Rio’s ignorance typical of p*ss-poor punditry, disappearing acts, and one-footed full-backs…

It’s a wide and wonderful Mailbox, touching on pundits shortchanging punters; Newcastle’s expectations, Emery versus Arteta, City and Al Capone; and how the f*** did the big boys miss Pau Torres?

Get your views in to theeditor@football365.com…

Palace of Opinions
I liked Matt Stead’s article and it exposed Rio’s frankly worryingly short-sighted view on United’s choice of Sporting Director but therein lies a massive problem with the modern pundit often being just a mouthy ex-footballer.

Rio has a right to criticise in any way he wants as a grown man, but for him to be not only considered a worthy contributor but to be on one of the highest salaries of his peers should require him to stop and take a balanced approach. To maybe do a little research and to think of all the possible avenues in which his opinions could be torn apart but instead, why care? Noone will hold him accountable, and he’ll have something new and inflammatory to say to stir up the masses within a week so why worry? Thinking before you open your pie-hole is SO boring, death to “civilised discussion” etc etc.

The fact that Rio does not account for the work Dougie Freedman does, being done AT Crystal Palace is borderline negligent for a man who is apparently so knowledgeable as to be hireable on massive salaries by multiple broadcasters.

Even IF Dougie Freedman had only signed Eze, Olise and Guehi (which Matt Stead rightly calls nonsense on), the fact is that he has done so at a club with a fraction of the resources and influence as the club that may be lucky to have him. It’s the “old boys club” method of “well, they’ve never done it at the top level so they couldn’t simply could never do it at the top level”. The same basis that led to many commenters suggesting Tottenham Hotspur was too-steep a climb for a manager who had “only” won titles in every single culture he’d managed in because those sporting climates were Scotland, Australia and Japan.

Football punditry should educate us, not titillate us. It should make us question our own, uneducated or unqualified opinions. Instead we are left with Rio, Carragher, Neville, Scholes and the like just bringing Alpha top-dogging because why would we want discussion?
Harold Edward Hooler Esq.
P.S: For what it’s worth, I’m not even sure what state Rio thinks United is in that they CAN have their pick of any Sporting Director.

Read more: Ferdinand drivel sparks £50m Man Utd questions as Ratcliffe accepts Fergie trap over transfer boss

Wor Eddie
Not sure if your manager ranking with Howe at 15 was based on recency bias from a single week, an overrule of his performance based on his comments around the ownership , or was just bait. Either way I’m going to rise to it. Especially as there seems to be a lot of Howe negativity in the media generally.

12 games in, Newcastle are 7th and six points off the top 4. Since the September international break they have won five of their last 8 league games, including every home league game, earning more points than anyone except Villa in that time. They have also beaten Arsenal, Man U, Man City and PSG, losing only to Dortmund and then this week’s terrible away day against Bournemouth. Newcastle have the league’s fourth best goal difference, and the fourth best xG, third best xGA, and third best “expected points” with Understat:
– all implying the fundamentals are still good enough to challenge for the top 4 over a full season. They are the only team in both the league cup and the champions league, despite unusually tricky draws in both.

All of this has been with a steadily escalating injury and suspension list that meant they played Bournemouth without the first choice CB, LB, DCM, and both CFs, and reduced to an outfield bench only containing teenagers and Matt Ritchie.

There has been a fair come down from the euphoria of the PSG match – turns out Dortmund are good, who knew. But Newcastle beat arsenal as recently as last weekend.

Howe raised the bar high enough last season – finishing fourth when I think most punters would have guessed between 6th and 8th – that he is now seemingly being held by the media to the standard of top 4 game by game, and even having talk about his job being under threat, while in every competition and in a European place.

To most sane Newcastle supporters I think this comes across as madness. We knew the squad was pretty thin for the champions league, and that it’s still partially composed of championship-season players, but FFP limits the pace of strengthening both the first team and depth. We also know the injury list – and the sheer quality of our CL group – means we won’t win every game. The large majority of signings are successes; Tonali the only glaring exception.

With top 4 and a cup final, last season was easily Newcastle’s best for 20 years, and that really buys Howe some time. There are still lots of opportunities for new signature achievements this early in the season, while still in every competition. Before the season started I thought there were at least five that would each make this season at least as good as last:
1 get CL again via the league (5th could be enough)
2 a serious CL run – ie get to the QF or SF
3 win the Carabao
4 win the FA
5 win the Europa after getting 3rd in CL group

Any one of those five would be positive enough for me to think we’re still on the right path – and any two would make this again Newcastle’s best season in all competitions for at least 50 years. None are easy – the CL run might need beating Paris again – but none are impossible while 2 points back in the CL and 5-6 back in the league.

After massive improvement last year, we’ve had a bad couple of games. There’s a lot of games and competitions left to go. Think most fans will see how they turn out more than 12 league games in.
Cheers,
Roger, Newcastle in London

Disappearing acts
Imagine a scenario where your team has a gaping hole in a position and you are clear that there are a few good players in the market who can fill that slot. Is your team actually in that situation?

That means you will be inundated with videos of “Welcome to insert club name>” for the player. There will be analysis done by amateur analysts (Not a dig). Everything to showcase how this player can fit perfectly in the team. Some analysts also talk about the areas in the player’s game that need improvement. This content is then binged by hopeful fans like yourself wanting their team to get the benefit from said player.

Then, sometimes, the player actually comes into the club. And then you see his deficiencies. You see how much of a work in progress he is. He stops getting chances and what once was a hope turns into anguish. On the other hand, if the player does not move to the club, 9/10 times you stop hearing about the player after that window. It is as if that player vanishes into obscurity.

The biggest example of the latter situation is Belotti. Touted for a 100million move, now there is no news of him or his exploits. He was a player that fans were convinced would solve the United or Chelsea striker issue.

My point is this- What the actual f***?
E

Torres miss
Ben White in Thursday’s Mailbox listed a few central defenders who Man Utd could potentially have signed in the summer – van de Ven, Badiashile, Malo Gusto & Max Aarons among them. I’m admittedly slightly biased being a Villa fan, but how Pau Torres is continuously overlooked in these kind of conversations (and transfer rumours) is beyond me. For a player playing his first season outside of Spain to have started so well in the Premier League is massively impressive. Maybe he only had eyes for Villa and working with Emery, but I’m sure if Man Utd had thrown enough money at him and Villareal last summer his head might have been turned.
David Horgan, AVFC, Dublin

One-footed Winterburn
Look, I love Nigel Winterburn as much as the next man.

He was part of our greatest defence of all time. He made more appearances in the 1997/98 Premier League winning season than anyone despite being the oldest member of the squad. And he’s always been an Arsenal man despite having a pretty decent career at Wimbledon before joining.

But there is a very good reason Nigel didn’t play that much for England. It’s because he could barely kick the ball with his right foot and every England coach from Robson to Hoddle knew it too.
Graham Simons, Gooner, Norf London

Read more: Maddison still among top 10 most under-capped England stars with Le Tiss, Carrick…

Half centuries
I’m surprised this debate about who’s better in 50 games has lasted as long as it had considering what a pointless and arbitrary metric it is so rather than argue who was better in 50 games klopp or Erik and his 11 hags I’ll paraphrase a wise old Portuguese philosopher and say

“You can have the first 50 games, we’ll take the champs league”

One metric matters in football – what did you win? It’s why even if you play the most dour offensively cheating football in history (like peak Jose) and you win, it’s still celebrated.

ETH or arteta or any other manager will only be judged by how often he wins the big trophies champs league and domestic league. It’s why ancelotti, pep are rightly top of the pile. Klopp sits in the second category, he’s a little like houlliers Liverpool in 01/02 a great team that played good football winning plenty of games who the history books will forget because someone else had a phenomenal season. He’s a very good manager anyone who says he isn’t is just in denial. But he’s not as successful as he should be, largely because he’s only ever taken control of teams in disarray with limited means. Had he gone to city I imagine he’d be just as successful as pep, same goes for ancelotti.

Arteta, eth Angie and many others don’t feature in that conversation for the same reason klopp doesn’t feature in the best ever conversation – trophies won doesn’t equal the company.

But klopp has won all the most difficult trophies, which is something not many other managers can claim.
Lee

Whinging Arsenal
Until Arsenal released a whining statement supporting Mikel Arteta’s whining rant, I don’t think I’d have characterized them as a whining club. But a whole lot of their fans have been whining for almost two weeks now, and Josh, Arsenal, Quincy, Mass certainly seems to be among that crowd. I agree that Bruno should have been sent off; I said so when it happened. But nobody in the press ignored Bruno’s foul; I can’t count the replays I’ve seen. That said, a more observant supporter might have noticed that Arteta didn’t even bring it up in his post-match rant, focusing entirely on the goal. John also, like so many Arsenal supporters, ignores Havertz’s great good fortune in staying on the pitch after his attempted flying assault on Sean Longstaff, not to mention Atwell’s booking of three NUFC players in its aftermath.

And the whining about the goal would be comical if it weren’t so tiresome. It stood because of the laws of the game. Whatever you can convince yourself you saw — a ball over the goal line, a phantom foul, a handball, an offside — is entirely immaterial. None of that footage was conclusive, so the goal had to stand by the laws of the game. I promise you, Arsenal fans: there’s no plot within the PGMOL to damage your club by following the rules. My eyes are rolling so much it hurts.
Chris C, Toon Army DC (You know who else whines a lot? Donald Trump. [waggles eyebrows suggestively])

Stewie’s Emery verdict
Ok, I’ll bite. Stewie’s whataboutery is hitting new levels of selective memory and straw man arguments. There’s no denying Emery is a very good coach and a lot of the Arsenal fans I interact with both in person and online liked, supported and harbour no ill will against the man. In fact most are pleased he’s taken his chance at Villa to change the narrative a bit after his time with The Arsenal.

You raise questions of which the answers are readily available for but let’s not pretend you wrote in to praise Emery, it was all about snaking back to hurling abuse at Arsenal. All the greatest hits are played (money spent, 8-2, 10-2, 4th place!!) The bit that interested me was the “it’s all very strange” comment about Emery not getting the funds so let’s take a little trip down memory lane shall we. Once Wenger left dear old Ivan Gazidis appointed Mislintat, Burgess and Sanllehi to remove the centralised power Wenger had at the club. All started rosey but the problem with this new set up was everyone was pulling in different directions. Sanllehi won his power grab and we lost one of the best finders of young talent in Mislintat because Sanllehi wanted to only buy players from his little black book and ultimately from one agent. Just have a read about the Pepe transfer and you can clearly see something was not quite right (an auxiliary super agent was involved and we offered well over asking for a player no one else was interested in and one the boss didn’t want…..) In amongst this rollercoaster of change on the business side of the club Emery was having to be the man to replace the man (whatever your thoughts on Arsene his shadow was cast far and wide over the club) whilst also dealing with a bunch of petulant donkeys who ultimately downed tools and forced him out. Let’s not pretend it was a shock to see Emery go, he had very clearly lost the dressing room and as such it’s very obvious why pretty much that entire squad does not play for Arsenal anymore.

For me Emery was right man, wrong time and it’s no surprise that once Sanllehi was gone and a new stable streamlined executive order was in place with Josh Kroenke taking a much bigger active role in the club did we see Arsenal stabilise and (most) transfers started to make sense with what followed being the systematic replacement of near on every player in the squad to be with specific players for a specific style of play.

You can bang the Kai drum all you want, I’m not sure anyone is arguing against you so what do you want to happen? Why keep writing the same diatribe and waiting for the slightest hint of failure to grace us with your inane ramblings? When it was Wenger bashing it was understandable, rival fan laughing at Arsenal but it keeps evolving with the only constant being you hate Arsenal and the selective Arsenal fans I presume you hunt out to prove whatever point you’ve moved on to. What do you want? Arsenal fans to burn down the Emirates? Still want Conte in? Do you want the deluded Arsenal fans to demand to win the league or admit they can’t? Do you even want anything or does your ego just need to be fed? Is life treating you badly? Do you need a friend? Are you ok? It’s ok to not be ok you know.

I’m as sure as the sun rises and sets you won’t respond and you’ll wait until you see another golden opportunity to have a pop and sit back laughing to yourself but come on, really? Again the Arsenal fans I choose to listen to are happy at the moment, everyone at the club seems to be pulling in the same direction, we forgive certain errors from the manager which can be chalked up to naivety and others we question a bit harder especially now, there’s no denying he has his faults but the good outweighs the bad currently. The team whilst losing a bit of the chaotic spark seem to have looked to become more solid if not less entertaining but there has been change off the back of the fall away that killed our title hopes which is steps in the right direction so we can only wait and see, 1pt off the leaders whilst we’ve not hit anything like top gear yet isn’t a bad place to be.

So yeah, Emery, shame it didn’t work out, I think no matter the man in the seat it was always going to fail and I hope he carries on his good work at Villa and rights the wrongs of his Arsenal time but who knows what the squad would look like if Emery had the time and money that Arteta had and so who knows even if they would have been challenging in the first place. Just another muddled spun narrative to have a pop at Arsenal about.
Lee (destroyed the 3 para rule here, sorry) AFC, Bristol

…Arsene Wenger, who delivered a profit from transfer window after transfer window in the years after moving into the Emirates AND Champions League football – including a CL final – for two decades, is a “specialist in failure”.
Yet Emery, who missed out on Champions League football, also lost a lesser European final and was given £72m to spend on Pepe somehow deserves all the praise in the world?!
I’m happy for Emery. I really like the guy and never like to see an Arsenal manager fired but that’s quite some take Stewie – even for you.
Graham Simons, Gooner, Norf London

…Did Stewie Griffin just say Arsenal look… decent? Well I never!
James, Kent

City and Al Capone
Just a quick rebuttal to Paul, Manchester’s defence of City. A defence which amounts to ”no charges have ever been proven, so City are innocent.” Utter tosh. Al Capone was one of the most famous/infamous/notorious gangsters of his time. Responsible for many crimes including extortion, racketeering, blackmail, assault and murder. Nothing was ever proven though, does that make him innocent? Paul would seem to think so.

In this country you are innocent until proven guilt, but ”lack of sufficient evidence to prove guilt” is not the same thing as ”proven not guilty”. Just ask Mason Greenwood.

Oh, it was financial irregularities, specifically tax evasion, that brought Al Capone to justice so I hope City are paying HMRC promptly
Clive (LFC)

…Paul, Manchester, a retort if I may:

Guardiola was not at the club for basically any of the allegations listed against Man City.

That’s because Man City stopped co-operating with the Premier League investigation in 2018. Which, if we’re being honest, should’ve led to serious sanctions.

And City have had the most investigated accounts in the history of modern football and have still not had a single accusation of financial wrongdoing proven against them by any court, at any time, ever.

In 2014 Man City accepted a £49m fine (later reduced to £10m) for breaching FFP.

And no, you still don’t understand what time barring issue was and why you claiming it was the reason CAS ruled for City is incomprehensibly stupid.

First Google response: ….payments to the club which had purported to be made in accordance with its sponsorship arrangements with Etihad and Etisalat were in fact equity contributions made at the behest of City’s owners, ADUG. UEFA found that there was compelling evidence to support the case against City. CAS however found that the allegation relating to Etisalat was time barred; the alleged breaches fell outside the 5 year statutory limit for prosecution as the payments were received in June 2012 and January 2013.
James Outram, Wirral

…Yesterday, Paul from Manchester replied to my Wednesday post. If I may be allowed to retort.

He states, “Guardiola was not at the club for basically any of the allegations listed against Man City”. Well, the alleged breaches of financial rules start in 2009-10 and run to 2017-18 seasons. Pep signed his contract in Feb 16 and the 100 points season was 17-18. Not correct on this point bud.

Paul goes on to tell me that none of the allegations have been proven. Interesting, but correct turn of phrase. Similar to when Lance Armstrong used to say he’s “never tested positive”. Hmm, we know how that turned out.

Paul also states that I don’t understand what the time barring issue was. And claiming that was the reason that CAS ruled for City was incomprehensibly stupid. Unfortunately, my good man, I did not mention CAS or time baring in my mail. I think this may a little Freudian projection on your part.

However, as he brings up CAS and time baring. The 115 charges I was referring to, relate to the Premier Leagues investigation, not UEFAs. Crucially the Premier League rules do not include a time limit. Tick Tok.

Finally, every Man City fan I hear and read, and the even the club itself states they that want this matter dealt with as soon as possible. If this is the case, why are they stalling at every turn? I mean arguing that a barrister, who happens to be an Arsenal fan should be replaced, come on this is getting petty.
Ian H

Science versus philosophy
In response to Harold “won’t someone please think of the science” Hooler.
You seem to misunderstand what’s going on here.
You’re mail was beautifully written btw and you’re right it’s not science; lots of things aren’t science!
If anything it’s philosophical logic.
They’re having an argument. Demonstrating that if A is true then B. In this case – if the metric I’m using is able to discern the better manager, then he’s the better manager. It’s logically valid.
Someone may counter with their own facts and reason ( rhetorical logos) and make an equally logically valid argument. The key thing is that objective truth is not relevant to whether a proposition is logical.
Reality is made of many strands – often we only see one of these, one truth – but each one has its own data sets and validity.
I think you brought science to a philosophy fight, mate.
Big love
Hartley MCFC Somerset

Calvinho’s right of reply
Ben, that was an interesting response, a few things:
“Pochettino has only had 12 games or something, whereas ten hag has a full season.”
So the number of games played matters, when you’re doing badly, but not when you’ve done 50 better than any United manager in history?

“Also in regards to spending, since 12/13, both Chelsea and City have been just a little bit more successful. Just a champions league each, at least 2 premier leagues, whatever domestic cups, etc.”
Yes, this is true, for an extra 100M in transfer fees, and 500M in infrastructure investments, City won the decade. Chelsea, for 700M more in transfer fees, came second.
The difference between those two, and United (& kind of LFC in fairness), is that United funded themselves, and have had over $1B leave to club to its owners and bankers. Whereas both City and Chelsea have needed mass foreign investment, and an unhealthy dose of breaking the rules – Reports this week Chelsea may even get a points deduction

“The point is that with Ten Hag spending 400 Million dollars is that there shouldn’t be an injury crisis.”
You say this directly after saying City and Chelsea have an injury crisis. Teams who have just spent 400M and 1B (Yes, that’s a B) since Ten Hags arrival. What’s your opinion on Chelsea having spent 250% more than United in that period and being where they are?

“Winning by the skin of your teeth against smaller sides and getting destroyed by bigger ones is not sustainable.”
So what is losing at home to the smaller teams and getting draws against the big teams meant to be?

“Why is mason mount, Antony, and martial starting then? Ten hag is deliberately making things harder for himself by spending (excluding martial) upwards of 160 million on that duo. Pretty f*cking dumb right?”
Almost as dumb as spending money on them and not playing them. Kind of like spending over 100m on Lukaku and sending him on loan for the most of his contract, buying Fofana, injured knee, and a history of knee injuries for 80m or “doing a United and outbidding City” for Cucarella – 65m, then wanting to send him on loan before playing him in the cup – ending his chance of going on loan

“United’s cbs, cdm, and rb are absolutely sh*t.”
A fit United team managed a 72% win rate during Ten Hags first 25 games, and as injuries krept in, and back ups not able to play his style starting filling in, the win rate, and football style went down. Who would have known. Oddly enough though, United’s “Sh*t” second string defense, and backup midfielders, not capable of his style of football, still finished above Chelsea and LFC last season, and are five points ahead of Poch’s stylish Chelsea this year. What’s that tell you? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Gussy – Dia dhuit.
Your argument is basically: LFC did well before the injuries in 20/21, in fact, they did better without any injuries during that half season, than United did with lots of injuries this half season.
It’s strange how their form collapsed with injuries, players out of position and constantly forced to be rotated. But I guess that was down to Klopp and his failing to get the best out of his back ups, right?

Mark – Dia dhuit
“The problem there is that we are only (less than) 1/3 of the way through the season.”
..And only 1/3 more to go until we hear Arsenal fans say they’ll win the title this season, and 2/3’s until they bottle it and City lifts it in May
Calvino

Blades as kingmakers
Man United the form team going into the international break. They haven’t lost a game in 7 weeks except for those other games that they lost. You have Arsenal joint second in third, Spurs have already won the league. The common denominator here is Sheffield United.

Play Sheffield United and your goalkeeper and 80m centre back are fixed. Play Sheffield United and your non scoring front line gets a hat trick. Play Sheffield United and you definitely are going to win the league for first time in 60 years.

City play them NYE eve. Merde. That will be them going and staying top won’t it!

Best get back to arguing which manager had the best 427th game.
Alex, South London