30 April - 3 May, the armchair football weekend

[DCI Harry Batt]

I mean, both sides still trying. But it's just dead.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Well United can have him next season if they sort themselves out. If you like Cavani you’ll go nuts for Sergio.

No that's ok. The problem with Sergio Aguero is that He started out being 6'3" at the age of 15, and he's worn his legs down to the point that he's 5'8". He has too many miles on the clock, from too young an age. There's a reason he's only played 15 games this season. He's been a first team player since he was 15, and he'd played nearly 800 senior games by the time he turned 32. He's still a magical player though. But a back up striker who might miss two thirds of the season is no use to anyone. We'll be content with getting Charlie mcNeill back from you.

Here he is scoring a perfect hattrick, and a bizarre restart goal against man city u-18's this season. BTW it's worth checking out the highlights of a bunch of these u-18 and u-23 games. The technical standard of a lot of these players is absolutely fucking absurd, and you'll frequently see things that you haven't seen before. Liam Delap is a lot better at football than his dad. (We really should have given him more caps to him. I have no idea why we didn't.) But a lot of these players are so good, that I genuinely don't understand why man city or man utd would sign anyone under 24. Players like Sancho or foden, or greenwood are only the tip of the iceberg.

[Ray de Galles]

"Some news to bring you from Old Trafford. Thousands of Manchester United fans were protesting outside the ground at the Glazers' ownership - and some have now managed to get inside the ground and are on the pitch.

We are currently watching around 200 Man Utd supporters who have made their way through the barriers onto the playing surface at Old Trafford.

They are congregating towards the players tunnel and are holding flares, one of which has been thrown towards the TV presentation position.

The stewards at the moment are standing in their positions watching on and this will be interesting in terms of how they manage to clear the stadium before this game can take place today.

It will be a surprise that they have managed to make their way through the barriers in all honesty.

I don't think they really want to destroy anything after all this is their theatre of dreams, but they want to make their point as forcefully as they can and they will feel that they have sent a very clear message to the Man Utd ownership."

[Satchmo Distel]

I think this needs its own thread so am starting one.

[Satchmo Distel]

Cavani is staying at Old Trafford for at least another year, so no need for Aguero.

[Tony C]

No that's ok. The problem with Sergio Aguero is that He started out being 6'3" at the age of 15, and he's worn his legs down to the point that he's 5'8". He has too many miles on the clock, from too young an age. There's a reason he's only played 15 games this season. He's been a first team player since he was 15, and he'd played nearly 800 senior games by the time he turned 32. He's still a magical player though. But a back up striker who might miss two thirds of the season is no use to anyone. We'll be content with getting Charlie mcNeill back from you.

Here he is scoring a perfect hattrick, and a bizarre restart goal against man city u-18's this season. BTW it's worth checking out the highlights of a bunch of these u-18 and u-23 games. The technical standard of a lot of these players is absolutely fucking absurd, and you'll frequently see things that you haven't seen before. Liam Delap is a lot better at football than his dad. (We really should have given him more caps to him. I have no idea why we didn't.) But a lot of these players are so good, that I genuinely don't understand why man city or man utd would sign anyone under 24. Players like Sancho or foden, or greenwood are only the tip of the iceberg.

I used to go to EDS UEFA Youth Cup games and the standard was incredibly good. I know I’ve mentioned this before but I saw City demolish a strong Bayern Munich EDS team 6-0 about eight years ago and would say to anyone within earshot that Rony Lopes, Devante Cole and young Irish midfielder Jack Byrne would be huge stars and a big part of the club for years to
come. Lopes has fared best, currently on loan in France from Sevilla, but Cole has drifted to Scotland and Byrne plays in Cyprus. The point being that so many talented teenagers don’t make the step up no matter how outstanding they are at age group level, And don’t get me started about Vladimir Weiss..

[Patrick Thistle]

Watching MOTD2. Let's ask Alan and Jermaine their opinions on the Old Trafford protests. Turns out they have the square root of fuck all insight.

Wonderful hat-trick by Bale. OK the opponents were pretty bad but encouraging signs for Cymru in the summer.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

I used to go to EDS UEFA Youth Cup games and the standard was incredibly good. I know I’ve mentioned this before but I saw City demolish a strong Bayern Munich EDS team 6-0 about eight years ago and would say to anyone within earshot that Rony Lopes, Devante Cole and young Irish midfielder Jack Byrne would be huge stars and a big part of the club for years to
come. Lopes has fared best, currently on loan in France from Sevilla, but Cole has drifted to Scotland and Byrne plays in Cyprus. The point being that so many talented teenagers don’t make the step up no matter how outstanding they are at age group level, And don’t get me started about Vladimir Weiss..

Jack byrne is by far the best player to have ever played in the league of ireland. (he's also the last person that second captains interviewed face to face before lockdown) I think the problem is this. Players are trained in academies, to be the footballers of the future. They are surrounded by other technically brilliant players, and spend all their time working on playing in units, supporting each other, and making pre-programmed runs, and generally playing some variation of Van Gaal's 95 ajax plan. Then the have to try and break into a first team, which is usually coached by someone who is a tactical dinosaur compared to the way that they were coached and they often don't know how to use them. (This is obviously less of a problem for city since guardiola arrived) At man utd, Louis van gaal gave extended runs to Marcus Rashford, cameron Borthwick Jackson and fosu-mensah, and all looked perfectly suited to playing premier league football for man utd, even at the age of 18. Then in comes jose mourinho, an actual tactical dinosaur whose major regret seemed to be that he couldn't make rashford and martial disappear like the other two.

Players from these academies then face the struggle of going down the leagues, where to be perfectly frank, being trained as the players of the futures is fuck all use, when they are trying to play for teams that are often looking for the footballers of the past. Instead of players highly skilled in linking up with teammates who are all operating on the same plan, they're expected to play more as an individual and pull individual moments out of their arse. Jack Byrne was being trained to be able to play for Barcelona or bayern munich. Not blackburn or wigan. How are you supposed to make the adjustment? I appreciate that doing well in an academy doesn't necessarily mean that you have the wide range of non football skills required to make it in the professional game, but there is a huge amount of talent and money being squandered because of the essentially irrational nature of the way that most clubs are run.

Don't get me wrong, The technical and tacitical standard of football in the lower leagues is rapidly increasing, with the increasing professionalisation of coaching, and as the effect of all the qualifications and training courses starts to gradually take hold, but there's still a massive split between coaching at academy level, and at senior level, if only because the coaching staff at most clubs are usually the mates of whoever is the manager, and he's usually a white bloke with white friends, whereas academy coaching is often the glass ceiling for talented black coaches

[Tony C]

“Don't get me wrong, The technical and tacitical standard of football in the lower leagues is rapidly increasing..”

It really is. I watch the EFL highlights package twice a week and the technical standard of the football has improved immeasurably in the last decade or so. I mentioned on here a couple of weeks ago that Brentford put on a display of fluid, imaginative passing football that had me purring - as good as I’ve seen from anyone this season. I’ve seen enough of Rotherham, who sadly look set to go down, to make me realise they can really play but are just missing that killer edge in front of goal.

Particularly now this ought to be a great thing, with fans being able to their backs on the so called ‘Big Six’ and going to their nearest EFL team in the knowledge that the football provided will be so much better and that their precious high end sensibilities won’t be decimated by watching a team in League 2.

Anyway, that’s me dreaming. Nice post TAB.

[Capybara]

Anyroad, I've just learned that BT are showing Non-League Finals Day (2019-20 version) for free today. Too late for the Vase final but I'll be tuning in for the Trophy.

[elguapo4]

Drogheda 1 Bohemian Fc 1

When two teams on a losing run meet, you're never going to get an exciting game, and so it proved today. After a first half of few chances, apart from a couple of half hearted penalty appeals, the second was more open . Bohs took the lead when Liam Burt got on the end of a Dawson Devoy through ball to shoot past the Drogheda keeper. After that Bohs controlled the game, until our inability to defend set pieces cost us at the death, James Clarke heading home in the 93rd minute.

And Berba, Jack Byrne is a decent player,but nowhere near the best player ever in the League of Ireland, let alone by far the best. Roy Keane, Seamus Coleman, Wes Houlihan, Paul Mc Grath, James Mc Clean, Keith Fahy, Stephen Ward, Kevin Doyle, Shane Long , I could go on.

[Patrick Thistle]

The FA Trophy final is reasonably entertaining. An OIHSP moment seeing Jon Stead leading the line for Harrogate.

[Capybara]

It has the look like if Harrogate score then that will be it, whereas the longer it goes on, the more the chance that Concord could sneak the win.

[elguapo4]

Soft penalty IMHO gives Burnley the lead, thumping header by Antonio quickly levels.