General Premier League Thread 2023-24 Mod Note in op 27/6/23 And 21/05/24

Anyone see the documentary Stasi FC? It's about BFC Dynamo in the former east Germany who became state backed in the 70s. They won the title 10 years in a row from 1978 to 1988.

After the fall of the wall the state backing disappeared and they suffered consecutive relegations until they were out of the league and went bankrupt. They are back now playing in the fourth division.

You just never know what's going to happen.

The under-achieving Manchester United galacticos throwing another manager under the bus, with sky reporting he has lost half the dressing room, I feal for Manchester United supporters as we had the same, until Dyche rolled up his sleeves, we are far from great, but we're putting in a shift which is a change.

Ederson came up fm the box to be involved, it was in the semi circle....zero point in fining clubs.

New TV deal though, just what everyone wanted, more Micah Richards

De Gea to Newcastle

While Ten Hag hasn’t handled some situations well this season(dealing with Sancho, wanting Greenwood back in), it’s another example of player power in action at United.

Every time something goes wrong they seem happy to down tools, let the manager take the flak every week in front of the cameras and just coast along until the new guy is in.

Major clearout of the older players needed.

Knew Haalands face looked familiar

If ever there was a player that needed to be publicly told to **** off it is Jadon Sancho, I'd say there is a long list of managers who wanted to do the same. I see quotes from Matic this morning just reinforcing what everybody else knows, that Sancho is an unprofessional waster.

Ten Hag has made plenty of mistakes but I take no issue with how he handled Sancho. It will really stick in United fans throats when Ten Hag gets sacked and that waster strolls back into the dressing room, probably late as usual.

Rashford certainly looked like he was leading the revolt at the weekend, with his effort - but its always the managers fault with this group of under-achievers , effort should be the bare minimum

webuyanyleague.com

Fergie banned journalists who made it their business to write rubbish about the club all the time.

It's a move ETH should have made from the start.

For a decade now bad journalists have been able to make a very handsome living by writing rubbish about Utd. It's time their access was cut.

Put it another way,what style of football should he be playing with Malacia,Martinez,Casemiro,Erikson,Amrabat,Mount,Anthony,Hoijlund? These are all players that have been signed under his tenure and surely he should be implementing a game plan with this core of players and filling in the gaps with the players you mentioned until he has the chance to get rid of them.

You mentioned Rashford,ten Hag was quite happy for him to sign a new contract and now it seems as if rashford could end up being the player to cost him his job. Why didn't Ten Hag sell him and use the money to buy a striker that will play for the team or at least put in a shift and work his ass off on the field?

Ten Hag won a trophy and got champions league football with "these" players last season and there wasn't half the noise coming from fans and pundits. Suddenly things are a bit rough and it's all the players fault again without looking at the failures the manager.

You mentioned klopp,he brought in a game plan and stuck with it even though he didn't have the players he required for it to be successful at the start,but everyone could see what he was trying to do. And there was progress each season.Finished 8th the first season(only came in October of that season). 4th the following season,4th again with a champions league final appearance is progress in my eyes.

As a Liverpool fan I am trying to look at it as objectively as possible,all I see is a majority of fans and pundits now turning and putting all the blame on the players yet again. But Ten Hag seems to be absolved of blame by the majority again. Now in fairness there are a few in the utd thread questioning his tactics and transfers which is fair imo. Remember this is the manager who wanted Greenwood back in the squad. Would I as a Liverpool fan like to see him sacked? No because I just think he is not a very good manager

Honestly I don’t care if he stays or goes, the problems at Utd are bigger than him. Whoever comes in will have the same issues.

The supposed leakers are complete red herrings. You didn't hear much if anything about the player's thoughts on Greenwood returning but did hear about the backroom staff which makes me think a lot of these "sources" are just club workers and people around the team but not the ones in it.

I've semi-heard of him thriving on the negatives, and doing the whole clikbait stuff on the negativity. Banning him as an induvial, while it is petty, ok look it's one guy. But weren't Sky Sports, ESPN, The Mirror also banned, in addition to the MEN being banned with Sam Luckhurst? That's edging too close to being a blanket ban for anyone that said anything bad about you. There's no smoke without fire and with the history of the players leaking that they are unhappy with previous managers and their methods, it's hard to not believe these stories again. Whether they are true or not, there is logic behind them and let's call a spade a spade, there is probably some truth in them. Which could then be sensationalized possibly.

Banning The Sun is nowhere near as close. Completely different circumstances. A more revelvant comparison (and likewise you might not be aware which is fine) but Klopp doesn't like Simon Hughes the Liverpool Athletic journo and has called him out before in a press conference. He has called out James Pearce (and wrongly sometimes IMO) a few times at press conferences too. They have had some cross words, but both have their access in tact.

This is probably the long and short of it and I've thought the same multiple times.

It doesn't quite explain why the likes of City and the traditional European super clubs don't usually suffer from the same thing though.

I think the fanbase has a bearing on it too. Players used to be given a lot of slack by United fans but now if you play badly once you are useless and should be shipped out immediately.

As much as you can say they should be able to ignore it I think the club itself act reactionarily (is that a word) too based on the fan perception and sort of buy into it being a bit of a soap opera so that they can get engagement. They then wonder why the unchecked bad engagement affects players.

The problem is that it's set up as a cartel rather than to drive competition.

As you rightly point out, multiple smaller packages is not in the consumers interest but couldn't it have been set up so that Package A has all games for Satellite TV, Package B has all games for Streamers, Package C has all games for cable. Then let consumers decide which they want to pay for based on genuine competition between different offerings for the same product.

The interesting one there really is Howe - how quickly Newcastle have totally changed their team. Not too surprising I guess given the money spent, but still, it's a lot of turnover in a short time. Pep, Arteta, and Klopp are all in the job years, so it's not a surprise to see the starters from when they arrived have moved on.

And likewise, Ten Hag and Emery aren't in the job too long, so it looks about right that half the starters are still active - though it really shows how impressive Emery's job has been, getting massively improved performances out of so many players who were so poor under the previous manager.

Nobody likes them but they don't care when they're 3-2 up against the league leaders😝

I'd say they'd take 3-3...

Wonder where the ref got those extra 20 seconds from

When Luton got the header from that free kick it should've been over

All of Luton's time wasting on the throw ins I'm guessing. Great call by the ref