Ruben Amorim is the Manchester United ‘mule’ in the Sir Jim Ratcliffe ‘dumpster fire’ and has the F365 bias against Frank Lampard been uncovered?
Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com.
Ruben Amorim the ‘mule’ in a ‘dumpster fire’
I frequently write about Manchester United Football Club because they’re the club that hurt mine the most, and it was at the very start of my fandom. In a letter to the Mailbox sent on 26 Feb, I noted that the club’s financial situation vis-à-vis PSR and UEFA spending rules appears bleak.
The former starters on loan now (Rashford, Sancho, and Antony) will provide income but could still represent a net loss, despite Rashford being pure profit* at whatever fee. Given his wages, Casemiro must go for whatever pittance they can get, minus the cost of whatever proportion of his future wages the club will have to pay. Mason Mount, too ,though he’ll bring in more. Erikson is out of contract in the summer. Garnacho might go, but I don’t see much profit potential there. Management might think it best to cash in on André Onana, though.
It wouldn’t surprise me to see them shop Bruno Fernandez, either. He’s their only real match-winner, but he’s not terribly suited to the system their coach wants to play, he’s their most valuable assett (nobody’s paying €60m for Rasmus Højlund), and only Casemiro has higher reported wages. His incoming transfer is also long off the PSR books, so it would go some way toward balancing them.
The squad has talent, but it’s mismatched and evidently being coached by an actual mule from Portugal. I’m not calling him a donkey, I’m calling him stubborn. Every club needs at least one extra formation to change to, but Amorim just won’t have it. It’s baffling.
To an outsider, though, the hubris is pretty entertaining. Especially given the prospects of replacing even four of those players with more effective and (ideally) younger players on a budget of at best (or worst, as this would involve selling Bruno) £120 million. Given the club’s recent transfer success rate, it doesn’t bear thinking about.
And maybe worst of all: this squad just isn’t used to winning and have few prospects of getting that way. That’s a hell of a thing to say about a club like Manchester United. Right now, they remind me of Newcastle United in some of our less pleasant seasons. As I’ve gotten older, I suppose I’ve gotten more empathetic because I’m not enjoying it like I once would have. I feel a little bad for the supporters (most of them) because although I’ve actually seen my club relegated twice (and we were on track for thrice before the takeover) since we last challenged, our fall was never from such a height.
Whatever we think of its owners, my club is at least better-managed these days than it used to be. F365’s coverage of Ratliffe’s unforced PR errors, Old Trafford’s decrepitude, the Sancho and Rashford dramas, Amorim’s mulishness, the Dan Ashworth fiasco, etc, etc, paints a picture of MUFC’s management that looks a lot like a dumpster fire. Who could ever expect these people to repair the club’s finances and quiet the noisy neighbors? Bleak, I tell you.
Chris C, Toon Army DC (*I hate that I have to describe players as pure profit now, instead of home-grown. Real money has benefited players — thanks to their union — league executives, and television networks, but to my mind, it hasn’t been great for the sport.)
F365’s Lampard bias
Long-time reader here (15+ years). I don’t write in often, but this has been sitting with me for a while. Football365 has always been my go-to for football opinion—until recently. Over the last few years, I’ve started to notice a strong editorial bias creeping in, and I wanted to test whether this was just me being sensitive or if there was something to it.
The easiest way I noticed this was in your coverage of Frank Lampard. Now, I get it—he hasn’t set the world alight as a manager.
Derby: 6th to 6th
Chelsea: 3rd to 4th (with a transfer ban, blooding youth, FA Cup final)
Everton: 17th to 17th (saved them from relegation but then wheels fell apart)
Chelsea interim: disaster
This is a mediocre managerial record at best. But despite that, the sheer level of ridicule, negativity, and outright hostility in your coverage feels wildly disproportionate. Lampard gets mocked and torn apart far more than other equally (or worse) underperforming managers—even those with worse records and far less goodwill in the game.
So, I decided to test my bias objectively. I ran a tone analysis of the last 50 mentions of Lampard on F365, Goal.com, and The Guardian. Here’s what I found:
1. Football365 is overwhelmingly negative (70-80%)
Your coverage of Lampard is consistently harsh and derisive, often going beyond criticism into mockery.
Words like “wretched,” “embarrassment,” “must retire,” “no plan, no pattern, no hope” are used frequently.
Recurring sarcastic tropes like “L-L-L-Lampard” (repeating the ‘L’ for losses) are never applied to other failing managers in the same way.
Articles have openly questioned why he gets jobs at all, framing his career as “privilege and celebrity over merit”.
One column described him as “a managerial embarrassment” (your words, not mine).
2. The Guardian – More balanced & contextualized
The Guardian criticized Lampard when results were bad, but without the sneer.
Criticism was usually implicit or couched in analysis, rather than insults.
They made space for Tuchel’s praise of Lampard’s Chelsea legacy, noted Everton’s board dysfunction, and contextualized challenges like Chelsea’s transfer ban.
Acknowledged Lampard’s successes with youth players, rather than just dismissing his entire tenure as a failure.
This surprised me because as a left leaning organisation, to my mind Lampard (as a supposed Tory) would have been someone they could easily choose to be quite harsh on
3. Goal.com – mostly neutral & straight reporting
Goal.com stuck to factual updates, quoting pundits, managers, and match reports.
Even negative coverage (Craig Burley’s “chopping board” criticism) was attributed to pundits rather than editorial voice.
It reported positive moments equally—Conte once called Lampard “a future world-class manager”, and Goal gave that as much space as negative stories.
No sarcastic or derisive tone—just straightforward football journalism.
4. Ignoring Lampard’s Success at Coventry
Now, here’s the kicker. Lampard is actually doing well as Coventry manager. The Athletic, The Guardian, and others have started acknowledging his work, but F365? Silence (and no, the Planet football piece does not count).
When he was failing, the pile-on was constant. But now? No humble pie. No “hey, maybe we were too harsh”. If the site was truly objective, shouldn’t it apply the same energy in both directions?
So, My Question to You Is…
Is this intentional editorial bias?
Or has F365 just been in “banter mode” for so long that it’s become the default tone?
I fully expect some eye-rolling from the editors reading this. Maybe you’ll laugh it off and say “It’s just football banter, mate.” Maybe you’ll publish this with extra snark (which, by the way, would just prove my point).
Or maybe—just maybe—you’ll stop for a second and ask: Are we actually being fair here?
Anyway, do with this what you will.
Cheers,
Con Kan
A philosophical view of football
Hello again F365ers,
Will, thank you very much for that. I remember protests against Hicks and Gillette and the takeover by New England Sports Ventures (now Fenway Sports Group) but I didn’t remember the court case. Here are more sliding doors moments.
https://www.football365.com/news/arsenal-record-win-anomaly-ultimately-irrelevant-mailbox
https://www.planetfootball.com/quick-reads/managers-turned-down-man-utd-rejected-chance-klopp-guardiola-wenger
I’m not a fan of any particular club. At the end of a long hard day (and I’ve had too many of them) I just want to watch the best bits of the best football available on free telly. I sometimes fall asleep before it’s finished but either way by the next day I’ve usually forgotten what happened and have to look it up which are some reasons why I don’t pay hundreds of quid a year to watch live football. Also I’d forget when it’s on live even though it’s usually on at the same time most weeks. If there’s been a conspiracy I probably slept through it or forgot it. Sorry.
I want the best team to win (even if it’s a team I don’t like), equally good teams to draw and all teams to get better over time. Chelsea’s players downing tools every few years, Man Utd falling apart in stages and José Mourinho turning into the Ricky Gervais of football have been the best comedy on TV. Man Utd fans leaving Old Trafford at half time when their team were being beaten by Liverpool in October 2021 was my favourite (thank you Sky Sports for the aerial shots) but I tend to prefer close contests to comedy thrashings. In future maybe only one comedy club at a time or change them more often, please. And please can Leeds come up again but be better?
In the last decade and a half I’ve enjoyed watching Liverpool more than anyone else. I liked watching them under Kenny Dalglish and Brendan Rodgers (Luis Suárez was a breathtaking good player) but Jürgen Klopp was the perfect manager for Liverpool and at their best his teams were utterly thrilling. The transformation of Manchester City has been good to watch but what has happened to Liverpool is restoration. I vaguely remember the Liverpool of the 1970’s and 1980’s (Kenny Dalglish was a breathtaking good player but it’s a pity about the biting and racially abusing people) but I prefer Klopp’s Liverpool because they had more close rivals and lived with the 1992 back pass rule (peak 70’s/80’s Liverpool passed back to the keeper a lot).
Manchester City and Pep Guardiola may have won more trophies but Liverpool under Klopp were better to watch. The recent title races between City and Liverpool have been fantastic because they have just gone full throttle to win as many games and score as many goals as possible for months (and when Arsenal have joined in and done the same it’s been even better).
Will, I think you’re absolutely right that if the 2010 court case you mentioned had gone the other way Liverpool’s revival doesn’t happen. Liverpool’s downward spiral could have continued and Manchester City could have won seven titles in a row, most or all of them easily. The Premier League could have become a one-horse race like Ligue 1 did with first Lyon and then PSG, the Bundesliga did with Bayern, Serie A did with Juventus and Scottish football has repeatedly with Celtic and Rangers both winning nine titles in a row. In their times Wenger, Mourinho and Klopp all prevented a Manchester club dominating the Premier League.
We are frequently shown slow motion replays of tackles and freeze frames of offside calls where refereeing decisions are made based on unclear evidence or lines drawn by a computer. I’m still getting my head around the idea that a football club that was a works team from Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway’s Newton Heath depot and a football club that was founded by St. Mark’s Church in West Gorton both went on to become champions of Europe. Now the former is owned by a family from New York and a chemicals company and the latter is owned by a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family.
Why did those things happen? What do the Glazer family, INEOS and Sheikh Mansour get out of owning English football clubs? What makes the difference between success and failure, not just over ninety minutes but over a season and in each moment of a match?
Ex-players and journalists could help answer such questions but perhaps historians or sociologists could help too. If I was a Social Sciences student now I would write a thesis on football (“The effects on on-field performances in football of the policies of Margaret Thatcher and Jimmy Hill”) and then write to Sir Jim Ratcliffe asking for a job and tell him that if they carry on as they are and as they plan to Manchester United will not win the Premier League again in Gary Neville’s lifetime, even if he lives to be 100. Who has more debt: Man Utd or the average student?
Sometimes people compare football matches to chess but football is far more complicated. Football is a game of choice and chance. It’s a game in which over more than 150 years many people have simultaneously made many choices (some about split-seconds or millimetres and some about spending millions on buying a player or a billion on building a stadium) but outcomes can be affected by events which are unpredictable or unpreventable. Now people can analyse matches with computers which generate vast amounts of statistics and run thousands of simulations to predict who will win the title but do any of them include a team’s best player getting banned for months for kung-fu kicking a fan in the chest?
In 1997 a computer beat world chess champion Garry Kasparov. I don’t think a computer managing a team of footballing robots could ever beat a genius steeped in the history of football such as Sir Alex Ferguson, Pep Guardiola or Jürgen Klopp who sought to follow in the footsteps of their heroes. Football is a part of human history that no computer or business person could ever truly understand and it’s continuing to develop.
TL;DR – if you want to understand football better try using the theories and methods of the social sciences because football is about relationships and culture.
Yours philosophically,
You Can Call Me Al (“He looks around, around. He sees angels in the architecture, spinning in infinity”)
Liverpool luck and the Klopp handover
I think I mail this particular query in every 18 months, but noticed that Maitland-Niles was again good at right back for Lyon in the Europa League. This is a chap who’s won trophies at right back, left wing back, and central midfield. He was ‘in and around’ the team at Roma. He could (should?) have had the career of james milner or ashley young, but instead he’s in obscurity in France. What happened in that last year at arsenal? Always rated him. Could put away a penalty too. A missed opportunity. I know things didn’t go great at Saints, but still.
Glad Jose lost to Rangers. He’s not won a league title in a decade, is yet again orchestrating more pile-ons to referees, and currently under legal action for racism. Really wish we’d start referring to him as that chap who stuck his thumb in a guys eye for no reason, rather than the genius who took Champions League semi-finalists (2018) Roma to the unprecedented heights of Conference League title (2022). Hope Rangers can get it over the line, and help condemn this bore to the history books.
You can’t say that Klopp did a better job of handing over a club than Fergie did, given that I doubt Klopp knew he was handing over the club when he’d made a number of key decisions. One guy knew he was off so obviously made some short term decisions, one guy didn’t and so his decisions came out better over a longer timeframe. But was that transition planning, or just a guy not trying to sabotage himself? Seems a very odd comparison to make between the pair.
The boring thing about being called “jammy tossers” is that the same conclusions are never applied the other way. When you win via sheer luck you rightly get jibes and banter, but when you lose in a similar fashion though, the accusation is you lost to ‘nous’ and cleverness. Or just match reports that bare no relation to reality. For every game where LFC clearly nicked it (2005 obviously, this week), I can easily cite examples where results were unfair. In both the 2022 champions league final, and the 2007 final, LFC were the better side and lost. Judging by the naked eye test, the match reports and minute-by-minutes that are still online, and the stats recorded, LFC were the better side in both instances. Don’t recall the articles giving credit by proxy, so why are there articles critiquing your luck when it goes the other way?
The other thing about requiring luck is it comes when you need it – but when you need it isn’t always against the hardest challenge. Going all the way back to 2001 Uefa cup win, the best side LFC faced were the Roma team that won the italian title that year. LFC and in particular Owen, battered them. Yet when facing Barcelona, who were not a patch on that side, LFC were very lucky to progress and relied on an idiot handball for the decisive penalty. So a trophy won on luck, but not against the hardest challenge. How do you quantify that, on the level and performance and attainment of a side?
Even the 2018 (‘Karius’) final, again to Madrid. Dominating Real and leading 9-2 on shots before salah’s injury, yet to even face a shot on target until the 51st minute when our keeper gave them a tap in, and even then only behind for 4 minutes before levelling. By every metric and the eye test, LFC the better side, and could have been going into the last 30 mins leading. Instead, the game turned on yet another Karius blunder. there was nothing between those sides baring LFC’s keeper. But I don’t recall the match reports in 2018 being about blind luck or gamesmanship from Ramos? Or in 2020, and on track for a potential 3rd final in 3 years, only to lose at home to Atletico Madrid with an xG of 2.9 to 1.1, 35 attempts to 10, and 102 attacks to 23 (one hundred attacks to 23).
I’ll take the banter when you win with luck, and bitterness (because rivalry is inherently about that, and revelling in it) but when it becomes people seriously getting upset by it, or thought pieces trying to analyse it, I kinda think we’re moving away from what sport is supposed to teach you.
Tom G
MORE LIVERPOOL COVERAGE ON F365
👉 Five looming Liverpool problems for Slot amid near-perfect season include Alisson, Alexander-Arnold
👉 Ignoring Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United to actually enjoy a week of football TV
👉 Five reasons why Liverpool title win needs an asterisk like the last one
Where’s the ‘real’ Arsenal fan?
OK, I waited until Friday mornings mailbox was published, so here goes.
Where is the only real, tell as it is, don’t fall for the Arteta nonsense, or our collection of bottlers, Arsenal ‘fan’ Stewie? Just couldn’t help himself the other day, thrashing our thrashing of PSV. Telling us fickle, Johnny come lately fans, to pipe down, as putting 7 past PSV away from home in the last 16 of the CL, is typical Arsenal flat track bullying. I mean, football club and its supporters enjoying a big win? What next?? Enjoying sex??!!
Anyway, moving on, our neighbours went to the Netherlands and came home empty handed. Now, it’s only the first leg and I fancy them to turn it around next week, but for now, LOL!! Sorry for being a plastic fan who enjoys a good thrashing and laughs at his neighbours doing what they do best. Surely Stewie the ‘real’ Arsenal fan would be here to tell us all about our neighbours plight, seeing that’s how fans normally do things. Unless of course Stewie isn’t actually a real Arsenal fan? I jest…
I shall now step aside for the real Arsenal fan, Stewie, to set things right with paragraphs of cut and paste rantings. I’ve been trying my best to not respond to his utterly pathetic rants but he keeps getting published (ooh, those clicks…) so here I am. Feel better already.
As an aside, I miss Barry Fox, because for all his hilarious pronouncements on what his beloved football team are going to achieve when the goings good, he at least it shows he loves his club. Stewie, the ‘real’ Arsenal fan on the other hand.
Johnny Comes Lately.
An upset and a tragedy
I was somewhat surprised the site had no mention of probably the biggest surprise/upset in last night’s European games. Rangers a team who are on a dreadful run , recently at home to Queens Park being put out the Scottish cup managed to win extremely convincingly in Istanbul against a team managed by special one. Barry Ferguson a rookie manager, with no European experience managed to outfox Mourinho. The margin of win should of been higher than the 3-1 victory. Scottish football is often frowned upon but this was a tremendous performance.
A Rangers fan sadly lost his life in Istanbul whilst over for the game leaving behind a young son. A real tragedy when these things happen in football. 100k already raised to get him home and help his family. Donate here.
RIP Christopher
Neil, Glasgow
Changing offsides
I used to completely agree with Jason, Singapore.
Similar thing happened to Aguero v spurs a few years back. When the ball is played he is marginally offside. But he actually runs back towards his own goal to get the ball and by that stage he ‘would’ be in an onside position (by a few feet!!). Goal disallowed, spurs knock city out.
By the letter of the law this was all perfect. He was in an offside position when the ball was played. That’s black and white and I’m not arguing about that.
I just didn’t think it matched the spirit of the law and judgement and flexibility should apply.
But then someone pointed out that the defenders were pushed up as far as they were to try to catch the player offside. This gave them the best chance to defend where the ball was without having to worry about the players in an offside position.
If the rules allowed for the flexibility you are suggesting then the defenders may not have pushed up so far.
So, the scenario that actually happened is only likely to happen with the rules as they are. To apply flexibility as I tried to for city, and you’re trying to for psg, is to ignore the fact that the entire set up was for the specific rules that are in place.
If we add in flexibility we add in new parameters that would impact how defences behave. Maybe they’d always sit deeper etc.
And it would also increase one of the most hated things in football… the lack of consistency in the subjective decisions of refs and their assistants.
Do we really want to put more trust in the subjectivity of the same people that virtually no fan trusts already?
The one subjective area of offside (interference with play) already causes controversy, please don’t add in more.
No, sorry Jason, I used to agree but I think we have to keep offside as clear it as we can.
Joe – lfc
No Jason from Singapore, no. Just stop it!!
He’s asking for the offside law to be changed to allow “some flexibility and situational context” because Kvaratskhelia gained no advantage from being offside in the build up to his offside goal.
Give me a break mate. He was closer to the ball. How is that not an advantage?
I’m not really here to argue that though, my main point being, my opinion differs to yours so how in hell do you expect the addition of flexibility and situational context to make decisions better/easier/more fair.
More importantly, the reason that VAR is such a clusterf*ck is precisely because of situational context on most decisions. “Did Konate shoulder barge him in the back or the shoulder?”, “Was Lewis-Skelly’s challenge reckless, high and out of control?”.
The one thing VAR is good for is offside. The ONE thing!! You’re either beyond the second last player or not. It’s black and white. Whether it’s millimetres or metres is irrelevant.
Please stop trying to insert more subjectivity and debate into football decision making and just accept the decisions, we’d all have a much better time without all the pointless wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Adam LFC York (They had 26 other shots from which they could have scored!)
The Konate foul
to Tom, Leaning in
A fair charge is shoulder to shoulder, elbows (on the contact side) against the body, with each player having at least one foot on the ground and both attempting to gain control of the ball.
I don’t think you can say that about Konate’s challenge, just because referees ignore and many other players get away with it, doesn’t mean it’s not a foul.
Talking of fouls, referees choose to ignore
“Impeding the progress of an opponent means moving into the opponent’s path to obstruct, block, slow down or force a change of direction when the ball is not within playing distance of either player.”
Never see this one applied and another Virgil is regularly guilty of
JD
Where are all the dazzlers?
An old MUFC once told me a story… When George Best came to town (to play football I assume!), there would be an extra 5-10,000 attend, just to watch him. And then a curious phenomenon took over. When the ball came to him, the whole crowd would go…silent. People would veritably hold their breath and metaphorically be on the edge of their seats (as it was terracing in those days) in expectation of what he would do.
I always thought this was somewhat of a apocryphal story from an old man reminiscing about bygone era, until one day I was lucky enough to see Lionel Messi live, at the Bernabeu no less, and I’ll be dammed if the exact same thing didn’t happen. If I look back, I have felt similarly in awe, to a lesser extent, when I would see Ronaldinho and Zidane on TV. Domestically alas, the light has not shone as bright or as often, although such names as Ronaldo, Henry, Rooney have briefly dazzled.
But here’s the rub… I cannot recall ONE player in EPL in the last 5 years, and maybe more, who has captivated me the same way. The days of slaloming runs, beating 2, 3 players seem long gone. Trained out of kids ages ago, replaced by tactical awareness. The irony is, beating the first defender actually creates chaos as every other defender has to adjust.
Every once in awhile, a Salah or a Saka might have an unplayable day, but if you weren’t already a fan, would you actually go out of your way to go and watch them live? Someone prove me wrong!
Adidasmufc (Personally, I think there have been few players with a first touch and football brain like Berbatov!)