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Football Intelligence on Saturday


Jack Dawe

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At Old Trafford. 

The first goal. The City keeper (Bravo!) has the ball, on the by-line, with not many options. Mou has instructed Utd not to "press" too high, too soon, acutely aware as he is how Pep's teams can take you apart if you try.

Enter the crowd: they put to one side their prawn sandwiches and roar their impatience ("get inteh them") and Roon leads the charge. Bravo! passes to Kolarov who "hoofs" (according to Barney Ronay in the Guardian, please note @Robbored) the ball long and high.

Now, Utd are exposed, with acres of space around their lumbering rearguard, not their lumbering forwards, as Mou wants. De Bruyne nips in behind a dopey Pogba as Itchy-watsisname flicks it on. 1:0 City. After the game, Mou criticises his players for not doing what he had told them to.

Now that's football intelligence for you. The OT crowd, Saturday. And I hear people mock/criticise City fans (us) for being clueless, but we haven't been watching some of the finest players in Europe and beyond winning cups and leagues and Champions Leagues. We've been watching Flint (not saying drop him, not saying you can't criticise him neither) and loads worse, hoofing the ball forward for decades.

Thing is, though, you can't beat a bit of British bulldog "get into them" English derby helter-skelter goooooaaarrrrnnnn (well, you can. With a hoof, a flick on, and a neat finish from 18 yards, Pep-style) it's what our game's been about for 130 years. I love a bit of that on a cold, wet winter's afternun.

Mou will have to "educate" the OT crowd in what he is trying to do with his programme notes, like SO'D used to do. He knows Best, as Saturday proved.

 

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27 minutes ago, Jack Dawe said:

At Old Trafford. 

The first goal. The City keeper (Bravo!) has the ball, on the by-line, with not many options. Mou has instructed Utd not to "press" too high, too soon, acutely aware as he is how Pep's teams can take you apart if you try.

Enter the crowd: they put to one side their prawn sandwiches and roar their impatience ("get inteh them") and Roon leads the charge. Bravo! passes to Kolarov who "hoofs" (according to Barney Ronay in the Guardian, please note @Robbored) the ball long and high.

Now, Utd are exposed, with acres of space around their lumbering rearguard, not their lumbering forwards, as Mou wants. De Bruyne nips in behind a dopey Pogba as Itchy-watsisname flicks it on. 1:0 City. After the game, Mou criticises his players for not doing what he had told them to.

Now that's football intelligence for you. The OT crowd, Saturday. And I hear people mock/criticise City fans (us) for being clueless, but we haven't been watching some of the finest players in Europe and beyond winning cups and leagues and Champions Leagues. We've been watching Flint (not saying drop him, not saying you can't criticise him neither) and loads worse, hoofing the ball forward for decades.

Thing is, though, you can't beat a bit of British bulldog "get into them" English derby helter-skelter goooooaaarrrrnnnn (well, you can. With a hoof, a flick on, and a neat finish from 18 yards, Pep-style) it's what our game's been about for 130 years. I love a bit of that on a cold, wet winter's afternun.

Mou will have to "educate" the OT crowd in what he is trying to do with his programme notes, like SO'D used to do. He knows Best, as Saturday proved.

 

can you re-enact it out in Lego or Playmobil or Subbuteo…or better still, à la Phoenix from the Flames stylee?

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33 minutes ago, Bar BS3 said:

I think you have to question the intelligence of the players, if, as you describe, the ignored their game plan and managers instructions because a few people in the crowd encouraged them to do so! 

Spot on, not only that but the fact that you are willing to, off your own back, ignore an instruction means that you probably didn't understand its importance in the first place. Good football intelligence isn't just following an instruction but being able to think clearly under moments of pressure and fortunately for us LJ seems very keen on this based on recent interviews.

SOD had a similar philosophy, unfortunately for him he didn't have the right players to implement it and seemingly forgot that we were a football club requiring results when he tried to change things.

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46 minutes ago, Bar BS3 said:

I think you have to question the intelligence of the players, if, as you describe, the ignored their game plan and managers instructions because a few people in the crowd encouraged them to do so! 

When you have someone like Rooney, a player who has won everything in the game, what manager can tell him what to do?

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2 minutes ago, One Team In Keynsham said:

When you have someone like Rooney, a player who has won everything in the game, what manager can tell him what to do?

After United's poor league positions (comparatively) during the last 2 seasons, the players should be doing exactly what their highly respected manager tells them to do, in order to improve. 

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17 minutes ago, exAtyeoMax said:

has Jose lost the DR already…?:ph34r:

Seems Rooney doesn't need a manager either at England or MU, he's above all that. 

Cant imagine that Jose will be as spineless as big Sam though, no matter how much he used to rate Rooney.

Rooney left to rot in the reserves making his presumptuous international retirement statement moot. (That being said he could probably sit at home watching Jeremy Kyle until Russia and still make the squad)

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16 minutes ago, One Team In Keynsham said:

When you have someone like Rooney, a player who has won everything in the game, what manager can tell him what to do?

Wouldn't have done it under SAF, has been managed by sycophants at ManU and England too long.

Cant see Jose putting up with it though.

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1 hour ago, One Team In Keynsham said:

When you have someone like Rooney, a player who has won everything in the game, what manager can tell him what to do?

Pep, probably. And it would be something along the lines of, "thanks for everything you've done, but...." or "close the door on your way out" or "we must meet up some time" or "Torino's nice this time of year" 

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