Tar-Mairon

The implication that Kane would have no ambition if he stayed at Spurs but Pickford also having no ambition by not joining us is hilarious.

Let's say, hypothetically (and I do not believe this), that the girlfriend received her injuries in another way and let's say that the audio was some kind of rape-kink roleplay. It might be distasteful but it would make you think that Greenwood, his girlfriend and United would come forth and explain it, saying that while it was just a fantasy that Greenwood totally understands how abhorrent the actual crime of rape is and that he could stay while committing himself to working with charities for anyone disturbed by the video. Or are United and Greenwood going by the "well, he threatened to rape her but he didn't actually end up doing it" so all is OK? Greenwood talked about the "mistakes" he made in his relationship connected to this suggesting something obviously went on but United have grasped for every technicality they can to make themselves not look bad. Horrible from United. That United were investigating this in the first place is laughable. They're a football club, not DV/SA experts.

I just want this whole farce away from the club now. He wasn't going to sign a new contract and if he just stayed for another season, it being the first question, every game dominated by "where will he go next?", him with one foot in and one foot out... No, it's best for us that he go, great player though he is. The circus can go to Germany.

Regarding this case, it seems that everyone agreed that these women consented to attend parties at Mendy's house (technically illegal as the country was in lockdown at the time) and that there was some consensual contact between him and the women. Stories very after this with Mendy being accused of sexual assault and rape and Mendy claiming that things continued to be consensual. Rape is extremely difficult to prove unless there is corroborating visual evidence such as physical injuries, unfortunately. I would presume the jury either thought that: A) The evidence threshold for rape had not been met - not enough evidence was provided. B) They found the evidence too ambiguous to decide either way which means they must find Not Guilty. C) They believed that Mendy was telling the truth. We don't know which of these it is but the women must be entitled to the presumption that they reported him in good faith which "he was found innocent" does not suggest, although I am not arguing your intentions.

Everybody is entitled to a fair trial, innocent until proven guilty etc although personally, there are some people I would not hesitate to call rapists who haven't been found guilty yet. I appreciate the law cannot do that though. We also must not assume that the women in the Mendy trial have lied either because we do not have evidence of that. There is now, unfortunately, some wide-ranging belief that women and groups of women are conducting sexual abuse hoaxes on famous men to ruin them which is just not true at all and so rare as to be practically non existent.

Right. There is a lot of nonsense in society that there are huge groups of women everywhere who are on a scam, making up stories together to destroy innocent celebrity men's reputation which hardly ever happens to a normal man. A false accusation of rape is extremely rare and pales into comparison to the amount of people who get off being rapists. Also, a woman behaving in a way someone may not necessarily expect a victim to behave does not mean she is not a victim. Trauma can be complex. However, yes, Mendy has been found Not Guilty and it is now up to City to decide whether he has breached his contract or disgraced the club in an ethical sense which is a much lower bar.

Lampard must be feeling sick. What everyone thought was a win-win move for him where he couldn't possibly lose has turned into something where he has lost. Even to the point of an upper level Championship probably not wanting to touch him and Lampard himself has had to say he may have to think outside of the box for the next draw. I believe he's one away from matches the unenviable record Farke has of consecutive losses, albeit Lampard's are at two clubs. I do not think Chelsea will go down, they've got enough points but that they aren't mathematically safe yet is highly embarrassing and they'd want to put that to bed very quickly.

I do not think he can come back although obviously, if she refuses to give evidence and goes along with this bullshit of it being consensual roleplay and the injuries caused by other things, what can they actually do? They'd have to get external proof as the burden of proof lies with the prosecution to prove him guilty, not the defence to prove his innocence. Come back for United, no. I don't think United can be this tone-deaf. The PR disaster would be monumental. From what is going around, Greenwood was able to get in contact with his alleged victim during his bail and is now back with her. The girl's father made her delete all the evidence and say she was hacked as he senses a pay-day off of her being with Greenwood. Should any of that be true, United need to do the right thing here. Personally, I think it is true, the guy is an utter scumbag and should never play professional football again. Unfortunately, he will likely still do the latter but hopefully not at any kind of high level.

I am not sold on Tuchel but Conte is absolutely not working and I'm getting quite fed up of him trying to dodge blame for it. Yes, the board have made mistakes, that much is obvious. He is demanding full backing from the club long-term while not giving the same respect back - it's like you're getting married and you're being pressured to pay for the venue and the entire day and everything but your partner says they might still leave you. Getting the players he demands and the next manager being lumbered with "Conte players" wouldn't be good. We spent more on Bissouma and Richarlison than Arsenal did on Jesus and Zinchenko and although Bissouma and Richarlison are good players, there isn't a single person who can say they are better signings at this moment in time. Arsenal, thanks to their business, are now doing what people thought would be impossible and breaking up the City/Liverpool monopoly. Bissouma, one of the best players in the league last season, looks like he's never seen a football pitch before. Conte has made him worse and he supposedly pushed for them. We are so easy to work out and play against yet he will not change it. As soon as you stop us feeding the wingbacks, we are stopped. It should be a sign to change it but he doesn't unless we go 2-0 down and we have to so it's not a case of we can't play proactively or attacking, it's that we don't. All at the altar of his "hump aimless crosses into the box" and sit passively, hoping the opponent won't rip us apart too badly. He has been out-thought, out-foxed and out-manouvered by every manager in the league this season. This is on him entirely and I'm getting quite sick of his attitude that he's far too good for this and none of it is his fault. We are doing it his way and his way doesn't work. However, I think he and Mourinho maybe a side effect of trying to keep Kane. Levy wanted to pacify Kane by giving him "winners now" managers without regard for if those managers are still at their best or whether they fit the club. The closest we've come to major trophies was with a "project" manager (Poch) so we need to go back to that. We ballsed up the chance to do it before the disasterous Nuno appointment. Should that mean Kane wants to go this summer, or next, then maybe it's time. An amazing player but getting into his thirties and if he really wants out, maybe we should do it.

The next England manager needs to be English (in fact, nations should be barred from having foreign coaches) so what rules Tuchel out is the fact that he is German. Should Tuchel want to get into national management, he needs to keep an eye on the Germany job. Having Southgate stay on is fine with me when you look at what he's done. The anti Southgate hysteria is utterly pathetic.

Almighty, every player has hit a misplaced pass from time to time, even Kane does it. It's hardly the end of the world. Our attackers are the least of our worries.

Moura is a decent squad player, you can stick him on to run down the clock and keep what you have. Glad we got the win yesterday in emotional circumstances. Glad he's been forced to drop Royal and hopefully Doherty gets up to match fitness speed soon and he gives Spence a chance.

Yeah, Koeman obviously thinks he is entitled to be managing your Barca's or your City's and saw Everton as just a place to be employed while he waited. He clearly looked down on the club. Lampard (unless Southgate goes after the World Cup and he gets the England call) looks to be in it for the long haul and he's genuinely throwing 100% effort into getting to know the club and improving them. I think it'll probably be a mid table finish this season but I don't think Lampard can do much more than that (and maybe a cup run) with what he has. As long as a manager respects the club and gives 100%, even if it doesn't work out, the fans won't turn on him personally.

I think we have to look at Southgate's reign thus far with some balance. Had someone told England fans in the dark days of 2016 (I was in Warsaw when we lost to Iceland, watching it with a man mountain of an Icelandic guy!) that the next two tournaments, we would end up in the semi final and the final, a penalty shoot-out away from winning the tournament, we'd be thinking "what brilliant manager did that". Let's not forget that he did do it. He deserves enormous credit for the spirit and atmosphere he created in the squad, treating the players like adults (not Sven Play Time or Capello Boot Camp )and snuffing out the toxic and divisive club rivalries that turned the England camp into cliques who just couldn't wait to get back to the PL. The accusation that "it was easy and he had luck" is just revisionist history designed to attack him because people don't like what he's doing now. We got there because he managed it well. However, it does appear now that he has peaked and hit the wall. I'd love to be proven wrong at the World Cup but his stubbornness in refusing to let players express themselves, his tactical negativity, playing players out of position and breaking his own word by playing players who are out of form and not getting in their club team is really costing us. It may be time to soon say thank you to him for everything he did but that it is now time to let someone else have a crack at it.

The Benitez link comes from Richard Keys who has a psychotic personal hatred of the man and a total vendetta against him that has him utterly obsessed with his every move. He spends more time thinking about Benitez than the rest of us put together think about our jobs. He's obsessed and won't let go with trying to end his career. Benitez was poor for Everton and I don't think he's the right fit for Leicester but I really wouldn't listen to the likes of Keys on the subject. Leicester seem far too indecisive at the moment which may be indicative of the new owner being thrust into the role before he was ready, as mentioned. Rodgers does indeed have the air of a man who thinks "oh, it's not my problem, I'm going to walk straight into a massive job if you sack me" arrogance. The lack of basic defensive coaching is totally on Rodgers and he should be called out for it. I'm not entirely sure Leicester will be able to persuade Frank, it might be Dyche or twisting by going abroad for a manager. This would be better than Rodgers.

To be fair, Alli had a succession of serious hamstring injuries and has never been the same player since. They've destroyed him. There's a kind of myth around him that he's a player who sees football as an annoyance and is a professional Instagram poster which I never thought was fair. It's more sad than anything, what's happened. He even lost that nastiness he had when he was quality.

I think a big problem is that Van Dijk has started to really believe his own hype and this has started to cause problems. He acts like he's far, far too cool to have to block a shot or tackle someone and that defending rather than just majestically playing out is so far beneath him as to not be worth it at all. He acts like his mere presence alone and the sight of him merely ambling towards the ball is enough to utterly terrify a player from challenging him or shooting or passing him out of the game. He plays like he's far, far too good for anyone and he can play the game at a stroll and that he's too majestic for the rest of the mere mortals on the pitch. Milner didn't play well either but is never wanting for effort and Van Dijk's reaction felt disrespectful, almost like "don't talk to me, you aren't good enough to talk to me". One of Klopp's tasks must be to get Van Dijk back engaged if they want to fulfill the ambitions they so nearly fulfilled last season. It looked like this rot started towards the end of last season. Players aren't afraid of him anymore.

I think he'd play more for us than he would play for Chelsea so for him, it would be a better move (if he wants to leave Everton) but this would be very much a buying potential signing. Preferably, Gil would go on loan to a Premier League club as the issue is his physicality and not his ability but as much as I want him to only go on loan, come back and work, he was just symptomatic of our scattergun recruitment until this January past.

I'm not going to dignify the lack of Spurs with a response. Neville suggested that United may finish in the bottom half this season. It might sound like hyperbole but I wouldn't actually bet against it.

The team was weird against Chelsea in the first half. He said, even after signing Kulusevski and Bentancour that Chelsea were miles ahead of us and we couldn't compete yet despite being backed, he played the same team he basically threw under the bus last season. However, great manager that he is, we've been on a brilliant run and he fixed the problem. We never had control of the match and need to work on that but we landed some punches on them and got back in it. We've lost twice in the last 16 league games which is good form by anyone's standards. He wanted backing. He's got it. Now, he needs to trust the players he's signed.

Fair enough. Signing Arnautovic and Rabiot's mother won't help Ten Haag very much. Ten Haag deserves probably more of a chance than he's going to get but it'll probably end very badly.

How much of that do you think is the managers being at fault too, from your perspective? The reliable sources seemed to suggest that Solskjaer wasn't interested in taking advice on replacing McFred and wanted to sign Van De Beek, who he never used.

I agree that we were a better team when Conte took over - United do not have anything like Son, Kane, Romero etc. However, Conte would have had high demands, not been prepared to let the club have a transfer window like they are having and would not have allowed an utter donkey like McTominay anywhere near your first team. Mind you, I'm glad Conte didn't go there for obvious reasons and think Ten Haag warrants a chance to completely flush the club out.

Rabiot turned his nose up at us when we expressed interest (when we weren't in the CL) so not sure this will work. Scattergun, calamitous and desperate. Nobody has a clue what they are doing. Not Ten Haag's fault, he needs time and backing but above him...ludicrous. It's like other teams and their players can have a real good laugh and just play United along when they go in for something. Does Neville want to stand by his remarks that Conte was wrong for United because he doesn't get the precious, precious DNA? Does he want to look at Spurs and United now in terms of the transfer window, our best players and how they now feel and this season's potential? United do not need cretinous, odious creeps like the Glazer's, what they do need is someone totally hardheaded and practical who will put the club's best interests on the pitch first and who won't listen to a word these nostalgic-for-Ferguson ex pros say. I'm not sure how much evidence United need that McTominay and Fred are mid-table players at best and possess nowhere near the quality required. That they finished second a couple of years back when the only team in the league were City? Liverpool had an utterly freak list of injuries that proved their blip was a one-season disaster only, Chelsea, Spurs and Arsenal were in major states of flux and now those three teams have got their acts together to differing levels. Who is it that actually thinks McTominay and Fred will somehow take United where they want to go?

It's being reported Chelsea are having a tantrum and refusing to deal with Barcelona with their outgoing because of this. Bit rich after Willian a few years ago!