0-0 at halftime. United looking solid with a narrow four in midfield in front of a back five. Same eleven that won at City. Hojlund missed a good chance just before the break. Not sure they can keep this up for the full ninety minutes, though.

Wolves match report

We watched Wallace and Gromit this afternoon, which everyone enjoyed, little kid was particularly excited.

After that, despite protests from the kids, I watched United at lowly Wolves. I’d been convinced beforehand that this was a game the new Portuguese manager must surely win. At half-time it was 0-0 and I thought it was hard to see either team scoring (or not conceding).

Within a couple of minutes of the restart Bruno stupidly got himself sent off for fouling the Wolves right back in the Wolves’ half. Needless, and it left the ten men looking bereft without their leader, talisman, only creative outlet and most likely goal threat.

Wolves soon capitalised and deservedly went ahead. I thought United looked a little better when Casemiro and Eriksen replaced the ineffectual Mainoo and Ugarte in central midfield late on, but even then United looked like they did under Ten Hag - lost.

Yes, we can see what the new manager is trying to do. 3-4-2-1. But it doesn’t work, for whatever reasons. And like Ten Hag, he has no Plan B. Can he have lost the dressing room already? He seems to have alienated Rashford and Casemiro, and while both have their faults, both could be important players, too. Their replacements are worse.

Wolves scored a second with virtually the last kick of the game, and their new Portuguese manager recorded his second win in two games playing 3-4-2-1.

In my opinion, United should be playing a counter-attacking 4-3-3 and playing to our strengths (fast wingers), which would secure our perennial weakness (central midfield), and protect our defence. Instead we’re playing a new system, which no one seems to understand and that seems to play to no one’s strengths.

Of course, maybe we just need more patience and in another ten games it will all look different. Or we could be looking over our shoulders at the bottom three.

United losing 3-0 at home to Bournemouth with an hour gone.

Bring back baldie!

I vote for David Coote to replace Gary Lineker.

COPD

Last week I received confirmation of a diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) based on results of spirometry tests back in August (it took that long for my GP surgery to get the results from the test centre, and only after my own intervention after their repeated failures).

My GP helpfully seemed very keen to blame my twenty-odd year history of smoking.

I first smoked at about age 20. My parents were smokers (wasn’t everyone back then?). I was never a heavy smoker. The most I ever smoked was ten a day. It’s also true I smoked a number of other substances that didn’t come with filters. And then there was some vaping. I suspect that might have been the worst of the lot, but who knows? I haven’t smoked for ten years.

In my childhood, I remember several episodes of severe shortness of breath, e.g., when running around the sports field at primary school I collapsed gasping for breath, and unable to continue. I was never diagnosed with asthma. I was told to get up and stop being so weak.

As I got older, whenever the football season started, I could never get through a full game. I put it down to lack of fitness and stamina at the time, but whatever it was, the symptom was breathlessness. I was told to get fit and sent off on cross-country runs.

I had regular episodes of shortness of breath throughout young adulthood that were not triggered by exercise (I’d more or less given up by then, helped by a dodgy ankle). I thought it might be hayfever or a dust allergy.

Fourteen years ago, I needed a thoracotomy on my right lung after a chest infection went wrong. I developed pleurisy, a collapsed lung and an empyema. In the post-op, my surgeon said my lung was “as good as new”.

In the years before covid, I had frequent chest infections requiring antibiotics and time off work to recover. Then and now, I wonder if that was triggered by the Southall Gasworks remediation and air pollution?

I now see that studies show that exposure to volatile organic compounds (including benzene, naphthalene and toluene) is related to COPD.

The good news is that I had no symptoms of COPD, so it’s been diagnosed at an early stage. I’ve started with my new inhaler, and my wife reports that I’ve stopped snoring.

Clear and obvious error

After watching and re-watching the same three-second clip of nothing happening for so long that here in the UK we had to put our clocks back another hour just to have enough time to finish the game, the match referee (Ross from Friends look-a-like David Coote) turned to face what he knew would be a worldwide audience of millions of armchair experts like me yelling “VAR! WTF!” at the screen in front of us. You could see in his face and his body language that he knew just like us it was ludicrous. Another referee sat in a business park office just down the road from me had told him to review his original decision - that nothing had happened - because the ref had made “a clear and obvious” error of judgment.

The late penalty awarded by VAR and converted by West Ham and England’s Jarrod Bowen should duly result in the termination of the losing manager’s contract. That’s football. This VAR rubbish isn’t, but we have to live with it for now.

This particular fiasco neatly sums up the entire ETH tenure. A clear and obvious error, if ever there was one, and yet we are forced to watch repeat after repeat, week after week of him getting it wrong. Team selections, tactics, transfers, substitutions. A bald man somehow getting balder every time the full time whistle blows.

If only United had a VAM. A Video Assistant Manager. Another (more capable manager) sat in a nearby office watching the game on a screen like you or me, who could intervene at key moments during the build-up to the game (team selection), during the game (tactical changes and subs), and off the pitch (transfers, man-management) to a whisper into Ten Hag’s hairless ear: “Hold on, Eric. I think that signing Antony for £80m is a clear and obvious error” or “Hi Eric, Maguire’s a fucking liability mate” or “Eric, pal. We need to talk. Onana?” I could go on but you get the drift.

Now, I know everyone rightly hates VAR for ruining the game, and it would be unfair to blame ETH for ruining United. But VAM would make it much more entertaining.

Palace Match Report

Watched the United game (on my laptop) yesterday, having missed the Southampton and Barnsley games.

A big improvement on the Liverpool debacle, especially in the first half.

Dalot playing as a LB, DM and playmaker/midfield general all at once was as unexpected as it was impressive.

Eriksen starting, to maintain the creative link he made with Mainoo against Barnsley we’re told, was also unexpected, but it too somehow worked. Drifting left to cover Dalot rather undid his link with Mainoo, though.

Rashford benched, supposedly for “rotation”, went against all known football management laws about not changing a winning team and playing players who are in form and scoring goals.

It almost worked as Garnacho (who always looks like he has a goal in him, if nothing else) replaced him, but hit the bar with a thunderous effort from wide of the penalty box.

When the subs came, they undid all our tactical and positional advantage, perhaps as much due to Palace’s positive changes as United’s later nearly self-defeating swaps. Ugarte was a downgrade on Dalot and less of a creative menace or goalscoring threat than the unfairly maligned Casemiro might have been. Rashford, and then Hojlund, couldn’t hold the ball up or link up the play like Zirkzee did. But by then our shape had gone and Palace were on top.

Lucky to come away with a draw in the end, thanks to an incredible double save from Onana and wasteful finishing from Eze, although we should have won the game in the first half an hour.

Strong Irish backbone to this England team.

Pickford (born Logan), Maguire, Rice, Grealish and Kane.

Carsley should have said he won’t sing the English national anthem because he’s Irish.

Funny old game

In the good old days, football was a simple game. You had eleven players and a substitute numbered 1 to 12, no shirt advertising, a referee and two linesmen, a manager, a trainer, a physio, a scout or two, tea ladies, drinking culture, long hair and perms, the club chairman, a board of directors, a club secretary, a groundsman, a stadium in the beating heart of the town or city, fans, standing room only, electric atmospheres, matches on Saturday at three o’clock, live coverage on the radio, match reports in the Pink Final after the game, and highlights on Match of the Day at 10:30 the same night. Tradition and history.

These days, it’s big business. You’ve got a hundred players in the first team squad, shirt number bingo sponsored by online sports betting companies, the reserves, the academy, a women’s team, out on loan, transfer windows, exiled due to poor man-management, five, seven, nine subs to choose from, a referee and a substitute referee, assistant refs, refs sat in an office in a business park (a clear and obvious error), refs at home, refs in the studio, refs in the crowd, a manager, a head coach, a goalkeeping coach, various other specialist coaches, multitudes of doctors, physios, psychologists, data analysts, worldwide scouting networks, dieticians, head chefs, gambling addictions, agents, chief executives, directors of football, technical directors, presidents of business, heads of legal, heads of state, matches at any time from noon to after the last train home, an advertiser’s stadium out of town, sitting room only, live streaming all day and all night. Profit and sustainability.

At one time, a manager of a football club could expect to run all aspects of the club to a lesser or greater degree, or at least have a major say in how it was run. Nowadays, managers, or coaches, are often restricted to, well, coaching players in training and on match days, and speaking to the media before and after games. They are seen as specialists rather than all-rounders, and more specialists from the world of corporate finance are brought in to fire the tea ladies and keep the manager - sorry, coach - fully focused on his job and not get distracted by wheeling and dealing in the transfer market, player contracts, or appealing points deductions for spending beyond the club’s means.

United

Indeed, this is how United plc’s Dan Ashworth keeps Eric ten Hag successful on the pitch. Oh, wait. I’m no fan in particular of Jamie Carragher, but he might have had a point when described United last season as one of the most poorly coached sides in the Premier League. United’s usual set up is a chaotic mismatch of players out of form, out of position, out of confidence, and out of luck. Individual errors rule the day, and most of the players look lost and like they’d rather be in the physio room or gambling rehab. We rely totally on one player - Bruno - to create chances and score. This is a colossal failure of recruitment, of management, of coaching, of captaincy, of teamwork.

Fergie took six seasons to win the title after twenty six years of hurt, and three seasons after winning the cup in 1990. His team often looked like it wasn’t making any progress, but the cup win did see a consistent marked improvement season on season (13th to 6th to 2nd to 1st). Ten Hag produced a masterful cup win against all the odds, although perhaps City’s players were caught off guard expecting an easy win after United’s lucky semi-final win against Coventry. Every season Pep has them playing in a clearly identifiable system and is never afraid to switch players or tactics.

Ingerland

It’s funny to hear Morgan Gibbs-White talk about Ingerland’s new interim manager Lee Carsley and describe his qualities as basically being a father-figure. Most top-level professional footballers are with their clubs from the age of eight, and likely spend more time than most kids away from their families and any normal childhood - living the dream, nonetheless. You can understand why they would value this kind of man-management, someone who will stick up for them no matter what.

Ten Hag hasn’t got that about him at all. He’s lost a whole load of players in one way or another because he didn’t have the heart or the head or the guts to stand by them when they needed him. De Gea, Maguire, Wan Bissaka, Casemiro, McTominay, Sancho, Antony, Martial, Rashford, Greenwood.

The spineless corporate bosses meanwhile took an age to decide the safest bet was to keep ten Hag. Failure is expected and gives them half a season at least to bed themselves in and some new players, too, in time for a new manager. If he does well, then they made the right decision. If they had appointed a new manager he might have failed, too, with the current players, and that would have reflected badly on the corporate bosses.

At least we’re not Chelsea. Telling your captain that he’s not technically good enough. Successfully scraping through the play-off round of the Conference League. Moneyball gone mad (although they could have a decent team in three seasons…).

England. Always different, always the same.