Manchester United should sell ‘deadwood’ Antony instead of trying to ‘unlock’ him with signing

Why are Manchester United signing Noussair Mazraoui to help ‘unlock’ Antony? Sell the Brazilian forward and keep Scott McTominay and Aaron Wan-Bissaka.

Send your thoughts to [email protected].

Nou wave
I just had a minor heart attack reading this about Noussair Mazraoui (who I otherwise know nothing about).

“The right-back is an objective of manager Erik ten Hag, who thinks the former Ajax man can unlock Antony, with the pair rekindling their relationship from their days in the Netherlands.”

If that’s a reason for signing him, please no. Anthony has had more than enough chances to prove he can’t cut it in the premier league so chances are his buddy also won’t be able to cut it.

It seems ridiculous to me that utd are trying to offload McTominay and Wan Bissaka who are both proven quality players. Not world beaters, but definitely dependable squad members. Meanwhile we still have Anthony and Sancho on our books.

I understand the logic that we need to sell to buy but Wan Bissaka or McTominay might get us 15-20 Million each maximum yet an unproven (in other words risky) replacement for either will cost 40 – 50 million.

According to Transfermkt, both Anthony and Sancho are still worth more than McTominay or Wan Bissaka and on much higher wages, why not get rid of that dead wood and cut our losses now rather than wait a couple more years for them to run down their contracts. We’re set to make the same mistakes we made with Anthony Martial with these two – holding onto sub-par players just because we paid over the odds for their potential.

I assume it’s all to do with bullshit accounting and that we’ll end up plugging holes with sub-par deadline day loan deals again, I just needed to rant.
Jon, Cape Toiwn (I bet if Anthony cut his nuts off he could make it in the womens game)

Table predictions
1) Arsenal – strengthened at the back, got a funny feeling Jesus will have a 2nd coming and Martinelli will push on. With Odegaard, Saka & Rice its going to be a stand out season. This is it Gooners, congrats….You Heard It Here First (YHIHF)

2) Manchester City – I sense this is Haalands last season at City as Pep is ‘doing an Ibrahimovich’ on him and coaching the madness out of him making him a lesser player. Cue the 50 goal haul probably. KDB is very grumpy isn’t he. Storming off as the Belgium fans booed, calling the reporter an idiot. Maybe he can focus and Pep will play him but I can see him getting subbed off a lot which will annoy him further. One of the greatest Premier League players of all time should go to PSG once his contract is up. Also think Pep will go. The players will not like the uncertainty. Grealish to have a decent season and send Pep off with a champions league (YHIHF)

3) Liverpool – no signings no problem. It’s either going to be a Salah to Saudi, Trent to PSG, Van Dijk allowed to run down his contract down with planned signings incoming or contract extensions with maybe 1 or 2 through the door. I am comfortable with the squad and hope Quansah, Bradley, Doak, Curtis Jones, Bajcetic all get lots of minutes. No silverware but a decent run in all competitions. Fewer injuries as well

4) Spurs – Son will be fit and firing and probably get a new contract. Maddison has a point to prove to Gareth Southgate. Ange has had time to settle in. They could do with a striker but I can see this being a decent season as Ange will temper his mad game style slightly to be harder to beat

5) Man Utd – Zirkzee looks a player. If Ugarte comes in too with Mainoo improving it’s looking good. Fernandes is in my fantasy team, he should get more help so will not have to do everything. Chase refs less, have fewer tantrums, pull the strings

6) Newcastle – Agree with ‘AC in Milan’s comments on them. Vlachadimos (& Pliers) is a quality keeper though. If Howe goes to England it could scupper their push

7) West Ham – If they get Fullkrug he’s going straight in my fantasy team. Lopetegui is a good balance of Moyes + actual coached attacking football. Kudus will be their player of the season, sensing a Carabao / Milk / Carling / Coca Cola cup final for them before losing to City as usual

8) Aston Villa -Europe will do its usual and drain the squad

9) Chelsea – Poch knew what he was doing, he just needed time. Absolutely criminal to replace him. Is Maresca any good ? He is happy to be a coach but he almost messed up Leicester. He will be replaced next summer at the latest, outside shout for first sacking of the season

10) Brentford – Toney will kiss and make up and sign a new contract as no one is paying 60m for him. If Brentford score 10 more goals which they will with Toney then they rise up the table

11) Crystal Palace – an improvement on their usual 11th. Guehi will have a stand out season. Hopefully they keep Eze and use some of the Olise money to strengthen, should be a nice season

12) Everton – without the points deduction they would have been higher. Some good signings. 11 to 20 is going to be close so Everton best of the lower table teams

13) Bournemouth – Couple of loan signings made permanent, excellent manager

14) Brighton – I do wonder whether the magic has gone. Lost their way a bit last season. In reality very ordinary players

15) Wolves – will do enough, probably win away at Liverpool & Utd

16) Fulham – Will miss Palhinha but good enough to stay up

17) Ipswich – They are on a roll and will survive. Home form will save them, 41 points

18) Forest – it just isn’t right. Too many random players, no cohesion, down with a relatively high 40 points

19) Leicester – 33 points, decent manager with Premier league experience helps

20) Southampton – 33 points – lots of players purchased but none of them good enough
Hong Kong Ian – 1 more prediction – Harry Kane will finally win a medal

MORE PREMIER LEAGUE FEATURES FROM F365
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Vintage slapstick
If preseason is of any indication as to what Chelsea’s “defense” will be , then hold onto the rails folks, ‘coz we’ re in for a brand new season of The Keystone Cops. Fatty Arbuckle and all that.

Ten games into the season we’ll be clamoring for the Good Ole’ Days of Andre Villas-Boas.
Radu Tomescu, The Nevermore Raven in Taipei

Bring back chaos
There has been a lot of talk in recent years of moving to a stop clock with an hour on it to crack down on time-wasting. I think injury time is a pretty bad system, so I support this (also, I’m not a fan of rugby, but the game ending when the ball goes dead is a pretty great/dramatic feature.) But it’s not just about time-wasting. It’s also about momentum-breaking.

You often hear 2-0 is a dangerous lead. When the trailing team pulls one back to make it 2-1, there is often a palpable shift in the dynamic of the game. At its best, this dynamic can feel like the pitch tilting, so the team chasing an equaliser is playing downhill and the defending team uphill. Of course a lot of it is psychological, one team is growing in hope and confidence, the other is shrinking into themselves. It’s a feedback loop. But the feedback loop can only be sustained while the ball is in play.

The pass-back rule was presumably brought in for the dual-purpose of cutting out time wasting, and making it harder for a team holding onto a lead to just hold onto the ball (or, perhaps more accurately, keeping the ball out of play as the clock runs down.)

If one side is pushing hard for an equaliser and the other is feeling the pressure, they want to slow the game down as much as possible to soak up that pressure. Keeping the ball out of play gives them breathing space, physical and mental respite, and drives the other team insane as they can’t do an awful lot with the righteous energy pumping through their veins. Defending is an art sure, but keeping the ball out of play is surely as anti-football as it gets, by definition.

So, what rule changes could have a similar impact to the passback rule?

Where do breaks in play occur?

-Goal kicks
-Goalkeeper handling
-Corners
-Frees
-Throw-ins

What currently happens if players waste time/slow down play at these points in the game? Generally, the worst that happens is a yellow card. Last season in the premier league, there was actually a strange instance in which Tomiyasu got a yellow for time wasting on a throw-in. Someone else (I forget who) was holding the ball, decided to give it to Tomiyasu after holding onto it for a while, then Tomiyasu was the one punished, despite holding the ball for less time. Tomi was actually sent off! Of course red cards can impact the quality of a game too so that’s not ideal.

So what other ways could we crack down on time wasting?

My suggestions:

-You have 8 seconds to take a throw-in. If you fail to do that, the throw goes the other way.
-You have 8 seconds to take a corner. If you fail to do that, it’s a free out.
-You have 8 seconds to take a free kick from when the ref blows the whistle. If you fail to do that, the free goes the other way.
-You have 10 seconds to take a goal kick, or it’s a corner, from either side.
-The goalkeeper is allowed to hold onto the ball for no more than 6 seconds, or it’s an indirect free kick to the other team.

Oh wait, the last one already applies, actually! I guess they get around it by bouncing the ball and dropping it to their feet after a while. But most importantly, the refs do not enforce the rule. So none of the rules above would actually work unless the refs had the sufficient chutzpah and moral fortitude to take time-wasters and momentum-breakers to task.

But the backpass rule was one of the most successful ever introduced to the game for one reason – it introduced more chaos. Goalkeepers had to learn to use their feet. Defenders had to get smarter too and keep the ball in play, or surrender it.

In summary, when trying to find ways tackling the twin evils of time wasting and momentum breaking, I believe the solution is introducing more chaos into the game, and ideally doing it in a way that can be replicated at every level of the game.

If anyone else has any other suggestions, I’d love to hear them.

(All that being said though, think the ever-increasing concentration of financial power at the top clubs is what’s actually killing the game and I don’t have any answers to that problem beyond seizing the means production.)
Finbar

Quick fix
In reply to Jon, Cape Town, A simple way to create lots more goalscoring threat for your “ways to fix football”: Goalkeepers can no longer catch the ball/ hold the ball with two hands, pretty much only leaves punches, parries, etc. no more taking the sting out of an attack by collecting the ball or lying on top of it, they have to punch it or redirect it. Would lead to glorious unbridled chaos, it clearly wouldn’t work at all but it would be great spectacle.
AD, NUFC

I started to read Jon’s email and then was struck by his assertion that midfielders were scoring 20 goals a season regularly back in “the good old days”.

Seemed a bit on the hyperbolic side to me I thought, so in the interests of accuracy, I’d do some Wikipedia’ing….

Man U

Giggs – NEVER scored 20 goals for Man Utd in a single season. Best was 17, followed by 14, but most seasons, under 10.
Scholes – Scored 20 goals once, mainly around the 10 mark
Beckham – NEVER scored 20 goals, rarely above ten

Arsenal

Ljungberg – NEVER scored 20 goals, rarely above ten
Pires – Nope, NEVER hit 20, but three seasons above 16 – actually surprised me that one
Parlour – never above 6 goals! In fact, in 13 SEASONS, the Romford Pele scored 32 goals in total for the Gunners.

So of those six players Jon mentioned, across a total of more than 80 seasons, Paul Scholes scored 20 goals once!

I can’t be arsed to check Chelsea but I am sure it will be similar.

This is not just Premier league games, this is every game played across the whole season for the club in question by the way. So, for example, Ray Parlour played 105 games for Arsenal between 2001-2004, over three seasons, and scored….2 goals.

There’s getting your point across and stretching the truth a little and there is getting it so badly wrong, it makes the rest of your point completely worthless….
ANON

Sudden death
I’m certain that Seb isn’t the only one who loves penalty shootouts, Gary Lineker seems to be a huge fan also.  Whereas Seb would like to skip extra time and go straight to penalties, I’m inclined to think the Gary would prefer that we skip the entire match and start with penalties.
I do not like penalty shootouts.

While I’m not going to suggest that it’s as arbitrary as a coin toss, I hate the idea of ending a match with a skills competition.  While some sports adjust their rules in the event of a tie, like the super over in cricket, I cant think of another sport that ditches live play and decides the outcome based on a single skill.

Can you imagine a golf tournament ending with a putting contest, or closest to the hole on a par 3?  How about a free throw competition in basketball, or a best of 5 goal kicking competition in Rugby.  Of course you wouldn’t just have your regular kicker for every one, you would give everyone a try until eventually you had the props kicking.

The sport that I think has it right, and is structured similarly to football, is Ice Hockey.  The National Hockey League (NHL) goes to sudden death overtime in the playoffs, and the game continues until someone scores.  This is only during the playoffs mind you, the game ending format for the regular season is completely mental.  But in the NHL playoffs the game continues until someone ends it, and if you have to play a whole extra game then so be it.

Last year the Florida Panthers and the Carolina Hurricanes played an additional 79 minutes in the first game of their playoff series.  This is particularly exceptional when you consider that a hockey game only lasts for 60 minutes.  2 days later they played again and that game also went to overtime, although only a measly 2 minutes this time. They played twice more, both 2 days apart before Florida went on to play 5 more games in the Finals.

Hockey and football are not the same, I understand that.  There are constant substitutions in hockey so players are only on the ice for a minutes or so at a time.  On the other hand football players aren’t regularly slammed into a wall.

Football didn’t initially allow any substitutes, later allowing them as injury replacements.  Over time they were allowed for tactical reasons, and the number of subs has increased to the current level of 5.  In extra time an additional substiute is allowed, bringing the number up to 6.  If there is a concern about injuries due to lengthy games I would suggest allowing an additional substitute for each 15 minutes of additional time.

Also, it should be sudden death (or golden goal if you prefer), none of this playing an additional 30 minutes rubbish.  If you can score early as England did against Slovakia then the game is over, no need to wear yourself out for the next 28 minutes.

Have I mentioned that I don’t like penalty shootouts?
Andrew (often penalized) – Canada