Graeme Sourness | Retires from “punditry”

izzydiggler said:
If you say something enough, people will start to believe it - exactly the same with giving up on the league with 4 games to go, when winning all 4 would have given us 4th place.

I argued this after the Spurs game as it seems Mourinho has convinced many people that throwing the league away was better than trying to win these games in case injuries/tiredness occurred because (may not be exact quote) "we had no chance of winning all of the games"...I just can't believe it - a club of our tradition willing to roll over (and the recent performances show nothing to counter this)...and loads of people actually think this is OK.

Perhaps he'll be proven right and it was the sensible thing to do, with winning the EL and it starting the road back to challenging for the title but none of it sits well with me.
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That's Jose. He decides in his mind if the match is winnable, if he thinks he can't he doesn't even bother. He did it at Chelsea, loads of weird team picks and subs and then a petering out to a loss / draw and says "we played a great team and it was difficult ". He calculates it all, % wise it's easier to win 2 EL games then 4 prem games against Arsenal and Spurs so we roll over.

It's iust what he does
 
Meh. Excuses excuses. Our second string are frankly not good enough. When SAF was getting us to finals no-one battered an eye lid with squad rotation, because the players coming in were good enough to keep our momentum and spur us on to victory. Frankly speaking, the reserves and squad players we have are nowhere near good enough

Smalling, Fellaini, Rooney all could leave today and no one would care or miss them here
 
If he wins the EL trophy and gets us into the CL that way, then its mission accomplished regardless of league position.

If he then goes on to ship out some of the average shite in the squad and get us decent replacements, then he has had a decent season.
 
Agree about his comments regarding our general season but he's just obsessed about Pogba's price. Talks a big game about wrong signings when he's credited with PL's worst signings.
 
I've totally bought into the fact that Mourinho has stuck two fingers up at the FA (who he regularly blames for the schedule at the moment) and told the players to focus totally on the final - and above all...don't get bloody injured, just in case we need you. Hence the flatness of the performances recently, lack of attack and general apathy, lack of ambition in our play. Not saying it's totally the right thing to do, but I've accepted it. If Mourinho blows the final though, I can understand and appreciate a lot of the questions being asked about his behaviour, decisions and tactics now will and should be asked then. Until then I'm trusting his undoubted success when it comes to winning finals.
 
Is there a danger of doing a 'Liverpool' here?

Klopp played b teams in the lead up to the final and it became a flat performance in the end. Seville are probably better than Ajax but there are parallels here.
 
PickledRed said:
Is there a danger of doing a 'Liverpool' here?

Klopp played b teams in the lead up to the final and it became a flat performance in the end. Seville are probably better than Ajax but there are parallels here.
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It was a flat performance in the second half. First half you guys played well.
IMO, Klopp was tactically inferior in the second half, no plan B.
Mo is superior tactically and has experience in winning finals.
That said, we could balls it up anyway.
 
PickledRed said:
Is there a danger of doing a 'Liverpool' here?

Klopp played b teams in the lead up to the final and it became a flat performance in the end. Seville are probably better than Ajax but there are parallels here.
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You are obsessed with the idea of United doing a 'Liverpool'.
 
PickledRed said:
Is there a danger of doing a 'Liverpool' here?

Klopp played b teams in the lead up to the final and it became a flat performance in the end. Seville are probably better than Ajax but there are parallels here.
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Nah, Klopp loses finals, it's what he does.
On topic I don't think Souness said anything out of line last night, it was the Redknapp shitshow by and large. The stats prove we get overran and outworked, we need players with energy? It's the exact fecking opposite. We have enough legs and workrate, we need that little bit of magic in the final third.
I do hate the way they cheat to have a go at Jose though. They talk about losing the final 100x more than winning so they can fill more airtime with their doom and gloom. It's cheap and unnecessary.
 
PickledRed said:
Is there a danger of doing a 'Liverpool' here?

Klopp played b teams in the lead up to the final and it became a flat performance in the end. Seville are probably better than Ajax but there are parallels here.
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Klopp played the B team since February or something. We did it maybe about 3 weeks back and that too with a lot of injuries.
 
Given that Pogba's Dad has just passed I think Souness was bang out of order. Not the first time he has fecked up. He did so back in 1992 giving an interview to the Sun after we got to the 1992 FA cup final. He just doesn't learn does he. Wonderful player, mediocre manager except in Scotland.
 
PickledRed said:
Is there a danger of doing a 'Liverpool' here?

Klopp played b teams in the lead up to the final and it became a flat performance in the end. Seville are probably better than Ajax but there are parallels here.
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They have a better team than we had and this is a young Ajax side, not 3 times Europa kings Sevilla. There is no parallel with Liverpool, not now and certainly not of the 90s
 
Liver_bird said:
They have a better team than we had and this is a young Ajax side, not 3 times Europa kings Sevilla. There is no parallel with Liverpool, not now and certainly not of the 90s
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Yes there are parallels. In terms of the rhythm of the season it's very similar. In terms of resting players for several games and potentially losing momentum, it's similar. The quality of the players is secondary in terms of my point.

As for Liverpool in the 90s, finishing outside top 4 and having cup runs was pretty common. It's not identical, United have better means and it's a very different landscape now but saying "there are no parallels" is a little odd. Course there are some.
 
PickledRed said:
Yes there are parallels. In terms of the rhythm of the season it's very similar. In terms of resting players for several games and potentially losing momentum, it's similar. The quality of the players is secondary in terms of my point.

As for Liverpool in the 90s, finishing outside top 4 and having cup runs was pretty common. It's not identical, United have better means and it's a very different landscape now but saying "there are no parallels" is a little odd. Course there are some.
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I think the key difference, aside from the money, is that we will recruit world class managers from now on. Liverpool went about things in their own way.
 
Gio said:
Any team which gets to a European final will have to deal with over 60 games a season - not really sure why anyone's looking for sympathy for being good. Especially with the massive squads in the modern game - a far cry from the 14 or so players the likes of Liverpool survived with in their hey-day.
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Exactly right. And this is where squad rotation is key. Ferguson was the master at doing that and keeping United fresh for the tough run-ins.
 
Classical Mechanic said:
I think the key difference, aside from the money, is that we will recruit world class managers from now on. Liverpool went about things in their own way.
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Possibly. United are in better shape than Liverpool were. The difference is that there are now 4 or 5 world elite managers in the PL, which means it won't be just United who can get a top man in. It's not quite the game changer that it may have been a few years ago.
 
Souness once again shows he's a massive cnut. Pogba is away mourning the death of his father and this idiot still couldn't refuse to bring him up and slate him. He wasn't even playing the other night the feck did Pogba have to do with our performance? Bitter man.
 
Souness is a bit like Keane; he sees certain players of the modern era who receive heightened praise and adulation and it's a bit too showbiz. It's not for them. Souness, for some Liverpool fans (older generation) is regarded as the best player to wear the shirt - or a close second behind Dalglish. He was a monster of a footballer and he's possibly a little too intolerant of the way certain players go about their business these days.
 
Souness was yellow. He assaulted players in a cowardly fashion.
 
TheReligion said:
I reckon you're the life and soul of the party.

Forums are serious business clearly.. lighten up.



They could get more cringeworthy if my user name was George Feeny.
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Oh, burn. This isn't about lightening up. This is a football forum where asinine statements are going to get torn to shreds.
If you can construct a single coherent rebuttle, go ahead. Don't go the route a 6 year old would and start presenting strawman arguments because you're stuck and realize that you don't know what you're talking about.

How old are you? Seriously.
 
George Feeny said:
Oh, burn. This isn't about lightening up. This is a football forum where asinine statements are going to get torn to shreds.
If you can construct a single coherent rebuttle, go ahead. Don't go the route a 6 year old would and start presenting strawman arguments because you're stuck and realize that you don't know what you're talking about.

How old are you? Seriously.
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Talk about proving my point :lol:
 
PickledRed said:
Yes there are parallels. In terms of the rhythm of the season it's very similar. In terms of resting players for several games and potentially losing momentum, it's similar. The quality of the players is secondary in terms of my point.

As for Liverpool in the 90s, finishing outside top 4 and having cup runs was pretty common. It's not identical, United have better means and it's a very different landscape now but saying "there are no parallels" is a little odd. Course there are some.
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Thats literally drawing parallels for the sake of drawing parallels. I could say us and Notts Forest are similar, both have European titles, both havent won anything notable for a while, doesnt make us in any way similar as clubs though does it?

United exploited their commercial potential heavily whilst we stagnated and they're still reaping the benefits of that to this day. The only parallel that exists is we're both rivals. They are far better resourced than we are and regularly make big name signings, honestly its not even close.

If there is going to be a parallel drawn it certainly wont be at this moment in time, more likely way in to the future. Also you cant just say the squad quality is irrelevant, that makes your attempted point far too arbitrary.
 
Liver_bird said:
Thats literally drawing parallels for the sake of drawing parallels. I could say us and Notts Forest are similar, both have European titles, both havent won anything notable for a while, doesnt make us in any way similar as clubs though does it?

United exploited their commercial potential heavily whilst we stagnated and they're still reaping the benefits of that to this day. The only parallel that exist is we're both rivals. They are far better resourced than we are and regularly make big name signings, honestly its not even close.

If there is going to be a parallel drawn it certainly wont be at this moment in time, more likely way in to the future. Also you cant just say the squad quality is irrelevant, that makes your attempted point far too arbitrary.
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:lol:

He's been making this parallel for sometime now.
 
Would love Pogba to bang the winner and shut these fools up.

Mourinho winning the two trophies Klopp failed to win last season will leave me with a long lasting smug grin on my face. It will eat away at the Scousers but you just know they will bring money/wages and how "2 trophies in your first season isn't good enough and you should be winning the Quadruple blah blah blah"

Come on UNITED.
 
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