*Official* English Football Season 2016-17

[Lillian Thomson]

Manure signing publicity seeking has-beens. Things are looking up for next season at last.

 

[Furball]

Like manager, like signing.

 

[Uppercut]

He just had his best scoring season, albeit it for a dominant team in a not great league. Still, I don't see much downside to this transfer given it's a one year contract, unfortunately. Even if he scored at half the rate he did last season he'd still be an asset.

Clubs could probably afford it but might not go for him if they don't have a culture of paying those sort of wages. I imagine Arsenal would fall into that bracket.

I partly agree but it's possible to understate the problem of having past-it strikers around the squad. Having RVP and Rooney around, and to a lesser extent Falcao, has had a pretty severe impact on our performances over the past few seasons. Internal politics can make it difficult for coaches to get them out of the team, or the coaches might just not have the balls to drop them. RVP getting injured was pivotal in getting us to 4th in 2015, and this season we had our best run when Rooney's injury got Rashford in the team. That experience is probably what's causing my ambivalence about this transfer when I should really be excited.

 

[Cabinet96]

Kind of think if any manager has the balls to drop a player Mourinho will. And yeah, I usually don't like these kind of transfers. Remember we had a famous debate on here around the time of Falcao arriving and about RVP in the past. Just think that his starting point is so good, and the striker market so thin (Watford just rejected £38m for Ighalo along with the Deeney stuff) that it has to be a good deal. Especially when his goal history doesn't exactly lineup with what you'd consider a normal age curve.

 

[Tangles]

100% these Mkhitaryan rumours are going to end with the sudden announcement that he's signed for Chelsea.

Not familiar with him apart from the recent stats the rumors mention. What's the general opinion on on him?

 

[Furball]

Flatters to deceive a lot. Juan Mata mark 2.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Like manager, like signing.

This.

Man U working hard to wrest the commercially attractive status of most hated club on the planet away from Real Madrid.

 

[Uppercut]

Mkhitaryan is excellent, and I would love it if we signed him. The only qualifier is the usual one, that nobody looks quite as good after leaving Dortmund.

 

[duffer]

This.

Man U working hard to wrest the commercially attractive status of most hated club on the planet away from Real Madrid.

Chelsea surely?

 

[GIMH]

Chelsea surely?

It's Man U and always should be

 

[duffer]

Chelsea fans are the most insufferable ****s though. Even compared to Utd fans. Maybe seeing Mourinho on that touchline might change how I feel. **** them both though.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Arsenal fans probably have an, um, special relationship with Chelsea. They've not really been a relevant contender for long enough for me to truly hate them though.

 

[sledger]

Chelsea definitely the most despised club for me. A high density of horrible players/fans/managers over the last ten years or so means they have overtaken Man Utd fairly comfortably in my eyes. I think what made me realise this was when it dawned on me that over the last few years I have taken greater delight in Chelsea losing than more or less anything else in football.

Man Utd stopped being truly hateable for me around 2007, when they became legitimately really really good. Too good to hate. Since then they've not really been good enough to hate. Still highly amusing when they get beaten in amusing circumstances though (e.g. the 6-1 home defeat to City).

 

[Spikey]

its actually liverpool

 

[GIMH]

Chelsea are just a moment in time. It's United and always will be.

There aren't enough Chelsea fans for them to be a factor.

Arsenal distaste born out of being displaced as the London elite IMO

 

[Uppercut]

They're all despicable in their own way- Arsenal have their poshness, Chelsea have their evilness, Spurs have their **** fans. Liverpool are the worst though. They're like a really smug evangelical American church that makes a sickeningly cheesy Christian movie out of everything that ever happens to them.

 

[sledger]

Haha, I don't think I've ever really stopped to think about the hierarchy of London clubs. Arsenal being displaced as one of the top two elites sides in the country bothered me a lot more than them being displaced as the top team in London, though I suppose one necessarily requires the other. So far as the London hierarchy is concerned the only thing I'm bothered about is St Totteringham's day.

Edit: and losing to Spurs in anything. Being knocked out of the CL by Spurs, for instance, would be one of the grimmest things imaginable.

 

[vcs]

Chelsea definitely the most despised club for me. A high density of horrible players/fans/managers over the last ten years or so means they have overtaken Man Utd fairly comfortably in my eyes. I think what made me realise this was when it dawned on me that over the last few years I have taken greater delight in Chelsea losing than more or less anything else in football.

Man Utd stopped being truly hateable for me around 2007, when they became legitimately really really good. Too good to hate. Since then they've not really been good enough to hate. Still highly amusing when they get beaten in amusing circumstances though (e.g. the 6-1 home defeat to City).

Mourinho is the common denominator. Hated Chelsea with a passion when he was there, and I was like a Man Utd. fan when they beat Chelsea to the title in 2007. Now I can see the same hate being transferred to Utd. Fergie had his faults, but he was an angel compared to Jose for the neutral.

 

[sledger]

Nah Ferguson was very much a turd in his own right, for much of his tenure anyway. I didn't mind him much towards the end. Mourinho still definitely worse on the whole for me mind you, but Ferguson was never an angel by any standards.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Ferguson was a ****ing **** for like two decades, wtf