English football 2024-25

[Durhamfootman]

bollox

2-3

Salah again, moments after hitting the bar and Newcastle having a pen appeal turned down

there's time for a 4th yet

I can guarantee that with Liverpool leading there won't be 10 mins of added on time played

[Durhamfootman]

oh hello....... again

maybe we will have 10 mins of stoppage time after all

3-3

maybe there's time for VAR to find some reason to rule it out?

then again, the Telly does like a Liverpool 4 Newcastle 3 result

[Durhamfootman]

+7 and counting

probably 10 mins left in this one

[Durhamfootman]

no, just the 7

unsurprising really, because Newcastle had just broken clear 3 on 1 when the ref blew...... of course.

[Durhamfootman]

actually it was 5 mins added on and with Newcastle charging through the Liverpool half on the counter 3 on 1 and the keeper racing out, the ref blew at 5 mins 10 secs despite the ball being in play for less than 2 minutes of the 5 added on

[Durhamfootman]

wins for both Bournemouth and Fulham push Newcastle back down to 12th. There's a lot of teams all within a couple of points of each other behind the top 4

[Durhamfootman]

Newcastle lose on the road again.

the stats speak for themselves.... 15 shots, 2 on target, 2 goals, whereas Brentford had 11 shots, 8 on target and 4 goals. Yet reading the live feed, at least 3 of those goals were gifted by really poor defending.... giving the ball away in a dangerous area here, a slip there, a hopeful lob into a packed box not dealt with

In the summer, I couldn't understand why Newcastle were so focused in their failed bid to bring in Guehi, to the exclusion of everything else, despite the glaringly obvious holes in depth up front and quality at wide right, but I can understand it now, because handing easy goals to the opposition has been a weekly habit this season... and something they just didn't do in the year they finished 4th

[Durhamfootman]

It's no good having a top, top striker, who scores every week, if the defence is like a colander and undoes all that his quality brings

[Durhamfootman]

We've got games against Leicester and Ipswich coming up and tbh, I'm not feeling sanguine about either of them atm

[bigfluffylemon]

Forest take down Man U at OT to go fifth

[Durhamfootman]

I don't know what on earth Ratcliffe thinks he's up to at Man U.

Gives a useless manager a new contract and then sacks him shortly after..... 10 mill...... kerching!

Brings in a replacement.... 11 mill compen to his former club...... kerching!

Pays Newcastle 3 mill to bring in Ashworth then sacks him within a few months with presumably some sort of compensatory payoff....... kerching!

then bumps up the price of the cheapest seats at OT and says it's ridiculous that people can pay less to see god-like Man U than bargain basement Fulham

Man U fans have spent years moaning on about what the Glazers have done to their club, but this bloke? Well, he's a *modded* shambles. In his short tenure he's turned the club into a laughing stock and spent 200 mill (kerching) turning the team into..... well... a worse performing team than Fulham

[Durhamfootman]

unsurprisingly the papers up here are laughing their c0cks off at Man U and Ashworth

[andy]

It's complete madness simply don't understand what they are doing their....if anything they're going backwards on and off the pitch

[sussexpob]

I don't know what on earth Ratcliffe thinks he's up to at Man U

Was at Heysel last night to see USG take down his other club, Nice .... was a lot of funn.

[sussexpob]

It's complete madness simply don't understand what they are doing their....if anything they're going backwards on and off the pitch

The Glaziers bought United as a cash cow, but were lucky enough to a have an extremely gifted hands on manager who run everything at the club. Fergie went off into the sunset, and then Ed Woodward took over a lot of what Ferguson did despite the fact he had no football experience. The Glaziers didn't care, because Woodward had an insane ability to put Man United on everything from South Korean noodles, Chinese sextoys, to Indonesian cigarette packets.

But when Woodward was required to bring his incredible commercial strategy to football, it was a disaster. The first transfer Woodward was involved in was Felliani, where he initially didnt agree with the purchase, caved into the manager, and during the 3 months it took for him to make a decision Felliani's release clause expired and they paid double what they would have a week previously. Just amateur stuff.

Mourinho has put it well. He says that in his second year at OT, he gave a list of players he wanted to Woodward. Woodward rejected all of them, and then bought Fred instead, who was one of the worst transfers in PL history - not even close to a United standard. Mourinho then says Woodward didn't want to give him money for the players he wanted - and instead, Mourinho left and Woodward entrusted 300 million quid to Ole who had no managerial experience at a big club, and who then burned a big stack of cash on rubbish. Ironically, the only success was Bruno Fernandez... the player on top of the list Mourinho had provided him.

Woodward brought in two coaches with multiple CL wins each, and kept the purse strings tight while not trusting them at all to make any footballing decisions. Both speak openly about what a train wreck it was and how bad Woodward was negotiating transfers. Woodward then gave unfettered trust and big war chests to a manager with a year at Molde, and some guy who had at one stage an interesting Ajax team, but really lost titles to crap PSV and Feyenoord teams that any quality side should have beat.

Ten Hag came in, and again, United just threw money where the new manager wanted it - loads of Ajax players who turn out are rubbish. Martinez, Antony - United finally binned off Woodward, but judging on how many ex-Ten Hag players are coming in and what Ten Hag was saying, it seems they still have zero scouting network or direction for transfers. I think you can sum up United by the transfer this year of De Ligt. Ok, 4-5 years ago people were saying he was the new best thing, but a big transfer move to Juventus he flopped, Bayern took a punt and he flopped again.

What do United do? They pay a few million more than Bayern paid to transport him to Manchester. I just cannot fathom it. Its like someone buying a computer, realizing its not as good as they thought, and someone turning up for it secondhand and paying more than it was first hand. £60-70 Million quid for a defender who has proved at two top clubs he aint it?