Man Utd are now ‘too big to succeed with the 2025 media landscape making it impossible for any manager to escape the ‘relentless and cacophonous’ noise.
There is also more on Gary Neville, praise for Minty and a backlash against Peter Bowler as the flag debate continues.
Send your mails on any subject to theeditor@football365.com…
Man Utd are “too big to succeed”
The phrase “too big to fail” gets bandied about quite a lot, but I think United, in the 2025 media landscape, are flipping it on its head; they’re “too big to succeed”.
The way media works now, the thirst for content and clicks, means the noise is just relentless and cacophonous. Ex-players turned pundits clipped up endlessly, a steady stream of podcasts, dedicated content creators with millions of followers, plus all the papers and other news sites. They are the biggest story in town. Everyone either supports them or despises them.
Then each week, 11 poor saps and a bloke on the touch line get to perform under this electron microscope. The pressure and scrutiny is just merciless. And sure, it may be true of the likes of Bayern, Real and Barca as well, but they’re not in leagues that are anywhere near as competitive, so they can get passable results even when rubbish, like Real last season.
Ruben will probably get sacked and the next chump will take his place and it’ll be rinse and repeat.
Lewis, Busby Way
Help!
Can someone who knows the game better than me please just tell me, if Amorims system had the right players and all the fine margins went his way and everything worked perfectly, would it actually be any good?
George B
Bukayo Saka, top scoring Arsenak player for England…
I’m guessing there will be one or two Arsenal fans writing in about the England match, but I just wanted to write in to share my amusement that Saka has “finally” taken the title for the top scoring Arsenal player for England. With 13.
Nice goal, for sure, even if it was against a bobbins team that couldn’t manage to stop a ball right across the box. But 13?
Mind blown.
Badwolf
Haven’t written in probably for a decade
I haven’t been compelled to write to the mailbox in many years, but I need to say thank you Minty, that was spot on.
Peter Bowles, the flags are frequently used to sow division, and not just be proud of the country. Gary Neville is aware of this and is completely justified in removing the flag from his own building site when it was put up without authorisation. That doesn’t make him any less patriotic than the person who hung the flag up. Step away from the insular bubble of right-wing press, and social media algorithms, you will see that he didn’t spit on, stamp on, or burn the flag etc.
James, FFC
Best mail I’ve read here in a very long time from Minty on flag shaggers. I’m a white straight middle aged man, but I have zero issues with Neville or anyone else calling out that demographic, for two reasons, 1) I know I’m not being called out because I’m not one of the meathead twats going around decorating street furniture with flags, and who all fit that demographic in every clip I’ve seen, and 2) My particular demographic have had it quite good for rather a long time in comparison to other genders/races/sexual preferences.
The kind of absolute morons who are actually planning to vote for that utter c**t Farage ARE either racists or fools. Racists if they know that the office for national statistics shows taxes migrants pay versus what we spend on them cancel each other out but still vote for him anyway. Fools if they dont educate themselves on his lies (and funding sources) before they go ahead and vote for his bullshit uncosted manifesto regardless. Back to the footy though, loving Tuchel dropping Billy big bollocks, he needs taking down a peg or three and he’ll obviously be back at some point anyway. I’ve got some sympathy for Jude though, being raised by a copper can’t be easy given most of them are busy, self-important twats in the job for all the wrong reasons.
RHT/TS x
“Disrespecful and insulting under any circumstances.”
Hi there,
Peter Bowler would have us believe that taking down a flag is “disrespectful and insulting under any circumstances.” This is a view so original and refreshing that I would like to interrogate it further. Does Mr Bowler believe that every flag, once erected, must stay up forever? Would they not get fairly tatty?
This flag, in particular, was on some scaffolding on a building site owned by Gary Neville. Does this mean the scaffolding has to stay up on the property until the end of time, long after the construction is concluded, for fear of disturbing the precious flag that has been tied to it? Does he know how much scaffolding costs? Has he not been following the news about steel shortages? Won’t he think of the impact on the construction industry?
Could the wondrous, beauteous Union Flag, a symbol of peace, justice and love worldwide, become like one of those endangered newts? Could environmentalists stop developments on, say wetlands, by the expeditious method of tying a flag to them, therefore rendering areas of natural beauty inviolate until the VERY END OF TIME ITSELF?
IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT MR BOWLER? YOU HAVEN’T THOUGHT THIS THROUGH AT ALL!
Dara O’Reilly, London
‘Peter Bowler’ – a flag isn’t representative of this nation at all. It’s just a bit of fabric with some colours on; it is a symbol, and as with every symbol its meaning comes from how it’s used and who by. What it represents can change at the drop of a (Bowler) hat. 30 years ago, if I’d started tying flags to lampposts showing the colours of the rainbow, most people would have assumed I was in favour of leprechauns, or Teletubbies, or Zippy and Bungle, etc. What’s that idiot doing up a ladder with that flag? He must really like Dark Side of the Moon to go to all that effort.
Who knows? Whereas in 2025, everybody knows what it means. Similarly, Hindus had a symbol that stood for prosperity for the business end of about 5,000 years. And then it didn’t, when about a century ago, the swastika started to mean something *very* different to most people.
Or to take the Union ‘flag’ (Union Jack is not just a naval term btw): back in the day, nobody saw The Jam ponceing about in Union Jack blazers and thought, blimey, that Paul Weller is such a fascist. Between the cor blimeying and bloody door blowing of The Italian Job, did viewers think the football songs, flags, and red, white and blue Minis were the coming of the new Reich? Nobody saw Noel Gallagher playing a UJ guitar at the height of Britpop and thought, this is bad, it’s obviously jackboots next. Were we all watching Mo Farah, Jess E-H, Greg Rutherford wearing flags round their shoulders during their 2012 victory laps and screeching, will no-one rid me of these turbulent racists? I tell you what, that Roger Moore skiing off a cliff and opening a Union Jack parachute? Disgusting.
But Morrissey waving the flag at Madstock, in front of screens of skinheads, singing ‘ironically’ about the National Front, “Life is hard enough when you belong here”, “I don’t think black and white people will ever really get on”, etc? Yes, most people realised something was very amiss at that point. Obviously, a lot of us – myself included – didn’t want to see it in his case, and quite merrily ignored the Asian Ruts and the Pregnant for the Last Times; but eventually you have to see what’s in front of your face. If Reform councillors get elected and immediately take down Pride flags – symbols of, more than anything else, a plea for tolerance and acceptance – whatever goes up in their place can only represent intolerance and exclusion. And what did they put up? The Gammon Bat Signal itself.
There isn’t a symbolism committee that meets to decide these things; meaning is not handed down by Ed Miliband on giant stone tablets, we all just make it up as we go. Look up the word ‘literally’ in the dictionary to see that these things can get complicated. So, you can pretend the meaning of the flag isn’t changing, and you’re not changing it. Life may be easier psychologically if you tell yourself that the flag doesn’t mean anything deep; there’s no subtext to anything; flying the UJ is just a plain statement of fact – it’s just reminding people what country they’re in. On a par with tying a flag to a lamppost that says, this is a lamppost. What are people annoyed about? Nobody gets ‘triggered’ when they see place names on a road sign do they? What’s all the fuss about?
But whether you know it or not, it’s reflecting you and your personality. It’s reflecting your actions in public and how you speak about the world. And if that flag is a big piece of cloth with your face on it, then fine – you get to own that, nobody else is involved. But if you’re telling everyone that this is their flag too, their country, and their values, the answer is No. Nobody asked us to sign up to how this is being used; nobody tying flags to railings and then pissing in the street straight afterwards asked for my opinion beforehand; nobody setting hotels on fire stopped to enquire if the people – be they white, middle-aged, angry or whatever else – are alright with this.
You didn’t ask for our permission to do any of this. Because you didn’t want to hear the answer.
Neil Raines (Tuchel’s audition to be the next Villa manager is going well)
Time/Spurs marches on
I believe, with some distress, that I was 22 when I started reading and contributing to this fine web site in around 2007.
I’m 40 now and Spurs, if anything, have gotten Spursier in that time. Poch was fun though.
Fuck me, I’m old.
Jon, Lincoln
Jack 17 London
In case Jack himself hasn’t seen & responded to Eoin & Jamo, Jack is likely to be 31 now.
Jack was the same age as me at the time and using some advanced mathematics, I have calculated that he should still be the same age as me now.
Mick, Cardiff
