What to do with interim managers who turn this around?
That’s a question the Manchester United overlords might have to answer, and one posed by Rick Harris below:
Hi Daniel,
Manchester United look very close to finalising the Amorim deal with Sporting unless there is an 11th hour hitch and it falls apart, but three games for Ruud Van Nistelrooy to manage the team before the new Portuguese sensation or ‘special one’ takes over could be a tad embarrassing if the team were to win all three in convincing dominant style.
Of course they were there before with Ole Solskjaer who had a massive new manager bounce that had pundits screaming for him to get the permanent gig only for the balloon to deflate the instant he signed a three year contract. Unlikely that Amorim will want Ruud to hang around but it may make the appointment look a little rushed if United suddenly improve massively now Ten Hag has gone.
Two intersting points. The Ole situation probably means that Ruud could win the Champions League and the suits would still give him the axe.
Secondly, I fear you’re right. Amorim might want his own support team which could be bad news for any of the current coaches.
Our pal Krishna Moorthy has made my job a whole lot easier by posing some teasing questions:
- will Amorim have any sense and avoid the quicksand that is OT
- will anything come out of all the protest(!) around WC 2034 to Saudi “human rights” Arabia?
- Should The awards given to the team and manager of RM be announced null and void , a reverse tantrum, so to say?
- should there be a new award announced, named, the most entertaining manager in post match pressers , and given away to JM till he retires
- and Chelsea, where can I even begin, sigh!
I’ll take a crack at all of them:
No. The deal is as good as done as far as I can tell.
No. If it didn’t work with Qatar it’s not going to work with the Saudis.
I’d love it if RM had their accolades stripped from them. That’d teach ‘em!
Surely we’d name it after Marcelo Bielsa?
To be fair, they’re looking pretty good (Wednesday’s result aside). I fully expect them to beat United this weekend.
Planning on buying a ticket from a tout this weekend? Don’t do it! They might be fakes.
Liverpool have revealed they shut down 100,000 fake ticketing accounts and issued 75 lifetime bans and 136 indefinite suspensions last season as part of a crackdown on ticket touting.
Too right, if you ask me. Nothing grinds my gears as much as fans getting shafted at the turnstile.
Last year, at the Rugby World Cup final, friends of mine, who had spent around a thousand pounds in travel costs, accommodation in Paris as well as babysitters for the weekend, were denied just as they had their tickets scanned at the gate. I still yearn for justice on their behalf.
“What is it with England and captains?”
Well, Magnus Evander, I’m South African, but I take your point.
I did say that Trent Alexander-Arnold is perhaps indispensable because of his leadership potential. But no, he shouldn’t stay just because he may be captain one day. I also think he’s an outstanding footballer and Liverpool would do well to keep him at the club.
But, as you say, this apparent obsession with captains probably stems from elsewhere:
“It must be the cricket. In other countries it is not as important in football. Of course one should select a good captain, but its not such a big deal.”
The good news for Newcastle is that this little period will be one of the toughest they’ll have to navigate.
Last week they were at Stamford Bridge and lost 2-1. This weekend they host Arsenal. What does Howe make of the Gunners?
“They are a very good team with a very good manager. We play one of the most consistent teams in the Premier League for the last couple of years so the challenge for us is never easy, but we’re at home.
“Arsenal have done very well this season; they are very good from set-plays and a physical team. We need to be ready for that test.”
History is on Newcastle’s side. They’ve won two of their last three home games against Arsenal. What’s more, Mikel Arteta’s lads are leaking goals. They’ve conceded nine in their last five league game and two or more in four of those five.
Are they there for the taking?
Back to Eddie Howe and Newcastle.
The Magpies are sweating over the fitness of two of their best players – Anthony Gordan and Alexander Isak:
“They both feel OK,” Howe said. We will assess how they feel today. Sometimes 48 hours after the game you can feel different to 24 hours. It’s not necessarily a straight line with how the body feels. They have both had niggling injuries so we’ll make a decision today.
“There’s just general fatigue [across the squad], game fatigue. I think it was a good physical game against Chelsea - both on the Sunday [in the Premier League] and the Wednesday [in the Carabao Cup]. They were intense matches.
“Normal game fatigue you get 24 hours after a game and 48 hours, so we need to make sure that whoever enters the pitch against Arsenal is in their best condition.”
There’s a scandal brewing in the Caribbean.
No, it’s not England’s cricketers stinking up the islands, but something far more serious:
It’s nice to see Eddie Howe smile again.
It’s been a tough few months for the Newcastle boss and Wednesday’s 2-0 win over Chelsea in the Carabao Cup lifted some tension from his slumped shoulders.
“It has been important, for a while here,” he said of the vibe at St James’. The environment again was second to none. It was a sell out, it was a really good feeling. I can’t thank the supporters enough for that. There was no hangover from recent results, it was really good and that helped us massively.
He also added that a large squad fill with talented players helps. Have we stopped caring about how they’re funded? Anyway…
“They certainly give you the ability to change the team. Many times I’ve said I don’t want the team to pick itself, but I also don’t want to go game to game, changing too many players, because I don’t think that’s healthy either.
“So I believe in a settled team, but of course, with midweek fixtures especially, the intensity of games now, you have to have the ability to rotate. I’ll pick the strongest team that I can, that can give us the best chance to win.”
Trent to go?
And breathe, Liverpool fans. That’s just John Potter answering my question on who is the least valuable of the three ‘Pool players running out their contracts: TAA, Virgil or Mo?
“TAA is out the door already to RM I believe,” says John.
“He publicly stated he wants to won’t the Balon d’Or, and we all know playing for them it’s pretty much nailed on for him.....oh.”
I see what you did there.
Three Liverpool players are out of contract at the end of the season and they’re big names.
Mo Salaha, Virgil van Dyk and Trent Alexander-Arnold are all in talks about extensions, but will they all stay?
“The contract situation could become an issue if the players don’t perform as they do at the moment, but they are so mature. At the moment all three of them are in a good place and there are ongoing discussions, like Virgil has said. They are not with me, we talk about other things.
“Let’s wait and see but all that he says is completely right. He doesn’t know exactly what the future holds if he doesn’t sign the contract.”
Let’s play a game, Liverpool fans. If you had to lose only one of them, who would it be?
Van Dyk is probably the most important player in the team, but then Salah remains the most threatening moving forward. But Trent is the youngest and a potential future captain.
Is there a dilemma at left back for Liverpool?
No, there isn’t. But that’s how we have to talk about selection decisions in football.
Arne Slot, who now has options with Kostas Tsimikas challenging Andy Robertson for a starting berth, wasn’t having it either:
“I wouldn’t it’s say a dilemma. There are other positions where we have rotated.
“It probably also has to do with Robbo’s pre-season. He had no pre-season because he came back injured from the Euros so he missed almost the whole pre-season. For most of them it was only two weeks but for him it was only a few days.
“Kostas did really well in that period of time so it has to do with the quality Kostas has in that position but it also has to do with Robbo missing pre-season. That’s why we started rotating from the start a bit. That’s the situation.
“It was good for Robbo to play against Arsenal and against Brighton in midweek. That is making sure he is getting into that rhythm of playing twice a week.”
Alisson, Jota and Chiesa all out
Liverpool will have to find a way to beat Brighton without their first-choice keeper, and will likely have to do so again when they host Aston Villa next week.
So said Arne Slot, who added that it was “difficult to put an exact time frame” on the return of Alisson. The same applies for Diogo Jota and Federico Chiesa.
But that means there’s a chance for other players to become heroes and Slot took some time to shine a light on Alexis Mac Allister.
“He’s a player I would play in all three positions in the midfield because he is so comfortable in all three.
“I saw a lot of him at Brighton because there was a manager I was quite interested in back then [Roberto de Zerbi].
“He is now at the moment the midfielder who plays a bit in between. Ryan [Gravenberch] is almost always the deepest. Dom [Szoboszlai] or Curtis [Jones] are playing a bit higher and then Alexis is in between.
“It depends on how dominant we are whether he is the second 10 or the second six. He is comfortable in both phases of the game. He can help us bring the ball out from the back and he is also capable of making the difference in and around the 18-yard box. We want to see him in both situations as much as we can.”
Arteta was the joint leader for Premier League manager yellow cards in 2023/24 but he promises he’s turned a new leaf.
“On the touchline, I haven’t got to the point I go into meditating mode. Maybe I should. When they change the rules about certain behaviours, we need to adapt and that’s what I’ve tried to do.
“I don’t want to miss any games. I can’t promise that if we score a goal, I won’t jump up and down the touchline. So far, it has worked.”
“It’s rare to see a talent like that at 17 years old”
High praise indeed from Mikel Arteta who was gushing about his young starlet, Ethan Nwaneri, who scored a goal in Arsenal’s EFL Cup win at Preston this week.
“I can talk about how good he is right now. At 17, to be in the position he is in at one of the biggest clubs in Europe sums up where he is. He is surrounded by the right people. My prediction is going to be very positive.
“We didn’t do it [select him] because it was a gift, we saw a path for him and wanted to show the trust in him.
“I think the biggest thing is to push him. Once you push, grab him from behind. When you see this talent, you have to push him. He has to see he can fly and not cut his wings.
“That shows in the building that there is a pathway and for other players to follow.”
Gabriel close to a return
While it’s bad news for Riccardo Calafiori and Martin Odegaard, Mikel Arteta confirmed that Gabriel could make a return to the side if he navigate today’s training session without a hitch.
“We have a training session today, if he can complete that, he will be available,” Arsenal’s manager said.
However, Calafiori and Odegaard are “definitely out” and Ben White’s status is now “wait and see”.
“That is Ben’s quality, he can play two different positions” Arteta said of White, adding that his current injury is not a recurrence of his gammy groin and more related to a joint issue..
“He can adapt. We are demanding. For him to do that job, having not played there for over a year, was very impressive.”
Elsewhere, Takehiro Tomiyasu is also out and won’t be back before the next international break.
Mikel Arteta is the first PL boss to speak to the press this morning.
He started by sending his thoughts to those impacted by the horrific floods that have already claimed more than 150 lives in Spain.
“We are trying to pull together in this situation. We ask everyone to pull together and show their support. It is terrible what has happened,” Arteta said.
In a wide-ranging interview, his first with a newspaper since departing from his director of football role, Nils Nielsen covers a lot of ground with Tom Garry.
FA Cup First Round gets underway today
The world’s oldest cup competition, one stretching back all the way to 1871, gets going today.
Well, OK, we’ve already had four qualifying rounds, but today marks the official start of the first round of the FA Cup.
There are loads of games this weekend – too many to list in full here – but I will wish supporters of Notts County, Alfreton Town, Tamworth and Huddersfield the best of luck for this evening.
Notts County currently sit third in League Two and welcome Alfreton Town who occupy seventh spot in the National League North standings.
Huddersfield, who last played in the Premier League in 2019, are seventh in League One and make the trip to Tamworth who’d do well to upset the Terriers given that they’re down in 16th in the National League table.
Any of our readers going to these games? Anyone else heading off to an FA Cup game? Holla!
As always, we kick off our Friday fare with the 10 things to look out for this Premier League weekend.
Louise Taylor says its time for Tonali to take charge at a Newcastle outfit that could do with some leadership.
Andy Hunter shines a light on Arne Slot’s selection headaches.
And Will Unwin wonders if Manchester United’s midfield has enough oomph with Manuel Ugarte kicking lumps out of the opposition in those central areas. Can we keep Cole Palmer quiet?
Premier League fixtures this weekend:
Newcastle v Arsenal (12:30 Saturday)
Liverpool v Brighton (15:00 Saturday)
Ipswich v Leicester (15:00 Saturday)
Bournemouth v Man City (15:00 Saturday)
Southampton v Everton (15:00 Saturday)
Nott’m Forest v West Ham (15:00 Saturday)
Wolves v Crystal Palace (17:30 Saturday)
Tottenham v Aston Villa (14:00 Sunday)
Man United v Chelsea (16:30 Sunday)
Fulham v Brentford (20:00 Saturday)
Preamble
What a week of football that was. Rodri and Aitana Bonmati won golden balls. Real Madrid threw a tantrum. Manchester United sacked their manager, put five past Leicester with their interim boss and confirmed the signing of another.
We’ll pick at the bones of a mad few days and look ahead at the action taking place this weekend. Can’t stop, won’t stop!
As always, your thoughts and quips are welcome. Drop me a line and let’s have some fun together. I especially want to hear from United and Madrid fans so please, if you’re in the sharing mood, get in touch!
