Man Utd should get rid of JJ Gabriel; ‘no d***heads’ policy extends to kids and dads | OneFootball

JJ Gabriel and Manchester United dominate the narrative as the ‘no d***heads’ policy really should extend to family.

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Man Utd should get rid of JJ Gabriel This is a simple one: get rid, and do so quickly and without fanfare. I don’t care how good JJ Gabriel might be, he’s a 15-year old boy.

No player is ever bigger than the club, especially a child who has done nothing in the game yet, and the message it sends – if the powers that be fawn over him, beg him to stay and start making allowances – is that a bit of innate talent counts for more than the years of unrelenting effort other players have put in to earn their opportunities.

Leaving aside the extent to which his old man and agent also sounds like a proper wrong’un and nightmare to deal with – and will presumably be at whatever club he ultimately moves to – one thing that United have done really well since INEOS have come in is the “no dickheads” policy.

The only players you ever want at the club are the ones who want to be there and are proud to wear the shirt, and this policy is absolutely not worth undermining for a child, however good he might be. They’ve already come close to this by reintegrating Rashford, but there are mitigating circumstances there.

Ferguson would never have tolerated this sort of behaviour, and he didn’t, in the cases of a number of players, and, by and large, was proven right, even ultimately by Pogba. Gabriel could easily be the next Ravel Morrison as much as the next Cristiano Ronaldo, and this sort of circus is just not worth it. Matt, Sheffield

No wonder he wants to leave Man Utd though… I’ve never seen JJ Gabriel play. I didn’t even know what he looked like until I read an article saying he wanted to leave. I’ve heard he’s very good, and if the rumours are true, and clubs like Real Madrid, Barcelona, City and Chelsea all want his signature, then he must be an excellent prospect.

So, if he does want to leave, could anyone blame him? United are a shambles of a club and have been for ages. Maybe Gabriel thinks it’d be best for his career if he were at a club who are focused on signing the best players possible and going after every trophy possible, rather than a club that seems OK with qualifying for the Champions League once every few years and winning the occasional cup competition? Maybe he’d prefer to play with genuine world-class players like Kylian Mbappé, Erling Haaland or Lamine Yamal?

Maybe he also doesn’t fancy spending his career at a club surrounded by ex-players constantly talking about United DNA, Sir Alex and how things used to be. I’ve gone on about Keane, Scholes and G Nev before, so I’ll spare everyone another full rant.

People involved with United and a lot of the fans have been saying they are one of, if not the biggest, clubs in the world. If one of their best young players now looks at Real Madrid, Barcelona or even City and sees a better place to build his career, perhaps the most embarrassing part isn’t that he wants to leave. It’s that United have become the sort of club where his reasoning would be perfectly understandable.

Or maybe it’s all just a ploy by his agent or whatever to get him into the team earlier, because he wants to play at a level he thinks he deserves to be at, and given the reputation he has, maybe that’s justified.

Or maybe he just wants more money. Ant MUFC (I’m just playing, United, you know I love you)

Still believing in Carrick and Man Utd Dave Tickner’s article on Carrick misses the mark a little when he suggests Carrick flourished last season because he was “working in that cheat-code world that bears no relation to the normal run of things at such a club”. The context of this was in reference to our lack of games last season; however, it should be recognised that we have only had one additional midweek game so far and, therefore, the game-every-few-days reality has yet to kick in and so cannot be a reason for our slow start.

Winning games in the PL is not easy under any circumstances and, whilst a reduced workload is undeniably largely beneficial, it can also cause problems such as keeping the squad happy with less game time and a risk players get out of rhythm. It still remains to be seen how the extra games will impact our season. But to diminish or dismiss Carrick’s achievements last year because of this is wrong – Spurs were dumped out of domestic cups early last season and only had one knockout CL match in March yet have barely won a match in 2026.

I’ll not bore all by picking apart the derby again, we started well, got an advantage with the sending off, didn’t take advantage and were robbed of at least a draw. Nevertheless, DT’s assertion that City’s new MF marched all over ours is also questionable – we were well on top in MF before the sending off, so much so that Neville was pointing out the space between Enzo and Anderson was an issue. Tielemans definitely didn’t do enough with the ball but as DT mentioned, City as a team blocked the middle, not just relying on their aforementioned expensive CMs.

But I digress, it’s still too early to judge Carrick and Utd, or any team for that matter. Remember, this time last season Liverpool were being crowned quadruple winners after 5 games, and we all laughed at how that turned out.

The Hull game stank, we played fairly well against Ipswich, conceded two worldies against Everton, and got cheated out of points against City. There are enough positives in there, and plenty of brilliant results last season even with the “cheat-code” context, to remain patient and see if he can get us firing again. Garey Vance, MUFC

Patience maybe? An Ex-Captain and classy ball playing midfielder replaces an established and recognised manager at a struggling big 6 football club. Immediately under pressure with disappointing results and big players not performing. The parallels are startling with a certain Arteta. The difference as Dave Tickner articulates, this is Manchester United.

As an Arsenal fan I have no skin in this conversation and frankly after living through the 2 dominant eras of Manchester United and Liverpool before, seeing either or both struggle is never a disappointment.

However… 4 games into a new season and already the knives are being sharpened. That seems crazy. Carrick does feel a bit of a personality vacuum but then Jose did not end well (does it ever ?).

If you look athe current crop of hot property managers, albeit at smaller clubs (no offence), Glasner, Iraola, Le Bris ? yes the pressure is less but it took them 2 years to build something and with very small budgets. Would United give them the time needed ?

When Arteta came in Arsenal fans were not blinded by him and other fans were surprised when most supported him regardless. We understood just simply sacking him would achieve little. The improvements were incremental (along with investment of course). I used to laugh at La Liga especially where managers would be sacked after 5 games but this now seems the norm and it feels like Carrick’s fate is already sealed. Matt Coplestone (55, every year growing more cynical at football but enjoying the short window of ”success” whilst it lasts).

It was 30 years ago today… Patrick Vieira made his Arsenal debut 30 years ago today.

I was there.

Geez, I feel old. Graham Simons, Gooner, Norf London

Gyok off Can the person that thought telling Viktor Gyokores to “just go out there and be yourself this season “ was a positive and empowering thing please;

1) own up. 2) tell him he’s prime Ollie Bierhoff , or failing that, Ollie Watkins. Or at the very least Ollie Macburnie.

He’s clearly paying attention to you. Johnno

Yet more on VAR In my day job I’ve found it’s better to say the magic three words “I don’t know” than to just blag it. This will usually raise a few eyebrows once you start trying to show expertise on something you clearly don’t have because most of the time the people in the room are smarter than you. This is why I feel VAR is an abomination, a walking hulk trudging its dirty power hungry hooves through the beautiful game, because none of the officials feel comfortable saying the magic words “I don’t know”.

Once the VAR train starts rolling, at every step of the process no-one seems to stop and say “this is too hard” whether it’s imposter syndrome or the pressure from their peers. They seem to feel they have to make an informed decision and it needs to be the correct one. Fans are like my colleagues, they’re smart and knowledgeable in football so I don’t know why the officials think they can pull the wool over our eyes with their incompetence. I reckon most fans would actually be ok if they just said “I haven’t a clue what to do with this one, let’s play on”.

There are three ways VAR can go now, scrapped altogether and go back to crappy refs making bad decisions in an uninterrupted game. Keep it, but make it a challenge system like tennis. Put a timer on it, if they haven’t come up with the goods in 60 seconds then it’s not a “clear and obvious error.” Just do something with it, cause the current system is total shit. Jamie M MUFC

…Football is just better without VAR. The game becomes more visceral so when Szoboslai bangs one in from 40 yards like he’s prime Stevie you focus on taking your shirt off and running around the living room whilst hoping not to wake the kids. I’ve genuinely found in the past few years I don’t celebrate or get excited by goals the majority of the time anymore. What’s the point when you know someone is going to rewatch it looking for any reason to disallow?

I found refs infuriating and definitely called for the introduction of VAR but this system is just balls. If they’re desperate to keep it allow both teams one review a half. No actual VAR; ref gets sent to the monitor to rewatch an incident. He can only watch it in live speed but can see multiple angles if available. Mic goes live and he explains what he saw to the crowd in real time and his final decision.

Liked watching Koumas press tonight like he was the boy desperate to not go home alone at 1am at a party. Was all over everyone, everywhere. I am already a big fan of McConnell and Nyoni and neither put a foot wrong.

Finally, Liverpool might be dreadful again this season or we might be good but either way I think Jacquet is looking like a real bit of quality. He’s so elegant whilst also aggressive and strong. What a delightful little bit we have found ourselves. Minty, LFC

…OK, this is prompted by the VAR error at the weekend but I’m not going to add to that debate. VAR clearly has its problems but one area where I feel it has made both big improvements and steps backwards is with regards to offside. Pre VAR, offside was probably one of the most contentious on field decisions as it was not subjective like all the penalty calls and pretty clear to see post game if an injustice occured.

VAR actually improved the offside officiation with a lot more right decisions being made but has still made a couple of howlers (notably one against Utd and one for them not long ago too as mentioned).

I think the issue is actually that since VAR’s introduction the governing bodies keep tweaking laws which add confusion and subjectivity which in turn adds to the chance of human error.

Why does offside allow an attacking player to be onside if they are deemed to not be interfering with play? Why is there not a similar rule whereby a defender who is not interfering with play would not be keeping an attacker onside? I’m being facetious there so please don’t answer that… My real problem with “interfering with play” is that what the hell is someone doing on the pitch, let alone in the penalty box if he is not interfering with play. Just make the offside rule simple and say it applies to all players whether they’re on the ball, off the ball or busy taking a selfie. If they’re on the pitch getting paid 100K plus a week then they damn well better be interfering with play.

That would make the offside rule much easier to officiate, much easier for players and fans to understand and take seconds instead of minutes to decide (it could actually be done real time like goal line tech).

I’m sure you could improve VAR in other areas with this philosophy of simplifying what it can and can’t officiate but we probably won;t see that as this world now runs on controversy so we need the clickbait of contentious decisions to keep the clicks coming in. Heaven forbid all the decisions were right, we’d then have to discuss the actual football. Jon, Cape Town

…Just heard the VAR audio and associated Howard Webb/EMO waffle. The excuse is breathtaking – Webb saying “the VAR got so super focused on Haaland” that they missed Enzo Fernandez. More breathtaking still though is that, unlike everyone else in the world with functioning eyes and more than one brain cell, professional referees with the benefit of multiple replays didn’t even mention him!!!

I would wager that every warm body that frequents this site not only saw it, but also managed to remember the particular episode of the endless offside rule f**kery these last few years that made it off bleedin’ side. It’s f**king woeful. If I, or anyone else here in gainful employment, made such a basic error with such potentially huge consequences, their feet wouldn’t touch the ground as they were drop kicked out of the back door. With the ever increasing number of litigious American owners in the PL, someone soon is going to sue too, and whilst this is the last thing the PL needs, I actually wouldn’t blame them. Even if you factor in the obvious and completely unnecessarily rushed nature of the fool who was the lead video assistant referee here, IT’S F**KING OBVIOUS MATE!

Per your recent article, there’s an ever growing list of these so it’s not even a partisan issue either (sit down Mikel, Ballard doing exactly the sly shit you tell your lot to do only better is a different and more complex matter entirely).

Yeah it was hilarious given the context, and Man U are so shite it would probably have made no difference to the outcome, but the fact the buffoons in the VAR bunker are so spectacularly inept is totally unacceptable. Compare and contrast this clusterfuck with the metronomic, calm, repeatable, consistent audio in rugby’s version of VAR. Webb saying they have processes is laughable. This eejit was just panicking and making it up as he went along.

It’s an absolute scandal and yet another nail in the coffin of premier league football in 2026. Fuck the refs, you’re supposed to be competent and professional enablers, invisible enablers preferably. Webb needs to resign and let someone with some ability sort the whole sorry mess out. RHT/TS x