ljkeane

Mainoo’s main strength is his press resistance at the moment but he really doesn’t consistently do much effective with the ball after that at the moment. Those progressive pass numbers are pretty terrible however you look at it and that’s probably what you want the player alongside Rice to mainly do. As I said I’d go for a more attacking midfielder and have Stones or Alexander-Arnold play that deeper midfield role in attack but if you want to go for a more Henderson style role Wharton’s better than Mainoo at the moment. Curtis Jones is too for that matter.

It really shouldn't be. As I said with the YPOTY nomination Mainoo's been good for a young player getting thrown in at the deep end in a dysfunctional side and he's shown a lot of potential but he hasn't actually been that good overall.

He’s not going to but Southgate should play Foden in midfield in the summer. Have one of the defenders step into midfield and have a box midfield of Rice plus a defender (probably Stones or Alexander-Arnold) and Foden and Bellingham has the attacking midfielders.

This game’s just annoying me all round. I’d like City to not win the title and probably the best finisher in the league is clean through after a slip he can’t score against City but when Gerrard slipped fucking Demba Ba calmly puts the chance away. Ffs. Penalty City now. Bah.

I was just about to say City weren’t looking great. Meh.

If 777 somehow manage to raise enough money to buy Everton Moshiri still gets some money. Most of the other scenarios at this stage seem to be some variation of Moshiri can’t cover the debts and the creditors take over. ETA: Spurs seem to have actually turned up. Which I’m a little surprised by to be honest.

They looked a bit deflated when all the subs came on but other than that they were well in the game to be fair. A draw's probably a fair result really, one lucky goal each and both sides probably should have scored a couple more.

This scoring first thing is fun. We probably should have thought of doing this earlier in the season.

Of course they would. City being evil muddies things a bit but Champions League qualification is one season, hand the title to your bitter local rivals you’re going to be hearing about it for the next 30 years minimum.

In fairness I think the point of adding Thiago was to allow us to better move up and down the gears as required and we did more of that in 21/22 when he had the most impact. It's was always a gamble given his previous injury history but the number of games we got out of him was definitely at the lower end of the scale. If he'd just ended up playing ~60% of the games for us I think we probably win a few more trophies over those 4 years. If we'd just gotten the right 40% of the games out of him this season it feels like it might have pushed us over the top in the league. So, yeah, I think it was a gamble worth taking even if ultimately it didn't work out. From Thiago's point of view I think he was going to have injury problems anywhere he went so why not go to the side he might push over the top to being the best team in the world?

About 2 years to be exact.

Considering how weak the team looks on paper United haven’t actually been that bad. Just, you know, don’t hand Arsenal a cheap goal and this would have been a half decent performance so far. ETA: Arsenal really haven’t been great. Casemiro’s done them a pretty big favour. I’m not sure United have a goal in them but this would be nervy as fuck without that lead being gifted to them.

Heh, on cue United concede an incredibly soft goal and Casemiro’s entirely at fault.

Two pretty rubbish first legs of the Championship playoffs. Nobody really seemed inclined to take too many risks. ETA: Jesus, this is a weak United lineup. I do quite like the set piece move Arsenal have been doing recently were they all set up at the back post then filter to the front post at the last minute and unlike a lot of what they’ve done this season it doesn’t seem to rely on getting away with various stuff.

No luck unfortunately. Bah.