Football is somehow the most undervalued thing in football

My (basic, obvious) take is simply that O’Reilly, Doku, Cherki, Haaland, Rodri, Bernardo, etc. are exceptional unicorn-level football players whose quality cannot be solved for or substituted. And any superteam not spending their time and money trying to find and foster that talent is doing it wrong

Forgot to mention, MCO guy. Epitome of nonsense

Respect our educators PLEASE

It’s just a total misunderstanding of how to coach a football team. Culturally, tactically, everything. I’d be furious if he was my coach

Hey, yes! Life is crazy. Sadly the pod isn’t my day job. Kees and I will be back on Monday. Thanks for checking in, it means a lot

“Cunha is better than your forwards” is a valid, if not GOOD strategy to win games

Honestly mixed results from Man Utd’s new board but the big big big win they will point to is that the players in the squad are mega talented by and large, and they weren’t 2 years ago

I irrationally dislike Rosenior

it’s all in the recruitment

Not Steffen lol

I hear that. I have a lot of doubts about them too but I think they’re closer to being good and proven than Carrick at this stage

Could be good. Off the top of my head:

Nagelsmann, Enrique, Alonso: Seem like great coaches, doubt United get them

Howe, Maresca, Iraola: More proven than Carrick, probably limited

Hoeneß: No idea here but I’ve heard good things

Can’t speak for Kees, think there’s ~8-10 names I’d prefer to Carrick if available on the same terms before it’s just worthwhile to keep him for familiarity/continuity. And I think at least 3 of those absolutely will not happen

Think Bruno has been the best player in the league this season tbh

Agreed. United fans won’t care if the team wins games

As good as any player I’ve seen in the PL this season I think (I’ve watched less than past seasons though)

Yeah I mean, it’s kind of hard to come in and flip an entire side into your own image in a few weeks, and he’s largely gotten the job done, but the results are flattering and I have doubts as to how this maps out over a longer period

Way United have played under Carrick I’d have taken 4-2-2, let alone 6-1-1, from these matches. Been skating by on oppo red cards and late winners since that incredible City game

Possible. He played 26.4 nineties last season and scored 11 (sub penalties)

He’s not good technically but I think I was overweighting that before ngl. He’s big and strong and fast and shoots good and heads pretty good. The absolute floor is more than a goal every 3 games

MacKinnon x McDavid probably the most enthralling thing anyone could possibly watch ever (since last week when Crosby was also in the line)

Men’s national hockey with NHL players feels like watching people from another universe, it’s absolutely unbelievable, never seen anything like it

Guy is getting by on pure “I’m better than you”. There’s nothing else to it. Paul Pogba school of football

I don’t think it’s appreciated how good Cunha is honestly

I have no idea if Amorim does it but I think this improvement and suffering is inevitable regardless of coach. The team needs a full performance rebuild from the academy to first team, shifting to a progressive approach and modern analysis. The suffering is inevitable

I mean, I think the entire season is evidence it’s working, despite disappointment in a few matches. The team Amorim inherited a year ago was playing bottom half football for over a year. Now the team is playing comfortably top half football

Shaw has been fine in this position all season, and Amorim said it was to manage his fitness. Heaven, I guess you could play Yoro but that has nothing to do with back 3 vs back 4 and Heaven was good today

Do these players, set up to play to their strengths, win at Anfield? It’s foolish to look at league seasons as a series of individual matches. Even the greatest teams lose stupid games, it’s not a barometer of quality

Curious what you mean by regression to the old system because this is by and large the system that has been played all season and the results have by and large been good relative to squad quality in my view