Sir Jim Ratcliffe is dealing with a Man Utd circus so what can he do? Plus, Liverpool as the world’s biggest club and more.
Send your thoughts to [email protected]. Any early predictions for next season?
Which is the best league and why is it the Premier League?
Great mailbox this morning.
Dave, Manchester made some interesting points on the EPL versus other leagues. It reminded me of an addition I’d like to see to the football calendar – League versus League.
At the end of the league season, you pair up two leagues (e.g. EPL versus Serie A) and every team plays the same ranked team in the other league home and away. So Liverpool/Napoli, Arsenal/Inter, all the way down to Southampton/Monza. Three points for a win, one for a draw on aggregate across the two legs and then add up the points won by teams from each league. The league with the most points wins.
There are some points to iron out.
– How do you decide the league pairings? You could use the UEFA coefficients and pair down the rankings. With the current coefficients, that would mean EPL Vs Serie A, La Liga Vs Bundesliga, Ligue 1 vs Eredivisie and so on. Then you could award loads of coefficient points for the competition so leagues that do well tend to play higher-ranked leagues the next season.
– How to deal with match-ups between 20-team leagues and 18-team leagues? Probably just take the top two teams from the next division down to make up the numbers.
– What to do about teams that have been relegated/promoted? I’d keep the relegated teams in – the competition is a representation of the strength of the league from the season just completed.
– How to fit it in the calendar? Cut back the formats of the other European club competitions to reduce typical fixture load by about two per team. Those competitions have too many games anyway, and this would attract more TV money, because interest would be broader. I have zero interest in watching Chelsea play Lugano in the Europa Conference, but I would be interested in watching them play Lazio to help assign bragging rights between the EPL and Serie A.
If and when UEFA do this, I want some kind of money.
Tom, LFC
P.S. In looking up some bits for this mail, I noticed that the second and third top scorers in Serie A, as well as the top assist provider all used to play for sodding Everton. I reckon EPL have got this one.
Bayern owe the Premier League
One of the things said to support the strength of the Premier League is that other leagues are less competitive. Now, this doesn’t just mean the same or few teams winning those leagues, but how competitive teams are further down their league structure.
But now we are close to Transfer Season, one of the things you will notice is that just as a team begins to test Bayern in the Bundesliga, English teams start to pick off some of their best players. Sure, Bayern have feasted on teams lower in the Bundesliga – but teams from the Premier League have done so too. In fact, it’s not just the top teams in the EPL, like City and Liverpool, but also those almost all the way down the EPL table.
Currently, we are seeing almost every star player being linked with a move to the EPL. Granted, this can be as much about an agent seeking exposure to enhance negotiations or a reporter aiming for clicks, but the EPL has consistently acquired many Bundesliga players over the last few years. More than from La Liga, Serie A, Ligue 1, or many of the lesser leagues.
Bayern might want to thank the EPL for helping them retain dominance in the Bundesliga, remain competitive in the Champions League and grow their revenues.
Paul McDevitt
Don’t blame Ratcliffe after 20 miserable years of the Glazers
I get a bit tired of the ‘penny-pinching Ratcliffe is evil and destroying the club’ type mails which are being gleefully fed by F365’s narrative (mainly Will Ford).
United ran up pre-tax losses of £312.9m in the 3yrs to 2024…. Will, that’s losses, not profits.
Now, I’m no financial whizz, but that seems like a lot of loose change to have to find down the back of the sofa. And as Martin Lewis is often telling us, it’s all the small savings that make a difference.
So I’m not going to defend Sir Jim; I’ve no idea if he’ll turn the club’s finances around, and neither do you Will (Ford).
But he is (checks notes) a self-made billionaire, so may have a better idea of finance than people writing into (or for) F365.
Will Ford’s ‘Man Utd misers plumb new depths with laughably low-rent Europa League BBQ celebration plan’
Yeah, a BBQ is a bit crap, but perhaps this is spending within your means and treating everyone equally. No parade if they win – be honest they’d be mocked if they did, so perhaps a BBQ is in keeping with what they deserve after a sh*t season?
The “penny pinching Utd limit players to 2 tickets each” fits the narrative, whereas “the club wants to ensure that as many tickets are available to fans” does not.
Utd have literally gone from being the richest club in football to debt ridden misers.
And it is all thanks to the Glazers.
The Glazers took over 20yrs ago this month, and since then over £1bn in payments related to their takeover has left the club including approx. £166m taken in dividends. Of the £679m Ratcliffe invested, around £151m went to each of the Glazers, not the club.
Ignoring the financial mismanagement during their tenure, overpaying for mediocre players on overlong contracts, those numbers are eye-watering.
The club is a financial shambles thanks to the Glazers.
I would imagine if Will (Ford) found that his mortgage payment had doubled, and his income halved after he’d already signed up to, amongst other things, multiple long term car-finance deals, and a correspondence course in English, he probably wouldn’t be buying all the babycham, crisps, peanuts at the local and slap up curries for his mates afterwards.
Of course, both his mates would slag him off and call him a tight-fisted miser as he tries to make ends meet.
Lee
WIN Europa League final tickets – and support the Red Cross
Martin Lewis would be proud
Would love to see Manchester United win the ‘bald man comb’ cup and then Sir Jim charge the players £25 each to have a photo with the trophy. £50 to lift it..
Martin LFC (every little helps)
Why those late flags matter…
Take away the noise from their Chairman.
Awoniyi has had to be placed in a medical coma due to this injury.
This could all have been avoided if the officials are allowed to flag clear offsides early and not play on.
A serious injury which was avoidable was coming. I assumed a leg break, cruciate or some other season ending injury. Not this.
This is not intended to be a pile-on for the lines person. It’s not their fault. They are told to keep the flag down.
Blame tests at the door of the FA.
Paul
The media suck
I’m just sick of the English sporting press. They’re largely a bunch of whores who will do anything for a click/trick. Twice today, I’ve clicked on headlines that imply that Nuno Espirito Santo had exited Forest after the owner’s ridiculous outburst at the end of the home match v Leicester. One was a “story” about his Wolves exit using a photo from his stint at Nottingham Forest, the other was simply a lie.
Maybe a guy from the home of Fox News doesn’t have a lot of stones to throw, but why do journalists accept being click- bait? It may only be sport, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have principles.
Chris C, Toon Army DC (While I’m at it: screw Jamie Carragher too, the ghastly c*nt.)
Save that f***ing perch mail
Sorry to hear F365 lost its archive in the mid 2010’s. I do hope it’s a hilarious story involving an office party, lots of alcohol and a fart lighting trick gone horribly wrong. Most probably a far more boring explanation, such as a tech illiterate Jon Nich pressing a series of wrong keys.
Now that ‘Archive II’ is up an running, please save Dave LFC’s post somewhere safe and maybe make a few copies on floppy disk for insurance. So next year when Liverpool finish 3rd in the league, we can revisit his Trumpesque vision of world football domination.
For what it’s worth, my own theory is that Liverpool struggle next year with an aging Mo Salah and VVD becoming less effective. Meanwhile, in Spain, Xabi Alonso sorts the egos out, replaces the pensioners and builds another Madrid team that will take some stopping.
Kisses,
Mick, Newcastle
READ: Arsenal win the title, Leeds survive, Liverpool’s new dynasty – a 2025/26 target for each Premier League club
…I like that the mailbox contains regular eccentric contributions that are chucked in there specifically to elicit a response. It’s one of the things that keeps me coming back, because the conversation can be gold. To that end, Dave LFC’s letter this morning is 100% in that category. It’s taking the “boo hoo Trent rejected us, he’s so WRONG” narrative into orbit.
Dave seems to assume that Liverpool are now firmly established as the utterly dominant force in the Premier League, set fair to effortlessly win titles for a decade to come á la PSG, Celtic etc. That’s surely the only reason you can retrain your sights to usurping Real Madrid astride European football, right? Why jump ship to that mob when we’re about to overtake them? Eh? Eh?
Liverpool are coming off a first league title in 5 years (2nd in 35!!!), fully deserved but with valid question marks over the challenge presented to them. An exit from the Champions League at the last 16 stage having been outplayed home and away. A limp league cup final defeat, and losing to a lower league team in the FA cup. In the grand scheme it’s not exactly the sort of season that screams “watch out Europe, here we come” is it? I’d say that Barcelona, PSG, Bayern and Inter have all objectively achieved more over the course of their seasons.
But it’s Liverpool, so of course the blue touch paper has been lit and they’re on the charge like it’s the early 80s again. And if Jonny Nic once said something about them having a ceiling, it MUST be the case. This is top tier bonkers, backed up by references to a decade old article written by a man who seems to yearn for an era of football when things were simpler and English teams at a general level were utterly dominant. The nostalgia and the associated theorisation there are not objective in any way.
Zero disrespect to LFC as a club here. They naturally have a high ceiling, as do all the other big clubs. That’s the nature of being set up the way that they all are. It’s just supremely arrogant and one-eyed to think that you’re somehow the ONLY team capable of such majestic greatness that you can squash the nasty team of bullies who happen to have just effortlessly nicked your hometown-hero-turned-traitorous-swine. The usual self-obsessed drivel from fans who we’re told are a vanishing minority, but who seem to be omnipresent wherever football is discussed.
As a more specific rebuttal to Dave’s point about Liverpool’s status as the English team with unmatched potential: City could return to their previous guise with the right tweaks to their squad over the summer, without the need for any medium-term planning. Chelsea and Arsenal both have very obvious room for improvement.
And while they’re currently a total mess, if United gradually get their shit together over the next 5 years and their stadium plans come to fruition, you could easily argue that they’d naturally reassume the mantle of “biggest club in England” instead of that phrase just echoing around Old Trafford as it does at the moment. I’m not sure any of those fan bases will set the crosshairs on Real if they do “ascend to the perch” though.
Keith Reilly
…Thanks Dave, I really didn’t need reminding how small minded and arrogant the cult followers of LFC are but you certainly managed it.
Sorry Arsenal fans, let’s all remember who the most annoying fan base are.
Will
