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The Moldëd One
I, for one, am happy that Manchester United have appointed an ex-Molde, ex-Cardiff manager.
I’d rather United hire him than being having shiny toys to show off solely because they are in bed with a sugar daddy.
I congratulate Banjo on his brilliant use of a juvenile pun but I don’t take offense to the ‘stale odour’ jibe. He must be exposed to it a lot, if we are to extrapolate his mail to what he spouts out of his mouth.
I’m happy to have a club legend in charge, for better or worse; as he seems to fit the Moldë. Banjo can have their identity loaned in from Abu Dhabi & Barcelona.
Cheers!
Anuj, MUFC
So Banjo, MCFC believes that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s “most notable managerial achievement is relegating Cardiff“, does he? No mention of him managing Molde to winning the Norwegian league in his first two seasons in charge – their first ever league wins in their 100-year history….
Ah to be so ignorant and uninformed.
That’s all.
Adrian, Red Manc
Congratulations to Ole on getting the United gig full-time. A move that will definitely not back-fire spectacularly next season.
Also, congratulations to Poch on being stuck at Spurs for the foreseeable. Keep winning nothing, champ.
Kris, LFC, Wirral
Norwegian Bluffer?
So now that Ole has finally been given the job, I have a favour to ask of my fellow mailboxers. When Ole is inevitably “found out”, what disparaging nick name should we give him?
I’m sure we’re all familiar with the Jürgen Flopp jokes that appear everytime Liverpool have a wobble or lose a cup final. How about the Pep Fraudiola/Bald Fraud comments that surface everytime Manchester City have the audacity to be not excellent for a game or 2? Well as manager of Manchester United, it’s only fair if Ole gets the same treatment if things ever go badly for him.
As a fan of none of the above clubs, I find this phenomenon quite amusing, purely for the ridiculousness of it. I don’t really care how any of these managers are perceived but do think they are all quite excellent in their own ways. However my dad is a Manchester united fan and I get a kick out of winding him up. As I never expected Ole to actually get the job, I haven’t bothered putting the effort into coming up with name for him. I’ve simply been referring to him as the Norwegian Bluffer, which I’ve actually become quite fond of. I tried making Folly Gunnar Solskjær a thing but that failed as less people understand the meaning of the word folly than I had anticipated. Can anyone help me out here? Any suggestions will be gratefully received.
On a side note, I imagine that at team meetings, every time Ole has an idea he exclaims “a ha!” at which point the intro to Take On Me automatically starts playing and he does a little dance with Mike Phelan and that bloke who looks like Phil Neville. Have a good day everyone!
Robert, CCFC
Will this season be classed as a success for Man Utd?
Interesting reading the “Five reasons why this Premier League season is so great” article. It posed an interesting question about whether this season will be classed as a success for United, so I would like to attempt an answer at this one, under a few different scenarios.
- Top-four finish and Champions League winners: aside from the fact that there’s virtually no chance that this will happen, it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that this would be seen as an unbelievable success. Stranger things have happened, of course, but things would have to get really bloody strange for this to come about!
- Champions League winners, outside top-four: again, this is highly unlikely because of how tough the remaining teams are. If, by some miracle, we did manage to win it then, again, this would be an unbelievable achievement and undoubtedly a huge success (given that it achieves both aims in one).
- Top-four finish: this would still be a massive achievement, given how far adrift we were when Ole took over. The other three teams competing for those two places are all very good teams on their day, so if were to squeak into 3rd or 4th then it would be an excellent result.
- Outside the top four: to be honest, even if this is what happens, I’ll still be really happy with the outcome of this season. Sure, we’ll have missed the opportunity to qualify for the CL, but more important is where we stand for next season. With Ole at the helm, I can genuinely look forward to next season with optimism instead of a sense of impending dread. Being in the Europa League isn’t necessarily ideal from a logistical sense, but it does perhaps offer an opportunity for a bit more squad rotation than being in the Champions League would, so it’s not the end of the world by any stretch.
All things considered, I’m so much happier now than compared to the Mourinho days. United fans of my generation have been lucky enough to see us win everything there is to win so, in the absence of trophies, it’s just brilliant to be able to look forward to the games and enjoy watching them again. I believe that scenarios three and four are the most likely but I’m happy whichever way it goes.
The best things about the current situation are that: a) we seem to finally have a plan in place, and b) the plan doesn’t involve ripping it all up and starting from scratch (again). Going with a different manager would have just repeated the same cycle, probably to the same result, whereas Ole is proving that he can get good performances out of this group of players, so I think we can expect to keep the vast majority of this squad together. Rojo, Valencia and Darmian seem the most likely departures, and I wouldn’t expect much more than a defender, a central midfielder, and a wide-right player to come in. What is also good to see is the names we are being linked with these days (even if there turns out to be little truth in the rumours): Rice, Wan-Bissaka, Sancho and Hudson-Odoi are much brighter prospects than Perisic, Bale, Rakitic and the other perma-linked aging names. Maybe this is suggestive that we’re starting to plan for the longer term rather than just bringing in short-term fixes.
So yeah, it feels good to be a United fan again.
Ted, Manchester
Happy thoughts
Wow, I should have waited some more lunchtime minutes and read Dave Tickner’s excellent ‘5 reasons why this PL season is so great’ piece and included the comments below. Because again I have loads more happy thoughts with his well summarised but witty musings. Just in case you haven’t read it yet, the following snippets should tempt you, ie bits we can surely all nod our heads at, and chortle with?!
“Liverpool might actually do it. Which would be absolutely brilliant. But also awful”;
“Spurs and Chelsea very much the current flakiest pair among the big boys”;
“Manchester United are in a fully-fledged banter of a season that seems to be a 35-year-old’s online fanfic come to life”;
“Overlord Winty 😂 forbade it in her crazed pursuit of clicks”;
“Watford’s previous tactic of being seventh at Christmas and 14th in May … sometimes they play football like the Harlem Globetrotters would play football”;
“West Ham gave us all a good laugh by facing down Marko Arnautovic’s bungled escape bid”;
“Leicester have a squad of enormously exciting young pups … Brendan … but without the storied history that made him act the arse at Liverpool and Celtic”;
“Burnley and Cardiff both play sh*thouse football”; and
“why we lefty pinko feminazi snowflake libtard cucks at F365”.
Though I must admit my possession of many years on this planet means I’m not totally understanding all the references in that last bit? You guys!
Oh, by the way, if Liverpool do manage it I, and I hope/suspect many others, will only be smug on the inside Dave, because I/we know that would just fuel more bitterness from others. But let’s see whether it will be valid, most of us are not calling it.
Mike Woolrich, LFC (wonder if this will get me one of those … “40 minutes later” contributions?!)
Racism
Dear F365.
I think John Barnes was spot on this week when he cut through the nice (but ultimately meaningless) words from just about every pundit. He was understanding of the differences in society between places such as the UK and Montenegro, we are judging them by rules we judge ourselves by when their society hasn’t evolved at the same pace, it’s not as though the UK is the standard bearer anyway, we have our own issues.
I was at a Spurs game a few years ago and there was a man who was continually abusing the opposition, it was nasty and some of it was racist and homophobic, he had mates with him who were quiet and didn’t join it at all, they seemed a bit embarrassed, those around (including me) were also pretty uncomfortable with the abuse, but we all did nothing other than sigh, but not one of us did anything to make it stop. I am sure had a single person confronted them then they would have had followers and collectively he would have been forced to stop.
I don’t know why I stood by, maybe a bit of fear of the reaction from him, maybe I wasn’t 100% I would be supported by others. But with the value of hindsight I am adamant that there would have been a collective positive response. I bottled it perhaps, but not again I thought.
2 weeks ago I had a carpet fitted, the fitter seemed nice and friendly, but over a cuppa he was very clearly racist and cited that as one of the reasons he moved out to the countryside, he said the same thing several times, maybe to get a reaction? his mate said nothing and again neither did I. I guess by doing nothing he was indulged and validated to some extent.
I didn’t agree with any of the views on both occasions and played them back differently afterwards wishing I had a different response.
The point, the collective are there right now, it needs a person brave enough to just question it and the rest will follow. I’ve called players ‘shit’ and other expletives but I don’t think I’ve ever actually abused anyone. I didn’t join in with the Sol Campbell or Wenger chants, they were vile. I am 100% that the high majority of football fans can deal with those small minded fans, it does just take one to stand up. I’m a bit embarrassed that it’s not me, but I’m keen to follow.
Realistically how would others deal with this? Am I as much of a coward as I’m feeling at the moment or is this a relatively normal reaction from a completely non aggressive middle aged parent?
Steve (maybe I’m part of the problem)
Just thinking about the whole racism in football and I came up with a simple idea. Why not make all clubs in Europe add the ‘kick it out’ logo that the shirts have on their sleeves for UEFA games on all replica shirts that they sell. I’m sure only the more educated racists will get the irony. I can imagine them saying ‘I’m never buying a shirt again!’ or actually cutting the logo out, or being so lacking in self awareness that they continue the monkey chants while wearing anti-racism branding. I can’t think which would make them look more stupid, please make this a thing. If even a handful of people reconsider their actions then it’d be a success.
Rob, Gravesend
Big day in Northern Ireland
It’s Cup semi-final day in Northern Ireland on Saturday. Warrenpoint Town, managed by Stephen McDonnell (age 27!), take on Ballinamallard United, from the second tier. Neither club has been in the semi-final before, let alone the final, so there’s a massive opportunity for those clubs to make their mark. The other semi-final, which is being casually regarded as the de facto final, is between Crusaders (the outgoing league champions – thanks to a Chelsea 2017-18-type title defence) and Coleraine (the cup holders and last season’s league runners-up). Obviously the Irish FA’s hot ball machine had broken down before the draw. We still use neutral venues over here, so that pleases traditionalists like me. Warrenpoint/Mallards is at Mourneview Park (Glenavon FC’s ground) and Crues/Coleraine is at the Oval (home of Glentoran FC). Not that the local game in Northern Ireland has been immune to being pulled in line with English football (there’s a Brexit joke in there somewhere). Crusaders and Coleraine will kick-off at 5.30pm, for the purposes of TV coverage on BBC 2 NI. I’m hoping that my beloved Crues can get the win and go on and lift the cup to go along with their County Antrim Shield (which was secured with a 4-3 win from 3-1 down against Linfield in almost typhoon conditions), which would put the seal on a “disappointing” ( 😉 ) season.
Matthew, Belfast
Sliding doors style question for this lunchtime
If you could change three results from your team’s past what ones would you choose and why?
The rules are, in the scenario all other match results stay the same (so if your team missed out on the league by one point – changing one game you lost into a win means you won the league).
For me (Arsenal) they are as follows:
UEFA Cup final 2000
Arsenal 0-0 Galatasaray (Gala win on pens)
It might only be the uefa cup but this match was incredibly heart-breaking. To start the new millennium with European silverware would have been excellent.
Champions league final 2006
Arsenal 1-2 Barcelona
Again, turn this loss into a win. We become proper champions of Europe and who knows what that would mean in terms of players leaving and the calibre of levels we could attract as we moved into the Emirates.
2007-2008 league match
Man Utd 2 – 1 Arsenal
Everyone will quite rightly remember Man Utd (especially Ronaldo) being brilliant this season. But Arsenal got as close to winning the league as they had done since the Highbury days. If the loss at Old Trafford was actually a win to Arsenal, the 3 points extra we get and the 3 points Man Utd lose means we win the league by 1 point above Chelsea and 2 points above Man Utd. Imagine that for final day drama.
Other notable matches that I wish could be changed forever would be the 99 semi-final against Man Utd, Chelsea in the champions league in 2004 (Wayne Bridge) and the 8-2 at Old Trafford. However playing by my own rules there’s no guarantee of any further success by changing these three results.
Dave (Arsenal) Herts
Worst case scenario for Man United fans
For all the talk of United fans having to settle for the lesser of two evils of either Liverpool or City winning the league…no one has stopped to consider a scenario where Liverpool win the league and City complete a leagueless treble… I know right sounds like something straight out of a nightmare but just to compound our woes we also miss out on top 4 to Arsenal and Chelsea win the Europa League which automatically sets us back in the market when going against top 6 rivals…hope by writing this mail I have jinxed this whole scenario from happening.
Kayode Ajaja (would Ole still get it in that universe?I think not)MUFC, Nigeria
