What has Ten Hag actually improved at Man Utd? ‘Shocking’ Liverpool are about to catch them…

Even after this dreadful Liverpool season they are within touching distance of a Man Utd side Erik ten Hag has supposedly transformed. Seems rather weird…

Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com.

What has Ten Hag done?
I find it strange that so many united fans give Erik rope and say there has been an improvement.

As a liverpool fan this has been our worst season in a decade or so. A season in which it feels like we will be beaten every week. A season in which strikers are on strike and defenders are on holiday , only Allison has turned up this season really. A season in which we get beaten by most of the bottom half and have a shocking away record. Yet we are 1 point behind United who are supposedly improving?

I don’t think you are improving. You play the same long ball counter attacking football as ole, and get similar results. I’m not sure on this so correct me if I’m wrong but I think ole had a better record at the same stage also.

READ MORE: Ten Hag deserves shielding from blame for as long as Man Utd demand he makes do

What exactly had ten hag improved? You still leak goals all the time. Still make comical defensive errors which will get clipped to Benny hill music and you’re playing the same tactics and style. Rashford seems to be playing better but everyone else still seems to be as shit as ever.

Seriously what’s improved? Genuine question because I can’t see it. also considering how badly you’ve already squandered billions on transfers I wouldn’t think the incoming oil money will help much either. might stop your debt but it won’t stop over spending on players which are either not good enough or just not suited.
Lee

No-one likes us, we don’t care
Mancunian City fan exiled in Paris for the last 25 years (which means that I saw the cr*p live at Maine Rd, but have missed out on the sheer footballing excellence at the Etihad).

One thing that fans of other clubs need to understand is that we don’t ask to be loved by other clubs.

All that we ask is not to be detested.

They say that behind all great fortunes is a great crime, and I think that this principle can pretty much be maintained for footballing success.

Whether Real Madrid successes under the Franco regime, Liverpool under the Moores family (the Littlewoods pools was nothing other than a form of the gambling against which football takes such a dim view nowadays), United under the Edwards family (not just the dodgy player payments of the 60’s and 70’s, but also the dodgy meat that they furnished to underprivileged areas of Manchester), Bayern and their hoovering up of all of Germany’s main corporations as sponsors (not to mention Uli Hoeness’s finances), or Chelsea under Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, it seems to me to be pretty churlish of other club’s fans to now want to get on their high horse.

Should we ever win the CL – which is by no means a certainty – we won’t even care that BT Sport employs pundits that cheer against us (Rio, you made yourself look like a proper kn*b there mate).

Personally, I’ll just celebrate as every fan of all of the above clubs has when they’ve won it, disregarding any clamour to discuss the origin of the finances, and enjoying a day that I would never have even imagined when I climbed the steps of the Kippax to watch City scrape past Plymouth Argyle on the opening day of 87/88.

You can waste your time replying, but hopefully I’ve managed to list – above – all of the reasons that I won’t be listening.

Au revoir
Calv_from_the_Frog (I know this has a huge (or might I say, MASSIVE) amount of ‘whataboutism’, but it’s worth bearing in mind).

Keeping it Real
Some city fans asking why anyone would want to support Madrid Vs city. Especially since Madrid have also done some creative accounting before.

City have taken a very strong position after the first leg. Had that been Liverpool heading home with. 1-1 draw away id feel pretty confident. City? I’m not so sure.

I watched the city Madrid game last year when city were 2 goals up with 20minutes left. What I should have seen was a city side confidently passing the ball around as time ebbed away against a frantic Madrid trying desperately to get the ball and score. Curiously I saw the opposite. I saw a panic striken city side give the ball away at every opportunity while Madrid strolled around the pitch as if uefa had told them even if they lose by 100 goals they get a bye to the final anyway. It was so surreal.

If city have shaken that mentality then I think they’ll go through but the combination of city’s anxiety and madrids insane confidence in this competition will likely see city going home again asking how.

On the topic of ‘doping’, Madrid didn’t really do that. They borrow massive sums of money from various places and even sold their training ground to pay for figo I believe. They acquired massive debt to fund their excessive shenanigans. City don’t do that. City look at a sponsorship deal and move the decimal point, or have one of their parent companies pretend to sponsor them in the same way my wife buys my paintings in secret while pretending to be an actual buyer. They’re not the same thing. city, Chelsea and psg are the only teams who have these creative sponsorships with highly inflated values which actually come from ..themselves. even actual cheats juve just file paperwork that says ‘no losses’ where it should say ‘f**k! the building is on FIRE!’

What city , Chelsea (in the past) and psg do is invent money that isn’t and shouldn’t actually be there and say – look…it’s written down here in crayon …yes yes I know that company is owned by the same people that owns our club but I don’t see how that is a conflict of interest really… It’s like money laundering?… No no no we are good honest hard working people following the rules that’s why we waited for the time to run out on our charges instead of defending our position in court….well…because we would probably lose, this way we can pretend that we were always right and evil uefa were at fault for giving us rules we didn’t want to follow..
Lee

Medal bin
I think your article on undeserving title winners is a bit harsh. I think you need to differentiate between youngsters who are squad players (particularly early 00s man utd midfielders who couldn’t break into the side) and veterans who could move on for more regular football but don’t (David May).

It’s not always someone’s fault they don’t play. Chadwick deserved his medal cos he played a few games and did his best (scraps so fergie could rest his players) and Kezman (played enough games, was pants).

A bit mean spirited me thinks.

On a side note, I’m sure David Batty declined his league winners medal with Blackburn as he felt he didn’t contribute due to injury. How many other players would be that honest?
Tom

Emi award
You are just spreading garbage again. Martinez isn’t going anywhere. If it was left to you so called journalists Aston Villa will sign 30 players. More names every day.

What a bunch of numpties, can’t you see how foolish this makes you look? Journalists won’t be selling or signing anyone and you need to leave this fake news rubbish out. Be a problem sleeping tonight I will be awake laughing all night.
Colin

Drama queen
Its been a long old season, and I got to thinking that I can’t recall a season where every single team has been involved in some sort of drama. Honestly, look at this madness:

Man city – the Haaland ridiculousness, 100+ charges, potential treble

Arsenal – wildly unexpected title challenge, that could still come good, all with an Alan Hansen special of a squad

Newcastle – unexpected top 4 challenge, cup final, Almirons purple patch, murphy scoring two goals in a game

Man U – 4 nil to Brentford, 2 cup finals, collapse to Sevilla… Ronaldos interview!

Liverpool – weirdly shit, but also excellent enough for 9 nils and 7 nils, while also losing to bournemouth but suddenly on for a top 4 finish

Brighton – lost everyone, manager, backroom staff, star players, but somehow got better. Like a Football Manager save where all the wonderkids get signed and it doesnt matter who you sell as the next one has already got a 9.8 rating in your u21s

Spurs – were somehow in the top 4 for ages despite the eyeball test telling you they were terrible, Conte truth bombs, Stellini, 5 nil after 15 seconds or something daft, Richarlison and his shirtless disappointments

Villa – unbelievably shite for ages, Gerrard vs Mings, then Emery and actual coaching ends up in an unexpected european push through title challenging form

Fulham – not in a relegation fight! Mitrovic and the 8 game ban

Brentford – possibly the most serene of the lot, but still beat Liverpool, City, Man U. Bet on Toney….

Chelsea – absurdly shite. Tuchel sacked, Potter given a couple of days to integrate all the players, while doing the full Brighton not scoring schtick, Lampard coming back and taking forever to not lose a match. A billion signings for a billion pounds, Boelhy and his amazing ideas, and they might not have hit their final crap form yet

Crystal Palace – Vieira forgetting how to get them to score, getting sacked, only for a 100 year old Hodgson to come in and they score bucketloads to get to safety

West Ham – signed lots of supposedly good players, refused to play them, struggle all season, yet get to a european semi and could win the whole thing while nestling in mid table security

Wolves – 3 managers, 2 terrible, 1 ex Spain and Real Madrid manager to end up comfortable in mid table, while seemingly refusing to believe in xG as a concept

Bournemouth – Parker, 9-0, rookie takes over and gets them comfortable in mid table. Oh and they got taken over by Adonis Creed and friends

Forest – did a Villa (sign a load of players as the squad was empty post promotion and hope something sticks) and its almost following the same script to a tee. Big wins, home form is decent and still in with a chance to stay up. Also kept Cooper when everyone else got shot of their head coaches

Everton – Suffered Lampard, threatened the board (allegedly), chased a youth product (literally) out of the club and somehow claimed over 40m for him. Went full Dyche and might somehow stay up despite the odds being against them

Leicester – sold their keeper, decided a shitter one was worth it, stopped playing their best defender and then got confused why they were near the bottom. Sacked Rodgers, with no contingency in place, and then panicked and hired Smith. Could somehow survive.

Leeds – sold their best players, bought in what looked like good players (as well as a striker for over 30m who now plays for the u21s), Ted Lasso’d their way through a large chunk of the season, before sacking two more managers. Gnonto looks quality mind.

Southampton – Nathan Jones.

And that doesnt even go into a midseason world cup, where Saudi Arabia beat eventual winners Argentina, who themselves went with a hollywood script ending, Wrexham doing actual Hollywood scripts and then to top it all off, F365 go and have a end of season rebrand.

Craziest of all, its not even over yet.

I love this game!
Nik – VTID (I’ve probably missed loads, but it was already too long)

Question. If 70% of Southampton’s Premier League defeats this season have come when Nathan Jones hasn’t been their manager, is it still all his fault?! 🤷🏻‍♂️

— Chris Lennon (@christofflennon) May 8, 2023

The feedback
Just assessed the new look F365 for the 427th time and I must say it’s well thought out and a great look.

Now #BringBackDegsy and #PenisStories on mediawatch and I can assure you we will be back to the glory days of Proper Football F365 joined by the PFMs with Alardyci and Dychie leading the way.

Cheers to a new beginning!

Can’t wait for the mails that say they don’t like it cos it looks different, hahahahaha. Is that not the entire point?

Love It!
Jay, West Africa (I enjoyed the PL managers pub fights, now let’s have the Pundits’ – will be mad fun)

The best part of F365 layout changes is the resultant unreasonable fury it inspires in the Mailbox, and I’ve been (im)patiently waiting for the next iteration ever since it went live.
Oliver Dziggel, Geneva Switzerland

PS: a comparison of the F365 layouts used over the site’s history would be fun and interesting as a retrospective feature

Ooh – get you and your fancy new look!

Thumbs up from these here parts.
Graham Simons, Gooner, Norf London

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY WEBSITE? Only joking. It looks lovely.
Robert, Birmingham.

Seriously F365! Why oh why did you have to change your website layout and design. I’m a creature of comfort and habit. If it ain’t broke. Now all you’ve done is taken a steaming dump on it and forced me to make longing glances to goddamn soccernet! Please don’t force me to embrace the ancient Italian maxim “he who is resistant to change is destined to perish”.
Spoonman

Okay, so Meg Ryan was getting on a bit. There were lines on her forehead, streaks of grey in her hair. But you know what? I just kind of liked her the way she was.
Matt Pitt

What’s going on? I don’t like change. I’m very unsettled…
Mike, LFC, London

NO! I DO NOT LIKE CHANGE!
Spencer