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Football: pool in to the Final Spur of the season


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14 minutes ago, Rorshach said:

Brighton sack Chris Hughton.

It may be the right move, but I'm sceptical - Hughton has done well with what is ultimately a limited set of players. Of course, Brighton may draw the new Poch out of a hat somewhere, but I think it's more likely that the club will stagnate, struggle and get relegated.

Wonder where Hughton will end up next.

Yeah, not sure what they expected him to do.  Kept them up and got them an FA cup semi final, the chairman would absolutely have taken that at the start. 

Not the first time he has been sacked unfairly either.

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14 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Yeah, not sure what they expected him to do.  Kept them up and got them an FA cup semi final, the chairman would absolutely have taken that at the start. 

Not the first time he has been sacked unfairly either.

There does seem to be a predictable pattern of club doing better than expected but has used less than entertaining football to get there, so sacks the manager with the hope of playing better football.

Almost always it ends badly because you can’t just turn a squad around that quickly. That Brighton side just isn’t set up to be the next Man City. Maybe they can change things quickly but I’d make them favourites to go down if they try and do what Palace did and get in a De Boer type

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Hughton was definitely hard done by. Two wins in the league since January is a pretty terrible run of results but he did get the club promoted and then kept them up for two seasons. He should've been backed to turn things around.

 

10 hours ago, Jeor said:

The Solskjaer appointment was clearly done on the back of that long unbeaten run, but in reality, they should have waited much closer to the end of the season. They had marketed it as an interim appointment, and Molde certainly weren't going to make a fuss if they had dithered for a bit longer. So the only pressure to permanently appoint him was whatever was perceived from the fans.

Appointing Solskjaer before the end of the season is indicative of just how poorly United is run. Solskjaer was not on the radar of any other club (he wouldn't have picked another club over United anyway), Molde would never have stood in his way and we paid Molde a loan fee for Solskjaer until the end of the season so there was no pressure to make the appointment permanent before then. 

The correct thing to do after Mourinho's sacking was to put into place a structure above the manager. Instead the board made a decision based on emotion and because it was easy. Now we head into another transfer window and season with the same structure and same strategy that has failed repeatedly post Ferguson. Nothing at the club has actually changed. There is no long term strategy and we will just continue to throw shit at the wall and hope that something sticks. It's why after 6 years and spending more money than anyone bar City, we are still in a rebuilding phase.

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In a way it would make sense, if you brought in a new DoF/Sporting Director, and kept Solskjaer to at least have some continuity, so that the new guy has the chance to get to know the club and squad without randomly appointing a new manager and hope it works out. Yes, I also have doubts whether Solskjaer will be at United for the long haul, however as stopgap solution until the new guy has settled in, it would still make some sense. Of course if the structures don't change, then United is probably in for another wasted season.

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I'm still not convinced that Woodward actually has any intention to remove himself from the footballing side of things and put a staff headed by a DoF into place. Rumours about a DoF and/or technical director have repeatedly surfaced during a poor run but it's always been just lip service. I'll believe it when I see it.

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Depends. There's always the off chance United's DoF is still under contact somewhere, and thus can only assume office come July.

Yes, he'd have very little influence on United's upcoming transfer window.

Coincidentally, we sacked our DoF a few months ago, his successor will also will also start on July the first. So contract talks are atm handled by our managing Director/CFO (tough to translate football positions, at least for me), unfortunately he is also leaving the club at the end of the season :(. Fortunately he has worked as DoF at other clubs before (and also work for the DFL just before he joined us), so I am not really worried about him messing up. And he really isn't the guy who says: screw you guys, none of my problem I am outta here. Too bad he just wants to move back to another city.

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Bit of a joke sacking Hughton because the club want to go in a "different direction." I remember when Curbishley was sacked by Charlton because the club wanted to go to "the next level." That went well, eh?

As for what's going on at Utd, from an Arsenal POV, any fans who start getting frustrated at Emery should see the mess they've been in since Fergie left and have a bit of patience. OK, so he might not get us challenging for the League yet, but he's got a decent track record and to get us to the EL Final in his first season, with that squad, is no mean feat. 

Be careful what you wish for and all that bollocks :D

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I think it's pretty harsh to sack Hughton but in fairness circumstances have changed for teams in the bottom half of the Premier League since Curbishley was managing.

They might not be able to match Man City for spending but every team in the Premier League is one of the richest teams in world football now. Just as an example Huddersfield will get more just from the tv money for coming last this year than Ajax made overall in revenue last year. Every team in the league can afford to buy some very good players without spending beyond their means. You don't have to just grind out the odd result, why not try to actually be good?

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Harsh on Hughton, not for the first time either.  He did well with Newcastle in a terrible situation.  He had Norwich playing very good football for a while.  And Brighton had a great spell last year of attacking interplay on their left wing, on top of a defensively solid unit (correcting his problem at Norwich).  He got teams promoted with very little investment and then kept them up for a year or two.

But I can understand the Chairman looking at their horrific collapse in form since the turn of the year.  Very few clubs have managed to reverse a situation like that in the following season.  Plus the last batch of transfers really didn’t work out.  And the fans were getting tired of the dire football.

It’s a big risk for Brighton either way.

I fully expect Hughton to get another club promoted.

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UEFA don't have the balls to ban City. That is simply not going to happen but for arguments sake, if City are banned United will still not qualify. England are only guaranteed four places in the CL. The only way the 5th spot can be attained is by finishing outside the top 4 but winning either the CL or EL. So if City are banned then Liverpool, Chelsea, Spurs and Arsenal will all qualify through league position and the EL spot will go to the 3rd place team in Lique 1.

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Idk if anyone here read the leaks published by Der Spiegel - those leaks claim that the last time City and PSG were under investigation, Platini and Infantino intervened to ensure that a favourable settlement agreement was reached. The same will happen again - the top brass at UEFA will intervene to ensure that a settlement is reached. City and PSG have been flouting FFP regulations for years and UEFA has helped them to cover it up while encouraging their financial control body to aggressively pursue poorer clubs in Turkey and Romania. 

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Infantino being a POS, what's new? Anyway, I still have some small hope for Ceferin being somewhat better (ok, it would be an achievement to be as bad as Infatino).

So let's wait and see. Football leaks has put the stuff out into the open, so there's hope that it creates sufficient external pressure not to cut a sweetheart deal for City this time.

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2 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Infantino being a POS, what's new? Anyway, I still have some small hope for Ceferin being somewhat better (ok, it would be an achievement to be as bad as Infatino).

So let's wait and see. Football leaks has put the stuff out into the open, so there's hope that it creates sufficient external pressure not to cut a sweetheart deal for City this time.

I've got zero faith in UEFA. A corrupt organisation investigating corruption will inevitably lead to a farce of an investigation. When Tebas and others were making a fuss about PSG spending all that money on Neymar and Mbappe, UEFA investigated, predictably found no punishable offence and just cut a deal with PSG to sell some players. UEFA will go out of their way to cut a deal to ensure that City aren't banned just like they did with PSG. They'll put on a show for the public with a token investigation. At most, it'll be a slap-on-the-wrist fine. Most likely no wrong doing will be the outcome.

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Cagliari get away with their monkey chants against Moise Kean because they had "an objectively limited relevance". So as long as you racially abuse only one guy at a time it is apparently okay.

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Atletico Madrid have just announced that Griezmann has informed the club of his intention to leave this summer. Barcelona is his most likely destination. 

 

ETA. Atleti have some rebuilding to do with Griezmann, Hernandez, Godin and Juanfran all on the way out.

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I can see why Griezmann wants out now, though.

Looks like Atletico is starting a major rebuilding process, and Griezmann is now approaching his primeyears, so he arguably wants to be somewhere where he can win stuff. And how likely it is for Atletico to win stuff during the next couple of years, while doing the rebuilt, that is at least open for discussion.

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23 hours ago, Philokles said:

Cagliari get away with their monkey chants against Moise Kean because they had "an objectively limited relevance".

This really is sickening.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/48271222

Quote

"It emerged the chants in question, although certainly reprehensible, had an objectively limited relevance to race," the body said.

Bollocks they did. And in any case, why could this be considered an excuse? They were relevant to race, they were racist, you say you're against racism, do something. Simple as that. 

Or to allow Kick It Out to say it better:

 

 

 

 

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