Sir Jim Ractliffe’s ‘hell of a brains trust’ at Manchester United from October has been demoted to a mere hopeless ‘crew’, with Trent Alexander-Arnold in the firing line.
The brain of my existenceDave Kidd has good news for Manchester United in The Sun: no European football next season should help them ‘avoid RELEGATION’, as the headline so gleefully shouts it.
‘Manchester United are so bad that the three clubs promoted from the Championship must regard them as potential rivals in the top-flight drop zone next term,’ he writes. They simply must.
‘For a second consecutive summer, Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his crew will be backing a failing manager in the transfer market,’ he continues.
It is remarkably sad to see that the ‘hell of a brains trust’ Kidd wrote about in October has been demoted to a mere ‘crew’. And has The Sun’s man forgotten that he absolved Ratcliffe of blame those many months ago as his ‘cabinet hadn’t been fully constructed’ when they decided to keep Erik ten Hag (and give him another £200m to spend in the summer)?
Barely 200 days have passed since Kidd wrote about how Manchester United had ‘started taking intelligent decisions’ and ‘being sensible again’ with the ‘altogether smarter piece of recruitment’ of appointing Amorim. It has not gone well.
Hey ArnoldNot to kink shame but it was a surprise to see this headline from the MailOnline:
‘Liverpool manager Arne Slot turns on Trent Alexander-Arnold in his final days as his boss as he accuses him of ‘not doing enough’ in training’
Whatever floats your boat. But while we’re here, what was this bombshell Slot dropped on the departing Alexander-Arnold? Did he burn one of his shirts, or call him Jude Bellingham’s side piece?
Not quite. He just said, “I wasn’t completely happy with every single minute he was on training ground. In my opinion there were certain moments he could do more, to put it mildly. I told him he’s a much better defender than people think, but you don’t show it all the time.”
Which is a) hardly a particularly controversial thing for a new manager to say to a player, and most importantly b) not the full quote, despite that being all the MailOnline offers.
There is, handily enough, footage of a press conference in which Slot expands considerably further on his point:
“Maybe he said it himself, he’s going to leave either way so why not tell. Maybe it’s already a first gift I can give Xabi Alonso. But I wasn’t completely happy with every single minute how he was on the training ground. In my opinion in certain moments he could do a bit more, to say it mildly, and that’s what we talked about.
“Combined with that I said to him: ‘You are a much better defender than everybody tells you, unfortunately you don’t show it all the time, that’s why people sometimes say you are not’.
“If he is just at it and focused and concentrated, there are not many players that can go around him, because he’s fast, he’s agile, he has great mentality.
“But it’s about showing that every single game, because in this world we are judged not only on the 34 games we do well, we are mainly judged on the four games we don’t do so well.
“These things we spoke about in pre-season.”
Again, it sounds a hell of a lot like an incoming coach having some pretty standard, constructive observations about one of his new players. And the best bit is that Slot’s answer was prefaced with this line, which changes everything completely:
“I think Mo has said already a few things about why he was in my office in pre-season and there were similar reasons why Trent was in my office in the beginning of the season!”
So this was in pre-season and Slot had similar conversations with Salah, who recently explained: “He showed me a few videos of myself in the warm-up. I was like quite slow, didn’t do much. Then he showed me, ‘look at the second [player] after he sees you take it easy, look at the third one’. Then you see the whole line walking like me and he said, ‘that’s your influence on the team’.”
Did Slot ‘turn on’ Salah and ‘fire criticism’ at him at the time? Or does it only count when the player in question is in the middle of a controversial departure?
Definitely worth massively misrepresenting someone’s words in the hope it will inevitably rile up a certain type of Liverpool fan.
MORE TRENT ALEXANDER-ARNOLD EXIT REACTION FROM F365
👉 Trent ‘sheepish, moody and visibly pained’ as Liverpool lose
👉 Salah hits out at Liverpool fans over Alexander-Arnold abuse; claims he ‘could be depressed after 20 years’
Trent out of shapeOf course, the most depressing bandwagon imaginable must follow that lead…
”I wasn’t completely happy’ – Arne Slot takes parting shot at Trent Alexander-Arnold’ – talkSPORT.
‘Arne Slot makes shock Trent Alexander-Arnold revelation ahead of final Liverpool game’ – Metro.
And the most nakedly desperate grabs of Liverpool supporters’ attention…
‘”Wasn’t completely happy” – Liverpool fans will love Arne Slot’s scathing Trent Alexander-Arnold remarks ahead of Real Madrid move’ – CaughtOffside.
‘Slot questions Alexander-Arnold’s attitude in Liverpool training amid Anfield exit’ – Empire Of The Kop.
What a weird and embarrassing pile-on to try and manufacture.
I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news‘Manchester United spared humiliation after UEFA rule change spells bad news for Tottenham’ is glorious nonsense from the Daily Express website.
Mediawatch is entirely aware of the actual law that somehow, some way, the joke must always be on Tottenham. But it does feel like an exception should be made at least for a couple of days in these circumstances.
Still, we’re here now. So what UEFA rule change, precisely, ‘spells bad news’ for them?
Well the Europa League winners once entered the Champions League group stage in pot 1. That will not be the case next season, with seedings based on UEFA coefficient meaning Spurs currently straddle pots 2 and 3.
And that ‘spells bad news for Tottenham, as it means they’ll be in for much tougher tests in the Champions League, compared to if they’d have qualified as the Europa League winners just a couple of seasons earlier’.
Of course, the revamped league phase famously does mean one other thing: every team faces two opponents from each of the four pots regardless. So it doesn’t sodding matter where Spurs find themselves.
‘It’s a change to the seeding system that will have Manchester United fans breathing a sigh of relief,’ apparently. Yes. That was a close call. Manchester United almost qualified for the Champions League. Got away with one there. What a disaster that would have been.
READ NEXT: Ranking every Manchester United player’s season: Horrible Hojlund to Fernandes via Garnacho