FSG are in the process of ballsing it up for Liverpool again but what would Elon Musk do in his first ten days as owner? Also, should Manchester United have given Erik ten Hag more time?
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Musk’s first ten days as Liverpool owner
With Elon Musk definitely set to purchase Liverpool (at least according to our ever-reliable tabloids), I ordered my team of boffins to fire up the quantum supercomputer and predict the world’s richest man’s first – and last – ten days as club owner.
Day 1: Musk buys Liverpool FC with US Government money and his first acts as owner are to rename Anfield ‘QAnonfield’ and replace the Liverbird on the club badge with one of those heelarious smiley fox dog things.
Day 2: Has it written into the club’s records that he was their founder, top scorer and greatest ever manager.
Day 3: Appoints Rupert Lowe as finance director and Joe Rogan as fitness coach who then implements a training regime that entails drinking liquidised copies of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and microdosing on Ketamine.
Day 4: Musk Sacks Mo Salah, pronouncing him to be a DEI hire.
Day 5: Appoints himself manager and conducts team selection via Twitter Poll.
Day 6: After losing 164-0 to Borussia Dortmund with a team featuring James Corden and the woman that put the cat in the bin up front, Musk cuts off satellite access for Germany.
Day 7: Musk, having sacked all his SpaceX engineers for ‘being too woke’, starts designing his own rockets with the intention of launching them as part of the half-time show at QAnonfield. Unfortunately the first launch explodes into the Kop end, obliterating the famous stand. With the stadium almost empty apart from a handful of Musk fanboys, the only casualty is the guest of honour, Nigel Farage, who suffers a slightly singed left buttock.
Day 8: Having alienated every single Liverpool fan, Musk’s plans to entice female supporters to the ground by offering them a free pot of his man milk are met with widespread disgust.
Day 9: Musk’s ‘cost-cutting’ measure to sack all club security staff and replace them with ED-209s goes wrong in the most predictable way as they tear through the city. Total carnage is averted however as they fail to negotiate the steps at St George’s Hall.
Day 10: After protest on the streets from Spirit of Shankly where they call him mean, nasty names, Musk announces he’s ditching Liverpool and buys Man Utd from the Glazers instead. Already a hero in Salford, he appoints Wayne Rooney as manager. Their form remains dreadful but suffers no noticeable decline. Musk finally discovers inner peace and validation through watching Antony’s stepovers in slow motion and retires from public life.
Quarantino, ITFC, Chairman of the Bored
Liverpool’s ‘cow on ice’
Home to LA now after nearly a month in the UK, not having expected coming back to a smoggy orange-black sky and large smoldering patches of a city in ruin. Jet-lag helped in waking 4am here to see our early cup tie vs Accrington Stanley at Anfield, but forgive me the few mottled remarks I want to make.
– the match was skitterish for half a half, and quite surprised to see Alexander-Arnold starting today; draw your own conclusions there
– initially thought we’d never keep a clean sheet with Endo pushing high in VVD’s spot against a speedy forward
– despite assisting the opener Darwin had me tearing my hair out again all match long; I recall Maria Sharapova once calling herself a cow on ice (in a rare show of self-deprecation); draw your own connections there
– had only seen a few YouTube clips of Ngumoha playing in various Unders before today… watching him for 70 min finally gave me more clarity what the hype is about; the kid is sensational (1st half especially), made up we’ve nicked him off Chelsea, he looks incredibly promising
– sheer joy to watch another Jayden Danns loping run thru the center of the park and doing exactly what cows on ice cannot with a tidy poacher’s finish
– I’d worried Chiesa was becoming an Italian Arthur Melo for us and we’d never see him lace up properly, and not that one strike moves the needle much, but how could you not love the beaming smile on this man’s face after all he’s been through
– right, it’s back to bed now for me goodnight
Eric, Los Angeles CA (I’ve noticed for years the Kop hangs a banner that reads Los Angeles You Are Too Hot, and while I know the Morrisey track I’ve never understood why it’s hung there. Well I still don’t, but suffice to say it resonates deeply for me at the moment.)
Man City to test brittle Liverpool
The sky blue tetris bricks are gliding into place to put City in prime position to take advantage if Liverpool’s squad crumbles too much under the weight of battling on four fronts.
At the back the loose ( overplayed ) pieces are Virgil and Gravenberch . Scousers are no doubt keeping everything crossed that they both make it through winter and keep going into the Spring.
You would think that Arne’s summer saving would allow him to bring in a Marc Guehi type long term solution, though there are no noises so far.
The other defensive fragile bits are, I guess, Konate , Bradley, Robertson and the Greek fellah Tsimikas (?)
To which I wonder whether Dominik has been pressed into whispering to his international team mate about how the docks are far funkier and culturally cooler than the Dorset coast.
Once again I do not get the ‘having to’ play in four competions these days , its ludicrous.
Psycologically, having Pep in the rearview mirror with City’s recent history of come backs etc will test the mettle of Slot and his crew.
Peter . ( good to see Graham Porter back ). Andalucia.
Do FSG never learn?
Staunch Liverpool supporter for over 50 years.
Do we NEVER learn from our past lessons?
Right now we are standing in a great position to win the league.
BUT, we are only a few injuries to key players, or a bit of lack of form (EG last 2 games) from being pulled back.
We were in a similar position last year chasing for 4 trophies and what did FSG do – nothing!
They have been slow in addressing the contract issues of 3 key players.
And worse, do they not realize than NOW is the time to strengthen the squad.
So here’s my new years wish list:
1) A new left back – Love Robbo, but he is slowing down and can’t play all the games and Tsimikas has been awful lately.
2) A solid Center back – If we lose Virgil we are f***ed, Konate is good but injury prone and Quansah just isn’t quite ready for a starting spot against better teams. Joe is also injured.
Come on FSG pull your finger out, we may never get a better opportunity.
Neil, LFC, USA (Please play the kids on Saturday)
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Missing Ten Hag
This probably deserves a trigger warning but whatever.
I do think Ten Hag would have made us competitive in the league with more time. We know his trophy record. Setting aside rumours he had lost the squad, he was mid-overhaul, having been involved in introducing and bringing in: Amad, Mainoo, Mazra, De Ligt, Martinez, Yoro, Ugarte – all of whom are key to the side – along with Højlund, who I believe still will be and Garnacho who is just not in the new Amorim system. Plus there were clearly plans to introduce more academy players, a move that seems to have stalled, and the addition of other future big talents.
He got rid of problem players too, and had helped nurture Maguire back to form and Rashford to one of his best seasons. When we had a full strength side for a heartbeat, we beat City in a final.
I don’t think it’s that wild to say more time would have continued to improve things. Sure, the club over spent on Antony and Zirkzee but literally every manager gets some things wrong.
You can look at the records of many a manager, who have achieved less in more time. But of course, it could be we already saw the peak and it was going to be downhill from here.
Sliding doors. Still think he should have seen out the season so at least in worst case the next guy had a transfer window and a pre-season.
Badwolf
United have to stop being a ‘Destination Club’
Of the many problems that Man United need to fix as a team, from Ratcliffe to Amorim, is that they have to stop United being a ‘Destination club’. In fact, I wasn’t even aware of this phrase till a couple of months ago, but it all makes sense. Many players come to United, and they feel that they’ve arrived. So many of United’s top paid players in recent times have such suboptimal effort and impact. Think about Pogba, Rashford, Sanchez, Sancho, Casemiro, Varane. The malaise has also affected younger players, who get ahead of themselves such as Garnacho and by some reports Mainoo. Although they’re probably looking at Antony’s 200k/week and thinking ‘I’m better than that!’
Worse, United have been spending like a destination club without actually being an elite team. That’s the worst combination. Madrid is a destination club that have been elite on the pitch. I seem to recall that their first iteration of galacticos played a lot of Hollywood football but didn’t win nearly as much as the team would suggest, but over the past 10 years, you can’t argue with their model.
Ripping off this band-aid will be painful. It means players will sometimes leave for other ‘destination’ clubs. That’s okay. We can see today the difference between Amad’s impact and Rashford’s. Rashford is taller, stronger, faster, and arguably a more talented footballer. The difference is simply that Amad is working harder and looking to get better every day. The mindset that CR7 embodied, and that combination of top-level talent coupled with top level commitment is what’s needed. If it comes to a choice, top level commitment will take the club further than top level talent. Just look at Bournemouth and Forest.
Obviously rate Mainoo and would hate him to go. But if it’s a choice between paying him silly wages or letting him go, I’d rather the latter. Right now, there’s an ever-larger pool of talent out there and in the academy too, and the smart money is on finding players who believe that they have to keep improving, rather than those looking for a payout.
Ved Sen (MUFC)
Down with inverted wingers
After watching [insert inverted wingers name here] stop his run, cut back and pass it inside for the nth time, I had an epiphany on why I dislike modern football so much. When you distill football down to its essence, the thing that gets us all off our seats is a player running at, and beating an opponent. OR as we used to call it in the old days… dribbling!
I was not lucky enough to see George Best live but many have told me that when he picked up the ball in midfield, the crowd would almost go quiet in anticipation. I have been lucky enough to see Messi live and the whole crowd would lean forward or stand, mesmerized by what he might do (no, he did not play his whole career as an inverted winger!).
Of course there are exceptions to every rule, and a few, like Robben and Henry to name two, were pretty much unstoppable on their day but tell me you don’t hark back to the days of a winger beating a man and getting a cross in? Or do you prefer the soporific “tiki taka” that Guardiola perfected?
There is a practical side to this as well. Each time the IW cuts inside, he compacts the opposing midfield and defense. Watch a game in high speed and it is like a pendulum, left to right to left to right. But beat the first player and you have created space requiring a defender to come out of position, which creates more space. In fact, I’ll be willing to wager that even in this highly regimented, precision football we now see, the majority of goals are scored from fast running breaks down the wings followed by some sort of cross into the box.
To illustrate my point, tell me a more exhilarating goal than Henrick Larsson’s flying header against Bulgari in Euro2004.
Adidasmufc (Too depressed about the L.A. fires to offer a pithy tagline)
The Premier League’s best recruiters
I have a question for the mailbox, in light of the recent chat about Arteta and his spending, and bearing in mind previous chat about Liverpool under Klopp and United under approx 427 managers in the last 10 years: what clubs have a good track record in recruitment? We’re not talking “deals that make a profit” but deals where the player works out.
My default would have been City, with the best chequebook manager in the business. However, when you really look at it, is that true? They have the trophies but this is more about percentage of transfers that are good. Many hits (e.g. Aguero, Toure, Kompany, De Bruyne), for sure, but an awful lot of misses (Robinho, Jesus, Balotelli etc). Is Ake a success? Was Cancelo? Was Sterling? Or is it just that they’ve spent a mid sized countries investment fund and had some wins along the way?
United have had a few good transfers but definitely more terrible ones. I would say that has turned slightly in the last 4 years with more wins than losses, but still not a great balance. At all. Even under Sir Alex it was barely a solid balance. Some major wins, but also a bunch of Djemba Djembas.
Arsenal? Is Havertz a success? Is Rice? Odegaard certainly is. Gabriel and Saliba are wins. Jesus and Sterling are definitely not. (Definitely not a great balance under Arteta though.)
Liverpool? My instinct is that it’s a solid balance, but when you look at the details, there’s some solid losses there too. Gravenberch has turned from one to the other. Nunez is a nope (from me).
Chelsea? Yikes. Like City but with more crazy and blind throwing money at a wall. And what of players like Salah and De Bruyne? The right player but not given a chance? No explaining Lukaku though.
Newcastle? I would say they’ve done pretty well, but again the failures are often on the quiet.
Spurs? A solid bag of frogs is my feel. For every Son there’s many a Bergwijn. Is Udogi a success?
Help me out, who has actually done well or is everyone just changing it with bad or better PR?
Badwolf
Salah the all-round genius
Yes, Salah bangs in the goals like no one ever has before, and then he puts a cherry on top, by setting up goals for all around him (I’m sure he’ll even provide an assist for Joe Gomez before this season is done). But he has another talent that puts all that in the shade.
He is clearly the world’s best contract negotiator – just look at how he nailed the very smart chaps at FSG to the floor. He keeps the fans firmly in his corner by playing with a smile on his face, never giving up, and providing and scoring a truck load of goals. Then he gets the fans to negotiate on his behalf by dropping little bombshells each time he wins his weekly MOTM award, and at the same time he’s telling FSG I want everything – cash, gold, their first born children, etc, and there’s very little FSG can counter with. By contrast, compare him to other pre-Madonnas who act like petulant children stamping their feet and screaming that they want an ice-cream, whilst doing less than fuck all on the pitch (yes, Trent, I’m looking at you). Salah is not only a footballing genius, he is a genius full-stop. Pay him.
CJB, LFC, Dublin. PS: I’m not 100% certain the Gomez goal will happen.
The Spurs advantage
Sorry Tom G but you and Ange are (possibly intentionally in his case) conflating that advice about not stopping promising attacks with the laws around red card offences:
“Unless there is a clear goal-scoring opportunity for the non-offending team, the referee should not play the advantage following red-card offences, particularly those involving serious foul play or violent conduct, or offences that require a second yellow card.”
James Outram, Wirral
Media twisting Arteta
Dear Gofezo and many others if you really think Arteta is ‘blaming’ the ball for Arsenal’s Carabo Cup defeat then you really didn’t listen to Arteta’s post match interview and it’s an example of where we are in this media world how his words have been twisted and the way people have fallen for it.
Remarking on something is not the same as complaining about it and it’s definitley not the same as blaming it.
The fact that Arteta talks about the main thing being scoring goals and not being clinical enough in front of goal being ignored by the media speaks volumes. And for an expert like you Gofezo to fall for the twisted words of the media speeaks volumes about your research methods.
Chris, Croydon
