Jump to content

Football: A League United


polishgenius

Recommended Posts

Talking to my brother in Ireland, Americans have a really good deal on PL access: Peacock gives us all PL matches, and available to watch on replay, for just $5 a month.  And the commentary is usually quite good, e.g. Peter Drury plus Graeme LeSaux.  The post-match analysis is unwatchable, and Peacock does not have any of the CL (Paramount+), FA Cup (ESPN) or WC (Fox, I think, unless you watch the Spanish broadcast on Peacock).

But that all sounds a lot better than the expensive Sky package my brother has, with ever fewer games included.  I don’t think I would pay for the package he gets.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thought Ireland had decent coverage but PL coverage in the UK is a scam, really.

It was great when I was visiting family in India - we had all the PL games included with Disney+ ( which was a bit odd)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Raja said:

Thought Ireland had decent coverage but PL coverage in the UK is a scam, really.

It was great when I was visiting family in India - we had all the PL games included with Disney+ ( which was a bit odd)



I used to be for the 3pm blackout, but given the amount people pay for their coverage to not get half the games, it's a joke. If you want to protect the pyramid, make sure more of the TV money filters down.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Talking to my brother in Ireland, Americans have a really good deal on PL access: Peacock gives us all PL matches, and available to watch on replay, for just $5 a month.  And the commentary is usually quite good, e.g. Peter Drury plus Graeme LeSaux.  The post-match analysis is unwatchable, and Peacock does not have any of the CL (Paramount+), FA Cup (ESPN) or WC (Fox, I think, unless you watch the Spanish broadcast on Peacock).

But that all sounds a lot better than the expensive Sky package my brother has, with ever fewer games included.  I don’t think I would pay for the package he gets.

In Serbia we have 2 major sport broadcasters - Sport Klub and Arena Sport. There's a political struggle behind the scenes and I won't bore you with the details, I'll just say that Arena Sport is basically state-owned and our current government has made it their mission to run the media company that owns Sport Klub out of business because some other channels they own dare actually report on the news instead of parroting what government says. A major part of that plan was to take PL broadcasting rights from Sport Klub and they managed to do it this season. Sport Klub had much better broadcasting teams and have broadcast PL for so long that it's weird watching PL on any other network. Rumoured numbers are 600 million euros for broadcasting rights for 6 seasons which is insane, when you run the numbers how much the subscription costs and how many subscribers they can hope for. All in all, subscription for the streaming app for Arena Sport channels is around 15€ per month, and they broadcast PL, CL, Serie A, NBA and a bunch of other stuff. It's not that it's expensive it's just that I absolutely hate giving money to those assholes.

Regarding the match yesterday, I'll echo what @ljkeane said - that was the most fun I had watching Liverpool the whole season. Scored beautiful goals, kept the intensity up, made a statement win against the biggest rival who's had a pretty good season so far... what's not to like? Well, the ref is there not to like. Not only was he bad by usual standards, he was even bad by PL referee standards. He's let a lot of physical play which often crossed the line into fouls that weren't punished. I mean, Martinez hit Salah in the face in the first half and not only was it not a yellow card it wasn't even a foul. Later in the second half, Konate did something similar to Bruno and it was also not a foul. The thing is that Martinez was booked later on and, had he been booked for that incident with Salah, he would've been sent off. I mean, it's nitpicking when we consider the result in this game, but if the game was closer it could've decided the outcome. Also, United having their starting defender suspended for a couple of matches for getting sent off could factor in the top 4 battle as well. There have been mistakes like that throughout the match and I don't think there was malicious intent or favouring one team over the other, it's just that the ref wasn't up to the standard required.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

TIL that Bruno Fernandes is affectionately known as Rat Boy by some sections of the football supporter's base.

Here's what Arseblog had to say about one of the biggest wankers in the PL:

Quote

I should also like to take a moment to laugh at Bruno Fernandes. A man who looks like a crestfallen chinchilla at the best of times, but there was something so extra about his dismay yesterday. His antics have always been pathetic, as if he was forged in the dark pits that lie beneath Mount Mourinho, but yesterday took it to new levels. Pretending to be hit in the face, shoving a linesman (avoiding any kind of censure for it too, btw), and basically having a kind of teenage strop on the pitch while purportedly being captain of Man Utd. A captain who almost cried when wasn’t subbed off! Even William Gallas didn’t do that.

:lol:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Anyway yeah I'm normally one of Bruno's fans, but yesterday was indefensible. Martinez, Shaw and Casemiro probably had worse games in terms of just fucking up all the time, but they kept at it; his head just melted. I wouldn't be surprised to see ETH taking on-pitch armband duties off him, at least temporarily.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Delicious.

Bruno Fernandes: A breakdown of the Manchester United captain’s meltdown

Quote

 

The first thing to say is: Bruno Fernandes did not get booked.

That fact is arguably more incredible than the 7-0 score in Manchester United’s humiliation by Liverpool on Sunday. Gary Neville said in his Sky Sports commentary that Fernandes was “embarrassing”; Roy Keane described his body language as “disgraceful” in the same broadcast; and though United manager Erik ten Hag didn’t name his captain when he described his players as “unprofessional” during the game… well, if the shoe fits.

Nobody enjoys a 7-0 (Seven. Nil.) defeat, but Fernandes reacted to yesterday’s events in the way that an especially immature six-year-old child might deal with huge disappointment, complaining to anyone vaguely in earshot, pretending to be hit in the face, shoving an official, attempting to take out his petty frustrations on an opponent’s knee and eventually appearing to just give up.

Here is a summary of how the captain of Manchester United dealt with their record defeat to Liverpool.

It is a breakdown of a meltdown.

First foul: No minutes, 10 seconds
Fernandes started the game reasonably well, almost forcing Trent Alexander-Arnold into an error — a hospital pass to Fabinho. That said, Fernandes did commit a foul in the 10th second of the game, taking down Mohamed Salah in a fairly harmless position before Sky’s UK TV coverage even had the chance to put the score/clock graphic up in the top corner. It was a portent of what was to come.

First complaint: Five minutes, 14 seconds
One of the themes of the game was the amount of whining from Fernandes. At his team-mates, the United bench personnel, the match officials or whoever was nearby. This first example came when he competed for a ball with Harvey Elliott along the United left touchline. It looked routine: Elliott knocked the ball against Fernandes, it went out of play, Liverpool got the throw. But Fernandes protested like a man to whom great harm had been done — as if he’d just returned to his car to find it clamped and no amount of “but I was only in Tesco for 10 minutes!” was working.

Bawling out a team-mate: Nine minutes, eight seconds
The first notable complaint about a colleague’s performance came against Antony. The Brazilian’s perceived crime was shooting from a reasonably promising position in the inside right channel, rather than attempting to thread a pass through a preposterously tight alley made of Liverpool defenders.

Cue the first of many arm-flaps, the Fernandes limbs flailed like the wings of a particularly petulant owl. We would see it again, many more times.

Minor tantrum: 53 minutes, six seconds
Goals are obviously the best moments for fans to enjoy. But very close behind is laughing at your biggest rivals’ least likeable player. So you can imagine how much Liverpool supporters smiled at Fernandes going up for a header with Alexander-Arnold, the ball quite clearly skimming off the head of the United skipper, who then collected the ball as if a corner had already been awarded, only to realise it was given as a goal kick. He tried to turn his dismay into the Jurgen Klopp patented ‘Laugh at the negative thing that’s just happened to my team in order to deal with it in a wry and self-deprecating way’, but he was fooling nobody. Especially after what came next…

Bigger tantrum: 53 minutes, 46 seconds
It’s interesting that players, in the VAR era, still complain at length when they must surely know that a decision is not going to go their way. This is a great example: Fernandes leapt over Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson, fell to the floor and screamed and screamed because a penalty was not awarded. There was no evidence of contact between him and Alisson, but that didn’t stop him bawling out the linesman for the next minute or so, concentrating on his own perceived injustice rather than, say, chasing back to help his colleague defend as Liverpool attacked. But that was just the warm-up…

Penalty claim: 69 minutes, five seconds
Anyone who’s spent time with a toddler will tell you they don’t like it when they don’t get their way. Often in that situation, they lash out. So when the officials decided the ball touching Ibrahima Konate’s arm inside the penalty area was accidental and that the Liverpool defender’s arm was in a natural position, Fernandes reacted by leathering the Frenchman in the ankle.

And then, having been outrageously penalised for said leathering, he bellowed at the man who wronged him — referee Andy Madley — as if the robber who had just swiped his phone from his hand was let off scot-free. Cue more mirth from the stands. But wait…

Flop to the floor: 69 minutes, 52 seconds
In truth, this was a fairly routine bit of play-acting, the sort of thing which is deeply tiresome but that you see a few times in every game. If you got annoyed every time you saw it happen, your blood pressure would be a billion over a billion. But in the context of everything else, on top of the arm flapping and the complaining and the diving, this was an especially fetid cherry atop a decomposing cake.

As you can see, Konate’s hand lands on Fernandes’ chest, with maybe a flick of little finger against chin…

… but after that, let’s just enjoy the trajectory of his fall…

… which is somehow rather elegant in its patheticness, Fernandes dropping to the turf almost gracefully, felled by this mighty blow to the kisser. Or so he claimed.

“That’s embarrassing from Bruno Fernandes,” said Neville. “It’s on his chest and he goes down. He’s so frustrating at times.”

The only real bit of creativity: 72 minutes, 39 seconds
This was the other thing about Fernandes’ performance. Not only was his behaviour embarrassing, but his actual footballing performance wasn’t much better. He had two shots, neither on target, and barely created anything — the only real spark was this through ball to Marcus Rashford, but by then it was 4-0.

Push the assistant: 80 minutes, 43 seconds
We mentioned at the start that Fernandes somehow emerged from this game without a booking, and this was his most inexplicable escape, even if he was reacting to having the ball thrown at a sensitive area of his anatomy by Alexander-Arnold. It wasn’t quite Paolo Di Canio on Paul Alcock, but theoretically one of the most immutable rules in football, the no-no of all no-nos, is that you don’t place your hands on the officials.

Maybe this assistant referee just felt sorry for him. Maybe he was so surprised at being shoved that he didn’t react until it was too late. Maybe he didn’t think it was enough of a shove to merit further punishment. Who knows. But we were all denied the objectively hilarious sight of Fernandes trudging off the pitch for an early bath, having been given a red card. Imagine how he might have reacted to that.

Attempted hoof on Stefan Bajcetic, missing, giving up: 81 minutes, 42 seconds
Here’s where it gets really childish. If the rest of it wasn’t already. Liverpool’s teenage tyro Stefan Bajcetic travelled with the ball down the right flank, with Fernandes in lukewarm pursuit. The United man couldn’t get the ball off him, so instead kicked Bajcetic, taking his frustration out on a passing 18-year-old. Except he missed. Or didn’t make enough contact to take Bajcetic down, leaving the Liverpool man to scamper off down the line. It was around this point that Fernandes appeared to down tools, reacting to his failure to make significant contact by simply walking towards the middle of the pitch, in literally the opposite direction to a developing Liverpool attack. The score was 5-0 at this point. Obviously the game could not be saved, but a little dignity still could. Fernandes chose not to try.


Wander around doing nothing: Various times
Slightly later on, Fernandes did seem to realise that all of this was not a good look for a Manchester United captain, so he ran around a bit more. But there were about three or four minutes, either side of Liverpool’s sixth goal, where he just seemed to petulantly give up, shuffling around the middle of the park and seemingly showing no inclination to do anything useful, other than stomp about in a big sulk.

“The second half has been an absolute disgrace, a shambles, epitomised by Bruno Fernandes,” said Neville.

Post-match interview
Here was a surprise. After the previous 90 minutes, you half-expected Fernandes to sit facing the wall in the dressing room, refusing to move and sucking his thumb, snapping “NO!” at every suggestion Ten Hag’s assistant Steve McClaren made to placate him. “Soothing massage, Bruno?” “NO.” “Nice recuperative isotonic drink, Bruno?” “NO.” “Some warm milk in your favourite sippy-cup, Bruno?” “NO.”

But no, there he was, looking grumpy but there nonetheless, doing the post-match interview with Sky Sports, answering questions about the shambles we had all just witnessed.


Ten Hag has used ruthlessness and running but this humbling needs new response
“Obviously, it’s really frustrating,” he said. “We came here with a different mindset. The first half was really good, but obviously the second half was not at our level. We know how much better we can be.”

It was a classic, if unexpected, piece of ‘fronting up’, but you could argue it was the final insult to United fans everywhere. The last person you wanted to see, carefully explaining that they didn’t play well. No kidding.

Let’s leave the final word to Neville, who dedicated large parts of his commentary in the game’s latter stages to chastising Fernandes:

“You give the ball away at Anfield, you try to get it back. You don’t flap your arms around. I’ve had enough of him whinging. He whinges at everybody. He’s got to put a captain’s performance in there, and that wasn’t a captain’s performance.”

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

IMO he should be dropped for Sabitzer against Betis.

But not for the antics, nor for the body language. Who the fuck spent this much time writing a long article on every bit of misbehavior a player had on a 7-0 defeat, with the timestamps. It's either you have time to lose or a tooth against the player.

He should be dropped because of shit performances since a few games, which is what matters the most IMO (being overplayed, sometimes out of position, doesn't help)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...