on Manchester United. I’m not a fan, I don’t follow them as much as a fan would and as such I can hardly speak ill about them and won’t. I speak here in solidarity, having watched the highlights and looked at the game stats, I can tell that Tom Heaton pulled an improbable top-class performance (which Spurs fans can seriously understand with a lot of sympathy, us usually being the victims of such performances: ‘Arry’s famous “One of those days”).

Probably quite frustrating for you guys and I expect some other fans to try to pour some salt into your wounds. Don’t worry too much though, I still see you making top 4 and even challenging for the title come May once Man City and Arsenal stay on top by Christmas and then give away the top spot like last season. You were unlucky, that’s all there really is to it. Rip Mkhitaryan, though.

I know I’m just licking wounds by saying Spurs and Man Utd were unlucky, but it is the reality. Football is a frustrating game, it never goes the way a side or the other wants it to go. Are Spurs and Man Utd going to be in this weekend’s Premier League losers list? Definitely, since in the end, they dropped points. But is it that dramatic? No. Don’t be so pessimistic.

Really looking forward to the game against Leverkusen mid-week, will probably be a good indicator on how the NLD will unfold. Hopefully Wembley will be lenient this time. Spurs finally scoring from open play after a while and winning this really must-win midweek Champions League game could potentially define the rest of the season. Lamela to start and boss it.
John Blakeway

Arsenal thoughts
Admittedly it was only Sunderland so not sure how valid these are. Except 4. That one is 100% fact.

1 – Alexis Sanchez is a bloody good forward. Wenger was right to give him time to adapt.
2 – Olivier Giroud is a cracking plan B. Its not like everyone has been saying that for the last few seasons. Shame he wasn’t fit last weekend.
3 – We had Cazorla, Walcott, Xhaka, Monreal, Mertesacker, Lucas and Welbeck missing and didn’t really miss any of them. Except Santi. I always miss Santi.
4 – Mike Atkinson is a total cult (spell corrected). The certain pen on Sanchez that he missed at 1-0 could have cost us the game.
5 – Last season (and the 10 or so before that) we would have probably drawn that game.
6 – It’s quite annoying that we didn’t have a defense in our first game of the season. I hope those 3 points don’t end up being pivotal.
Adonis Stevenson, AFC

…It’s easy to nominate Alexis and Olivier (in particular) as early winners in this game but I will nominate Gibbs as my early winner.

Gibbs handled any threat Sunderland had (not a lot I know but most of it was launched down his flank) immaculately. His attacking and passing and assistance was superb (as Sarah picked up on).

I’m a huge fan of Monreal but I feel Gibbs deserves another chance.

The biggest loser was Martin Atkinson for his wonderful attempt to have an impact on such a one sided game by not awarding Arsenal a penalty which would have been conceded by a player already on a yellow!

Also, Sunderland, for not realising they had been let off the hook and for not changing their approach.
Chris, Croydon

More on York City
Following the email by Greg Tric in the Friday afternoon mailbox I feel compelled to add more detail regarding the strange goings on at my beloved York City.

Jackie McNamara was appointed as manager in November 2015 by owner Jason McGill to replace the hapless Russ Wilcox.

With the club hovering above the relegation zone in league 2 early results were poor and McNamara began a purge of senior players who were bad mouthed in public and sent on loan, paid off or left out of match day squads altogether. Amid rumours of a Christmas party dust up with McNamara’s goalkeeping coach Richard Cresswell and Jono Greening, two coaches who had played at York before moving up the leagues were also let go.

By now the team was full of teenage loanees from championship clubs with little or no first team experience. Perhaps unsurprisingly this wasn’t ideal for a relegation scrap and a succession of heavy defeats saw York finish bottom of the league.

During this time McGill’s sister and father, the only other Directors at the club both left their positions with terse statements from both sides confirming an acrimonious split – reportedly due to the influence of McNamara within the club.

Surprisingly McNamara was retained as manager and given a “top five” budget to build a squad capable of being promoted from the national league. Over 20 players were signed, most from lower divisions with a couple of national league journeymen thrown in. After a couple of decent early results form capitulated with the nadir being a six nil defeat to part time Guiseley.

McNamara publicly laid the blame with the players and gave himself one game to save his job – a draw at Braintree. He decided to step down after this and in a bizarre twist appointed himself caretaker manager whilst he assisted McGill in finding his own replacement.

Gary Mills, a hero to City fans after leading the club to promotion in 2012 rejoined the club as manager this month to clear up the mess of a bloated, unmotivated and apparently very unfit squad of players who are nowhere near the required quality. In an unfathomable show of confidence McNamara with a win record of 18% was appointed Chief Executive of the club.

Amid fallings out with the local press no communication was made with fans except for a bizarre interview with Jim White on TalkSport where McGill gushed about McNamara and their friendship and explained how they had “embraced” and “roused each other” in times of adversity. He also publicly hugged McNamara on the touchline before his last game in charge.

For what it’s worth I believe McGill to be a decent enough man who seems blind to the fact that McNamara has rid the club of its loyal former players, senior pros and league status, allegedly caused ructions within his family and undoubtedly cost him a lot of money and credibility.

Some may see this as a rather special/tragic bromance. Others may say that McGill and the City fans by proxy have been had.

Now one point above the relegation zone in the national league we can only hope the saga has reached a turning point.
Ben W, York