‘Proud’ Neville makes Liverpool, Antony bias clear; obvious new Manchester United captain emerges

One obvious candidate has emerged to grant Roy Keane his Manchester United captaincy wish. Gary Neville does not mind academy kids fouling Liverpool players.

Ant and Dok
Gary Neville on Hannibal Mejbri coming on as a substitute to foul Liverpool players at the end of a 4-0 defeat of Manchester United at Anfield in April 2022:

“It takes a young kid to come on and show the rest of them how to sprint for the ball and put a challenge in. I’m actually proud of him! Maybe he doesn’t like the idea of Liverpool players passing it round him. I wish the rest of them were the same. At least the kid’s showing something.”

Neville later on the same situation:

“I erred on to the slightly unprofessional side of commentary tonight when I said that the kid, to be fair I was proud of him, because he was going around trying to top people and trying to kick people. But he demonstrated something, he showed something. He didn’t like the idea of Liverpool, at Anfield, passing it around him and the idea of Liverpool taking the mick out of him and his team-mates. At least he demonstrated something. I am not saying it is brilliant because he could have hurt the Liverpool players, but as a Manchester United fan you can respond to that.”

Neville on Antony coming on as a substitute to foul Manchester City players at the end of a 3-0 defeat of Manchester United at Old Trafford in October 2023:

“That’s absolutely ridiculous, I’d just send him off. That’s absolutely ridiculous from Antony. It’s embarrassing.”

It’s been a long 18 months, to be fair.

Man Utd 0-3 Man City: 16 Conclusions on Ten Hag, Silva, Haaland, Hojlund

Piers pressure
There are countless ways in which to actually condemn Manchester United yet The Sun website goes for the lowest-hanging rotten fruit, as it tends to:

‘Piers Morgan slams Ten Hag with damning reminder of Man Utd transfer decision’

In the least surprising turn of events ever, he is obviously talking about Cristiano Ronaldo. This sort of thing would have never happened on his watch, you see?

Perhaps he has a point. Manchester United only lost 2-0 at home to Manchester City in the one game Ronaldo played against Pep Guardiola’s side in his second Old Trafford stint. Although he was booked in the 90th minute of that match for a lunge on Kevin de Bruyne on the touchline. It’s a wonder where ‘Championship-level idiot’ Antony gets it from.

But Ronaldo really is banging the Saudi goals in (for a club four points off the league leaders) so Manchester United should be further embarrassed by their foolishness in forcing out a player who ended his career in England with one goal in his last 11 Premier League games.

It’s less a ‘damning reminder’ and more a sycophantic ego massage.

THREE is the magic number
‘Fuming Roy Keane says it’s a ‘long way back’ for Man Utd as he lists THREE major worries after Man City thrashing’ is an eye-catching headline on The Sun website.

They know what they’re doing here: an angry Keane, some quote marks, Manchester United being rubbish and some weird shouting? Yes please.

The fairly innocuous quote in question, after a bit of the usual bluster, is here…

“They’re short in every aspect – technically, tactically and, worryingly, even physically.”

And frankly that’s quite the disappointment. It’s a bit ‘David Moyes says #mufc must improve in a number of areas, including passing, creating chances and defending’ really, and a disgrace to the proud tradition of randomly capitalising numbers.

Captain slog
Keane did of course say many more things, including suggesting Bruno Fernandes should be stripped of the captaincy.

Not one to miss such an opportunity, the Daily Mirror website runs through ‘7 Man Utd stars who could replace Bruno Fernandes as captain after Roy Keane’s demand’.

Mediawatch is intrigued because it is tough enough to currently think of seven Manchester United stars, never mind seven Manchester United stars who could become captain.

Luke Shaw? Fair enough, even if his injury record slightly undermines his case. The same could be said of Lisandro Martinez, while Casemiro has the experience but has himself been laughably out of form this season. That goes for Marcus Rashford too. And Raphael Varane.

Scott McTominay is next and at this point the entire feature is on the verge of eating itself. They tried to sell the bloke in the summer and he has started 14 of Ten Hag’s 48 Premier League games.

The avid mathematicians among you may have spotted that even with the bottom of the barrel being thoroughly scraped, we are only actually up to six in our countdown of seven Manchester United stars who could replace Bruno Fernandes as captain after Roy Keane’s demand. So it’s time to introduce our final candidate…

It’s Diogo actual Dalot. It’s 24-year-old, never been a captain in his life, arguably not first-choice with everyone fit, Diogo Dalot. And what is the body of evidence supporting his claim to the armband? Cristiano Ronaldo once called him “very, very professional”. And we see no issues there whatsoever.

Mus win
Now their chief Manchester United writer Samuel Luckhurst has described Rasmus Hojlund as ‘performing as expected of a 20-year-old with a mediocre goalscoring record in Denmark, Austria and Italy’ before saying ‘he should not be leading the line for United at such a raw age,’ can we safely assume that the Manchester Evening News have changed their stance on the Dane? Or are Manchester United still getting exactly what they wanted from him?

Shoulder the blame
The campaign to have retired players in the VAR booth is nice and quaint but hereby begins Mediawatch’s push to get just one retired player overseeing every game. Step forward, Garth Crooks, who dissects Joao Palhinha’s possible elbow on Pascal Gross with clarity and authority:

‘I was amazed Palhinha was still on the field against Brighton on Sunday after his first-half elbow on Pascal Gross. I still can’t make up my mind if the contact he made with Gross was intentional or not.’

‘Amazed’ he wasn’t sent off for what he isn’t sure was an intentional elbow. Lovely.

It might be an idea to get Isabella Barker of The Sun in as his assistant:

‘Tempers flared when referee Michael Salisbury kept his cards in his pocket despite Palhinha shoulder barging Pascal Gross in the face.’

Mediawatch isn’t sure whether it was intentional either. But it was categorically an elbow and not a shoulder.