Man Utd feeling Onana influence, and Arsenal haven’t played well once this season…

The Mailbox reacts to the notion that Manchester United are actually doing well, while one Arsenal fan highlights what the Gunners are achieving despite their injuries woes and lack of form…

Get your views in to theeditor@football365.com…

United are back?
United are the form team, they’re on the march. After amazing results against *checks notes* Luton Town, Fulham, Sheffield United, Brentford.

“If we’re sh*t, why are we only six points off Arsenal?” …. because you’ve lost 5 times, and we’ve lost once.

Also, FYI, if you ask any Arsenal fan, we’ve not played well even once this season, but we’re still getting results. We have injuries like everyone else, our main striker is made of balsa wood, our main creative midfielder and captain is injured, we play every game we start Havertz with 10 men, and we’re still where we are.

If I were a United fan, I’d be reluctant to be so triumphant after 12 games when you’re in 6th.
John Matrix AFC

…Social media is awash with images of the form team, Man U. The mailbox has come to ETH’s defence.

United have won 7 league games against 5 of the bottom 6 and teams in 11th and 12th.

Each win by 1 goal and each win a struggle. 13 goals scored in 12 league games.

They are bottom of a CL group containing Galatasaray and Copenhagen.

Sometimes form is misleading and sometimes pointing out how much a team and manager are struggling is just simply that. No agenda, no narrative, just how it is.
Ale, Westquay

…And forget the fact you played Spurs off the park for 20 minutes (what an incredibly low bar United fans have set themselves these days) but Chelsea just showed what a team fighting for each other can do against City. They reacted to every setback brilliantly, and the game could’ve gone either way.

Compare and contrast with the Manchester derby where United got nowhere near City in 90 minutes. That’s why half the league can see Ten Hag ain’t the man. But sure, 20 good minutes against spurs and top of the ‘form’ table thanks to a run of fixtures against the bottom half. Then coming completely undone against the first decent team. Let’s not even talk about Europe, United doing their best to cost England a 5th qualifying place that they would be lucky to finish in this year anyway. At least Newcastle can point at their group and offer a reasonable excuse for not qualifying.

Long may this continue, seriously, reading about 20 good minutes against Spurs made my Monday morning.
Manjo, LFC (we had 20 decent minutes against Madrid in Kyiv so is it actually number 7 we’re on?)

Media agenda
As one does during a hectic work scehdule, I was wondering about the poor state of affairs of my club, Manchester United. I was thinking how well clubs like Newcastle were doing in spite of spending much less than our club. I then googled the league table only to be surprised. The high flyers Newcastle are currently 1 point below a struggling bang average Manchester United!

I know that Manchester United are “supposed” to be challenging for the title because they are the biggest spenders for over a decade, but you can spend billions and still be poor. And thats what has happened as well. But I am writing about something else altogether.

I want to understand what it is that makes the perception of one club doing well whereas another is doing poorly. Two clubs, one which is supposedly ahead of the other, are sitting 1 point next to each other. What sorcery is it that makes us believe that things are a certain way. Then I started to go through this site and some other football sites. Then it hit me.

“Eric Ten Hag failure”, “Club in crisis” and “A top 6 club no more” are the kinds of headlines that are featured about Manchester United. “Howe genius”, “Rise to the top” and “Battling into the top 4” were the kinds of headlines used for Newcastle.

It is powerful, isnt it? When we constantly read that things are a certain way, we tend to believe that to be the truth. How is Manchester United doing better than Newcastle United wrt points? And dont get me wrong, this is no way a defense of Manchester United. We are shite. Absolute shite. No doubts over it. But my point is about the narrative that is pushed. Extending this narrative, you can think about last season how Rashford had a “world class season” whereas “Salah had a forgettable troublesome season”, despite Salah actually performing better with respect to pure numbers.

If this is the power that media holds over us, should I start questioning other things that media is telling me? Time to go ponder into the abyss with this on my mind!!
E

Perfect moment
I wrote previously at how we are in the salad days of both Utd and none Utd fans being happy with ETH in charge.

This mornings Mailbox has reiterated the point, Utd are the most in form team in the league! Utd fans are happy with this, and give multiple reasons to why the team may not be working well so far. Not had his first choice 11(spending 400 million and not having a squad decent enough to qualify from an easy cl group, but that’s by the by), off field problems (caused by the club itself, but hey that’s by the by).

None Utd fans, myself included, can quite clearly see a team having had quite a lucky fixture list and only then just getting by on luck. It’s why I celebrated their last min win against Fulham and the Onana save.

The next few games after the international break are considerably tougher, we need a last min win at Goodison or even Galatasary to keep the momentum with ETH.

Keep covering those cracks with plasters. None Utd fans, you can’t say you don’t enjoy seeing their fans get excited only to be let down when it matters most?

It’s glorious and in these divided times, isn’t it great that we can all share in the joy of Utd continually drifting into LFC 90s obscurity? (Tbf even LFC had the decency to win an FA Cup or two in that time) Long may it continue.
David Molby, Salop.

Onana’s presence felt
As there’s some positivity about United in the mailbox and hopefully before the counter “it was only bloody Luton!” and “how the mighty have fallen” type reactions I wanted to take the opportunity to say something nice about Onana. He’s taken far too much abuse since joining the club for what was a few errors and many seem to have permanently marked him as awful.

However he’s been really quite good in recent games, more than just his shop stopping his overall confidence looks to be improving. He’s now third in the league for save percentage with only 1% difference to the leagues best in Alisson, has as many clean sheets as the Liverpool and City guys, and is 6th for post shot xG delta (for the stat wary these show he’s doing pretty well in pure goalkeeping performance)

What’s most striking though is the calmness with which United can now pass out from the back. There is still a makeshift defence in place which limits when this can be employed and mistakes can still happen but overall the team is much better at this than last season. With De Gea it was nail biting every time the ball went near him in possession as his lack of ability on the ball meant it was difficult to establish and retain possession when pressed. In the game at Copenhagen their high press all but disappeared after 15 minutes after it became clear United could pass around and through them to hold possession. This in turned allowed United to compress play into the attacking half and it was possible because of Onana.

United have never really had a key player go AFCON before and I suspect they will really miss him for those 6-8 games next year
Dave, Manchester

Ten Hag, Klopp and Fergie
With Utd now the “form team” in the league, if the narrative changes about ETH can we also change the narrative about the owners?
Can we please please please go a few weeks without hear they don’t use their own money/the lack of structure/they don’t get managers first choice players/the hole in the roof At OT. When Utd do badly the Glazers get a kicking, surely now Utd are the “form team” they deserve some of the credit?

Also, why are Utd fans consistently comparing ETH to Klopp?Klopp did everything on a budget. If you want to compare him to anyone compare him to Fergie. He wasted fortunes at the start of his era, producing woeful football and had Utd 11th twice and 13th in 3 of his first 4 seasons.

Klopp took over in October and had dross like Mignolet, Clyne, Sakho, Skrtel, Lucas, Ibe, Joe Allen, Benteke, Bogdan etc in his first team and squad.
ETH spent £200m on a squad that had £400m invested in it the previous 2 seasons

You need to compare points totals from when Klopp had a pre season.
First 50 matches.
Klopp:108 points
ETH:96 points.

This is also the second full season for ETH.
He has lost 5 PL matches.
He has lost 3 PL matches at home.
He is bottom of his CL group.

Compare this to the second full season of Jurgen Klopp.
Liverpool lost 5 PL GAMES ALL SEASON.
Liverpool WERE UNBEATEN in the PL at home.
Liverpool made the CL final.

ETH has spent £400m in 14 months.
By the time Klopp had spent £400m Liverpool were Domestic, European and World Champions.
Funny how it depends on how you look st things eh Adidasmufc?
Gussy, Ireland

VAR from the maddening crowd
I dislike an International Break as much as the next person. This one, with qualification already guaranteed, and fixtures against Malta and Macedonia, will be particularly tedious I imagine. Maybe, just maybe though, it can be used for everyone to have a little VAR reset?…

Players and Managers – Get outdoors and have a bit of chill out if you have time. Perhaps also have a little think about how your own actions influence the decision making of the ref/VAR too? Maybe don’t appeal for a throw in after belting the ball into row Z. Maybe don’t dive. Maybe don’t spit in the 4th officials face.

Media/Pundits – Sort of likewise, and have a little think about how your opinion influences the fans/players/managers… Try and choose your words more wisely. No refereeing decision is a ‘disgrace’. Grow up. And (again) no, having ex-pros in the VAR room won’t help. Get rid of Ref Watch, that’s not at all helpful.

PGMOL – Look at some of the poor decisions made recently. Why are they being made? Pure ineptitude, or is the ref ducking out of making a decision on the pitch because they know the VAR is there? It shouldn’t work like that, and doesn’t with the clear and obvious consideration. (As others have said), you potentially end up with the ref and VAR both thinking a red card should be issued, but because one erred on the side of caution, both end up doing so, and thus only a yellow is awarded. Let’s think about scrapping the clear and obvious thing. It’s okay to be corrected, it happens in rugby and cricket. It’s impossible for the ref to get everything right. Most fans accept it, so accept it yourself – and don’t worry if it’s proved you got something wrong. It really is okay.

Specifically the VARs in the Wolves games v Newcastle and Sheff Utd – Watch those ‘fouls’ back. Is the player who you think was fouled falling before any touch from the opponent, (if there even was one). The answer is yes. On both of them. Clearly. These are the decisions you’re supposed to be overturning. We can understand why the refs gave these in real time. We can’t understand how you don’t then overturn them. They are, if anything, dives.

FA/UEFA/FIFA/IFAB – Come on, be more receptive to change. Look at improving the comms in the stadium. Lets tweak those ambiguous rules. Look at the lessons from other sports.

The Fans – Stop overreacting. It’s a bloody game. I love football, but I promise you it doesn’t matter that much. Perfection was never the goal with VAR and will never be achieved. The subjectivity of a lot of decisions means you won’t agree with a huge amount of calls over a season. Don’t let it eat you up. If you think VAR was too involved in the Spurs/Chelsea game by reviewing disallowed goals (correctly) and potential red cards, think of the alternative. Any better? Happy for you to say yes, but just remember what that might mean.

We have a couple of weeks to take some deep breaths and come back afresh.

A boy* can hope, right?
Gary, AVFC (*over 40 years old)

Gary O’Neil: an apology
At the start of the season I completely wrote Wolves off. Having spent all summer selling their best players and not replacing them, then losing Lopetegui and appointing O’Neil days before the season started, I thought they were down.

But, I was wrong. Oh so wrong. O’Neil is doing an incredible job this season, taking Wolves far above where they should probably be. So kudos Gary, you’ve made me look a right twat. Fair play.

Although, as a person desperate for Derby’s record to be broken – I’m not a Derby fan, just think it’d be funny – I’m furious about the Sheff Utd loss. Still, between the three promoted clubs there’s a chance. To be fair, at this rate Sheff Utd and Burnley might not get 11 points between them.
RW

No Garth?
No mention of the justification of Abdoulaye Doucoure’s inclusion in Garth Crooks’ team of the week? I was expecting the whole column to be dedicated to it!
Uncle Albert

England excitement
Have to say 16 conclusions nails it for me.

I just had a mail published the other day with a line between the parentheses about England’s turn-of-the-century striker options (and somehow left out Le Tiss, bloody outrageous that), but frankly, England’s current attacking options…

Right, since we no longer see 2 strikers in every team let’s expand the previous parameters to include options for the front 3, perhaps include CAM, just to help my point of course, and tell me that you don’t have an absolutely thrilling line up of choices.

Nevermind that Bellingham is actually the link between Rice and say Maddison, because he is scoring goals like the Arch-bro-ship of Banterbury out in Spain, if he maintains any defensive responsibility and adheres to it, you have a forward-five when in possession that absolutely blows most teams away.

With Rice the complete midfielder screening them and joining when required/possible, as the fullbacks surely will do, supported by Jude dropping back when out of possession while the front-four press the ball urgently, and this is a balanced English stating 11 that clearly still has an attacking superiority to most teams on the planet, not by sacrificing central solidity but through the sheer weight of the abilities of the players.

This of course hasn’t even yet highlighted the clear and obvious potential for John Stones to also very seamlessly join that CM when England are on the ball, truly allowing Jude to press forward while the central midfield remains manned and skillfully so, by Rice and Stones.

It is a very exciting time for 3 Lions fans.
Manc from SA (Gareth really shouldn’t be stodgy-fying the midfield any longer, England are well past that. Can I claim stodgy-fying as my own? Doubt anyone else would want it!)

Grey areas and Blues
WHAT A GAME OF FOOTBALL. Feel like I’ve aged 10 years in the last week, but this project under Pochettino is starting to show some real shoots of what it can become. Also you can see this team is starting to form connections with the fans, I haven’t seen so many fans stay back to applaud the team since I’ve been going to the Bridge in the last 5+ years.

On a slightly different note, wanted to have a conversation about VAR. For me, the problem that VAR is facing is that because they’re reviewing footage and can slow it down, they have to follow the rules of the game as per the letter of the law.

A good example is the Cucurella penalty and the Hojland one on Rodri a few weeks ago – by the letter of the law, these are absolutely penalties. But the fact of the matter is that for decades pre-VAR, these have been things that have been real and have been happening and been overlooked by on pitch referees. Pushing and shoving, grabbing onto shirts, slight studs up challenges – these all have been overlooked by the referees in the past. But when you slow it down and look at it from an objective video, these end up having to be given.

The only solution I can see is a rewrite of the rule book taking into account all of these things. We need to leave some room for players to act in the grey area that has previously been afforded to them. I can imagine that is a monumental task and not something anyone really wants to do, which is why the ‘clear and obvious’ rule has been implemented by the Premier League but I think that’s just a band-aid for a gunshot wound because it feels like a completely different game from a fans’ and potentially players’ perspective.

Curious to hear other mailboxers’ opinions on this and whether I’m just overthinking or whether it resonates?

UP THE BLUES.
Reuben, London

Welcome back, Poch
Well, wow. What a breathtaking game of football that was. It is good to have Pochettino back, the original Bielsa disciple. At no point did he give up his attacking philosophy and he was duly rewarded as his 90’ Hail Mary substitution worked. The premier league is a better place with him in it.
Rohit, Abu Dhabi

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