It looks like Mauricio Pochettino will be the new Man Utd manager and not everybody is impressed.

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Pochettino is a fraud
The greatest trick the red devil ownership ever pulled was convincing their paying public they barely exist. From a Glazers perspective, the percentage sale to, and the hiring of, a “football operator” was sheer masterclass in PR 101, an inspired move to hike book value, and more importantly, to install Ratcliffe as human shield, disavowing all footballing side of things so the Glazers themselves could continue their parasitic siphoning in peace, or at least in a relative shadow of deflection from fans’ and media attention.

As follows, Ratcliffe himself benefits from a pair of purposeful human shields in the dual forms of Wilcox and his oval sidekick guy. These two stellar fellas then have Mike Carrick, who in turn is shielding them, as well as shouldering the angst for all above his station. It is a brilliant shell game from the top down, because who then does Mike have, which is a deeply rhetorical question in and of itself since A) Mike’s players don’t and won’t shield him, B) Mike’s on his way out, and C) the lucky sod incoming faces the exact same doesn’t he. It’s simply all new colors of paint on the leaky brick sh*thouse out back, and crikey we love it so.

On Pochettino though, if it is to be him…this man is the single biggest fraud in world football I reckon. When we speak of football managers we tend to use “fraud” too loosely at times, but look closely, Poch has stolen a living for nearly a decade now, beginning with his slide in those last few years at the other English club du jour, the one with the go-karts. Any one of Howe, Emery or even Conte would’ve been marked improvement on ol’ Poch, what with his extra special lemons and touchline safari ensembles and his try-hard wrist accessories with them dangly bits. But let’s call out the spade here, Poch or no Poch, no gaffer is pulling this Mancunian mess out the mire for the foreseeable.

New colors, same shite. We’ll see your yellows and greens at Anfield.
Eric, Los Angeles CA

Mission Impossible at Man Utd
(… quietly hum the title track to “Mission Impossible” as you read this…)

“Good morning Mr. Pochettino…

A famous football team is languishing near the bottom of the English Premier League with a strong chance it could be relegated. The owners are bleeding the club dry, the management is incompetent and the players have neither the skill nor the fight to avoid the drop.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to generate enough points during the remainder of the season to avoid relegation. Success is not required as long as revenue is generated, although you will not have access to any of this revenue to improve the squad. For this mission, you will have no transfer budget in January, your only Center Forward and Left-Back are injured, your treatment room resembles a NHS Emergency Room, your star player is a prima donna and plays a completely different game to the rest of the team, you have a number of players earning over two hundred thousand pounds a week, and your two best performing central defenders are 19 and 20 years of age.

We will be selecting new players for you in the January transfer window, from anyone who is cheap or even free, overrated or so old they are currently playing in Sunday Leagues. We may not be able to bring your coaching staff so you may be forced to work with a staff whose coaching has seen the team concede the most goals of any of the top five European Leagues.

Should you or any of your team be found wanting and need to be terminated, you will have the good fortune to receive a multi-million dollar payout.

Good luck Mauricio. This team will self-destruct in 5 games.”

(Why get Poch for free and him have a pre-season to work with the squad when we can pay a fortune to buy out his contract and pay a smaller fortune to terminate Carrick’s contract? You can’t make this up!)
adidasmufc

Man Utd cannot survive with two players
I wrote at the beginning of the season that expecting a team with Bruno and Maguire to win anything was pure folly. Especially while persisting with Bruno, buying three midfielders, and planning to play a possession-heavy, ball-playing style.

As I said then, Bruno is not a winning player, and continuing with him would only see us fluctuate between relegation battles and occasional Champions League places because that is his level. I was called Evil Mike for saying that.

I hate to say I told you so, but here we are. As a United fan, there’s no satisfaction in being right.

I will also say Carrick’s lack of backbone was beyond frustrating. Why persist with same players if you are going to get sacked. Why not blood youngsters and fall with them playing and not this lot.

Now, moving on to the future, I think if anyone among United’s decision-makers has a single brain cell, the decision on the next manager should come down to one question: “What is your starting lineup with the current squad?”

If that lineup includes either Bruno or Maguire, you don’t get the job. Alas, as seems to be our fate, we will likely end up with 18 months of Howe. How(e) have we come to this? I blame Sir Alex and that f’ing horse. Yes, I said it.
“Evil” Mike

Is it really the Glazers?
In the previous Mailbox Nicholas Howard becomes the latest Manchester United fan to double down on the Glazers being the absolute worst, and at fault for 21 years of underachievement. Is this really the case?

Since 2005, United have finished 2nd, 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 1st, 2nd, 1st, 7th, 4th, 5th, 6th, 2nd, 6th, 3rd, 2nd, 6th, 3rd. 8th, 15th and 3rd.

“Decline can take many years” says Nicholas. Would this decline start after 8 years, which coincidentally was straight after Fergie left?
DF

Norfolk n Chance
@howard jones. I can only assume that your subconscious mind is referring back to (not one of the worst 10) Premier League Champions of 1994/95.

Two key members of which were captain Tim Sherwood and one half of the SAS Chris Sutton.

Both were purchased from Norwich City and your mind has thus given birth to their lovechild Tim Sutton; transfer fee £5.5M.
Brian BRFC (The legend who discovered Harry Kane only cost £500k of said £5.5M)

What do you want Arsenal to do?
Ok, I know I’m not the first to jump on RHT/TS x and I certainly won’t be the last given the absolute bollocks he churns out. But I don’t understand him. He clearly dislikes Arsenal/Arteta/their style of play and yet he always watches them. Very odd.

He wants Arsenal to play open, attacking football and lose? He is presumably aware that they had a reputation for being great to watch but terrible at winning trophies?

Would this then allow him to send in joyus emails? Revelling in the tactical naivety of Arsenal and how they leave themselves open? Laughing in the face of a 4-5 loss to Palace that saw Arsenal fall to 17th in the table? Oh the glee he might find…

I guess this is his aim? To try to destabilise. This is the age of social media after all. Maybe his friends (if he has any) call him ‘comrade’?

Because anyone who knows anything about football, will tell him to f*** off. Arsenal are winning and if that offends him, then so much the better. The odious pr*ck (maybe he’s Stewie G by another name, as someone else has pointed out?) can bitch and whine as much as he likes.

I won’t say that nobody cares what he thinks, as very clearly I do care. It’s now a point of principle. I’m retired, so I can do this all day. Maybe you live in my head a little? But if so, that makes me your landlord.

I’ve been watching Arsenal since the mid-70s. I’ve seen some absolute rubbish and I’ve seen the highs of Henry, Berkkamp, Wright etc. And being honest with you, the highs come from winning – not from the team itself. Other than 1998 – 2004 (which was pretty good to be fair), Arsenal have had some very creative players and won absolutely nothing. We played some great stuff and lost. Was I happy? No, I was not.

I and probably every other Arsenal fan will take winning as we are (which, let’s be honest, does include some good play too…) over losing having played beautifully. A great defence is also a valid part of the game. Yes, it would have been great to score 4 against Hull. However, Hull defended deep and played well. Arsenal’s weakest area is clearly up front, and so the strength of the defence and midfield needs to compensate for this.

It’s a pretty understandable approach. Don’t lose, then go from there.

Get over yourself, you bitter jumble of letters. If your team were better, then you could write something nice about them! Or if you hate them so much, simply stop watching Arsenal?

I would imagine that Arteta would like to play a more open sort of game. Beautiful passes and flicks. A ‘ tapestry of football’ as someone once called it. However, you work with what you have, and what he has is the best team in the league with a couple of less than prolific strikers.

Luckily Arteta doesn’t care what you think. I do though and I’m here for it.
Stu – Gooner in France (yeah, let’s gloss over how I see all the games)