A century after the white horse at Wembley, here comes The Wout Horse Final…

One hundred years ago, a white horse stole the show at Wembley. In 2023, it’s the Wout Weghorst final. Also: mails on Jose being a t*t, rumours, and Phil Neville.

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So the injuries to Martial (Ha!) and Antony means we will likely start with a front 3 very capable of damaging City. Garnacho on the left, Rashford in the middle, and Sancho on the right, where he looks a totally different player. That’s an absolutely rapid front line. Lots of through balls and playing off the shoulder. And even more rapid Pellestri on the bench. Don’t be surprised if this ends 4-4.

Of course, the Martial injury (Ha! X 2) means at some point Wout Weghorst will play in an FA Cup Final. No doubt as a sub near the end or in extra time.

Weghorst is going to score the winner, isn’t he? Probably off his arse or back of his head in the 120th minute. It’s like the script has been written. Last match in a United shirt, win the Cup, and stop City and Haaland from the treble with possibly the worst finisher in the PL. The cultiest of cult heroes. Sound fanciful or a fever dream? Lee Martin and Jesse Lingard want a word…

On the subject of that treble, I’ve watched a lot of Inter this season. They’ll play with 11 men behind the ball and stifle KDB and Haaland. Zero forward pressing. I’m saying 1-0 to either team, but Inter are not lying down without a (possibly literal) fight. City on paper certainly, but have they ever proved to have the minerals for that type of battle?

And watch out for Barella…

There’s too much pearl clutching and what-about-the-children laments in football. It’s often virtue signalling, or half arsed and frankly pathetic attempts to appear to be ‘an ally’ at the detriment to coherent points of view or ludicrous exaggerations. We should all want to make the world better, safer, and more comfortable. But we need to make reasonable points; not jump to ‘know’ someone’s reasons when we see their actions.

But Jose will soon be touting himself around for a job. Because he always gets fired in the third year, unless he jumps ship earlier. So he’s on the market. And he’ll be rumoured for jobs in England.

And it’s worth a conversation, akin to what some are seemingly demanding / expecting from City fans.

There’s ample evidence now to suggest the examples we call all easily cite are not mind-games, nor ‘protecting his players’, but someone who is objectionable. Who is bringing more anger and tribalism into an already angry and tribal world. And that you can win without it. Carlo, Fergie, Pep, …. Don’t care.

Here’s an example: “Today Jose Mourinho, who you’ll remember had an unprompted assault on a cancer patient, and was directly implicated in a PGMOL statement following the assault of a referee and his family after Roma’s loss in the Europa League Final, was rumoured to be in the mix for the job at lolspurs…”.

Reason being, when Lee Bowyer was rumoured to be of interest to West Spam, their fans protested to say ‘no; don’t care. This man can’t join’. Now I believe in the concept of rehabilitation, but they were right. Until there is recompense; remorse; growth, then the actions of those you employ or cheer are a reflection of you. Growth requires direct conversation, and accepting the impact of actions.

So i’d like a direct link to the fans of whatever team he manages that they are now quasi advocates of violence against officials, as we do of Citizens. If your club is rumoured to be bringing him in, then you’re culpable; So do something.

I want Max Rushden and the cretins at Guardian Football weekly to stop laughing it off as ‘box office’ or ‘we all want to see this shithousery’. There’s a middle ground between those lad-ette children and those clutching at pearls and fainting.

It’s folks that just get irritated about it; just don’t see it as adding joy, when that was the bloody point of the game. Who don’t want to see it; feel it all could just be avoided please.

So every article. Every rumour. Every time his name is mentioned, then mention too his link to the PGMOL statement today. And do that first. Every talking-head commentary, first topic should be ‘do the fans approve of what he has done’, first press question should be about it. PGMOL, The Prem too; The FA next. Every time his name is mentioned, mention first that he builds controversy, that he creates this, then maybe mention his wins. Controversy first, record second.

Hey Jose,
How would you feel if that was your family at the airport ? Be a man and publicly apologize.

This is no defence of Mourinho but (dumb leftist label for everyone they don’t like when they don’t want to call them Hitler) He is the “Ronaldo of managers”. This is because he exhibits similar bad behavior as other managers but gets criticized considerably more for it same as Ronaldo does as a player.

On the Flipside Guardiola is the “Messi of managers” as his behavior has been just as bad as Mourinho’s throughout his career but the media has collectively decided to turn a blind eye or make excuses for him just like they do with Messi.

Not all d*ckheads are treated equally in football it seems.

jose-mourinho-roma1

Ever since the uefa cup final which was an intense one full of hard tackles, combination of dark arts, and accusations of referee bias the dust is slowly settling down.

Let us objectively look at the things.

Sevilla are the Kings of uefa cup: Sevilla are the Kings of this tournament. They always finds a way to get the job done and was no different at Budapest. They were calm, organized and we’re the better team over the 120 minutes.

Roma – If you look at the previous seasons before Jose nothing have gone right for the romanistas. They last finished in top 4 in 2017-18 which was accompanied by a brilliant run to the semis in the uefa champions league. Post 2017-18 frequent manager changes, inconsistent results haven’t had much impact on the squad and Roma faithfuls.

Jose impact : Winning the conference league have been scoffed off mainly by English media and ESPN fc who have a tendency to overlook his achievements and since it was a non English club. I am sure that if this was a English club the press would have labelled this as a miracle and compared it to such parallels which would be considered ludicrious in normal world.

Taking this team to uefa cup final is no mean feat. Their attack have struggled only 48 goals in 37 league games. But their resolute defence along with dark arts have dragged them to the final.

Everybody knows what Jose does? He created a bond with his players, invests on defensive structure casually called parking the bus, and frustrating the opponent with time wasting, defending till the last line and creating a picture of ” Us vs the world”.

Does he deserves the hate and criticism. Yes he does. The casual fans pays to see good entertaining soccer but that’s not how business of soccer plays. Would u play good attractive football and achieve nothing or embrace the dark arts to winning. Well the winning factor wins in the end because it create revenues.

So stop the hate and start appreciating the man.

Hello people just thought I would write and tell you how excited I am about United’s 27 new midfielders and 18 new centre forwards as well as a couple of keepers and a plethora of defenders we are in imminent contract talks with. According to the press along with this influx of talent both Neymar and Messi are joining us to make us the only side in existence who can field 3 first teams capable of winning the league. Or we could as per just be being used by agents, the press and everyone else for clicks, traffic and wage increases. I for one would be happy with a Striker a ball winning midfielder and defensive cover for Martinez/Varane.

Had a wee chuckle seeing Harry maguire linked to Tottenham this morning, thinking it would be so very spursy to trade one outgoing Harry with a decidedly subpar incoming one. Trying to imagine ol slabhead paired with dier & romero in a most tantalizing of watertight back threes is just too too much, even for pure lolz

But then came later news of the day from further shores and I thought well now, if Levy wants to reach even higher in his unrivaled nomination to the annals of unintentional comedy in the category Running Of A Football Club, he could do worse than to bring on board newly free and available Phil Neville, perhaps flanking him with (the retained) Ryan mason and (a dusted off) Tim Sherwood– this might make for the absolute spursiest of back(room) threes, just a perfect storm of crow cockerel and lampoonery, and maybe it finally cements Levy’s tragi-comedic legacy once and for all

Just wanted to agree with Simon, Norf London Gooner, I would rather just listen to the crowd noise, than hear Fletcher and Mcmanaman agreeing over the non-point the other just made [yes fletch, if they do score, they will have scored]. Or in Ireland on Virgin Media we have Gerry Armstrong who despises Man United, but we’ve no choice but to listen to him, give me the option to silence him.

I’ve taken to watching MUTV before the match, and at half time, just because at least we want the same team to win, it’s not really that much to ask that it should be an option. Even in some pubs with dodgy boxes I’d rather listen to a language I don’t understand just to have the crowd noise. We’ve been watching so long we don’t need these pundits telling us what’s happening.