Are Cunha and Mbeumo good enough for Manchester United, or just a pair of Wolverines? | OneFootball

Man Utd looked to have restructured their attack with the signings of Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo, but are they actually good enough?

We also have thoughts on Arsenal, Diego Simeone and the past. Send yours in to theeditor@football365.com.

Questioning Mbeumo and Cunha A question for Manyoo and Premier League fans: what exactly are Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo?

I ask because I have not been impressed by either of them since they joined Manchester United. Not even a little bit.

It feels like we signed two very expensive 7/10 players off the back of one freakishly good 9/10 season each. At their former clubs, both Cunha and Mbeumo looked like men possessed. They were tearing it up, creating chances, scoring goals, generally looking like exactly the sort of attackers Manchester United should be fighting to sign. Then they arrived at Old Trafford and… where did those players go?

Are we playing them out of position? Both seem to me to fit the creative, “in the hole” mould more naturally than whatever it is we are currently asking them to do. Or have they reached Manchester United and decided that, having completed football, the hard work is no longer necessary?

And, perhaps more importantly, are there actually other Premier League clubs who would pay top dollar for either of them right now? Or are we stuck with another pair of expensive attackers who, for whatever reason, are not doing enough to take the creative and goalscoring burden off Bruno Fernandes?

You would think that with the right players behind Benjamin Šeško, the Slovenian could be putting absurd numbers on the board.

I was having a Below the Line conversation with my similarly eclectically named pal, Badwolf, and I found myself agreeing with his suggestion that we may have signed both players on the back of their first and, so far, only truly elite seasons.

And this is my problem with mercenaries. When they are on your team, they can disappear at any moment. Sometimes it is their form. Sometimes it is literally the player themselves.

Think Wolverine from the X-Men.

An absolute beast in every sense of the word. The sort of soldier you would happily trust to carry an entire battle on his back. But also the sort of character you could see disappearing halfway through the war because he has decided he has personal business to attend to.

United have recruited in attack and midfield, and the general consensus seems to be that we need to do the same in defence before we can properly challenge again.

Fair enough.

But here is my question: are the players we have already recruited actually the sort of players you would go to war with?

And no, a 4-0 win over Shabba Ranks has not changed my mind. Gaptoothfreak, Man Utd, New York (We go again)

Leave Arsenal alone Last year so much of the discourse in the mailbox was centred around Arsenal. Many people told our fans this microscopic criticism of all things Arsenal would die down once we prove we can win something, and the pressure shifts to others. I was quite looking forward to that because the slightly unhinged way people portrayed Arsenal and Arteta vs what the reality was was becoming tiresome and borderline deranged…….but that hasn’t quite born fruit yet has it?

There really shouldn’t be much to write about Arsenal, certainly not negatively, 5 games 5 wins, 1 goal conceded, playing nice football, no set piece goals – lets maybe focus on the problems of some other big sides who haven’t won trophies for a while and should be expected to win the big ones this season given their expenditure?  Or are the goal posts being shifted again?  Even if its all just a wind up, a bit of trolling to get a reaction, you realise there are some incredibly big and sensitive fanbases in the north west who’d give you a huge nibble if you tried.

The level of guff that has been said and written about Gabriel following the incident with Martinez, when in fact the biggest ref error this season as confirmed by the KMI panel was a clear as day ‘penalty not given to Arsenal against Villa – not a peep anywhere on that. Can’t talk about trophies, can’t talk about set-pieces (where have those stats and tables gone by the way?) can’t talk about boring football – must find something to vent my hatred of Arsenal – ah yes, persona non grata Gabriel….and throw in something about Arteta’s clothes.

How about, City with no title in 2 years, what if Haaland gets injured?, can Maresca take on what Pep built.  115 charges for cheating?

Can Chelsea do better than 10th?  Why are they playing 2 right-backs in CM after spending all that money?  Is the defence any better at all?

Are Liverpool the most unbalanced squad in the league – all that money in the front line and a wafer thin central midfield and poor full-backs.  Can a notoriously poor pressing front line adapt to Iraola’s tactics?

Has anything actually changed at Man U?  How do they cope with midweek fixtures?  How are Man U still employing the same failed defence from 5 years ago?

Can Spurs finish top half?  Has a team ever spent so much to still look so meh?  See loads more interesting things to talk about and wind each other up about.

Even though we’re only 3 games in to the season has there been any major surprises so far, if F365 did their early kneejerk reactions, would they be much different from before a ball was kicked?  Yes Hull don’t look completely incompetent, Spurs maybe slightly worse than thought and Newcastle slightly better.  Everyone else as expected no? Rich, AFC

Simeone like you I despise Diego Simeone. His sons. His ‘football’. His black suits.

I’m not breaking a revelation here but – his teams are a pack of diving, time wasting, referee-conning, fouling pack of bowel cysts.

Kang-In…never heard of him and by the time he rolled around like a landbound eel for the 3rd time in the first half I had a new enemy of the state number 1. He’s a Diego Godin revamp for those dark arts. And dark arts is flattering. Hes a diving coward too afraid to let football decide the result, just like his pathetic manager.

I bloody hate Liverpool playing them due to what I have to watch. But I love that they always beat them. I think thats 4 in a row now?. Yea  – F*** YOU Simeone.

As an aside – Liverpool showed a lot of positives. Thats a proper step. Don’t have an abomination of an injury season again and they’ll win something. Patricio Del Toro

Alexander not great Isak is still worryingly looking like not a footballer. I’d back any other member of the squad, (apart from one obvious exception) including goalkeepers, to finish a chance over him atm. Shunt LFC

Hello everyone,

Watched Liverpool on Wednesday night, lots to like from that performance for the Anfield faithful I thought. Barcola & Ngumoha looked really good, Szoboszlai showed yet more maturity & intelligence – I’d have him as full not vice captain, Jacquet looks right at home already, and young Koumas showed maturity beyond his years at the end there too.

Okay, it’s Atleti and they have a poo record away in England, but Liverpool still had to come from behind and they are still a work on progress. That high Iraola line will take some getting used to I would imagine.

I also liked his comments about how excited/lucky he felt about managing Liverpool in the CL – a fine line to tread which can easily make you sound like a competition winner if you don’t choose the right words (see Moyes, David, and his guff about Fergie’s chair). His general positive outlook helps here too, and is a tonic after Klopp’s constant carping. It may even have rubbed off on me. Yikes. RHT/TS x (Obviously swerved watching Arteta and his functional cheats bore their way to another 1-0 – does anyone choose to watch Arsenal bar their fans?)

2000s nostalgia Whilst I do enjoy looking back on the 00s era, I don’t entirely agree that modern football is bloodless. What was great in the Premier League for the past 10 years has been the contrast in styles of the strongest teams. If we take Man City, Liverpool and more recently Arsenal, all are completely different styles and all enjoyable to watch. My personal preference was the shock and awe of the best Klopp team, but equally the madness of Brendan Rodgers’ nearly men was awesome.

However, I still want to take a moment to think back to the 00’s because it genuinely is fun to think back to that era in particular. Despite mainly following the Premier League, we must also admit that it wasn’t always fun watching some of those Chelsea teams and in particular the Benitez team. Arsenal were usually a great watch, and so were Man Utd.

However, abroad is where the magic really was. The era started with the Galácticos, where it was insane to our young minds that all those players could be assembled together (i was too young to have seen it done before), and then equally it was insane watching them perform. Ronaldo scoring a hat-trick against Utd was incredible. Then Ronaldinho came on the scene, and despite output telling me that Messi and C.Ronaldo were better, I challenge you to watch Ronaldinho play a full game without your mouth just hanging open. He was a showman before Neymar ruined showmanship. It was pure joy to watch him play, and the evidence behind that was the number of people trying out his tricks on football fields all over the world. Flip flaps, no look passes, controlling the ball with his back, uneccessary over head kicks just pure, unadulterated joy. Nu

The hilarity of the middle-aged man As a 42-year-old man myself, I do have to laugh at all the other middle aged men writing in, harking back to the ‘glory days’ and kidding themselves that football was factually better “back in my day.”

Lewis in particular. It just so happens that the period between when he was 7-17, football was gradually improving, until it reached the glory years from when he was 17-27 years-old. The years where he probably had the most free time, least stress, more time down the pub with mates. Those years just so happen to coincide with the best period in the history of the game.

Lads, just admit it. You’re getting old. When Lewis was 17, the 40 year olds were all saying how the game had gone, and football was much better in the 70s and 80s. Modern players were soft and would never have been able to compete with the hardmen of the past.

In 20 years time, there will be 40-year-olds saying that the game has gone, and football peaked in the 2020s. They will hark back to the days of Haaland and Salah, say that there are just no modern managers of the calibre of Guardiola and Klopp. They will say that no midfielder now could touch prime Rodri, and that strikers of the modern day would have scored precisely zero goals if they had to play against Gabriel and Saliba.

There is no golden age. We all love what we experienced when we were young. Football has changed, but you hgave changed more. You are middle aged now. Get over it. Mike, LFC, Dubai

I cannot let Kentona’s views on yesterday’s football go unchallenged.

I am probably older than him (57!) and have been following football since the late 70s. My first world cup was Argentina 1978, I was 9 yo.

You think the football was better back then? That world cup was one of the most dirty, corrupt, violent in history. There was the suspicion that many games were fixed. Sure, some games were good to watch but many were not. Even Brazil didn’t always play the free-flowing football they were definitely capable of playing but often chose not to.

In Spain 1982, Northern Ireland played Spain and spent the whole game trying to prevent the hosts from having the ball in the box as they knew that the ref would straight away award a penalty. Italy won despite not winning a match in the group stages. Unpunished violence was common, to the point where you had to wonder how much the ref was paid to ignore it. Maradona (now OK, one of the game’s true character and legend) spent so much time on the sidelines injured because defenders were allowed to hack him.

Back in our league, yes we had characters, we had King Kev, King Kenny, proper defenders like Hansen, midfield enforcers like Souness, characters like Norman Whiteside or Bryan Robson, but the actual football wasn’t better. A lot of agricultural matches that made grown men in the stands groan with frustration or shake their heads in despair, it was the time of “I could step on to the pitch and do better than these useless clumps”.

What we have now is actually pretty good: many so-called smaller teams are standing up to the big boys. Your Brightons, Bournemouths, Brentfords and Sunderlands are well funded and do take the game to the oppositions. Back in the 90s and 00s, many teams would just give up and not even attempting to play when faced with United or Arsenal.

VAR has spoiled the game, I’ll concede that, but refs back in the day were just as bent and/or incompetent as today – there was certainly no “golden age” of refereeing.

Tactics? Many of today’s “innovations” can be traced back to Italian, German or Dutch coaches from the 60s and 70s.

I watched the World Cup just played and trust me, it’s one of the best I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. Most games were surprisingly watchable, even an Algeria v Austria or any of the Cabo Verde games. Now if you sat through a Italy v Poland 1982 or any of the Spain games from 1982 or the Argentina games from 1990, you’d say it was a massive improvement.

I think we have a tendency to view the past with rose tinted glasses, the famous “life was better back in my days” because we didn’t have smartphones, social media, we played outdoors, we trusted our neighbours, the music was better, whatever BS the oldies want to tell you. Truth is, some things were better, some were worse. The football was not better. The only thing that was better is the discovery of new teams and players during a world cup because we didn’t know anything about them. But that’s it. Nothing else was better. Mike, CFC

Simon Cochrane posits that Arsenal today would absolutely thump his beloved 97-98 Arsenal. I absolutely agree. The latter team must all be in their 50s and 60s now. Darren, Dublin LFC

Dear F365

I’m writing to agree with Carolyn that there is a fair chance that Mike Dean wasn’t the only referee making odd decisions based on silly games. Alan Wileys decision to award Arsenal a penalty in a game that ended in a 1-1 against Portsmouth right near the start of the invincible 2003/4 season when Pires went down the way he did was baffling.