'Even allowing for inflation, this thread is not worth 198 Terry Francises' - EPL 2017-18

btw tho, mourinho is obv a fucking cunt and pep, while arrogant, is not human poison.

most of us end up contributing to the world's shittiness through work, one way or another. can't really blame anybody who gets paid to work in football any more than anybody who gets paid to work for any other private company. if there's hypocrisy then most of us are implicated.

Mourinho is not really worse than Guardiola in any but the most superfluous and superficial ways, obviously he is a grade A cunt but that's the whole point. name me a top flight football manager that isn't/wasn't. i'm not defending Mourinho here, more asking for evidence that the rest of them are any better

nb by "worse" i mean 'as a human being', not 'as a manager of a football team'

unless you know people it's impossible to say isn't it? most people aren't grade A cunts but it's not like you don't run into a few in all spheres of life

mourinho is worse than anyone. i'm often amused by him but he's a fucking awful human being. he lies, he destroys his own players, referees, anyone, he gaslights, he has no sense of dignity or fairness. he used to couple this with some acerbic wit or arrogant charisma but that's been mostly blunted in recent years. it's outrageous to suggest he's typical. most of the rest of them are fine, he's the outlier.

i don't know him but it's p clear he's a nasty piece of work - a fairly big swathe of man u fans think the same ime. he's fully toxic. he's in no way typical of the modern manager and it's society is in the gutter stuff to imply they're all like him.

good at his job tho.

i've probably talked myself into a position i didn't want to be in here - i certainly was not trying to offer any defence of the way Mourinho has treated his own players (obviously he is a grade A cunt )

i just think that of the many, many, many reasons to dislike the guy, bringing actual irl politics into play is unhelpful because any contemporary that you might cast against him (in this case Guardiola) is also undoubtedly not a particularly great person although they may be less brazenly dickish in public

He crossed a big fucking line scapegoating the club doctor. Surprised Chelsea stuck with him over that (until crap results lol)- team doctor probably a more important figure for a top flight team than whatever case of narcissistic personality disorder is picking the team that week

i dunno about the real politics stuff, though mourinho's actual behaviour is portentous enough in that regard. i see your point tho.

i don't see reasons to hate guardiola apart from arrogance - it's not the same virulent, lying, dishonest, undermining shit that mou has, not even close. as i say, prob one of the best managers of his generation, but he has a deeply nasty streak which is almost unrivalled. which again may be key to the things he's achieved.

essentially mou is the ian paisley of football management.

who is the martin mcguinness of football management?

idk up to a point i feel like you can write off almost everything that happens within the football world as just so much nonsense. obviously one doesn't like to see Mourinho clowning Luke Shaw "it's ok to play him in the second half because he's on my flank and i can tell him where to stand", this is a man who has to go home and look his significant other in the eye etc. but on the other hand Luke Shaw makes more in a month or two than i am likely to make in my lifetime, so no matter how relentlessly he gets clowned by his manager there is only so much sympathy i can have and thus only so much dislike i can have for Jose Mourinho

the situation with the club doctor at Chelsea was disgusting and i would offer absolutely no excuse for that shit, this is why i have no problem dismissing Mourinho as a prick

but really. either you think that politics has a place in football, in which case, no you can NOT shut your eyes to who Pep Guardiola works for and how much they pay him without opening yourself up to the rankest hypocrisy (lol repeating myself for like the third time now, sorry) or you just close your eyes and ears, hold your nose and enjoy whatever football match you can illegally stream to your PC this weekend while pretending that the other stuff doesn't exist - in which case what Jose Mourinho does or does not say to the press about his players, or whether he turns up and plays the most negative, tedious anti-football one could imagine, all of that shit is just totally irrelevant (not the Eva Carneiro thing tho)

either way, you can get to fuck trying to talk like there is any moral dimension being a top flight football manager, beyond a certain point. if there is then they are all implicated, and if there isn't then what is the problem here beyond you disliking the way a particular manager conducts his business

by which i mean (to circle back around to the original entry point), if we're talking in strictly football terms, then obviously Jose is gonna Jose and he's gonna say whatever he possibly can to try and rile up Pep before the derby. or if we're accepting that football is inherently political and that Premier League football matches are the forums place to be making political statements, well fuck then Pep Guardiola anyway and how can you possibly highroad one manager at the expense of another

an absolutely disastrous pair of posts but i think you can probably catch my drift in spite of the multiple errors

Not bad posts but we disagree

LG otm re mourinho

and hilariously threatened by poch <3

Good posts allround. We cool WD, though tbf Mou did manage FRANCO'S TEAM ;)

LG otm re Mourinho indeed. Having a hard time accepting him at ManU, and that won't change. I didn't understand his appointment then and don't understand it still, from a football pov. He's good at what he does, but what he does - to me - doesn't fit with ManU. It was desperate times after Moyes and LvG and getting Mou was a desperate measure. I still hope he leaves and we get a manager who wants to play more attacking. More like... Pep.

Meanwhile it's moyes_hero.jpg time

who is the martin mcguinness of football management?

Would obviously be some poacher turned gamekeeper who was a complete cunt of a player, violent and aggressive (off and on the field), but who, when he became manager, became a lily-white and holier-than-thou hypocrite. Must be a lot of those.

Maybe have to wait till Joey Barton is unveiled as the new Rangers manager.

far be it from me to say Keano but

Any footage of Wenger as a player

Not sure it's a fair rundown of McGuinness in any case but

True, it's a bit harsh, but then it was harsh on Ian Paisley to compare him to Mourinho.

Haaa

Fucking West Ham sinking my accie by lunchtime, what the hell is this all about

Arnautovic has looked almost competent at points in this.

Pity he's not playing GAA then eh

Stuart Pearce sent to the stands for kicking a ball into a skip outside the stadium from quite far away

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z1kRhiPE0E

knockheart and izquiredo out for Brighton, no excuse not to arsehole this lot today.

Nyeetetteenghim nyihetsporr* have a strong team today imo

* I watch mainly on russian streams now

Wouldn't mind anyone keeping an eye on shaqiri tho

xp might was well resort to a russian stream, as my paid *PL* thingee has gone haywire and decided to broadcast QPR-Leeds live. fml

MOUNIE!

lol! we only score from set-pieces atm, but no complaints at this point.

If son is playing lwb to accommodate stinking Dele then poch out

He's not bad out there mind u

These Stoke lads they eh they like a pie I'd say

ffs the stream shit out for Mounie's 2nd, but I'm delighted he's back amongst the goals.

Defoe

https://imgtc.com/w/MVo5c5M

God bless Stoke and the eight goals a year they reliably ship to Spurs.

Whoa. Defoe replicates Van Basten '88.

Fucking hell Ben Teckay

Shades of the Kasami goal there. Palace stayed up and Fulham went down that season. Fully expecting a reprise

That Defoe goal is in the middle of the net ffs

I kid, I kid.

If son is playing lwb to accommodate stinking Dele then poch out

He was playing LW but whatever he was doing yesterday long may it continue. He's our best attacking threat right now and the only player we have like that, and on current form should be starting every game.

100%

Michy Batshuayi on the bench with a hot water bottle, Jonathan Pearce muses "I wonder what Chopper Harris would think of that".

Arsenal looking oddly porous today. Odd game.

Going by the team Klopp put out, this has the makings of a Championship style slugfest