Man Utd fans do not want ‘negative clown’ Gareth Southgate
The Gareth Southgate to Man Utd rumours have been met with disgust by fans threatening to stop supporting the club. We also have mails on Ben White, England kits and more.
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Southgate to Man Utd? No thanks
What has he achieved? Lost us a final with poor decisions and what at a club level has he done? Sticks to his faithful and not on merit I for one will stop supporting Utd if he goes there absolute joke.
Derek Shields
ā¦If Southgate is appointed the next United manager, I will no longer watch the team after 6 decades of doing so.
He doesnāt try to win. He tries not to lose and would not have gone for it like Ten Hag did at the weekend. United have built a reputation for a team that attacks which is completely at odds with Southgateās philosophy.
Iād keep Ten Hag over this negative clown any day. Heās never won anything in all his career and believe will at the Euros despite the quality of players he is able to call on.
K F
ā¦Donāt want him, not good enough at Middlesbrough nor England.
Steve Thompson
ā¦If Sir Jim Ratcliffe takes on Southgate, then I donāt see Man Utd going any further forward than they are now, I donāt know how much clout J R has ā he wonāt be getting my vote. If true get in Kalvin Phillips who just hacks players down hasnāt got any idea, its a no-brainer leave Southgate and Phillips where they are, I think Ratcliffe is panic buying, all these bright ideas he has, leave it to the professionals.
Brian Mitchell
Yes please, actually
Please be Southgate, Please be Southgate, Please be Southgate, Please be Southgate, Please be Southgate, Please be Southgate, Please be Southgate, Please be Southgate, Please be Southgate, Please be Southgate, Please be Southgate, PLEASE BE SOUTHGATE!
Yours sincerely,
Everyone but Man U fans
Ten Hag IN(eos)
Yes this season hasnāt gone exactly how United would have wanted. Injuries, some inexcusable performances, other probably legit excuses, yadda yadda. But there are some notable reasons I want to see ETH given more time, and most of these make United feel markedly different than the team under previous managers in the last decade.
1. Discipline. The club feels like it has the best discipline structure itās had in years. Benching players like Rashford for being late to training and whatnot has instilled standards that have felt absent in recent years.
2. Team, manager, system first. The freezing out of Sancho shows that no one gets to bully this manager around. The Ronaldo saga ended unfortunately, but same principle. Weāre never going back to the Fergie structure/years, but the gaffer has to be the authority.
3. Price tags are meaningless. Benching Antony, Sancho and others for spells due to form shows ETH will not just field players because of their price tag. Selection feels both strategic and a meritocracy, as it should be.
4. Players getting their chances and their due. Maguire was proper bad a year ago right? Heās looked loads better this year! Even when there have been more options at CB this season, Maguire has still been selected due to putting in good performances. Players need dropping when their performances dip for too long, they have to be rewarded when theyāre on form, and they have to be managed when in the middle.
ETHās tactics feel like theyāve been on point more than off. And this is only his second year in England. Heās won us a trophy and put us in positions to win others. Heās returned structure to the club, and dare I say some pride. Yes heās made a couple less than ideal signings, but not even Fergie hit bullseyes with every signing.
Youāre not supposed to fix what isnāt broken right? United is far from broken. Itās probably more together than it has been since year 1 Mourinho. Klopp is leaving Pool, Pep isnāt staying at city forever, Sir Jimbo is looking to be setting up a proper football foundation. The future has not looked this bright in a while. No Iām not some rose glasses United fan that thinks weāre gonna win the prem next season now. But I see the little things that have changed and I like it.
I donāt want to throw it all away for something as risky as a Southgate. Unless Pep wants to cross the city, then ETH in. Also you know, maybe more than one striker might helpā¦
Jamin ā Canada
But Ten Hag is standing still
Fair play to Utd last Sunday.
Liverpool threw the game away but Utd showed great character to win.
Social media during the game was quite the roller-coaster.
ETH out was trending at one stage in the second half but by the end he was the toast of social media Utd fans.
Iām still not sure if fans want him in or out.
I wonder if this will sway opinion.
In May 2022 the season ended:
Utd were in 6th position.
Had a 0 gd.
ETH spends Ā£400m
In March 2024:
Utd are in 6th position.
Have a 0 gd.
Food for thought.
Gussy, Ireland
Why not play the England fringe players?
There has been something of a āclassic mailboxā feel over the last few days, seeing Liverpool and United fans bickering, like the good old days.
But Iām writing about the upcoming England friendlies. We are fast approaching the business end of the season, with many players in the squad playing almost every game of their clubs. Southgate, with his rigidity and favourites, is going to play players who we know are in the squad come the Euros. Why?
Surely 2 weeks break for all the first teamers to recuperate would be great for both the clubs, but also England. Southgate could try fringe players in positions, new players, new tactics and formations, but instead we will get the same 11 players, who are all a bit knackered already. What a waste of an opportunity.
John Matrix AFC
Ben White for England? Never
That āreportā does not paint Ben White in a good light. This man is throwing away a chance to play for his country because someone made a dig at him a few years ago? Pathetic. Hardly the spirit of Terry Butcher is it?
The best the mailbox usually gets in an international break is BadWolf moaning that Southgate didnāt beat Brazil 8 nil whilst playing 17 different 20 year old strikers who played well in their only game last week.
Looking forward to his and the other Englanders views on this!
Southgate should have called him up and told him to get over it or face the club suspension. But heās too much of a considerate leader for that. Heās clearly very keen to make sure that the players get on with each other.
Youād think that these Arsenal players would need all the experience in big games that they can get. England players need to made of sterner stuff.
Alex, South London
Aināt no blue in the St. Georgeās flag
I didnāt get beyond Euro 2012 and your review of said kit so I may be missing something later downā¦
But 2012 kit was the ONLY kit we have ever had that is in fact the colours of the English flag.. (even the badge in ā66 was blue) you know the one we arenāt allowed to fly outside pubs or houses apart from once every 2 yrs when the car flags come out..
My neighbour has a Scottish flag and oddly a bloke round the corner has a Forest flag.. no one dares fly a St Georges cross though..not outside of Euros or World Cup
So my point is I loved the 2012 Euros kit as there was no Scottish blue on it..
No idea why England have always had a blue and white kit
Back to red and white national colours like most of the other countries in the world
Al ā LFC (hence talking about England this week)
Is new money being kept out of football?
So letās talk about Nouveau riche clubs. The complaint is that not letting them throw their money around keeps it a closed shop for the ācartelā.
Iād argue thatās not true, the issue isnāt that you canāt spend money itās that you canāt spend money you donāt make. Which should prompt the question ā how do we make more money?
It doesnāt stop you competing, it absolute worst it slows it down because if you build the commercial side of the club then over time you will be able to spend spend spend. City and Chelsea are perfect examples, now while we all look at their transfer spending and just assume sugar daddy money is being thrown around what we are all forgetting is both those clubs spent hundreds of millions improving the commercial side of the club. They invested in non football businesses which made money to improve the income to the club, they invested in youth academies and/or youth players specifically for the purpose of selling them at profit.
They went on foreign tours, sold tons more sponsorship opportunities and partnered with companies to improve revenue. They didnāt just throw around money they didnāt have, they improved the clubsā businesses side ā then threw money around. Neither club was a powerhouse 20 years ago, now they are.
The problem with the other clubs is they want to rush and do 20 years work in 2 years. Leeds tried that, Portsmouth tried that and it almost literally bankrupted both.
Nobody is stopping you breaking the imaginary glass ceiling, theyāre just making sure you donāt go bankrupt, like Leeds and Portsmouth.
Those PSR rules have been in place a while so everyone knew what they were , people just assumed it wouldnāt apply to THEIR club, which is why they kept ignoring it, which sounds a little entitled. Ironically the so called āentitled clubā Liverpool never assumed those rules wouldnāt apply to us and have been abiding by them even when it did look like City could do as they pleased.
So stop crying corruption, itās not corruption. The rules were there, you knew what they were and broke them anyway. And with the exception of City every single club facing punishment have all admitted to it as well, itās not alleged apart from in Cityās case because they denied it.
Lee
When the refs speakā¦
So, one of the reasons we were so determined that refs have to talk through their decisions is that it would create sympathy for them. Because if the rules are unclear, or fansā reading of the rules is poor, or the ref just has a weird view, thatās part of life and we need to be okay with it.
Thereās a side effect, though, is it also shows up when the referees are blatantly talking shit. Both after the event (like Mike Deanās āI donāt want to show up my mateā) and during it. MNF had PGMOLās new head, Howard Webb, doing his usual dance of āwell hereās what was said during the different eventsā.
Iām a Liverpool fan, so of course I wanted to know what happened on VAR and between the refs for the Doku kick at the end. And it didnāt disappoint. Stuart Atwell claiming āthey both went in highā. To refresh any memories: Mac Allisterās arms are down, heās turning away to unsuccessfully avoid a kick to the chest, and both his feet are at floor level. If heās going in high, then every game needs to start with 22 red cards and call it a day.
Dokuās boot is at nipple height.
Thereās also the minor gripe of āDoku got the ball firstā, but they were in a rush to call it not a penalty and obviously werenāt going to check the other camera angles that show thatās not true (I mean, the camera angle theyāre looking at shows it too, but itās a harder spot).
Itās minor because weāre seeing Stuart Atwell ā most peopleās call for the second best ref in the league ā just imagining something. Looking at a screen, surrounded by other people, and imagining something. Stating his imagination as fact, still with the evidence in front of him, and deciding something else.
And then Webb has to go out and pretend that was just normal. A 50:50 call that anyone with a video could be on either side of. This is a call so blatant, Will Ford didnāt even bother writing about it, I assume because even he couldnāt work out a way to troll about it with a straight face.
And thatās the beauty of hearing the refs. Because without the voice recording of wild fantasy from Atwell (I donāt know why heās looked at a duck and seen a lion, and frankly donāt want to find out) weād just have to assume, as we did before, that VAR made a judgement call based on things we donāt know.
When, in fact, just like with Odegaard āfalling downā and plenty of other decisions out there for other teams, the refs just imagine what they saw despite the video in front of their eyes. And their team sits with them and goes āokay, cool. If you say theyāre both high, then theyāre both high.ā
Itās weird. It needs to be stopped. PGMOL needs to be replaced.
Andrew M, Streatham
Best random game please
Another international break has rolled around, so a good chance to raise a question in the mailbox to get some nostalgia flowing. I was chatting with a mate this week about what is the best random game you can remember watching? The criteria for was loosely that you have to support neither team, nor was the result of the match relevant to your team. Bonus points if the teams were particularly obscure or cultish, you hadnāt planned to watch the game (it was just on in the pub background etc) and if the game happened longer ago.
My pick was the Czech Republic v Netherlands in Euro 2004, almost twenty (yes twenty!) years ago. The game was an end to end thriller, finishing 3-2 to the Czechs who came back from 2 goals down. There was a red card, many missed chances and some stunning goals. The standout player was Nedved, whom I hadnāt heard much of before the game (I was only 11), but whose rock star hair and eye catching play made him my new favourite player.
The Czechs in general were stunning during the tournament, with Milan Baros looking like a world beater, and Marek Heinz providing plenty of 57 varieties quips whenever he scored/did anything vaguely competent. Think they eventually lost to Greece in the semis.
In a more general sense, the entire 2015 Asian Cup was watched in rural Australian bars and strangers houses whilst backpacking there, leading to many surreal, drunken celebrations as Big Ange lead the Aussies to a home win (you would have thought Tim Cahill was the second coming of Pele listening to the commentators).
Does the mailbox have any other fond memories of random games to share?
Dave, South Wales
