2024/25 Premier League & General Football Thread

[Liquid]

 

[Liquid]

The bad news for Manchester United fans just keeps coming; they've got a game every week until May.

 

[Famine]

Our 3-2 drubbing of league leaders West Brom (of course we were 2-0 up and pegged back to 2-2, why wouldn't we be), with a couple of really extremely filthy passes for our second and third, was lightly marred by the death of a fan in a medical emergency in the away end.

There's been a lot of accusations-without-evidence of the stewards and paramedics not acting quickly (and claims that Barry Bannan saw what was going on and tried to get the ref to do something, also unevidenced as yet), so there's going to be some fallout.

And one dick Tweeted something about that being 98 now and has been banned for life and arrested.

Sheffield Wednesday: Man held after online comments about West Brom fan death

West Brom supporter Mark Townsend died during Saturday's match against Sheffield Wednesday.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Famine]

So, 2.5 years ago I wrote:

So far you've had a new manager who'll come in and stop the rot every 2.5 years, and a billion pounds (a literally billion actual pounds) spent in nine summers (just summers) on an average of four new players at a time. What you have to show for it is a Community Shield, an FA Cup, and a Europa League, and crushing embarrassment.

And you're doing the exact same thing again this summer - and you think this will work this time?

Let's see how it's going:

Summer 2022: Antony (€95m), Casemiro (€70), Tyrell Malacia (€15m), Lisandro Martinez (€57m) - plus Dubravka on loan and Eriksen on a free.
Summer 2023: Altay Bayindir (€5), Rasmus Hojlund (€74m), Mason Mount (€64m), Andre Onana (€50m) - plus Jonny Evans on a free
Summer 2024: Matthijs De Ligt (€45m), Sekou Kone (€1m), Noussair Mazraoui (€15m), Manuel Ugarte (€50m), Leny Yoro (€62m), Joshua Zirkzee (€42m)

I make that one new manager who came in to stop the rot 2.5 years ago, spent another €600m on an average of four players each summer (and just the summers) and has a League Cup, an FA Cup, and a 3rd and an 8th to show for it. Currently 13th and the rumours swirl about replacing Ten Hag.

Again, five trophies in 12 years and regularly ending 2nd-7th is a pretty nice place to be for most other clubs, so the fact that there's panic at Old Trafford (and €1.5bn spent to get it) about it is still very amusing to me.