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What if Man Utd got relegated from the Premier League?

Probably the worst day in the football calendar to write in a mail, it’s midweek and international football has taken over.

What is even worse is that I support Newcastle United, A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. I can get started on all the crap that is going on there from a commercial and sporting stand point (I am looking at you Man U sob), but I won’t because Mike Cashley and Co are not worth my time.

Now to my point, and hear me out because this is one far fetched idea. Obviously, we all know what Man U are going through with the issues they have, getting sucked down the Premier League vortex into the mid-table abyss. It got me thinking of two things. First, what IF and that is one hell of an IF, what if Man United get relegated to the Champo, what is going to happen to the Premier League? Man United have one of the largest fan bases in the globe, so if they do go down (which won’t happen) how much will that affect the Premier League in the sense of number of people watching, amount of backroom staff who will lose their jobs, broadcasters pulling out because of the low numbers, and many more issues that really are greater than the sum of their parts.

Second, here comes the crazy idea only a Geordie can think of. What if we played the Premier League on an aggregate basis? For example, Last year, Chelsea won City 2-0, in the return leg City won 6-0 = 3 points to city. Now what does that bring to the table, for starters, No manager will get the sack (or be spoken of being sacked by the media) that quick, you can actually build a team with January additions, you can easily manage your players knowing you can do something to affect the score in the return leg, a critical champions league game followed by a premier league game vs a rival can be managed well. I am sure there are more points to add (write them in) but I am getting bored and my boss is eyeing me.

I have done some analysis, and the maximum points available would be 57. Last year with 55 points would be, you guessed it wrong, Liverpool, followed by City on 53. My team Newcastle would have been on 25 points. It would be interesting to see where Man United end up, it could be good for them and good for the Premier League. Because let’s be honest, who would watch La Liga if Real Madrid were not there? Any chance your friends at Opta can do a whole table based on an aggregate score?

ZeeJayEff (Ashely OUT) Bahrain

From Twitter on Man Utd

What if United’s plan for the rebuild is youth in the summer (when long term prospects are more likely to move and are easier to integrate) and experience in the winter (when the most valuable/sought-after players just don’t move) it makes *some* sense, maybe? (Probably not) https://t.co/2HSbLGs63s — Eoin Keenan (@eoinkeenan) October 14, 2019

Numanu talk

Doff of the cap to Dave, for one of the classic mailbox entries.

Mailbox entries: used to be easy to just write in some generic garbage about formations or your own 16 conclusions and get published but now it’s all nuanced satire and complex footy metaphors, numanu.

Ved, Japan (numanu specialist)

…I quite liked Dave, LFC’s commentary on life and futurism. However one thing remains….what the f*** is numanu?

There is no explanation online other than links to some band or other. Please explain Dave, I kinda got it but I couldn’t find a definitive explanation of numanu online that I could fully trust. Do tell.

Fat Man

When even Liverpool fans hate the propaganda…

Just wanted to take a moment, as a staunch Liverpool fan to reflect on just how awful the Liverpool Echo is nowadays. Oh let me count the ways:

1. Their headlines are all written in the form of ‘guess the word’ clickbait: ‘The one reason Liverpool will win’ or ‘The only Liverpool player Pep fears’. They could easily add ‘the thing’ they intentionally omit to attract your attention to their headline but that would pretty much negate the whole exercise. Clicking and reading and finding a fairly obvious thing among a lot of self congratulatory nonsense makes it all feel like a stitch up.

2. Their articles all follow the same ‘aren’t we wonderful’ narrative arc with the main point buried near the end. Even as a fan ecstatic about how well we are doing, you can only read the same self congratulatory tripe so many times before it starts to get on your nerves.

3. The arrogance and premature crowing about achievements that haven’t happened yet are a staple of their narrative style.

For a good example of all of this I present Exhibit A: ‘Alex Ferguson’s worry about Jurgen Klopp coming true’. After a few paragraphs about how great things are that no Liverpool fan needs to be told about for the umpteenth time we get to some interesting insights from Ferguson about Klopp’s attributes -which could have make an interesting article if the author had instead reflected on what we have seen from Klopp compared to Fergie’s observations. Instead we get a lazy last line (the whole point of the piece) and discover that Alex Ferguson is worried that Klopp may push Liverpool “on top of” United once again. Since Klopp would need to win the title each year for the next three years (his final three of his contract) for us to be truly ahead of the Mancs again, ‘it is coming true’ is laughably premature – and yes Peter Moore, I am looking at you as well – we are challenging but we still have not one a single title in 30 years let alone 3 on the trot. If I was looking for reasons to hate Liverpool as a fan of another team, the Liverpool Echo would be a good place to start.

In the spirit of finding common ground before Sunday’s big clash, do any Mancunians share similar feelings about the Manchester Evening News?

Miguel – LFC (proudly slagging off the rag that doesn’t share the team’s values)

Gerrard going nowhere…

In response to Jon in Capetown (lucky fella as that’s my favourite city in the world)

I take your point sure, but Gerrard is cut from a different cloth than Rodgers. Brendan already had his flash new suit in place to wander around in the Leicester stadium.

It had been open knowledge in Glasgow he was keen to head back south. His transfer policy in the Jan window a month earlier reeked of a short term strategy, loan signings only being made. Yes Celtic fans never thought he would go on the verge of a treble treble but in my opinion Brendan has always been about Brendan. Anyone who has a 6ft self portrait tends to be that way! And whilst Gerrard may well be tempted by a club at the higher end of the premiership it’s unlikely he’d get such an offer at the moment.

Plus he is committed to the project at Rangers. Has a genuine chance of winning the league this season, who knows maybe his own treble and is gaining experience in Europe. Looking to tie Defoe and others down longer term. Plus he enjoys Glasgow. Doesn’t strike me as in any hurry to leave.

The point was its unlikely a gig in the Championship would appeal. He was linked with Derby when Lampard left but wasn’t interested. Yesterday’s match at Ibrox proved his commitment too.

Sure if Klopp leaves the romantics may wish him at Anfield if he’s done well as I expect at Rangers but that’s some way off.

Neil, Glasgow

Context please

Well done on collating data on how many international caps have been accumulated by the current Premier League clubs. But how many international caps did the last 10 league winners have? What affect did international caps have on finishing in the top 4? Or reaching the semi finals of a cup competition?

Without context, this article is mildly interesting – with context added its an interesting factor for all who focus on what team might win this year.

Ta, John of Norwich

The mystery of The Sun’s popularity

Ryan, Liverpool made an interesting point about The Sun newspaper, looking at the newspaper selling figures (As of April 2019) in the UK The Sun sold 1.4m copies, whilst second place Daily Mail sells around 1.1m, both are poor newspapers however I have always known that The Sun is the most popular paper in the UK because it is an easy read, it is usually full of nonsense but easy to read nonsense, I could be wrong, if you are a Sun newspaper reader why do you buy it?

Mikey, CFC (What do I read? I suppose The Guardian, but rarely)

WSL Winners and Losers

Winners

Manchester City

Four wins from four in the league, seven scored, zero conceded. Walsh’s opener was somewhat fortunately deflected in, but it was deserved after a first half where City dominated, and they continued in the second half to put Birmingham away. Toni Duggan’s Atletico Madrid will give City a much sterner test in the Champions League on Thursday but in the league, it’s difficult to see who can stop them. A win at Arsenal next Sunday and it’ll be tough to see them dropping the title.

Chelsea

This match was never going to be a repeat of the last league encounter with Arsenal at Kingsmeadow, which resulted in a 5-0 away win, and after dropping points to Brighton, the Blues had a point to prove. They did so in style, coming back after conceding an early goal to win 2-1 with a late winner. They had the run of the game against an Arsenal side who seemed lethargic after a busy international weekend and playing with one eye on the Champions League first leg on Thursday. Not to take anything away from Chelsea – time and again they cut through Arsenal’s defence (which had only conceded once all season before Sunday) and for some poor finishing could’ve got revenge for the 5-0 last year.

Reading

Or ‘Fara Williams WFC’ as they should be known after Sunday’s game against Everton. Three times Reading went ahead through goals assisted by Williams, and only twice they were pegged back, to get an entertaining win against an Everton team who had surprised many this season. While they conceded from both shots on target, they’ll be happy with yesterday’s result, and Williams became the only woman to record a hat-trick of assists in more than one WSL game.

West Ham

A great result at Brighton, and an excellent display by Alisha Lehmann. The Swiss forward ran half the length of the pitch to set up the opener and capped the win with a strike from the edge of the box. Quite the improvement from the teenager who arrived at the club 15 months ago not speaking a lick of English! The match was marked by the on-pitch debut of the club’s pink third shirt, to raise money and awareness for breast cancer. All profits from sales of the shirt go to Breast Cancer Now, and additionally the shirt’s label details ways to check for signs and symptoms of the disease. It really is good to see a club in the women’s game using their position in this way.

Manchester United

Now that the season opening baptism of fire is out of the way, last season’s Championship winners are quietly picking up their form. They came out on top in the battle of the promoted sides at Tottenham, an end-to-end game that saw the northern side triumph with better finishing, despite finishing the match with ten players after whiz-kid Lauren James saw red for two yellows. They don’t seem to be missing Alex Greenwood that much!

Losers

Arsenal

The lack of a break this summer for most of the side, plus the increased schedule with Champions League commitments, seems to be weighing heavily on this side. Arsenal faded significantly in the second half, looking lethargic against a Chelsea side with plenty of open space for the taking. While we’re not even a quarter of the way through the season yet, Man City’s dominance is daunting enough that no side can afford to drop points if they want to put up a reasonable challenge.

Birmingham City

They’ve yet to score this season and sit stone bottom of the league with as many points to match their goal tally. The postponement against Reading two weeks ago is their best result this season. Ellen White’s goals were always going to be difficult to replace after the striker joined Man City in the summer, but Ann-Katrin Berger’s goalkeeping has also been sorely missed – Birmingham’s troubles may end up keeping Liverpool afloat.

Everton

On another day they’d be celebrating a win at Reading and being level on points with last season’s champions – on this day, after failing to get out of first gear against a Reading side there for the taking, they’re now part of the congested mid-table pack sitting on six points. By the end of the season they’ll probably be up the upper end of that group of five, but today they’ll be rueing not taking advantage.

Brighton

A failure to build on the result last time out against Chelsea, as they were never at the races against West Ham. Another season trying gamely to keep their heads above water. Thankfully for them, there are other teams doing worse, but if that situation changes then Lewes will be relishing a south coast derby in the WSL Championship next season.

Liverpool

Well done on coming back from behind to get your first point of the season, but a draw at home to relegation candidates which required a penalty to get is definitely two points lost. This was a stodgy attempt by the 2014 champions, who will be relieved by Birmingham’s abjectly miserable form keeping them off the bottom and out of the relegation zone.

Bristol City

This was a chance to get some breathing room at the bottom and get a win in a cliched relegation six pointer, but the Robins couldn’t hang on. Another long season ahead for the only English side to qualify for the Champions League by winning the FA Cup.

Phil Neville

Five straight defeats (the same run that saw Hope Powell hounded out of the same job in 2013). A fortunate win over Portugal due to the easiest goal Beth Mead will ever score in her life and a last minute scramble from Ellie Roebuck. Falling out with several members of the press after accusing them of trying to get him sacked, playing the best right back in the women’s game in midfield, and openly sharing messages of support about a player he’s deliberately benching to the player. Quite possibly, the only thing still keeping him in his job is that he’s not quite as bad as the last one.

James Vortkamp-Tong, Brighton