Alexander-Arnold ‘immoral’ as Real Madrid cause bullying of crying children

Real Madrid have caused a referee’s child to go home crying and Trent Alexander-Arnold is ‘immoral’ for joining an awful football club.

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Stay classy, Real Madrid

I do think that sometimes, players need to consider the institutions they are going to be part of in the same way famous people choose to partner with specific brands.  Let’s take Trent Alexander-Arnold and his desire to join Real Madrid, for example, probably the footballing equivalent of a company merger between Nestlé and Shell.  I hope he’s reading this.

I felt compelled to write something after Madrid have now been posting videos of how bad they feel referees are on their TV network.  This has led to the children of said referees getting bullied in school and, one referee, breaking down in front of the cameras trying to explain the impact it has had on his family.  This is a classy move from a classy club.

Of course, we should expect this sort of nonsense for a club that boycotted the Ballon D’or just because their candidate wasn’t going to get the top prize.  They then went on to publicly shame the judges that didn’t vote in their favour.  It’s also a club that was the chief instigator of the Super League – ready to destroy sacred footballing history and tradition to line its pockets with more euros at the expense of the grass roots (it’s still championing this little gem).  This is a club in cahoots with the Spanish Government, with a past wedded to dictatorship and ultra-capitalism.  When they sold their training ground pretty much to themselves – who benefitted from those lucrative construction contracts that followed? – yep that villain at the heart of everything, Florentino Pérez.  It’s not hard to read about his wider business dealings.  Most of it is pretty miserable.  Take his infrastructure company, ACS.  It has a lovely services division known for sacrificing working conditions and the quality of basic public services so as to extract massive profits.

We could talk about the evils of Real Madrid for a long time, including their treatment of ex-players and managers.  Lopetegui was a particular highlight.  More recently, when Arsenal beat them recently 3-0, Perez didn’t just expect them to win the return, he simply said it was their divine right and personally offered his players bigger bonuses if they could overturn the deficit.

If I was Trent, I’d do a bit more fact checking on his latest marriage.  Yes, Madrid have a history and prestige, but they’re fundamentally villains in the world of football.  More importantly, there are other footballing institutions, not least the one you are at Trent, that is a better team on the pitch and a far better brand off of it.

Kieran

READ MORE: Real Madrid refute Copa del Rey boycott claims in new statement on ‘inappropriate’ referee

‘Immoral’ Real Madrid stars

Alarm bells were ringing when Real Madrid pulled out of the Ballon Door because they’d heard Vinicius wouldn’t win.

But recent developments where the ref for the Copa del Rey game this weekend versus Barcelona is in tears, not for the abuse he’s receiving but his son being called thief at school. And this isn’t the first time this sort of nonsense has come from Real.

If this was an affiliate like Arsenal TV, I’d get it but this is the actual club and they’re encouraging their affiliates to ramp it up. I’ve worked at companies with toxic cultures, I’ve spoken out against it and if it hasn’t changed I’ve left. If I saw a company with this culture I’d never join.

So why aren’t the players protesting both internally and externally. Why does any player want to join this club. Is money or glory more important than morals. Taking a paycheck from Real without calling this out is immoral.

It’s only a game, noone is entitled to win all the time, not even Real. I can’t believe any football club or fan wants kids telling another kid he’s a thief for any reason but least of all because of football.

Thank God it’s not an English club but maybe we can learn something here and dial it down a bit. I’m pretty sure football’s supposed to be fun.

Rob, Betsham

Bruno Fernandes proof of need for ‘open heart surgery’

I find it strange how so many people can only look at a surface level stat and look no deeper.

Has Bruno been among the best of a sorry bunch for United this year? Yes. I think back across our season and there have been others at much the same level, but probably not any actually better. Fine.

That doesn’t, however, mean he’s either worthy of massive praise or should dodge considerable blame for our fortunes.

The oft thrown like is “where would United be without him?”. Well, let’s look at a few things.

1/ He has 8 goals and 9 assists in the league this season (along with 2 red cards – that’s 2 more than the previous 5 seasons combined).

2/ He has missed 10 big chances in the league alone. (For context, Garnacho has 12 while scoring 5 and 1 assist; Højlund has 4 missed and 3 scored – for the slow of maths, that’s a total of 7 chances! SEVEN!)

3/ He is the captain, who will show up very well in some games and yet spend others almost invisible. He’s also someone who regularly fails to press or pick up his man when others trigger it. (For some reason that’s not picked up when it’s him, but people could see it when it was Rashford.)

The question really is not whether Bruno has been great (let alone worthy of an award) – he hasn’t (and isn’t), he’s just looked slightly less rubbish than others – it’s whether there’s someone who would have done better.

And the answer to that is probably no, but also maybe. Maybe someone passing rather than shooting, marking their man, organising and getting into their team mates, would have made the team more effective.

You don’t “carry” a side while scoring only 8 times.

The sooner we are able to move on from some of these players who wouldn’t be close to our former greats – including the likes of Dalot and Maguire, and maybe Garnacho too – the better.

Bruno is supposedly the heart of the side. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that “open heart surgery” was the term used.

Badwolf

READ MORE: Bruno Fernandes over Mo Salah for Player of the Year? Sorry, what?

FSG skimping? Not on agent fees…

I dont have all the details on the transfers… but citing examples of lfc missing out on caicedo and lavia because of agent fees feels lazy.

As an objective fan (oxymoron lol), i believe there two occam’s razor reasons why we missed out on these two players.

1. Transfer fees:

We stopped at £110m and chelsea offered £115m for caicedo. We were unwilling to go above £50m; chelsea offered £50+ mil, possibly £55-57 including add ons.

2. Wages:

Traditionally, since the days of roman abramovic, and even now, liverpool offer lower wages to their stars than chelsea.

About reports suggesting that chelsea are leading the race for huijsen… i’d venture that even if that were true (and it may just be subterfuge by agents to drive up interest / wages in huijsen), it has more to do with the higher wages chelsea offer than about agent fees.

So yes, FSG are skimping on overall budgets, including transfer fees and wages; i’d think agents fees are really incidental in the whole discussion.

Where agents fees could possibly matter, is when the starlets are unknown, and agents may be privy to access to these players or their situations or private information. But in the case of Caicedo, Lavia, Huijsen?!?

These are established stars, and i can hardly imagine that they would accept chelsea’s offer even if liverpool offer higher wages, just because of agents fees!

So in summary, i think will ford is barking up the wrong tree in regards to agents fees. A more concise, to the point summary would be:

“FSG are skimping on transfer fees and wages; £50 mil transfer shows merit”

Agent fees are almost irrelevant.. and what will ford writes is a self evident motherhood statement.

Gab YNWA “No need for thanks on editing said article to the rightful content it actually contains”

Chelsea ‘winning transfer windows’ means nowt

The funniest thing about Will Ford’s latest article (apart from the author’s refusal to acknowledge that, unlike other interested teams, Chelsea will be more than happy to add a ‘Real Madrid Release Clause’ to Huijsen’s contract, in order to secure his signature) is the suggestion that Liverpool should consider following Chelsea’s lead and pay player’s agents more money.

Why is that hilarious? Because it demonstrates how Chelsea fans think that winning the transfer window is the real prize here, unlike Liverpool who are about to actually win the Premier League.

Chelsea’s profligate approach to agent’s fees under Boehly has won them NOTHING (Ford even has the nerve to site beating Arsenal to Mudryk as an example of this winning approach!) apart from a bloated squad of selfish, unambitious, overpaid wasters – whereas Liverpool’s ‘miserly dithering’ keeps delivering actual trophies – THREE of them at Chelsea’s direct expense.

I know whose approach I’d be copying if I was Jim Ratcliffe, but Chelsea fans apparently refuse to acknowledge the reality of their situation.

Bob Bobson – who can’t wait to see Caicedo, Lavia and Fernandez giving LFC an honour-guard at Stamford Bridge.

Chelsea the ‘poster child’

It was interesting to read SC, Belfast’s letter in the mailbox, right after reading Will Ford’s clickbait article on FSG being cheap and Mediawatch (validly) ripping the Mail a new one for proposing Fernandes as player of the year. Both aptly proving SC, Belfast’s point.

However, as Will Ford is Football365’s own, it does seem particularly egregious. Seriously. Saying Liverpool is cheap for not paying more agent’s fees? That’s what we’ve come to – in terms of measuring the performance of a club, a team? Not what they’ve won or lost or how well they’ve played?

It’s clear that Chelsea beat City for PSR loophole-ship – finding ways to appear in the black even when spending oodles on mostly unproven young talent. Long term contracts that the players will rue in a year or two (loophole closed), selling your Women’s team to yourself (essentially) and the fortunate getting into the FIFA club world cup – alongside such European giants as RB Salzburg. (I still can’t believe they are the 12th best team in Europe – certainly never by UEFA coefficients.)

The point is that Chelsea are about as far from what one might consider a well run club at this moment in time (even in the not too distant past while an Oligarch’s money was supporting it, it did seem to have a plan – that included moving managers on when it appeared past their best before date.) So why use them as the poster child for comparative purposes? Other than to wind up fans. Just as SC points out. It’s all about the negative.

The positive reality is that Liverpool did fine without the two they ‘lost out on.’ Saved oodles in transfer fees – and clearly agents’ fees – and used existing talent at lower cost. And none of the mooted players – Mudryk, Nkunku, Caicedo or Lavia have excelled over the season. A few good games here and there, but no consistent performances that would have improved this Liverpool side, Arsenal side, nor, I believe, Bayern.

A pointlessly negative article.

Paul McDevitt

National League South is where it’s at

I haven’t read the mailbox much recently, and I know that this is unlikely to get printed because not Premier League, but to anyone saying football is rubbish. Far better than Arsenal beating Real Madrid (which was great, btw), is the title race in the National League South.

Last game kicks off in about 14 hours, and 6 teams can still win the league (only one automatic promotion place, so winning the league is important). Truro have to win to win the league, but they are playing St Alban’s, who have to win to stay up. Torquay have to win and outscore Truro by 2 to win the league. They’ve sold 2000 tickets away to Hemel Hempstead for the last game. Eastbourne & Worthing are 1 point behind, ready to pounce if the top two slip up, while Borehamwood and Dorking, 3 points behind, need Torquay and Truro to lose and Eastbourne and Worthing to not win, but both have far superior GD to the 4 above, so not completely out the question.

It’s been an utterly enthralling title fight.

May the best team win (as long as they play in Yellow and come from Devon!)

Paul

Ignoring the football nonsense

To follow on from SC’s mail, there’s some things that are bad in football that we can ignore, and there’s some that we can’t.

I tune in to watch games a minute either side of kick off, and I turn off the second the full time whistle blows and ignore whatever Micah, Macca or whomever have to say about the game, because I don’t care. If I want analysis, I’ll listen to one of the more self-important podcasts on the weekend’s games.

I skim read the mailbox, picking and choosing what to read, because there’s a lot of subjects I couldn’t give two hoots about. A Stewie Mail gets scrolled through unread, because I have no interest.

We live in an attention economy; it doesn’t matter if the attention is positive or negative, just that we’re engaging. The solution is not to. That’s how you kill off the Piers Morgans and Katie Hopkins of this world; ignore them.

All that said, there’s some stuff in football that is demonstrably worse. I can’t abide VAR, I think all the knee taking and rainbow laces are performative gestures tantamount to marketing/morality washing, the loss of mavericks to the systems and Rio & Robbie spouting utter bibble into the microphone during the game. Those things are unavoidable and do reduce my enjoyment of the game.

So I’d say it’s a little from column A and little from column B. Things have get worse, but some of it is quite easy to shut out.

Lewis, Busby Way

Why 2004/2005 was the weakest Premier League season

With all the talk of this being the weakest premier league ever (it’s not) I started wondering what would actually be the weakest league.

After some thought I think I’ve got it. And no, it’s not the season when Leicester won, surprisingly.

The season in question is 2004/05. A season in which Chelsea finished 1st above arsenal with a gap of 8 points. United were miles behind in 3rd and Everton were 4th. It was a very weak two horse race.

A season in which Chelsea conceded just 15 goals, which sounds impressive until you take a look at what strikers played that year…it was a very very poor season for strikers with only two scoring more than 20 (Henry 25, Andy Johnson 21) in fact it was low scoring all round with only the top 2 scoring more than 58 goals.

There was no man city. Man united were well below par. Liverpool were so bad they didn’t even make the top 4.

We take for granted just how much better the league is now, and I’m not saying that because Liverpool won it this year. I mean in general. It really was just two, sometimes three super teams and the rest of the league was about the standard of today’s league 1.

Today the premier league teams are so good that most of them would be competitive if they were swapped to another top league and I think an upper mid table team from today’s league would probably be champions in any of the leagues from ten years back or more.

Lee

Arsenal’s opponents are all sh*t

In answer to Rob A’s question, if Arsenal did somehow win the Champions League, PSG and Barcelona or Inter will immediately become shit, just like Real Madrid did.

Even though PSG were previously crowned best team in Europe after they beat Liverpool.

Martin from Rayleigh

The Liverpool moments to show your grandkids

In 50 years are you going to be showing your grandkids Salah’s Champion’s League penalty against Spurs. Of course not. We watch for (LFC’s version):

1. TAA’s quick corner v Barcelona

2. Benayoun’s goal v Chelsea

3. Dudek’s double save in Istanbul

4. England 5, Germany 1 (Owen, Gerrard, Heskey)

5. Sven coaching LFC legends just before he died.

This should be fun people!

Brian

Slot responds

I don’t expect this to get published (reverse psychology much?!) but I have to say I literally giggle out loud every time you use the Slot picture with his two fingers up whenever there is a “Slot responds” type headline.

Great work.

Keep it up!

Adam (LFC) York.