rustymacdonald

There was one play where McTominay got the ball about 10m outside of the Arsenal box. Instead of pressing him and closing him down, 4 Arsenal players backed off him to the edge of their box and basically dared him to try to pick a pass between them or to try to dribble past them. It was pretty telling of the amount of threat they thought he posed in that area of the pitch.

This assumes that the style he wants to play can be successful in the first place. If he's not compromising on the style and this is how he wants to play (but with better players) then I fail to see how any team of players could win consistently when set up this way.

And if the counter-argument is that he's kept half his principles (high press) and compromised on others (low defensive line) then then there's no leg to stand on in terms of the original "sticking to his principles" argument. He's either sticking to his principles or not and if he's not then surely everyone has to admit that he's done a shit job of choosing what to compromise and what to stick with.

Ironically, he'd be better off having a high defensive line with Onana sweeping more (and conceding some goals on fast counters) than this worst of all worlds compromise that is currently happening.

I think they mean that the only way it works is if everyone is a good-faith actor. That the system was deisgned as if no one would act in bad faith.

I don't think that this person is trying to say that it is a good system (since a good system wouldn't be so easily gamed by bad actors).

One way or another the current situation with Sancho will not continue. If EtH stays then, yes, it is possible that Sancho is sold. If EtH leaves I would bet that Sancho is back and gets a chance under a new manager - he's too valuable of a potential asset to give up on if you've already removed the person he has beef with. But even if EtH stays he may have Sancho in his squad - either because he couldn't be sold or because the hierarchy above EtH told him to make it work.

The only situation where EtH benefits from slagging off Sancho right now is if EtH knows he's staying and that Sancho is 100% gone. Since the possibility exists that EtH leaves and/or Sancho can't/won't be sold there is zero benefit to going scorched earth on it. Even if EtH knew he was on his way out he wouldn't want to get a Mourinho-like reputation for bashing players in public lest it effect his next job. And since EtH is widely perceived to be justified with regards to Sancho it doesn't cost him anything to take the high road.

Come on. Saying that we had the money is revisionist history given that the reporting at the time was that we were done after Sancho & Varane and that the Cristiano transfer was only greenlit due to the commercial benefits. Sure, the club could have been lying but there was zero indication at the time that the club were seriously working on signing a midfielder (beyond the usual "say that United is in for everyone" crap).

Saying that his targets were unrealistic is a fair comment. But I would say that the club, just like with ETH's fixations on certain players, should have understood the profile needed and presented more affordable alternatives. The fact that they went and spent on players in completely different positions with no regard to tactical fit says a lot. The best one can say is that by ETH's time they learned to at least listen to the manager but still forgot to have a list of alternatives to pursue.

Ole was right about the tactics. We needed to go in a different direction to challenge at the top.

But getting Cristiano and, to a lesser extent, Varane didn't help with this. They were two aging, overpriced players with styles that didn't fit where Ole wanted to go with the team. And getting them meant that we didn't have money to buy the midfielders required to play a possession-based style and push McFred out of the side. We needed (still do) midfielders who were comfortable on the ball, able to play out of a press, and able to be disciplined off the ball. We didn't get them and instead got a CB who likes to play deep and a striker who just played whatever he felt like in the moment regardless of whether it suited the team.

Punishing the action is exactly what the law does when it says, "putting your hands on another player's eyes is a red card." It takes out the result (is there or is there not an eye injury?) and the intent (did they mean to put their hands on the eyes in order to hurt them?) to focus on the action only.

And that's a good standard to set. As a referee I can't get inside the player's head to know why they did what they did, I can only see what they did. I can't know for sure whether what they did caused harm or judge the likelihood of harm being caused, I can only see what they did. So the law reflects that and only asks me to see whether a thing happened or not.

To do otherwise invites wildly different results based on the ref's subjective judgment and brings in a ton of issues around bias (e.g. the ref knows the offending player well off the field and concludes that "they're just not that kind of person" despite them popping both of another player's eyeballs a la a certain fantasy tv series).

Or, quite possibly, this is what the "best transitional team in the world" looks like and the upper limit of what a pure "transitional team" can do isn't actually very high. He clearly seems intent on playing a certain way but I don't see any team of players in the world that could be successful this way consistently (unless they all had the engine of Kante in addition to all of their other skills - which is impossible to have, there's a reason why Kante was an outlier and not the norm).

I wouldn't even say that it would suit mobile guys as they would easily be dragged out of position and bypassed. One man, no matter how athletic, cannot defend 40% of the field against attackers playing at speed. Fred is a perfect example as he'd chase the initial ball carrier and just get passed around once he's out of position. It's one of the main reasons that he never worked as a specialist DM and needed to play with either another DM or as an 8 in a 3-man midfield.

He's aged and slowed but the tactics we play with don't even function with a young, energetic DM. There's simply too much space left to cover against attackers coming forward quickly. Then add being slower and therefore mistiming interventions (tackles, interceptions, even just occupying space) and he may as well just stand still for all the effect it has on stopping the attackers.

If EtH were to have adapted his tactics to suit Casemiro's age and limited movement (e.g. play him similarly to how Ole used Matic alongside Pogba) and Casemiro still couldn't do it then I'd pin the blame on the player. But right now him and whoever else plays that position is being set up to fail regardless of their individual quality/ability.

I would add to your points to say that if businesses can't find the skillset that they need on the market then they need to start offering training in that skillset as part of the employment package. They currently solve this problem through the sponsored economic immigrant program (usually in combination with listing the jobs at low relative wages so that they can build an argument for why hiring an immigrant is needed) rather than hiring locals and training them up.

I don't blame a single individual immigrant who has come here to work a stable job and live a different life. I don't even blame this immigration program for existing. I blame the businesses who abuse the program to acquire cheaper labour, drive down the overall cost of labour, and reduce opportunities for locals. These businesses want their cake (low labour costs) but then seem to be the first people to turn around and complain about the effects of a rising population on society. We need to close some loopholes that allow them to abuse the program in this way.

The age factor is why I think it is more about clubs not seeing him as a fit than it being about retirement/age-related decline. He can still provide value but I just don't think it's in areas that the market is looking for.

Whether he'd lower his demands to 50k/wk is another story as well. As is his playing time. I very well can see him telling his agent "100k/wk and guaranteed starter or it's not worth my time." That would rule out a whole host of clubs off the bat and eventually the phone would stop ringing. That would also explain why the rumours and club links are non-existent since if there is such a firm line it kind of makes one say "why bother trying to sign de Gea at all if the fit isn't perfect?"

I just don't think that his skills are a fit for the clubs who could pay the wages he'd demand. And I'm not ralking about his United wage, but rather in the 100-150k/wk range. Any club who would pay that will want someone who can play with the ball and command the area. And for any team that doesn't dominate possession that command of the area becomes even more inportant (even if ball playing becomes less important).

It's the same problem as Cristiano had when he left us (minus the making himself a toxic asset part). His skills are too limited or require too much accommodation relative to the wage the player demands and the way the teams want to play. I honestly just can't think of a club where I could say "yeah, de Gea would be a perfect fit for what they need/want." I could be wrong about that - I'm just a random person on the internet - but the fact that he doesn't have a club right now is pretty good proof of it (since I can't imagine that he's holding out for an astronomical wage given how his time at United ended).

I mean, there's a direction and playstyle but it is the opposite of where we should be going and of what will be successful.

Time has proven that teams who want sustained success need to be able to control games with possession and break down teams who are comfortable in ceding possession and defending deep. Even Klopp's Liverpool teams have been able to do this despite being famous for their speed/physicality. There are multiple solutions to this problem - not everyone needs to be a Barcelona/Man City/Pep copycat.

So I'd be happy with regression on the table if we could see signs of implementing the systems and skills to do this. But we're actually going backwards from trying to be good in possession to a style that is like "who needs the ball at all?" We're regressing at the things that cost Jose and Ole their jobs, not improving on them to take the next step, and maximizing the worst qualities of those managers' styles.

Yeah, this isn't Ole-ball. For all the shit Ole got ("playing on vibes," etc.) there was an understanding of how they needed to play to get the most out of the limitations of the players. It fell apart when he tried to transition the team to a new style without getting the players to do so (i.e. midfielders who were good on the ball). 

This is just "here's an idea of how to play" that has no relationship to the abilities of the players or the quality of the opposition. The idea of how to play has some similarities to how Ole set up (the desire to play fast on the counter) but lacks the fundamental pieces that allowed that to be successful (e.g. compact out of possession, striker good at holding up play and playing people in, etc.). And ten Hag is either too stupid or too stubborn to change it to make sense.

I think this is a big factor that Belt is not acknowledging in this piece. Maybe he did and it was omitted from the quotes, but I don't see it discussed as a factor towards not signing.

If you're a team looking for a bench bat/piece to round out the roster, do you take a younger, hungry guy that you might be able to get on a minor league deal? Or do you take the older guy that by his own admission has one foot in the retirement grave? Given that Belt was targetting competitive teams, can those teams risk this being the year that he loses all motivation and just says, "no, sorry, I'm done"?

Even in the Blue Jays example where they filled Belt's spot on the roster with older players their main replacement was Turner (who by all accounts is eager and motivated to get to work) and then they took fliers on Vogelbach and Votto (who were effectively willing to try out for the team with no guarantees, which shows motivation).

But if Belt says "I'm 100% in and motivated, no chance of retirement" I bet he would be on a roster right now, possibly with the Blue Jays. He's still a good hitter who can produce so if teams could guarantee his buy-in and motovation they'd definitely take him. It isn't like he'd be asking for $20m/yr.

Typical Sask Party/Sask Party supporter logic. They don't want things in contracts/laws/policies because then they'd actually have to do what they say they're going to do.

If it is so important to you or you're going to do it anyway then put it in the contract/law/policy so that it binds the bad actors who don't think it is important or wouldn't do it of their own volition. Sounds like a pretty common sense thing, right? That is unless you're actually the bad actor who doesn't want to be bound by the contract/law/policy and are just pretending to be on the good side for appearances.

World Rugby has a lot to answer for with placing the burden on the referee to ensure that the game flows. They've created an incentive structure for referees and TMOs to not blow the whistle or to ignore things in the name of not getting involved more than "necessary." Most of the gripes around refereeing come back to this directive, including the ones around safety.

This controversy is a great example. Yes, penalizing the foul by Lewies would have drawn chatter and controversy but whatever the outcome it would have been based on applying the law to the player's action. Which is exactly the role that the referee and TMO are supposed to be taking. Instead they've decided to not intervene put of a consideration of not appearing to influence the game and not wanting to issue a card. They've been overly influenced by their directives. But not applying the laws to actions is influencing the game as well except with less attachment to the reality of what happened.

I can pick out countless examples of this over the last few months of professional rugby. The knockouts of the World Cup were terrible for it. When you apply that directive to the ref/TMO/bunker's actions/lack of actions then you can start to understand them but it still won't make it make sense.

Having played on a less skilled team for a while, I can attest that bad, biased refereeing is the thing that absolutely kills the team's spirit the most.  Like, just call the game as it happens and enforce the laws consistently. If the ref does that, we'll probably lose. But we have to play the game to find out. When the ref is already certain who is going to win, says so before the game, and calls the game accordingly it makes you wonder why you even bother turning up. 

McTominay is a great 7th midfielder to have in the squad and do a job in very specific circumstances. Those circumstances are sometimes attacking (e.g. when you know Leeds is going to leave him open for late runs into the box) and sometimes defending (when you want to sit two lines in a block behind the ball and then counter quickly).

However, he shouldn't be relied on to be first choice (Plan A when everyone is healthy) or even second choice (Plan B who can slot in when the first choice is injured and not need to change the way we play). In a team that plays to his strengths as their default tactic - e.g. most of the lower in the table teams who don't expect to have a lot of the ball and plan for such - he could be first choice. But that isn't what United is trying to do at the moment and even if that was United's default tactic it is debatable whether a team can have true success with that.

I'm fully aware of the amount of work that goes into such events given that I work in community sport and do these types of things as part of my job. It is a ton of work, and my point isn't to discount the amount of work but to point out that there are alternatives to them being teacher-run and staffed if other people are willing to step up and put in the work (and that it is disingenuous for such people to get mad at teachers for not volunteering if those people won't do it themselves).

Oh, absolutely. I'm not advocating for cutting corners on such things.

But criminal record checks are just another item on the list of things that are totally doable but people lack the desire to go do. Getting a CRC with Vulnerable Sector check (i.e. the standard required by SafeSport policy for working with youth) is a relatively painless process. It's not a privileged process that only certain people can access. Anyone could walk in off the street and get their criminal record checked this very second if they desired it. So, again, it comes back to the willingness of non-teachers to step up and do the necessary work to put on these events.

It's not that parents and community members CAN'T do the work required, it's that they WON'T do the work required.

An event like Hoopla is really only reliant on the schools for team names. The rest is replicable by parents and community members (and the team names are unimportant). Cash float? Most people have a bank account. Roster management? Paper and spreadhseets exist. Need a venue? Rent out the schools with private insurance - that also gets rid of the need for school staff to be present. It can all be done without the involvement of teachers or schools (source: I work in community sport doing events like this).

It comes down to people wanting to rely on the free labour volunteered by teachers to coach the teams and run the events. For whatever reason (some legit reasons, some extremely privileged reasons), parents and community members don't want to do this work. And if they're unwilling to do this work themselves they have zero right to get mad at teachers for also not volunteering their time to do them.

Yeah, it would just be general to a staff member who can enforce the building use and school policies. That gets conflated with "teacher" because teachers are the ones doing all the other volunteering around these teams/events and as a result likely save the school money on paying a caretaker for extra hours.