Liam Rosenior showed his ‘arrogance’ from first day at Chelsea | OneFootball

Liam Rosenior is presumably done as Chelsea manager after five defeats without a goal. But this was always in the post.

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Making minds up on Rosenior

The main thing that made my mind up – and grinds my gears generally if I ever see it – was Rosenior on perhaps his first day at Chelsea, physically putting his arms around shoulders/hands round faces of players – some senior and probably only a few years younger than him – as if they had all been best mates for years.

Now I may be old school and not a bit interested in the new methods of man management in the workplace – but that will always come across as so arrogant and self unaware (or self aware/deluded – whichever way you want to look at it). For me, in all walks of life, you should be respectful and patient – any association/relationship/friendship needs a certain amount of time to develop.

I don’t care if you are Fergie himself – you don’t just walk up to anyone you dont know and impose yourself/wisdom/affection on them instantly – that suggests that you think you are all knowing and all powerful about everything in that individual’s existence, and that you expect that person to simply drop at your feet and do and think what you want him to do – before knowing anything about that individual as you have only just turned up.

I doubt Leroy Rosenior has built a massive network of player relationship in his short life. But even if you had, you still need to wait a certain amount of time before being all touchy feely surely?

But then I’ve always cringed at all the different managers over the years that pat all the players and their opposite numbers cheeks when they shake hands/embraced before and after games. Rafa always used to do it to everyone including Fergie and I’d think oh god please dont do that. I very much doubt Fergie appreciated having his face caressed by any other manager – let alone Rafa. I always felt that he was having to stop himself from nutting him back. Its just simple respect for your elders and betters. The sort of thing you learn as a kid and it stays with you no?

I suppose being a coach you have to have a certain belief in what you are preaching – but there is a way of doing it without being a prick. Shunt – LFC (maybe going to see Harry Enfield at the weekend has put me in Old Git mode?)

The Barber of Stamford Bridge?

Not words I thought I’d ever write, and I’m not blaming the hairdresser in question for the Sideshow Bob style cut that Cucurella enjoys!

But I’m highlighting a line from John Brewin’s report in The Guardian from Chelsea’s latest defeat at Brighton, where he says ‘The absence of the hamstrung Cole Palmer had been a surprise, though not to those who caught leaked team news from Marc Cucurella’s barber.’

This seems unusual for a few of reasons:

1) A journalist telling everyone where he gets leaked team news. 2) A journalist knowing and / or following Marc Cucurella’s barber. 3) A journalist seemingly stitching up a player he may potentially interview in the future.

I don’t now whether John Brewin is a Brighton fan (unlikely, as far as I can see he is from Macclesfield) who wanted some sort petty revenge on Cucurella for jumping ship to Chelsea (but I can’t see why he’d pick on Cucurella for this, and not Robert Sanchez or Moises Caicedo who were also playing, or Graham Potter et al).

I just thought it strange, and even a bit refreshing for a journalist to fess up a source like this. Presumably he won’t be a source, or Marc Cucurella’s barber much longer! A, LFC, Montreal

Why Chelsea might cheer on the opposition…

My math might be completely wrong, but isn’t there a reasonably likely, or at least possible, scenario in a few weeks that it’s actually in Chelsea’s interest to lose to Liverpool?

If they are 7-9 points behind Liverpool (meaning they realistically can’t catch them), a Liverpool win could help knock Villa down into 5th giving Chelsea a shot at the potential sixth champions league spot.

It would be a bit of a nightmare scenario for the powers that be if Chelsea’s only path to Champions League qualification (and financial salvation) requires them to lose a game. RH, NYC

(Your maths makes sense; Chelsea can qualify for the Champions League but only if Aston Villa win the Europa League and then finish fifth – Ed)

Has anybody actually asked Michael Carrick?

Following another previously unexpected win over a big-time rival, the subject of Manchester United appointing Michael Carrick as permanent manager continues to headline ex-United payer blogs and divide opinion between his former team mates.

Has anyone asked Michael if he wants the job?

Surely his agent should be leaking skuttlebutt about the vacant Palace job… or replacing Rosenior… or, more obviously, Arteta…

Maybe time for some competitive tension to grease the wheels of decision making at INEOS.

It won’t happen, but it would be a bit of fun for a while. Steve, Melbourne

Why Garnacho deserves another chance

As a Utd fan I should be enjoying Garnacho’s continued descent into obscurity. However, I am not. It also doesn’t keep me awake at night.

While he deserves plenty of ridicule for a lot of things he has done I still feel sorry for the lad especially when his idol is supposedly Ronaldo. I’ll come back to that…

When Garnacho started to work his way into the utd team he was better than Sancho (The England winger, not the latter version) and should have taken his spot earlier. Garnacho had raw talent and you could see the potential. Fast forward a couple of years and he’s done more on social media than on the pitch.

I really hope him and his advisors take a leaf out of Ronaldos book. Ronaldo is one of the hardest working footballers on the planet, he was Garnacho-esque and he rose to be the GOAT (one of them). Garnacho and other young footballers need to learn that social media is only going to get you in trouble and they need to do their talking on the pitch. He needs to move away from the Premier league, uninstall all his social media accounts and start again.

Good luck to him (if he makes the effort) and I hope young footballers also take note of how social media can hamper your progress. Jon, Cape Town (Everyone deserves another chance, except Greenwood according to most of you. And Donald Trump, he didn’t deserve another chance)

Why we should be able to laugh at Arsenal

I read Johnny Nic’s piece on the hollow pettiness of mocking Arsenal as bottlers while their season threatens to reach a depressing end point. Might be the most bloodless, didactic take I’ve seen on the cauldron of schadenfreude that’s ready to bubble over after the weekend.

Isn’t the tribalism at the heart of being a football fan rooted in finding counterparts to your own team which provide you with the opportunity to lord it over others? Whether that be besting local rivals, crowing when you win a trophy, or deflecting from your own shortcomings by highlighting another team’s suffering?

That last example is the most relevant when it comes to Arsenal’s season. If City do overhaul them and win the title, chances are they’ll be the only team lifting a domestic trophy this season. In the absence of any real glory for anyone else, it’s only natural that Arsenal become that irrational point of focus in the vacuum.

We’re talking about a team managed by a man of cartoonish intensity, whose frequent wild celebrations mark him out just like the highly-strung kid in school who cries when he gets a sum wrong. Sections of their fan base behave in a similar fashion, annoying the p*** out of everyone else. To top it off, they’ve played an eye-bleeding brand of football for most of the season, failing to inspire any favour from neutrals whatsoever. When a team like that blows a golden opportunity – and it looks like they might – the jeers are a certainty to follow.

Taking perverse pleasure in seeing Arsenal lose also does not mean that anyone is rowing in behind Manchester City as John suggests. The prospect of dealing with City winning another title is just much easier to address than having Arsenal’s fans in a de facto position of ascendancy.

City have won so much that it’s only ever a real story now when they fail – the news cycle would move on in the space of a few days. Their fans are also easy to dismiss when they pipe up, because the sporting merit in their victories is entirely invalidated by the accepted fact that they’re built on a base of consistent cheating via financial doping.

I get the argument that doing anything other than foaming at the mouth when City prosper is tantamount to accepting that the evil empire has already won. But we’re talking about cohorts of fans here, not the Premier League or UEFA or anyone else who can realistically impose sanctions to change the status quo. Until such time as that changes, City’s unique brand of evil will still remain the lesser of 2 when fans are forced to pick a title winner that’s not their own team. Arsenal might well be the victims of that odd equation this season, but let’s not pretend that the glee that’s erupting as they falter somehow makes football fans any more fickle or small-minded than they’ve always been. Keith Reilly

…People still don’t get why enjoying Arsenal’s failure is fun. It just is fun. Fun fun fun. It’s like criticizing people.for enjoying sex. It just IS fun!!!! Seeing spurs get relegated (they could still stay up btw) isn’t fun. Its kinda dirty. Kind of sad. Feels so wrong. But we still want it to happen anyway!! Ben Teacher

Why Man City don’t bottle it…

Given Liverpool’s rubbish season, the title race is none of my concern so I watched Sunday’s City v Arsenal as a neutral. I was so impressed with City in the second half. They dominated the flow of the game. The players played with confidence and flair and based on that, will deserve to win the title ahead of anti-football Arsenal.

In the aftermath, the discourse has turned to Arsenal bottling the title which made me think about why City have done the opposite i.e. stepped up when it counts, and why they’ve done this for the best part of 10 years. Why haven’t they ever bottled it? On the two occasions they lost the title to Liverpool they were so far behind there was nothing to bottle in the last couple of months of the season.

My conclusion is that there’s less pressure on them to perform. Most people don’t care about City and so their players can play with a mental freedom because there won’t be any scrutiny placed on them should they fail. This is the polar opposite of Arsenal and Liverpool in recent years. If squad players like Ben White or Kostas Tsimikas misplace a pass during a game, all media (tv, print, radio and social) will flag those players as weak links and debates will rage about squad depth, managerial decisions, transfer windows and whether these players/teams bottle it when it counts. City’s first team, let alone their squad players will never face as much scrutiny and so they can go about their business on the pitch fully focused and not have to worry about any fallout from a misplaced pass.

To underline this, the only time City do come under any pressure is against Real Madrid in the UCL and more often than not, they bottle it!

There’s nothing that can be done to change this, but just like all of City’s titles have a financially doped asterisk against them, it should be acknowledged that their players have always had an easier ride in the EPL in comparison to any title challengers. Nilesh, Harrow

Honesty has done Haaland there

If Haaland had gone down from the Gabriel headbutt, Gabriel would’ve received a red and missed three of the five remaining fixtures. As it is, this could cost City the title.

Haaland has assumed that Anthony Taylor could see it was violent conduct without the need to dive. Perhaps he needs to understand better the level of refereeing in this country.

Honesty is not the best policy. Simon S, NUFC, Cheshire

Yes, the rules are unfair but…

It does annoy me that Man City have (probably) broken the rules but there’s also an argument that the rules are a bit sh*t; have the rules literally been designed to ensure the same clubs remain the biggest forever?

I find it funny how Americans celebrate the US constitution because its writing was based on the fact that a small number of rich white men were worried that the poor majority would vote to redistribute their wealth. Then later it was amended to permit slavery of anyone convicted of a crime and yet somehow nobody can quite explain why so many black men in the US are imprisoned every year since that 13th amendment.

In a way I think the PL spending rules aren’t dissimilar; people trying to fix the food chain and then marketing it like it’s so good when in fact it’s a load of crud designed to ensure continued supplication of the majority to the benefit of a few. Before anyone says the majority of PL clubs voted for these rules, the majority of teams don’t change season to season. Even if you’re Everton there’s benefit in the hierarchy as long as you can hold your place in it. The top 15 are probably very happy to see the promoted three be the relegated 3 season after season.

The rules make a lot of sense to protect silly owners from destroying clubs (see: Wednesday, Sheffield) but do they make equal sense when the UAE government has a vanity project? Did anyone tell LIV to stop it when they gave Phil Mickelson $100m to play golf for them without signing any decent TV rights deals to ensure people might see him hit a ball these past 3 years? Now LIV might be collapsing what will poor Phil do to put food on the table? Why is football different to some other sport in this instance? I get football clubs represent a community in some cases but if that’s your line then apparently you’re in “This means more” territory which apparently is not ok. Phil will go play golf elsewhere and footballers can move to myriad leagues globally to keep plying their trade.

Maybe the fit and proper owners test needs to be more robust and on that side Arsenal fans can definitely gripe. We can’t have evil owners who suppress the rights of those less fortunate or who rise to success off the hard work of others. For example, a billionaire who married the Walmart heir (paying minimum wage to become billionaires) and made his money running poor people out of their homes so he could knock them all down, build a shopping center and apartments they could never afford. Their previous owner, the Oligarch…at least nobody could say a bad word about the origin of his wealth. Anyone who knows, that might have blown the whistle, is already dead. Minty, LFC

Everton response to previous Minty…

Minty LFC, you’re the classic example of why 95% of Liverpool supporters embarrass the rest.

Having a go at the announcer? Really? I’m fairly amiable when it comes to the rivalry and I’m pretty sure Everton didn’t have anything to do with his exclamation about history.

I get you’re still sour about VVD “getting done” by Pickford but that was how many years ago? Geez lad, you won the match.

Here’s how it’s done: “Yes, we wanted to beat our rivals badly but just didn’t have the quality to see off a very good team. Wish we had defended better at the end to get the draw, but VVD showed his class in getting the winner for Liverpool. Everton, while playing well in large stretches of the game, just showed we aren’t quite there yet while Liverpool has a history, and especially against us, of getting the result even when not playing at their best.”

See? Not hard to give credit where it’s due. I thought at most a draw would have been the fair result but deserved? Nope. TX Bill (Beto starting to make me think he’s a decent player after all…Barry on the other hand….) EFC