Manchester United

Because he's a cherry-picker - short stints at big-spending clubs where trophies generally come regularly anyway. At least Guardiola plays attractive football while he does it. 

When Ferguson was 54, he'd already had a 17 year professional playing career, followed by two massively successful stints at clubs with comparatively underwhelming resources, and had just won ManU's first league in 26 years. 

fire at Old Trafford this morning

Emergency services are battling a fire at Manchester United's Old Trafford stadium, British media are reporting.

Witnesses reported alarms going off and smoke could be seen coming from the football ground's south stand, The Mirror reported.

Old Trafford fire

So I guess not content to just leave with dressing room in disarray as with previous clubs, Mourinho has just decided to burn the whole place down instead this time.

LOL   I am happy that we have Jose. Still rather him than most other club managers.

We want to succeed so hopefully this will happen. It probably won't be this season ( which I already predicted) but Jose is a winner and that is what Utd fans expect.

Don't disagree with any of that. Doesn't conflict with what I wrote either. 

Lots Of Love (LOL) to you too Leggy ;)

Both Fergie and Jose are arrogant, but Fergie was a Scot so he had the grin to undercut it if he wanted. 

I can handle people being arrogant as long as they have something to be arrogant about.

There will only ever be one SAF. No one (based on current approaches) will get close. 

JM has never been at a club long enough to do the one thing that SAF stands above everyone on - building and rebuilding squads while still getting a high level of performance out of them. 

SAF always had a balanced squad in terms of age and experience. Eg, when Rio and Vidic were past 30, he bought in Smalling and Jones for his next squad. 

I am going to give JM some credit for playing some youth players this season, which has been a change from the past. 

It will be very interesting to see who he signs in the summer - what age and experience they are, and who leaves. 

Carrick, Zlatan and Rooney are the older players, so ones that are 20-23 yo to replace these guys are key. They may not be ready now (unless one is Greizmann, then i think he is good enough haha). Young seems like he will leave too, so another 4 signings in the summer of a fwd / winger, another fwd, a defensive mid, and a fullback - and JM will have a great squad and will be close to rebuilding at the same time. 

SAF was very lucky to ride the wave of his era. There is unlikely to be another, because the landscape of the game has changed to so utterly. Another manager won't get the chance to have such a long period without winning something. Also with the amount of money in the game winning championships and cups doesn't really give you any material advantage.

Pretty poor this morning against a well organised and structured Hull side. No tempo or creativity and looked very much like a LvG United game. 

Maybe games like this will allow players like Mata and Martial a chance. But i think more rotation is needed to prevent games like this, when maybe everyone got a bit comfortable. Only Rojo, Blind and Zlatan were really going for it and I think Rashford needs some more time off the bench. He plays ok but his end product is not quite there yet. 

Good thing the games are coming thick and fast, but we need to be creating more chances to win the game. 

Another good victory today, and did well to grind out the victory. Obviously would have been nice to do it without Zlatan and Pogba playing but will take the win. They only played half an hour so still rested somewhat. 

Only issue is Rooney being injured at the moment, as we really only have 2 fit strikers otherwise and it means a reliance on Zlatan. Would be ideal if Rooney could play midweek but doesn't look like it. 

Happy with the defense, but I hope Shaw gets a game this week. 

Midfield is looking solid, Herrera is becoming more important than Pogba but will get a suspension rest midweek. 

Wingers are finally playing well, Martial was quiet today but only needs to look at how Mkhitarian has been playing since he was held back by Mourinho for a few weeks. 

Only problem is Lingard . Not sure how he even makes the squad.

3  Wembley trophies in less than a year. That is pretty decent.

Lucky this morning as Southampton were the better side.

Have to agree, Southampton were the better side. Their tactics were spot on, they trapped Valencia deep up the pitch by pressing Redmond and Bertrand on to him, as they knew Lingard would constantly drift inside and go missing. I think this one area on the pitch really hurt us and upset the balance everywhere else.

Regardless of that, it was pleasing to see some never say die United attitude towards the end of the game from the players. Only took them 80 minutes to get there.

Match full of drama this morning, which will be assessed over the next few days. It doesnt hide the fact that United still haven't clicked in the attacking third as chances are either hard to come by or rushed and missed. Also another game where the opposition goalkeeper was 10/10 - which is indicative of the mindset of the teams that come to Old Trafford and the quality of the finishing. These need to be changed. 

On the elbow incident, I have two issues with the general unintentional elbows to the face. From how i saw it, Zlatan did not raise his elbows in order to get Mings, they are being used to jump higher, in a normal jumping motion. 
- Jumping with your arms by your side, isn't the solution. So where do you put them? Like handballs, when jumping there is a natural arm position and elbows up is just one of them. Yes, it is tough to judge, but the answer is not to have them by your side. 
- if intent is not considered, then any dangerous / violent action should be penalised. Therefore Mings landing on Zlatans head is the same. He was just running, he cant just not land, and it is dangerous. Right?

Out of curiousity, was the collision that put Torres in hopsital a foul? As this was just two players going for the ball with normal jumping motions, but one player certainly came off worse.. 

I love him, but Zlatan 100% lined Mings up for that elbow and should have been sent off for it.

oops, didnt mean to this the post, meant to reply to ^^^ haha

not sure his elbow is any more intentional than Mings standing on Zlatans head..

yea that elbow looked 100% intentional. He put some force behind it too.

I think Zlatan's elbow has to be intentional but for me Mings stomping on his head is the more severe incident and Mings' ban should reflect that.

I don't know. To me it is less clear that Mings meant to catch Zlatan, and the elbow was premeditated.

Both will get bans. Mings meant it and so did ZA.  Studs to me much more dangerous.

Both incidents were clearly intentional and both should get bans. Have to say the quote from Ibrahimovic that Mings “jumped into my elbow” was pretty awesome. I guess in the same way that Materazzi walked into Zidane’s head, or Evander Holyfield ducked into Mike Tyson’s mouth.

Mings was the classic "I see his head there, I'm gonna stomp on it, but I'm also gonna look the other way so later on I can argue it was an accident"

hahahaha

The stomp on Zlatans head didn't seem 100% intentional to me. Quite hard to prove anyway, he wasn't looking down at the time. The elbow though looked obvious. There was a clear swinging movement of the arm that didn't fit in with the natural movements of jumping.

I did laugh when I read Rooney saying he saw the stomp as he was right there and it was clearly intentional. He's looking in completely the other direction at the time.

Hence my point hahahahahaha

Zlatan with the three game ban. Mings with the five game ban. 

When you compare the two incidents, probably reasonable bans. If you argue that one of them is intentional / worth a ban then they both are. 

Well that was worth the time off work. Not

Thought United played quite well with 10 men, not many sides would still be in with a chance at snatching extra time in similar circumstances. Still, turning up with the intention of kicking Hazard out of a match is asking for trouble on Mou's part.

I only watched bits here and there but what a brainless foul from Herrera. They'd literally just been told a yellow was in the offing 5 seconds before, and then he does that. It wasn't even close either, the ball was long gone when he tripped him. 

Must say I enjoyed Rojo standing on Costa's foot and shoving him over when he tried to chip one with the offside flag up. 

I have three problems here re Herrera:

- The first is that a referee cannot unilaterally warn a team. A yellow card for persistent fouling is on a per player basis.

- The second is that while Herrera fouled him, at least he was attempting to play football. When Cahill dragged Rashford down (after Rashford beat him for pace) no yellow was given. Which as fans would we prefer?

- Finally, a good portion of "fouls" on Hazard was that the player fell over as soon as a defender came tight to him. If you fell over like that on a Saturday in New Zealand you'd be laughed at. Rashford was getting it as well, but he wasn't falling over as cleverly.

Costa deserved a yellow here. But Michael Oliver is a bitch.

Wow you really are a feral, for saying that. Admitting you enjoy footballers assaulting someone like that.

Rojo's big toenail may have touched Costa's foot. Costa's reaction was to dive into the ground clutching the shin on his other leg. He continued to role around for a few minutes before jumping to his feet, perfectly fine. So, let's just stop and acknowledge who the feral one really is here.

Costa is a top player but a big girl and a cheat. Herrera's first booking was, I thought, very unlucky as he only stood his ground. I did comment to the wife that poor decisions like that could lead to red later on. That proved to be true.

However, will never know what the outcome would have been it we had played with a full side. Reality is that Chelsea have quality players in every position which is something we do not. To win the EPL we need at least 4 top players.

Right now it would look like a Chelsea / City final with Chelsea to win.

who lead the line this morning? By my count i couldnt figure out if there were any fit/available forwards left in the squad

Rashford

Fair call, it is feral, I don't usually say things like that. 

I still enjoyed it though. 

What did everyone make of the Rojo stamp on Hazard?

Mings might feel a bit hard done by when he sees Rojo wont be punished.

Agree with most of the above that United looked well in the game and sufficiently set up to counter Chelsea's formation and strengths.

Clearly that meant getting tight to individual players and Herrera was unlucky to be given two cards for those challenges - you have seen worse and no card given, and he wasn't constantly infringing, so it is tough to give him a card for persistent fouling. 

Yes the team may have been marking tight, but I think most people would say that those two fouls weren't both yellows. 

I feel like the difference is that Rojo actually falls over after landing on Hazard, because he wasn't putting his weight on him. Hence the argument against his intent. Was Mings' worse just because he got Zlatans head? 

Personally, I cant see how there were bans for either Zlatan or Mings, as both players were doing normal football actions when making contact with the opponent. (landing when running and using arms when jumping). But if you ban one, then you have to ban all of them I suppose.

Interesting comment from Mourinho, saying he never would have sold Di Maria, Welbeck or Hernandez.

I think Mings shouldn't have been banned, but 5 games is a meek punishment considering the FA have concluded he deliberately stamped on an opponents head. Surely something in the 10-15 range is more appropriate given what players have got in the past for acts such as pushing over refs (which is unsporting rather than being inherently dangerous).

What I don't like is the halfway house they've arrived at, where the lightness of the punishment undermines their verdict.