DevilBehindTheSofa

Diomande's got suitors across Europe. If we're serious about him we move in early summer, not August. That's the difference between recruitment and panic.

Baleba's drop-off this season probably works in our favour. Brighton will still demand silly money but there's room to negotiate. Early move makes sense.

JJ's got age on his side with England U17s. Now he's got the shirt what he does with it is on him. The pathway's there if he keeps progressing.

@SherifFM05 @FPLfrasier I’m not really comparing the players. I’m comparing keeping 1 player and only signing 2 because it’s too difficult to sign 3 vs. actually signing 3.

@devilbtsofa @FPLfrasier Comapring Hoijlund to Casemiro makes no sense!

Keep Casemiro + Sign 2 midfielders If we let him go, we will have to sign 3 top midfielders. Then the club will brief its favorite journalists how signing 3 midfielders is an impossible task. The same journalists will also mock the fans for demanding 3 midfielders.

@NealGardner_ @FPLfrasier 20 years ago Baleba would have gone Brighton->Spurs->United. I remember moans last summer that Cunha and Mbuemo were 26/27 yo. Is the player peak earlier now because the game is faster and more athletic? Folks obsessed with sell on value but that didn’t work out well for Sancho.

The inflation aside, I think it’s interesting to focus on *how* recruitment has changed over the years. 20 years ago, there was no way you’d get a big move without a SUBSTANTIAL body of work. Now you have guys going for €80-100m on the back of a single good season.

Maybe we just have to accept that sports which are episodic in nature- 🎾, 🏏,🏈 - are better suited to video review during the systematic breaks in play. Sports which are flowing in nature⚽️ do not. Fin.

Success in this case would see 50 or 60% of calls overturned, but definitely a healthy amount of “call on the field stands”. Of course the problem with this approach is the number of calls necessarily has to climb significantly which means more crappy game delays. 4/x

I guess the problem with VAR is how rarely refs stick up for their original decision. And how much fuss was made the one time a ref did stand by his first call. If the bar is “clear and obvious error” then the VAR ref is basically saying “you fucked up”. 1/x

@StretfordPaddck @ronaldobrown_98 But this does happen. They get dropped from the tier 1 list and have to sit out or ref in the championship or something.

🔴🗣️ Should Premier League referees be held accountable the same way as players/managers for the mistakes they make? @ronaldobrown_98 believes that this would be a way to raise the standards of refereeing. Do you agree with him?👇 #MUFC

Mainoo to 2031. That's one long-term midfield answer sorted. Now we need to see who fills the other three slots.

@FPLfrasier I’d like to see the pre/post Carrick split for this. If there is one thing Carrick has changed it’s this. We don’t seem to concede in clusters anymore.

United need to improve the game when we are winning. This data won’t be surprising for anyone who has watched us play closely. As soon as we go ahead, our intensity drops and we just don’t play our natural football. Our game when the scores are level or when we are losing is good enough, probably to even win the league. Graphic credit @HKhaliqueLoonat

@RedDevil766364 @Malachians @captainstaino I think this is right - and the ref can’t make both sets of fans happy by the nature of the job.

@Malachians @devilbtsofa @captainstaino Why should a ref have to come out and publicly admit his mistakes? Players don’t, and neither do coaches, If the ref mispeaks, or doesn’t tell everyone exactly what they want to hear, there’ll be an even bigger feeding frenzy/ pile on.

I don’t understand why it’s so taboo to interview referees after the game and get their views on why they gave decisions? Not doing that makes it so much worse because inevitably people will not fill in those blanks charitably. If Attwell says after the game “I’m sorry, I definitely made a mistake there” it’s hard to stay angry with someone after that. Instead we’re left infuriated by the perceived arrogance and the assumption that it’s personal.

@grassrootsrefJa @Malachians I have thought about it in my idler moments. My son’s a qualified referee and we probably don’t need two of us in the house arguing about decisions.

@devilbtsofa @Malachians Get signed up for the next referee course in your local area then

@Malachians @captainstaino They shouldn’t have to and the officials should be better, but they will still be human, so they will still fuck up. As a team on the pitch all you can do is control what you can control.

@devilbtsofa @captainstaino Why should Utd have to win games that overcomes the incompetence of the officials? Why can’t we just improve officiating?

@Malachians @captainstaino I hope so. Now that United are winning the occasional game again I’m wishing they had enough to win with enough margin for the ref to have one clanger. That’s be nice!

@devilbtsofa @captainstaino I’m not going to answer the question for him but we are both average football fans and I think we have the mental capacity to deal with their answer without it resulting in us calling for a bloodbath

@Malachians @captainstaino I agree with that. But I don’t think you’d be a fan of Atwell’s IG with the inevitable “Disappointed I didn’t call that penalty. We go again next weekend” post.

@Malachians @captainstaino So why are normal blokes with a couple of kids like you and me still talking about another random bloke who made a mistake 4 days ago? We seem unable to move on. 🙂

@Malachians @captainstaino I’d say the average football fan is incapable of accepting the ref is human, acts to the best of his ability, but makes mistakes, is influenced by crowds, player behavior, past incidents, etc.

@captainstaino The average football fan is not a primal idiot incapable of reasoning. Of course there are people who won’t care but you have to deal with them anyway, precisely what would happen that’s worse than what’s happening now?