⚽ Just Another Day @ Manchester United (💩)
Having been fortunate enough to get home in time to watch the majority of Man Utd v. Liverpool, this feels like as good a time as any to get stuck into my 1st post with my new sub-profile so let's go...
What Happened @ Manchester United?
I'm not going to write a match report - I'll add a link to Sky Sports' highlights at the end of the post and you can get a good idea for yourself. But what I will say is that Liverpool ripped into Man Utd with the ruthlessness that the 5-0 victory didn't do justice to. Mo Salah's hat-trick highlighted the incredible form that he's in at the moment and I've no doubt that one of the FPL managers that decided to captain him will be winning this week's 15 Steem Prize.
As usual, I get distracted by thinking about FPL so let's get back on topic and look at the other thing that I took away from tonight's game (the 1st thing being how 💩 Man Utd are).
Has Solskjaer Lost the Dressing Room?
With a result like this, it's commonplace and often unfair to look at the manager but there were signs that this was the case.
I remember a manager once criticising a couple of players during a relegation fight, saying something along the lines of...
They don't want to fight. They've taken the easy way out.
Suggesting that his players would rather get themselves sent off than try their hardest to avoid relegation. (If you can remember who said it, I'd love to be reminded - I think it was a Sunderland manager with Lee Cattermole being one of 2 players to get sent off.)
There were signs of this today.
At 3-0, Cristiano Ronaldo started laying in to Curtis Jones whilst Jones was lying on the floor. A cowardly act that saw him get lucky with just a booking, probably because he decided to boot the ball that was resting in Jones's midriff. VAR had a look but didn't see enough in it.
Early in the 2nd half (I didn't see this one), the-gorilla-father-in-law tells me Fernandes went in knee high on Curtis Jones (again) and should've been sent off too (I was busy checking my Steemit messages).
Then Pogba lunged in on Keita in a bid to break the player's leg.
All 3 of these received just a yellow card!! The 3rd was the most obvious red card of them all. In real time, it looked horrible. It didn't look any better in the replays. Luckily, VAR stepped in and Pogba got what he deserved. Keita didn't - ending up being stretchered off with what looked like a very nasty injury.
☝ Perhaps Man Utd should buy this book for each of their players - £6.55 from Amazon (I also found it funny when searching for an image for "bad loser", my screen was plastered with images of Donald Trump 🤣)
It's often said that footballers don't like losing but to call these 3 bad losers doesn't quite do it justice.
Added to all of this are the rumours surrounding Ronaldo's benching when Man Utd failed to beat Everton. Was this Solskjaer's way of sending a message to some of the world's biggest egos that he's the boss?
If it was, tonight's performance was those egos sending a message back to Ole. If you want to play hard ball, we'll get you sacked.
Match Highlights
Please Share Your Thoughts
What do you think? Have Solskjaer's players turned on him or was tonight just a(nother) poor performance punished by a ruthless Liverpool team?
I'm always interested in reading your views about Fantasy Sports or Sport in general either in the comments or via your own post, remembering to post in World of Xpilar and using the tag #woxsports or #woxfantasysports.
This is a sub-profile of @the-gorilla
Footer Source 1Source 2Source 3 + Photoshop
I haven't been able to watch the match, but I always watch a review of the most important matches on Sunday. What can I say about this result? Just, wow! Then I thought a bit, and again wow!
No matter how bad the team is, it's Manchester United. And it is inadmissible to lose with a difference of five goals, without giving any in return.
When the Ukrainian team loses to the English team by five goals, I can still understand. Why? Imagine what resources are invested in Manchester United and what in Luhansk Zorya (which I'm sure you haven't even heard of, and she plays in the Europa League). What upscale players at Manchester United! How can you lose by five goals?
This happens only in one case, when the atmosphere in the team is very bad. The arrival of Ronaldo, I'm sure, did not improve this atmosphere.
Usually this situation leads to the replacement of the coach.
When talking about bad results, you reminded me of this one in the Europa League last week - https://www.skysports.com/football/bodo-glimt-vs-roma/457557
I think Man Utd were lucky only to lose by 5. After the red card, the game ended and nobody tried any more. Liverpool were by far the better team and should've won by more. The gap in quality is far wider than any Man Utd fan could've imagined and that's as much to do with tactics as it is to do with players.
When he signed (from what I've heard), he gave the club a huge lift. The players in the dressing room would copy what he eats, how he behaves and would look and think "that's Cristiano Ronaldo, he made me love football". Solskjaer looked and thought "he's a threat to me, he thinks he's more important than me" so he benched him. Things have gone very badly since doing that.
No, I haven't heard of them - you're having a good season though by the looks of things 🙂
This was one of Liverpool's best performances so far this season. Ole should get the sack but I don't think he will. Although we're just 9 games in, I'm tempted to say United is already out of the title race.
I'm not sure that he will either. It was embarrassing against one of their fiercest rivals and it's been a long time since I've heard boos at Old Trafford at Half Time like that. They're still only 8 points behind with a long way to go, and still in the Champions League but 3 losses in the last 4 is hard to ignore.
The board just can't pull the trigger but with their run of runs they could find themselves 12 or 15 points behind if they're not careful. But with Ole being Ole they can go on a nice unbeaten run for a while and make everyone forget about their bad form.
I guess it also depends what their expectations are. You'd think it would be winning the league but it might not be. They'll do better once Varane comes back - unless he's lost the dressing room which certainly looks like he might have.
United's expectations should always be to at least challenge for the title and if they expect less then there's a big problem. Varane might make them better but even with him they haven't kept clean sheets🤷
Good point.