Mails: The Liverpool players letting us down…

Mails: The Liverpool players letting us down…

This could be a great week. Your latest mails are here; now mail theeditor@football365.com with more.

Is Herrera the new Modric or Scholes?
Neither, he’s the new Ander Herrera.
Mark (Glad we’ve cleared that up) Endicott, MUFC

Getting excited about Man United
Get your Micki out for the boys!

Are we back, or are we back? Dominating games, creating chances, starting to score goals, starting to click, scraping the traditional ‘Champions-esque’ one nil wins…dare I say it, but we are back!

GK – Dave. Saves. That is all.

Deefence – No longer a funny face enthusiast, but Jones alongside and Rojo (or Royo as some commentators say) are doing quite well. (What Wanyama chance?) Tony V and Darmian are very solid. With Smaldini, Blind, Bailly and Shaw as well to choose from we’re laughing!

Our midfield – It says a lot when the Juan and only Mata didn’t sniff off the pitch this weekend, we actually have some quality depth. Also, did Herrera spend the summer watching old Keane videos? The man is starting to show the same bite and desire that the Irishman showed for many years. Now if only we could roll back the years on Carrick – the man is Rolls Royce. Pogba – that free kick was wowie.

Up top top – Along with Goals-himovic, we’ve got Martial, The Rash, and the greatest Armenian to ever grace the Premier League – Mkitharyan. I tell you what, we’re quick, we’ve got pace and we’ve got some great acceleration for counter-attacking.

Look at that, not once was Rooney or Fellaini even mentioned. Although that booing was BNAG – bang out of order.
David (Running away with myself), Dublin

Not okay to boo Fellaini
I’m sorry Chris MUFC but I thoroughly disagree with your assertion that it’s right to boo Fellaini purely for the reasons that people at OT were doing so on Sunday – that being that talent-wise he’s just not very good/generally pretty f**king awful.

Yes there are odd occasions where booing your own player can be acceptable or at the very least understandable, but this wasn’t one of them. Gabriel Heinze putting in a transfer request because he wants to play for Liverpool? Yeah, that certainly deserves a ‘boo’! Wayne Rooney holding the club to ransom for 300k a week and threating to leave for Chelsea unless he gets paid said amount? Yeah that probably deserves a ‘boo’ too. One of our players basically not being good enough (all the while whilst he actually tries to be)? Errm, no. It’s just not justification enough to boo your own player. Funnily enough, Rooney got less of a boo a few years back for the above than what Fellaini received yesterday.

Now I’m not defending either his footballing ability or his performances. I don’t want to see him anywhere near our team as much as any other United fan. He’s been made to be the scapegoat and maybe for all the right footballing reasons. But to boo him just because he’s ‘not very good’ is just out of order and he certainly doesn’t deserve that. It must shatter what little confidence he has left and it’s far from conducive to United’s success and team morale.

Oh and to top it all off, Mourinho will now probably want to prove us all wrong. Cue Fellaini in our first team until he does something noteworthy so that Jose can say ‘I told you so’. Now consider how many games that could take!
Al Williams

Okay to boo Fellaini actually…
Some points from the weekend and this morning’s mailbox:

1. Only one conclusion from the game itself: thank goodness we finally won one! And we could hardly have picked a better weekend to do it – if we can follow it up with a couple more wins on the bounce then maybe the United Christmas will be all the merrier.

2. I agree with Chris MUFC that is absolutely fine to boo Fellaini. We’re not talking about prolonged abuse or anything – it was about three seconds of booing from some, followed by about 15 seconds of applause; he got off lightly. There is nothing wrong with the fans showing their frustration, especially after he single-handedly cost us two points last weekend, and he especially needs to know that stupidity (and it was stupidity) like that won’t be tolerated.

3. I don’t get this cliche du jour to point out that Mourinho has ‘lost’ his mojo or whatever. It was said early last season, so it’s not as if these people are unearthing some previously unacknowledged notion. We’ve all seen that he isn’t the same Mourinho that first joined the Premier League, but why does that matter?

It’s also massively hypocritical to accuse him of being subdued on the touchline and in media engagements one week, then criticise him for kicking water bottles and being angry in interviews on another; you can’t have it both ways.

4. Also, Ben Roberts: if you’re winning the game fairly comfortably, why would you need to make game-changing subs? Why should you need to show effervescent passion when you’re firmly in control of a game you’re winning? (What do you expect – cartwheels down the touchline at every completed pass?) And why do you need to get excited in a pre-match interview for Spurs at home in the league, it’s not a bloody cup final!
Ted, Manchester

Pep and Jose have had a headstart
Whilst I wholeheartedly agree on the idea that any manager – from Morecambe to Man City – needs time to impress their ideas on their squad, are we not forgetting both Pep and Jose have had one big advantage that no other Premier League manager ordinarily has?

Pep was announced as City manager in January. He’s had eleven months now looking at that squad. Likewise, to a lesser extent Jose certainly knew he was going to be United manager a good few months before he was announced. How many Prem managers get that luxury? Most are parachuted in during a crisis and are peddling uphill from the off. Yes, other chairmen might give a potential manager a watching brief but never to the length Pep has had.

In that case, in the name of all things holy, how has Pep been in charge of Man City for at least 11 months now (including five months working with them face to face) and still thinks those defenders can play in that style in that team?

Even as a non-City fan you could see Kolarov was dossing about under Pellegrini and had zero defensive discipline. And that Sagna/Zabaleta/Clichy/Kompany, whilst dependable, weren’t going to last a 60-game season across four fronts. And the answer to this was to chuck in Stones and only Stones?

I agree on the patience line, but when both Pep and Jose have surely been holed up studying their squads performance, stats, replays for months before they joined (hopefully together – that’d be brilliant) they should be off to a better start than they are.

Both the City/United squads have few secrets – they must be among the most well documented sets of players on the planet, covered from all angles. Do you need to see Kolarov first hand to know he doesn’t suit that system?

Pep especially has had unlimited budget and unlimited access to that squad before he even arrived. All we’ve heard about for months is about Pep’s incredible preparation and attention to detail. I wonder, what exactly was he doing for all those months?
Andy, WBA

Origi, Klavan, Karius not good enough
There wasn’t much on Liverpool in the mailbox this morning so I thought I would chuck my opinion in. For me, this is a tricky time for a Liverpool fan caught between optimism and realism. Before the season began I would have been happy with sixth (City, Utd and Chelsea spending big cash, Arsenal being Arsenal and Spurs having finished third last term) as long as Klopp played the kids, developed the team and had a run in the cups.

Well, here we are third in the table above big-spending City and Utd and above Spurs, with some kids being played and in the semi-final of the Coca-Cola. So far so good. However, once hope in dangled in front of your face the losses to Burnley and Bournemouth (damn you Eddie Howe) and a draw at home to an out of form West Ham leave you feeling deflated.

The positives have been fully explained elsewhere. Klopp has got us playing lovely, free-flowing football and the mood around the club is great. Two cup finals last year and unbeaten at home in all competitions for nearly a year. It also shouldn’t be forgotten that over the summer we shipped out Benteke, Sinclair, Ibe, Skrtel, Allen, Toure, Smith, Luis Alberto and Balotelli and loaned out Flanagan, Wisdom, Ward and Markovic.

However, however…being a fan isn’t that easy. For all the jibes talking about them net-spend and ‘next year being our year’ doesn’t do it for every Liverpool fan. There are obvious issues in the side that need addressing.

Firmino cannot play out wide. If Coutinho is out and Sturridge or Origi comes in they play through the centre and Firmino goes out wide when he becomes anonymous. This is just about acceptable when it is Sturridge but Origi is not good enough at the moment. Four in four says he is but watching the match says he isn’t worth disrupting everything else. Play Firmino in the middle and have Lallana and Mane either side and bring Can, Lucas or Stewart into midfield.

Karius is not sustainable. For every ‘it took de Gea a while to settle’ there are hundreds of Scott Carsons (on the surface fine, but fundamentally not good enough). For too long Liverpool have conceded with the first (and sometimes only) shot(s) on target. Mignolet needs to come back in in the short term but a solution needs to be found. If Klopp believes in Karius take him out of the firing line and allow him to develop. Mignolet will go at the end of the season anyway. We paid £25m for Wijnaldum, he is fine. Surely that money plus another £5/10m would have got Jan Oblak and the benefit to the team would have been much higher.

Milner is a stopgap, that is ok and will hopefully be addressed but Lucas at centre-back in the Premier League, in 2016, is not acceptable. Klavan doesn’t look right either. I love a bargain, I do, but sometimes you need to spend. Matip is lovely for free but there were circumstances why his contract ran down. Actually paying transfer fees around £5m for players for the first team is not a good approach for a club of Liverpool’s size.

Finally, when the fixture list came out I thought we were in real trouble. However, in hindsight I think Liverpool have been very fortunate. Playing Arsenal away on the opening day is known to be a gimme. Wenger will not play players after a summer tournament and so no Ozil, Sanchez, Koscielny etc and Chambers/ Harding at the back(!). We played Chelsea away in the game before Conte moved to three at the back. We played Swansea in their manager’s last game, Leicester while they were focused on the Champions League, Utd before Jose swallowed his pride and admitted that Carrick and Mkhitaryan are actually every good at football and Spurs away while they were still knackered from the Euros.

As I say, it is tricky. If you had shown me the current league table at the start of the season I would have been very happy. I cannot honestly say I believe Liverpool should be higher than third. And yet, I can’t help feeling we should be doing better. We should be able to hold firm at the back. We shouldn’t have a paper bag in goal. I hope January brings one big signing and the summer brings three quality players instead of a churn. I hope we can hold on to top four and win a cup. That would be lovely.
Micki Attridge

Being positive about the Hammers
I thought I would pass a few thoughts on West Ham after the Liverpool match yesterday seeing as the sole reference in the mailbox was the surprise that the ‘best player in the league’ plays for us. (He really isn’t, especially this season barring a few moments of genius).

I felt like we had a lot of positives to come out of the game if you take away the brain farts that seem to be a regular occurrence this season. The main positive being that even going down early in the first five minutes, we didn’t panic and seemed to get a decent foothold in the game which was followed by Payet’s genius free-kick and Antonio doing his usual right place, right time act to pop up with another goal To quote the beast we really did ‘show balls’ which has been sadly lacking this year.

Despite Carroll not really getting into the game up top he provided much-needed cover when we were being bombarded late in the game. He looked at times that he could punch an elephant which only bodes well for his fitness and our next run of games.

Really felt sorry for Randy for their second, he looked pretty assured before that and you could see how gutted he was in the interview afterwards despite making up for it with an absolutely astonishing save from Henderson.

The lacklustre performance against Arsenal aside we have shown a bit more determination and fight for the cause. Although two points from our last four games doesn’t seem like a great return, in the context of the games we have played and how our season has been going this year we can take something from that. I honestly think that point last night maybe the one that really turns things around for us.

As it has been frequently mentioned, our next four games are huge. We need to be looking to take a minimum of seven points from those. Hopefully this will quieten the Twitter Football Managers that seem to negatively pipe up about anything and everything about the club, the players, stadium and the board.

This negativity is part of the problem as to why we haven’t started the season well this year, you can see the players are visibly on edge a lot of the time so if we remove that toxicity that seems to be breeding around the club then it can only be a good thing.
Ross Jenkins (Positivity is key – Nordveit has great hair and Ginge has a magnificent beard)
Oh Arsenal…
Bayern Munich. They can’t catch a break can they? I sometimes reckon someone is merking Arsene Wenger and Arsenal, there was an inevitability to them drawing either Bayern or Real Madrid you could set your clock to. It’s like someone has given him instructions on how to get past the Round of 16 on an A4 sheet of paper, and it has PTO on both sides. When you consider had they came second they would have got Barcelona you understand why Wenger looks exasperated, like he’s trying to find a pocket in a sleeping bag from that famous clip.

Remember however, that this time the second leg is at home, so to continue the cheese jokes, in order to take something back to The Emirates, they just need to treat the first leg…Caerphilly.
Chris ITFC, (City will be most happy, Leicester, the mild cheese in the middle) Liverpool

…Arsenal winning their group and STILL having to play Bayern Munich in the knock-out stage is the most Arsenal thing ever.

PSG-Barca looks tasty on paper, I reckon City-Monaco could be good too, depending on which version of both sides shows up.

Also, the Leicester dream is still alive. I hope they make it past Sevilla because I’d love them to play a real European heavyweight – Real, Barca, etc – because they don’t look like returning to the CL right away.
Kevin, (Talking About the CL because Loris Karius is going to be the death of me), LFC, Cork

…Of course we got Bayern…

To be honest it’s not the worst, we could have got Real Madrid who are an infinitely scarier proposition right now. Bayern are equal top of the Bundesliga, although their form has been picking up, and we have become a much better team since our last visit.

So much can change between now and then. So long as Mustafi is back I feel fairly confident we can win at least the home leg. If we score an away goal at the Allianz without conceding more than two I would make us favourites.

I know you have to beat the best to win it anyway, but we could have got someone like Sevilla or Benefica for a change.
Rob A (for the neutral it’s a nice juicy tie, same with PSG-Barca) AFC

…In this world nothing can be certain, apart from Death, Taxes and Arsenal being drawn against Bayern Munich in this years Round of 16 Champions League draw.
Mike Clewer, CFC

On Arsenal and other weekend thoughts
* He’s new to the league so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, but Conte almost shot himself in the foot with his team selection. What did he expect from West From that he felt the need to immediately reinstate Matic? And why wait almost 75 minutes to make up for the error? See also, Alonso ahead of Willian.

* He’s new to the league so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, but Guardiola can’t expect to rock up in jeans, a roll neck and Converse and think his team is going to take a game seriously. See also, starting Fernando.

* At what point do questions start getting asked of David Silva? He’s lovely to watch at his best, and quoting basic stats won’t give you the whole story, but his last Premier League goal was in January while he’s only got two PL assists this season (and six in the whole of 2016).

* John Stones cost more than twice what Spurs shelled out for Vertonghen and Alderweireld. The player can’t help the transfer fee, but the club can. There should be a points deduction for such an egregious misuse of money.

* Stones cost more than Koscielny and Mustafi too, and the latter has quietly been one of the best signings of the season. It’s great to see Bellerin back, but the German is just as worrying a loss. For all Everton and City’s issues at the moment, I’d much rather be facing Lukaku, De Bruyne etc. with our first-choice back four.

* Danny Murphy would rather douse “little Danny” in Tabasco than say anything nice about Arsenal. Xhaka was, again, bloody good, by the way.

* Arsenal are showing great *adopts Alsatian accent “spirit and mental strength” at the moment, but it would be great if could stop conceding the first goal. It would also be great if refs could stop awarding soft penalties against us. We are the anti-Spurs.

* For all you sensible people who give the festering hatepit that is Twitter a wide berth, the one thing of truly great cultural worth you’re missing out on is the journalist Duncan Castles and his disturbing obsession with Jose Mourinho. I’m not sure you can deftly crowbar anything, but Dunc came close when he used Diego Costa’s goal to once more virtually dry hump the object of his apparent affection.

* He also spent time defending Robert Snodgrass, so obviously he draws his power from social media ridicule.

* Crystal Palace present me with a dilemma. They were my Granddad’s club, and I have a real soft spot for Wilf Zaha (the look on his face when he scored that beauty of a goal spoke, I think, of the difficult years he has endured since that premature move to United) but, on the other hand, Alan Pardew. Getting rid of him might make it easier for me, and for the Eagles, but until they can bring back Steve Mandanda in place of the utterly abject Wayne Hennessey, the recovery will probably need to wait.

* Ronald Koeman is not as good as I thought he was.

* Mkhitaryan, Jones and even Herrera are all better than Mourinho initially thought they were. Expect a young, English left-back to break into the team some time around April.

* Is it because he’s English that the temptation to knock Dele Alli is so strong? Or is it that he’s a bit of a cheat, (who infuriatingly plays with his first name on the back of his shirt, yet who commentators seem to be contractually obliged to refer to by both first and surname)?
Will O’Doherty

On laptop gurus…
An interesting piece by John Nicholson on Laptop Gurus north of the border. Whilst the ire of the PFM isn’t really surprising, I would be interested to learn more on the thoughts of the fans. Even a fan can be sneered at for offering an opinion on x,y,z if they have never played a minute of football by another fan who may have played in the Bristol & District League or similar, despite the fact there are hours and hours of football we can all watch and see with our own eyes.

At Bristol Rovers we have a new Technical Whiz guy behind the scenes. All our players wear a GPS tracker in training and in games and all this data is collected. No doubt this is considered some sort of evil dark art. Even some of our fans don’t understand it and it they couldn’t understand how x player can be considered tired or off his game when one of our other players runs 10 x as far and is fit as a fiddle. How can a computer decide this? It was hard to explain that the laptop and the data was a tool to go alongside the old school method of talking to the player, or just giving them extra drills to get fitter.

It was as if some could not understand it wasn’t one or the other and these things can work together.

The sneering at the new age of the internet and technical advances just amazes me. For all the criticism of ederly white men at the FA, there are plenty of luddites that permeate the whole of football and if you haven’t played, you don’t know sh*t.
Simon (waiting for the first robot manager) Bristol

Just keep watching it…
“…he’s better qualified than you Craigan.” Hilarious. If you haven’t watched it, watch it. Then watch it again. Then, probably once more.
Matt, AFC

Sean Dyche is not a PFM
I’ll start by saying that I really enjoy this site and particular John Nicholson’s articles and his creation of the PFM, which is a work of genius. I do however have to take issue with the way that Sean Dyche is continually portrayed by both the site and Johnny Nic as being a ‘Proper Football Man’. Your comparison is unfair and in fact bears all the stereotypical prejudices that you so often lambast the PFM as possessing. Yes he bears many of the physical and career characteristics that are loved by the PFM mafia: He was a no-nonsense defender playing at a variety of unfashionable clubs and perhaps never reached his full potential due to injury. He is also often touted by other PFM’s (particularly Merse) for top level jobs. This does not make him a PFM though.

Dyche is erudite, well-spoken and as shown by his appearance on Monday night football last week, extremely tactical aware with fantastic insight on not only his team but opposition teams. He appears to be a very good man manager and his achievements with Burnley (remember they had one of the smallest budgets in the Championship when they were promoted in 2014) shows that he must have a decent level of know-how. Now I’m not a Burnley fan or a Sean Dyche apologist. I’m not trying to tout him for a top four job. But to call him a PFM just because of his appearance and profile as opposed to actually listening to what he says and the intelligent way he says it, is frankly down-right prejudiced. It would be the same as referring to Ian Wright as a laptop guru because he wears glasses despite the fact he is blatantly not.
Ally (DUFC)

Sun Jihai and simpler times…
Nice surprise to see Sun Jihai featured in the Mediawatch links today. Amazed that he has only just retired. Reading about him took me right back to Selhurst Park after we’d signed both him and Fan Zhiyi in a double swoop. In those days me and a mate had a season ticket in the Holmesdale and used to turn up to some games early enough to see the players turning up and get a few signatures.

Always remember Fan Zhiyi had a maroon Toyota people carrier that was a couple of years old that he’d give Sun a lift in, Leon McKenzie used to have a Black VW Golf convertible which was the nicest player’s car for a while until we had Terry Phelan on loan and he had a Jaguar XK8. Remember seeing Will Antwi on the train home a couple of times too.

Thanks for that little jog of the memory that took me back to simpler times (administration, no sponsors, players unpaid, 87th minute goal on last day of the season to avoid relegation!).
Ant, CPFC

One of several…
Cumulative points? At least net spend has some relevance. You may well be a deserving football writer of the year but that was gibberish.
Matt, AFC