Liverpool, Tottenham prove Premier League decline as two Man Utd ‘vital cogs’ key to rebuild

Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur proved with their draws against Fulham and Everton that the quality of the Premier League has declined.

Also, two supposed Manchester United ‘mercenaries’ are defended for being ‘vital cogs’ for Michael Carrick.

Sympathy for Mikel Arteta, kind of…

I can’t blame Mikel for raging at the Sunderland peno call.

He’s watched his players man handle anything with a pulse in the penalty area for years now and get away scott free – then all of a sudden a ref says opposition players ought to be able to actually move ?? Absolutely unacceptable.

The inconsistency must infuriate lego-hair Mikel. His players only managed to initiate a cross-faced crippler move this time. Hardly worthy of a peno when normally they dish out Stone-cold Stunners? Patricio Del Toro

Bull on Man Utd pair ‘must be a joke’

What a load of bullshit from Gaptoothfreak, Man Utd, New York. Calling Cunha and Mbeumo mercenaries must be a joke. If anything, it looks like they absolutely love the club and want to be there. They seem to have geled well, look happy and I am yet to hear any Rumors of dressing room discontent, or line ups leaking.

The usual buzz around transfer Rumors is that United under Ineos want players that actually want United over others.Hence why we gave up Mateus Fernandes,or that apparently we paid a bit less overall for Sesko vs what Newcastle was offering because he chose us.

Coming to football side of things, yes an argument can be made that their output has decreased at United but it was their first season at a big club (or back at a big club in case of Cunha), mostly under the misfiring “sufferings” of Amorim and the remaining under the then interim Carrick. Plus they no longer are the biggest Cog (best source of goals) in their team’s machinery.

At united, they have to compete with each other, Captain fantastic Bruno, Sesko, and a surprisingly goal scoring Casemiro. Add in Amad and a returning Rashford, and their appearances could further deplete too.

They are not the marquee Galacticos signings; they are vital cogs to a consistent United. Gone are the days of SAF where United were truly theatre of dreams with players like C. Ronaldo, Rooney, Tevez, Van Persie etc. and even then there were players like Nani, Valencia and Park to fill in the gaps.

If Gaptoothfreak is worried about their fees? just look at the going rate this season for players, then add PL tax and United tax and the fees sound fair (not everyone can sign a Tzolis for just 30 mil).

Post SAF, United has signed plenty of these Galacticos wannabes, players like Di Maria, Pogba, Sancho,Sanchez, Onana et all and all of them have been some form of failure.

Most importantly they were bought for crazy money, on crazy wages, and are now textbook definition of mercenaries (want high salaries, were never value for money didnt settle well at club and gave some very half hearted performances among themselves).

Gaptoothfreak, NYC, should fill his gap in football knowledge and focus on electing better president than the Orange one and his corporate mercenaries before commenting on United players. Rahil, MUFC (did he call us Manyoo? isn’t that derogatory? is he a troll? why did mailbox publish a troll as their first mail)

Spurs and Liverpool prove Premier League decline

Re the recent debate about the lack of excitement/quality of the current PL, and the responses suggesting Kentona, me, and whoever else agrees it’s not a patch on the olden days of the 90s/00s are akin to old men shaking our fists at passing clouds: Care to explain the utter quality vacuum that was Spurs v Everton?

Or Liverpool not even managing to score versus Fulham at home with hundreds of millions of pounds worth of “talent” up front? RHT/TS x (Did I REALLY see a mail from an Arsenal fan stating that the present day Gooners would wipe the floor with the 97/8 vintage? Have you bumped your head mate?)

Mike, LFC, you’ve completely missed my point. I wholeheartedly agree with your notion railing against the idea of “the day”. I don’t think music was better back then, I don’t think film or TV was, nor literature. I had a lot more time for all of those things too, but I’m not glorifying them. Of course we enjoy things more when we’re younger, because we’re young, that’s the subjective. I purposefully acknowledged that, because I think football is different. I think it was objectively better.

Look at the leagues. There was quality, in depth, across Europe. Now you have Bournemouth signing Porto’s Brazilian international striker for £40m+. That’s bad for the wider game. Look at the state of Serie A, or La Liga outside of the big 3. Then there’s stats and marginal gains taking over. That for the better? Someone mentioned Ronaldinho; could he play that expressively in the systems heavy world of today? Would Riquelme succeed or would his pressing stats just be too bad.

I reiterate the point I made; that period of football was the sweet spot on the graph, balancing money and sports science. There was just the right amount of it. The set piece coaches, the xG, the VAR, the concentration of wealth into the Premier League has all made the wider sport worse. I’m willing to bet that the vast majority of fans of non-PL clubs would agree too. I think it’s easy to miss how much fans across Europe are sick of the financial dominance.

Personally, I’m increasingly invested in Altrincham, my local non-league team and am raising my kids as Altrincham fans, precisely because of how much the modern, elite game repulses me. It’s too late for me, the 7 year old’s first love will remain, no matter how much I’d like to move on, but it’s not too late for them. Up the Robins! Lewis, Busby Way

RHT/TS’s dig at Arsenal debunked

‘RHT/TS x (Obviously swerved watching Arteta and his functional cheats bore their way to another 1-0 – does anyone choose to watch Arsenal bar their fans?)’

Do you even know what a football is or where it’s played – 25 shots, 9 on target, 58% possession, 93% pass accuracy and 6 corners – a boring game it was not – oh and BTW the other team Napoli’s home stats for the last 20 games, also recent champions of Italy – 14 Wins, 4 Draws, 2 Losses and +17 goals!!!!!

You have a crush, stay there if you want but oh please let the rest of us move on without having to know the details that flow through your mind about the coach, the club and if you know any Arsenal supporters personally I hope you’re resisting the urge to start the same with them.

I can tell you are obsessed (anyone caught you boiling bunnies yet…) as your ramblings are getting more desperate and you shoehorn any odd comment about Arteta and/or the Arsenal into all of your poorly thought out posts.

I am certain if you really tried you could one day say something positive about your own team and to show your weaning yourself off the Arsenal you could resist the urge to write anything associated with the Arsenal unless it’s a balanced well thought out comment – I believe in you! Micky (I want stats on technical area entries, exits, distance covered etc…the same as the penalty area stats but based around the coaching team and the ref – will eventually prove all managers are actually as jumpy as all other managers – or everyone could just let it go – do we not remember what happened to sporn VAR?)

Andy Gray

Hey All,

I know you don’t like him but did you hear Andy Gray on commentary on talk sport? So good. He even managed a cheeky “what a hit son”.