The Ole Gunnar Solskjaer era ought to encourage Manchester United to hire Michael Carrick, not make them wary of appointing another ex-player…
The Monday morning mailbox brings opinions on United’s next manager; Tottenham’s mess; what Arsenal are up to while they should be on international duty; and why Mo Salah is leaving Liverpool.
As ever, get your mails in to theeditor@football365.com…
Ole was a success
To be clear, I am 1000% Carrick in. I’ll be raging if it is anyone else from the ‘prem-proven’ trash heap and would cautiously accept and only tolerate Enrique or bagelboy until they proved themselves… which they may or may not do, reasons will be saved for an email later in the season.
But please united fans answer me this, no one ever does, it’s one of those statements everyone says but no one can follow up with a reason or their own opinion..
What was the ‘mistake’ with ole?
Best football, loads of goals, youth, loved the club and made me love it again too after booorinho… seriously what was the mistake? We didn’t win but he was close and it was enjoyable.
Who were the options we were linked to? Poch…. yeh he’s smashed it since… Blanc…. he did play for us but too bored to even look what he did since aaaaaaand Zidane…. yeh that was gonna happen (and work lol). So the mistake was we chose to finish 2nd, play well, break a few records and hit a few semis and a final instead of poch or blanc.
Why should Carrick be tarred with this same apparent ‘mistake’?
Back to Carrick, in the stinking modern commoditised game with more betting adverts than entertaining moments, a former legendary player i loved, who genuinely loves the club, turns up to youth games, isn’t a bell-end, seems to be doing good and wants to play well…. is literally as good as it gets for me.
All hail the Carrick era, booo anyone who says otherwise and go back to supporting Trumpinho on his quest for 1000 goals.
Moses (Polymarket Ronny to run as a populist once he’s got that 1000th goal in the Mongolian 4th division with an acca on an accidental missile strike on Argentina)
Arteta’s cry-offs
I know players have been getting “injuries” on international duty since grass was green, but 10 Arsenal players? 10??? If there’s any justice in the world, they’ll get actual (minor) injuries to a couple of key players keeping them out til the end of the season and finish up potless. Unless, of course, the real reason for these pull outs is that Arteta is running a secret seminar for his Cybermen back at Colney entitled, ‘Attacking Football for Dummies’ (food provided, where Win the dog will be running a lunch and learn break out session called ‘Effective Runs – Breaking the Horseshoe of Impotence’).
RHT/TS x (Itauma is the absolute raging f*cking don)
The answer for Spurs
As a West Ham fan I’m obviously gutted Tudor has gone.
Putting aside the obvious “who’s got the sh!ti3st London club” rivalry for a moment, i know exactly what Spurs and the Premier League needs now.
A player-manager. Come on. Makes perfect sense. And good God do we all miss a player-manager. I do wonder if all the ills of the modern world can’t be traced back to the lack of top flight player managers. Anyway, that Romero chap seems to likes to mouth off. He’s captain, just bump him up to player-manager. He’s on the bench on a red most of the time anyway and could ager the men from there.
If it wasn’t for the fact that it’s SO mental it could actually work and send us down……
I’m in two minds to send this email now in case the Spurs top brass read this and actually do it.
Phil The Hammer, Norway
MORE: Ranking all 28 Tottenham player-manager options behind Ben Davies
Period drama
Now that the Tudor period is over, does that mean Tottenham’s new manager will be Stuart Pearce?
Historically regal
Graeme
MORE: Tottenham move on from latest f***ing mess – so what’s the next f***ing mess?
Why Salah’s off
Napoleon allegedly said, “I’d rather have lucky Generals than good Generals”, and 9-time Major winner Gary Player was attributed to say, “The more I practice, the luckier I get”. Whether they said these or not, the sentiment towards my beloved Liverpool comes up when discussing Mo Salah’s departure. The “Lucky General” can be how players meld and how they can learn the tactics from the manager. The “Practice” can be the recruitment team.
I believe that Mo’s exit started in the Summer of 2025. But to get to that point, we need to go back to August 2017. When Salah joined the season after Mane, and after Klopp saw that Bobby F could be the link, he had a Fab 4 that included Phil Coutinho. As well as that team played, and I think for the few months they were together, one of them scored once every 23 minutes, they were unbalanced. The sale of Phil and the buying of Virg brought a needed balance as there were now 5 forward and 5 defending players.
Relegated players such as Andy R and Ginni W were unearthed gems; However, the biggest and luckiest find was a skinny lad from West Derby. Over the next 5 years, that team went to 3 CL finals, winning one. Won one title and went to the season’s final game 2 other times. Finishing behind Man (115) City and the other paragon of financial virtue, Real Madrid. They also won several domestic and international trophies, as well as amassing an unprecedented 110 out of 114 points over 38 games across the 18/19 and 19/20 seasons. As this fine website wrote in the 21/22 season, they got as close as anyone to winning the quadruple; They were 2 goals away from it.
Mane, Bobby and Mo were the best attacking trio in world football (helped by Jota {RiP}, Origi and Shaqiri), and were also ably supported by 2-marauding full-backs, Andy R ran so much that Jose Mourinho once said that he was tired just watching him. The 5 defending players, marshalled by Virg had one job, win the ball back; that was it. In the fabled Barca 4-0, the 4 midfielders on the pitch won the ball back 25 times, with Fabinho doing that 11 times alone.
However, the cornerstone of this attacking 5 turned out to be the relationship between Trent and Salah, and it carried on for 8 years. As the system changed, so did they. As Salah slowed, Trent tweaked his role from being a rampaging right back to a more cultured playmaker. In the 19/20 season, Trent made over 75 chances for Mo. TAA and Mo were so good that as long as they were on the pitch, the system could only be the 5 / 5 split with a front 3, or they would be wasted.
When the team went to 3-box-3, I have never seen another team so worried about a player on the ball, outside of prime Luis Sauez.
Other forwards and midfields came and went, but Trent and Mo remained. Sane was replaced by Diaz, Nunez for Bobby, Origi by Gakpo. All new players knew that their role was to score goals, but also to create space for Mo. The 24/25 season under Slot was the same. 5 attackers and 5 defenders, the Trent and Mo partnership supported by 8 outfielders. The Arsenal away goal is a case in point. Nunez was making the distraction and the running, while Mo was clinical in his movements and finishing.
So why is Mo leaving now? I think if you listen to him, he does give a reason. When G Neville interviewed him in March 25, Mo said in his first chats with Slot, allow me to be upfront, and I will score. 48 goal involvements, a player of the season award, and a PL title later, he was proven right.
In Dec 25, Mo claimed that promises made by the club during the summer had not been kept. I was thinking it was being vice-captain, but now I think that it was around player recruitment. People seemed to know that Nunez was going to be sold, Diaz wanted a new contract, and TAA was edging towards Real. So during the negotiations, I am sure Mo wanted reassurances that those types of players would be bought, and he would continue to be the person the team is built around. They were not, he was not, and the whole team’s style changed.
Anyone who said they knew Mo would drop off must have watched South Park’s “Captain Hindsight” episode. I mean, why give a player, who has just come off a GOAT season, a £400k a week 2-year contract and make him play in divers boots? I can see why Mo felt he was thrown under the bus.
Finally, I also think that he, like most fans, has little faith in Slot’s ability to turn things round. In the game v Galatasaray, knowing that a tough Brighton away game was 2 ½ days later, and after being 4-0 up after 62mins Slot did nothing to save the legs of his main players. Mo was injured on 74 mins, and Wirtz, Grav and Eketeke were on up to the 88th min. Slot seems to be paralysed by indecision, and it has cost us Mo.
Regards
Ian Hewison
VAR needs AI
Ok I know this might have discussed in the mailbox before but can we talk about VAR??
I’ve been on this planet now nearly half a century and one thing I’ve learnt is some people just like complaining, me too sometimes. But too much complaining sucks the joy from life and covers everything beautiful in a suffocating blanket of negativity.
Which brings us nicely to modern football. I see the most recent Football Supporters Association survey that 75% of fans of premier league clubs want VAR scrapped, it’s too slow, it makes bed decisions and it has sucked the joy of spontaneous celebration out of the games. So just scrap it right?
Let’s go back to what we had, a referee and their linesmen trying to look in several directions at once and inevitably making mistakes every other game, because people won’t complain about that right?
I’m a Luddite at the best of times (last one of my group to get a mobile, swopped my smartphone for a Nokia for 5 years, not on social media but is this not just the most obvious application of AI ever? We want something to process information quickly and accurately and make an unbiased opinion.
The premier league is filthy rich, my friend loves to say you can fix anything with enough money so, can somebody just design an AI programme to monitor football games already and make decisions, like a co pilot for referees, it can’t be that hard. And as for accuracy they’re using AI to read radiological scans for cancer detection now so surely they can for whether a player is offside or not.
Listen I’m not for the machines taking over (I don’t want my children dating AI bots!) but it is a powerful technology that can help solve problems, surely no bigger one exists than the perennial offside question in football. Get on it AI.
Dave LFC
