Other forum meltdown watch

[moron]

I'm embarrassed when British people pick Americans up on the word "soccer" because to do so is a bit ignorant. In the first half of the 20th century the term "soccer" was commonly used in Britain for association football, to distinguish it from rugby football. "Soccer" eventually fell out of use here, but the Americans stuck to it as they are perfectly entitled to do. It's not "wrong."

Portly - in the early 80's I am sure when after the news was on someone would say something like "Soccer results or stay tuned for Soccer Results" - I was very young then but I do remember that word being used. To me it has only became an issue when people in this country take the piss out of Americans use it, but prior to that - it never bothered me. I think this whole piss take out of Americans regarding the use of the word got popular around about the 94 world cup when they hosted it and there was a lot of discussion about them not knowing much about the game and calling it 'soccer' instead of its real name "football" etc...

 

[Frogfish]

In Ireland ( at least where I come from) we have Gaelic ( Gaelic football), Hurling ( Which is also Gaelic only not football) and Soccer ( which is, well football).

We used to play hurling coming out of the pub when I was young. Didn't realise it was actually a sport .. whose can go furthest I guess.

 

[Frogfish]

and rugby football.

My sport whilst at school. St Edwards was the big game we played in Liverpool whilst the best in the NW (along with ourselves, Wirral Grammar) was King's School in Macclesfield, that was like a cup final twice a year. We had 2 players in the England setup, 7-8 in the Cheshire team. I had trials twice but was 'too small' (they picked our huge #8 as a flanker) !

 

[rurikbird]

RedCafe is beautiful these days:

It's pre-season and we are in dire straits

I really wish that meant that we were all singing Money for Nothing and the players for free.

But no.

We have effectively bought one first team player for £50m in Wan Bassaka. I would definitely take that. But everyone knows that on its own is not going to make much difference to United's position.

Right now Solskjaer has said we are "working on a case or two" transfer wise. ONE OR TWO??!! That is just not good enough.

And he says: "It's a long-term and it's a short-term project. You cannot just think three years down the line, so we've got short-term goals as well."

It's short term that is the issue. I do hope that this is not an early sign that we are again going to have a poor transfer window, and that, oh it will be okay in another year or two.

Even in the most positive scenario, and we brought in Bruno Fernandez and Maguire (I'd prefer Diop) that is not going to cut the mustard.

Right now we have Pogba's agent saying he wants another challenge. So i would hope we are doing more than a couple more deals. Bruno Fernandez CANNOT be our replacement for Pogba. Pogba needs replaced.

And while most fans would love the idea of Pogba at his best and Fernandez in midfield, that is not going to happen. If the Frenchman stays, he will bring us down, as he did at the end of last season.

But this Fernandez idea has gone on so long, it smacks of him going somewhere else .. while Spurs snap up the impressive Ndombele and City quietly snap up Rodri.

It is UNITED that need the midfield quality... desperately. And have done for years, hence our over-reliance on Pogba. But still we are dragging our heels.

Then there is Lukaku... if he goes, there has GOT to be a replacement. So 'looking at a couple of more deals'? Surely not. SURELY not.

Right now we have a replacement for Valencia but none for Fellaini or Herrera. And we have GOT to be looking at replacing Pogba and Lukaku now.

But the whole feel from the club right now is one of desperation. Signing up Andreas Perreira to 2022 smacks of standing still (at best). What are our coaching staff seeing in him that we haven't seen. He is not good enough.

Add that to the idea that McTominay is the future...well again what are they seeing? Yes he is improving but does anyone in the Premier League even below us covet him? I look at him and see Tom Cleverley.

And while I am a Mata fan, he has the finest football brain in our squad - even I agree that giving him a two year deal with an option of a third smacks of utter desperation.

While young Tielemans, the kind of player we really need, is likely to become a Leicester player for a mere £40m, we go chasing the untried and untested Longstaff from Newcastle.

So where are we as we head off to Australia to start our pre-season? In a worse position in squad terms than last pre-season. And you know what Mourinho's response was to the last pre-season.

Yorkeontop said: ↑​

Sheesh. Breathe. We are not supposed to turn this around in 1 season. Give it time.​

But it's also a question of are we even trying to get on a platform which we can build on and turn it around? Right now we are one AWB-not-hitting-the-ground-running away from having an even worse first and second eleven than last season. With a manager whose lack of acumen is undoubtedly putting off some prospective players and a CEO who has become famous for low-balling and a contract negotiator now famous for being taken for a ride by every agent under the sun.

I hope I'm wrong about all of this but it looks more and more like Ole is being set up as the patsy to once-and-for-all sell us the "we're now essentially just an upper tier mid-table club trying to reach top four" line. That's been the status quo for every season post Fergie, bar the first seasons under LVG and Mourinho, but far worse than that, I think Ed wants it to become the benchmark.

And it's one thing for Arsenal or Spurs to become penny-pinching "blessing if we manage a top four finish" sides with their swanky new stadiums, but the Glazers have spent feck all on anything at the club, ever.

 

[manwithnoname]

Yeah, it's nice to see

 

[HC]

 

[bluebell]

You know thats a BS story made up to wind up the bitters. £150m a season, don't make me laugh. We are probably holding out for £65m, and the current best is probably £55m

 

[Brizzle]

Depends how good our stats are around # of fans globally who buy training kit etc. The ability to grow a commercial deal should be significantly higher now you can show stats around the reach and conversion of the retail store through social channels etc.

I also wouldn't underestimate the ability for Nike to leverage other elements to our club from US Owners, Lebron James equity, key Muslim superstars in Mane & Mo etc etc.

 

[rurikbird]

I periodically check on RedCafe to observe them slowly sinking to greater and greater depths of despair. Some recent highlights:

==========

I am at the point where i am thinking...Daniel Sturridge is available on a free. His missing dog is worth more. Get Sturridge in. I then think...that is desperate. Then i think, hold on, Lukaku is off...who do we have as cover for Rashford and if we can actually get the best from him.... Take him on pay as you play. No risk. I AM going mad. I am. Am i?

It’s Ole I feel for. The club can’t get the players he wants, and he knows full well the team isn’t good enough to compete for top 4. Barring a miracle, he knows he’s getting the sack either next May, if not before.

I have no optimism left for the future of this club under the glazers, this was the summer window where the club needed to be the most proactive that has been since fergie left after how bad things were last season especially in the last few months and was obvious that Solskjear needed serious backing as he showed how much he struggled with what he had and yet he will have to do exactly that and basically manage the same he had playing like a relegation battling team except without the most effective players in their position in Pogba and Lukaku and looks as if we will replace them with 2 downgrade players. If the glazers and Woodward can penny pinch and dither around this summer of all summers what honestly makes you think any future transfer windows will be any different from now on?

It gets worse folks. Sky Sports saying that Tielemans' agent wanted to hold off on signing for Leicester while the Pogba situation was developing... but Tielemans did not want to wait and wanted to Foxes NOW. Leicester did a lot of touch feely stuff with him, and is pleased with their ambitions to go top six. Also they are saying that the Bruno Fernandes saga is "complex" because there are so many issues with his contract and his release clause. They are expecting a bid for Longstaff but "that hasn't happened yet". Feety draggy time. AGAIN. And that we are showing a "surprise" interest now in the Gabon international midfielder, currently with relegated Southampton, Mario Lemina. And he is cheap. £15m of cheap. So there you go, Sturridge and Lemina. Let's get them in. Ahem.

I'll say it again. I can't remember a window where so much talent has been seemingly prepared to move or where so many would improve us. We're into pre season with James and bissaka. What the feck have we been doing since March

And who are we going to buy in the end? Nope, nobody newly scouted. Harry Maguire for almost 80 million...after vetoing our previous manager's attempt to sign him for 60 million just the last summer... ... It is absolutely unbelievable how this fecking joke of an executive has been allowed to run this club into the ground with absolutely all the power and no oversight.



If Pogba is sold for a profit, the money will end up in the club's coffers and eventually end up in the the Glazers' pockets. Remember when Ronaldo was sold for £80M and we spent a small fraction of that money, on players? Gullible fans were convinced that at some stage, that money would be reinvested, but that never happened. I for one, have observed how things work within our club and can honestly say that while Woodward is our DoF, we won't win the league. If he stays here for the next 10 years, that we won't win for 10 years. His aim is top 4, while spending as little money as possible.

The conundrum being that Woodward is an extended branch of the Glazers. I can't see how you can get rid of one without the other. Look at Tampa Bay who have have a similar setup over there. Jason Licht is their Ed Woodward. Everything you can write about us, wouldn't look out of place written about them. If you haven't, read up a bit on them. So you might as well change it to whilst the Glazers are here, we are not going to compete any time soon. Until we get new owners, we're really just wasting everyone's time.

 

[King Binny]

 

[Insignificance]

They should rot for decades for my liking

 

[Raz]

We should have a ‘multiple like’ button for this.

 

[Insignificance]

They should print this on a banner and fly it over their stadium...

 

[Red Bird]

 

[dee]

What's with the Sturridge mentions? Surely not?

That'd be comic!

 

[Karl Hungus]

I just saw this over on Blue Moon, keep in mind, this is from a poster called "FootballSense,"

The amount of misinformation and distortion emanating from Liverpool is astounding.

The Echo is a medium for bias and bile, not just silly young reporters trying to make a name for themselves with shock stories akin to a bear landing on Pluto but gormless ex players like Aldridge trying to ingratiate himself with fans.

Klopp`s nonsense has been growing for some time. Only Aguero missing in pre-season he said. Another misleading angle, yet no one in the press conference had the knowledge or will to correct him that 7 main players did not take part with the rest of the City squad.

He is though good at encouraging coach `welcomes` whilst the apparent complicit Liverpool police lend their vans
and the club do nothing as `fans` are allowed free reign.

Now Klopp is raising an issue of his owner`s lack of investment in the squad. Samuel has quickly and rightly rebuked this in a good piece today.

We all need to continue to challenge and correct the distortions and present the facts.
​

 

[manwithnoname]

I've just skim-read that Samuel piece and, remarkably, both him and this cunt on BlueMoon have both missed different points.

For one, Samuel is not really talking about Liverpool's overall investment in the squad, he's actually talking about City not really paying huge transfer fees - they've never spent £75m on a player or whatever - and loads of "old money" clubs are responsible for inflating the market for how much players go for, with Italian clubs, United, Liverpool and of course Barca and Real dominating the "record transfer fee" paid for decades.

So he's on about clubs hypocritically complaining about getting "priced out of the market" - one that they helped create.

But really, that's not what Klopp is on about either.

He knows that City have invested a billion quid in the team since the Arabs took over, and the lack of a handful of £100m signings doesn't change how MUCH they've actually paid in total. And he stated, correctly, that we can't just add players in every window, because we aren't run like them, with a deluge of bent petro-dollars pouring in from every filthy sluice pipe, and no real issues about wages or expenditure or "bills to pay".

 

[dantes]

Then inflating the market with a short burst of world record transfers has worked to our advantage, seeing as we can't afford to keep shopping in that market anyway, but thanks to our good works neither can our rivals.

 

[manwithnoname]

Then inflating the market with a short burst of world record transfers has worked to our advantage, seeing as we can't afford to keep shopping in that market anyway, but thanks to our good works neither can our rivals.

And that's the galaxy-brain dantes take.

 

[Judge Jules]

I've just skim-read that Samuel piece and, remarkably, both him and this cunt on BlueMoon have both missed different points.

For one, Samuel is not really talking about Liverpool's overall investment in the squad, he's actually talking about City not really paying huge transfer fees - they've never spent £75m on a player or whatever - and loads of "old money" clubs are responsible for inflating the market for how much players go for, with Italian clubs, United, Liverpool and of course Barca and Real dominating the "record transfer fee" paid for decades.

So he's on about clubs hypocritically complaining about getting "priced out of the market" - one that they helped create.

But really, that's not what Klopp is on about either.

He knows that City have invested a billion quid in the team since the Arabs took over, and the lack of a handful of £100m signings doesn't change how MUCH they've actually paid in total. And he stated, correctly, that we can't just add players in every window, because we aren't run like them, with a deluge of bent petro-dollars pouring in from every filthy sluice pipe, and no real issues about wages or expenditure or "bills to pay".

Quite. That to$$er on Blue Moon clearly read the article through the prism of their resentment over there that we're daring to deny them the clear run to success they think they're entitled to. Comes to something when ManU fans, some at any rate, begin to seem like beacons of good sense by comparison.

 

[manwithnoname]

"City have never spent £75m on a single defender!"

Nope, but you have spent £200m on four of them in the past two seasons

 

[Judge Jules]

...and were snubbed by that £75 mill.defender in favour of us anyway.

 

[manwithnoname]

...and were snubbed by that £75 mill.defender in favour of us anyway.

And also slightly tempered by the fact that our right back, left back and two other CBs cost us about £12m in TOTAL.

 

[Red Astaire]

Quite. That to$$er on Blue Moon clearly read the article through the prism of their resentment over there that we're daring to deny them the clear run to success they think they're entitled to. Comes to something when ManU fans, some at any rate, begin to seem like beacons of good sense by comparison.

You know JJ - Thats precisely what annoys me about those numpties. They (barring a small minority) revert to type like it's their god given right that they should win everything when it's clear these things come in swings and roundabouts. The amount of hubris, self-conceit and arrogance displayed sometimes (a lot) on there staggers me. It's strange because at least with Utd you know they have a semblance of respect (albeit begrudgingly). I look at them like a dribbling teenager sitting at the top table. Trying to fit in but all the while everyone else is sporting Edward Sexton and Huntsman suits. They are wearing a pure white Tommy Hillfinger track suite, and wondering why everyone else is sniggering at them.

 

[tombrown]

 

[jan]

New Poch quotes sound very Rafa

Speaking after Tottenham's 1-0 Audi Cup win over Real Madrid, Pochettino swerved questions about Rose's future and urged the club to change his job description to more accurately reflect his role at the club.
"I am not in charge and I know nothing about the situation of my players," he said."I am only coaching them and trying to get the best from them. Sell, buy players, sign contract, not sign contract - I think it is not in my hands, it's in the club's hands and (chairman) Daniel Levy.
"The club need to change my title and description. Of course I am the boss deciding the strategic play, but in another area I don't know. Today, I feel like I am the coach."

 

[Mystic]

New Poch quotes sound very Rafa

Wow, that doesn't sound good.

 

[Hansern]

Will be his last season I reckon.

 

[keniget]

It’s not gonna be different anywhere else in Europe though, is it?

 

[doctor_mac]

It’s not gonna be different anywhere else in Europe though, is it?

That's true. It does appear, given all his strangely timed comments around the Ajax game about being poached from Spurs if he won the CL, that he has been waving a big come-and-get-me flag with increasing gusto. If Zidane gets sacked, as he probably will at some stage next season, Poch has let the Real hierarchy know exactly where he stands.