Leaderboard

Sorry mate, my mistake that was supposed to be Tommy... Christmas card for this year... Tommy Beelzebub

The only reason to bet on your own games is that you want to feel in some sort of control over the outcome of the bet. Maybe his gambling addiction drove him that far but I don't buy it not affecting his performance. Hopefully during his time out of football, he can develop a healthier relationship with gambling or just stop altogether.

Lol, I think that would be a hilarious disaster... but one of the biggest criticisms of Ten Hairs is United don't have a defined playing style and look like a collection of random players put together. One thing that's a certainty of Fat Sam coming into any side is he will give them a defined playing style. It'll be an ugly, defense first, style of football... but at least it's a cohesive style of playing. I don't know what the answer is for United though, it's a very bizarre problem they've managed to create for themselves tbh. There's a number of issues that need to be addressed, I just don't know how they go about prioritising the issues addressed. The Glazers get a lot of criticism for their ownership of United. And there's some things their tenure as owners of the club that just mark them as awful owners. They take more money out of the club than they've put in (and how much did they really put in if they did a leveraged buyout? It's got to be minimal). They've neglected the infrastructure of the club: Old Trafford is in disrepair, the training facilities and academy are falling behind compared to their competitors. This is going to impact United negatively in the long run in terms of revenue and in terms of the academy being a pipeline for young talent. As money rules football more and more, having an academy that produces first team players is all the more important for clubs not backed by the wealth of an oil exporting nation. At the same time, for all their criticism... I don't think it can be said that United do not financially back their managers and do not put a priority on improvement of the first team squad. The issue has been entirely with how that significant funding has been spent. This is partially on Woodward, isn't it? But it's also partially on the managers who asked for big funds and then didn't really accomplish anything with those funds. Chopping and changing managers constantly has also been a massive problem, imo. Rashford is a great example of this. I think he's a player with a fantastic amount of raw ability. He also looks like a player who's development has stagnated to an extent because he's got a new manager every couple of seasons. But then they've got the issue of Ten Hag. The man was brought in to replicate the good work he'd done at Ajax. The man who's now saying, he can never get United to play like Ajax. Despite bringing in a number of ex-Ajax players, having 18 months to impart his system onto his new squad, and with something like £400m spent on new players to try to implement that system. And somehow 18 months on, United seem to have less of an identity on the pitch than they did in the first days of his time on the pitch. It's a pretty miserable situation to try to fix at United, tbh. It's a situation brought on by people at the top not thinking about the long-term of the club. Neglecting infrastructure to chase short term success is only really going to pay off if that short term success is achieved. Otherwise, it's just wasteful spending. But sacking another manager after a short period at the club where they can't immediately turn things around... it does nothing to address the instability unless there's a really good long-term plan for who is going to be brought in and how money is going to be spent to make the on-pitch performances better. I think it's understandable if United want to sack Ten Hag sooner rather than later. I'm not seeing much evidence that he's going to be able to turn things around, I'm seeing more evidence that he's losing faith in himself doing the job he was brought in to do when he's saying things like "United will never play like Ajax." I'm not seeing a manager making signings that... seem to make sense for the short term and long term goals at United. Signings like Antony coming in for big money and looking pretty fucking average don't indicate a great eye for talent. Signing Mount on big wages when it's not clear how exactly he fits in at United don't indicate a great eye for planning. The brand of football he's got going at United don't paint the picture of a man who's got a vision for a club to build into. It seems like a manager going through the motions with an expensively assembled squad. At the same time, United saw decades of success when they were patient and gave Alex Ferguson time even when United didn't look like they were up to much. I do think stability is an important factor at success at a club that isn't backed by the endless resources that clubs like Chelsea under Abramovich, City with the UAE, PSG with Qatar, etc. don't really need to consider because they don't truly operate like normal football clubs. But I'm not sure looking at what worked decades ago, when English football was very different, and expecting that kind of stability to work with the current manager is all that realistic. I also think player culture has changed quite a bit - especially at the top clubs. I thought Ten Hag would be your Klopp. Pretty much each week that's passed since March though and... I'm increasingly more sure that he's actually up to nothing at United other than spending a lot of money and hoping for the best each week. With Klopp it wasn't instant success, but we could very clearly see that he was pushing his ideas out from his brain onto the pitch through the squad - he was changing our system to fit how he wanted us to play, he was cutting out players like Sakho and Balotelli from the squad to make sure the mentality of the squad matched the mentality he wanted. And tbf to Ten Hag - he's tried something similar like that with both Ronaldo and Sancho in terms of trying to change the squad's mentality. But he's not really done much to demonstrate he's actively implementing a set style at United that'll lead to success. Personally, if I were a United fan.. I'd want Ten Hag gone. I just don't have faith that he can build what he had going for him in the Netherlands here in England. At least not right now with United. Imo a lot of heads need to roll at United for them to start building upwards back to where they want to be. That includes people above the manager who need to stop neglecting the club's infrastructure. The stadium's quality is important. If it wasn't, clubs wouldn't spend so much money building new stadiums or upgrading their stadiums. The club's training facilities and academy facilities are also important - both from a recruitment perspective as well as developing the players already at the club. And having loads of money to spend each window is great... as long as there's a fucking plan for spending that money. Sack the entire recruitment team, as well, since they've been pretty fucking abysmal in all honesty. If I were a United executive, I'd be drawing up a shortlist of managers that fit the sort of profile as Ange before he joined Spurs tbh. Managers that aren't the highest profile names and haven't necessarily "proven" themselves at big clubs, but managers who have a track record of implementing a good style that fits in with United's tradition of attacking football. I'd also be looking at clubs around Europe that have an impressive history of recruitment and seeing if I could poach any Directors of Football or Scouts. And then I'd probably be trying to bring in De Zerbi and Brighton's recruitment team, because in this hypothetical I work for Man Utd, so you can't expect me to look too hard into spending huge fat stacks of cash all at once. And even if that's not proper due diligence in bringing in new people to make good decisions... I think it'd be a hell of a lot more productive than doing whatever the fuck United have been doing. Having said that, I fully welcome United breaking the glass in case of emergency and bringing in Fat Sam. Laughter is good for the soul, after all.

It's seldom enough a draw is the prediction of the matchday. 3 points for Tommy's perfect Lautern 3-3 Hamburg shout. Matchday 11 1) CaaC(John) 8 points 2) Bluewolf 7 points 2) Tommy 7 points 2) Viva la FCB 7 points 5) Coma 6 points 5) nawoo 6 points 7) Rucksackfranzose 5 points 8- Michael 4 points 9- Stan 4 points A few changes at mid table. Table after 11 matchdays 1) @Viva la FCB 74 points 2) Rucksackfranzose 68 points 3) @Bluewolf 64 points 3) @Michael 64 points 5) @Coma 63 points 6) @CaaC (John) 62 points 6) @Stan 62 points 6) @Tommy 62 points 9) @nawoo 52 points 10) @londonerlilie 27 points

Only 3 points separate shared top spot and shared 8th place. Matchday 9 1) Bluewolf 8 points 1) Michael 8 points 1) Stan 8 points 1) Viva la FCB 8 points 5) Coma 7 points 6) 6666 6 points 6) CaaC(John) 6 points 8- nawoo 5 points 8- Tommy 5 points 10) Rucksackfranzose 3 points Tommy lost abit of his lead. Table after 9 matchdays 1) @Tommy 78 points 2) @Coma 69 points 3) @Stan 68 points 4) @Michael 67 points 4) @Viva la FCB 67 points 6) @Bluewolf 59 points 7) @6666 57 points 8- Rucksackfranzose 55 points 9) @nawoo 53 points 10) @CaaC (John) 51 points

what the fuck have I done

The opening score in tennis is 15 ffs

Don't mean to bring the mood down but found my brother's cat dead outside today. Laying in a small pool of blood. We couldn't see what could've caused it. Didn't seem like a cut or a bite or anything. Thinking he might've bled from his mouth. At first thought he was just lying down outside, sleeping. Stroked his back, didn't move a muscle. Feel sad. Think I'll feel even sadder later. RIP Apollo