The Warm-Up: Mystic Mou knew Manchester United were mediocre
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Updated 06/05/2019 at 06:45 GMT
Plus, the Premier League is a hipster’s paradise, Ajax are decent and thus not hipsters, see you Neil Warnock, Aaron Ramsey is a hero and so too is Mesut Ozil, who gave zero shirts.
Jose Mourinho at Manchester United
Image credit: PA Sport
MONDAY’S BIG STORIES
Mourinho said they were tosh*, he was right
*he might not have used that exact word
- Jose Mourinho, January 2019:
If I tell you, for example, that I consider one of the best jobs of my career was to finish second with Man United in the Premier League, you will say, 'this guy is crazy. He won 25 titles and he is saying that a second position was one of his best achievements?'
- Everybody, January 2019: 🙄
- Everybody, May 2019: 💪 👊 👏 🎯
This Manchester United team are completely and utterly dog at football. In fact, the Warm-Up would back the Dog and Duck pub side to give these clowns a going over in a one-off game.
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Alexis Sanchez of Manchester United looks on during the Premier League match between Huddersfield Town and Manchester United at John Smith's Stadium on May 05, 2019 in Huddersfield, United Kingdom.
Image credit: Getty Images
In addition to the above, Mourinho also said:
I keep saying this because people don’t know what is going on behind the scenes. And sometimes we, on this side of the cameras, we analyse things with a different perspective.
Look the Warm-Up has no great insight into what was going on behind the scenes but it looks as though it is still going on. They remain dog.
This side does not lack talent. So, there is no way that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's men should be dropping points at Huddersfield. The gulf in class it just too deep. Sure, there are structural issues at the club and in the team but the issues run far deeper. What they are? Well, without going full Graeme Souness, application is increasingly looking like an area that could be improved.
It is often easy to dismiss a lot of what Mourinho says as smoke and mirrors but this time perhaps he was bang on. Mystic Mou knew they were dog and his words predicted a season of mediocrity. And that is exactly what United got.
Tottenham, Arsenal, United and Chelsea are your new ‘hipster’ clubs
Champions League? Too mainstream, pal. The Europa League is the subculture that any club worth its avocado on toast is chasing. For surely that can be the only explanation for the abject, pathetic, feeble, and incompetent chase for the top four can be attributed to.
Surely some wet behind the ears marketing whippersnapper has persuaded Tottenham, Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea that the last untapped market in football is that of the hipster. And as everyone who is worth their avocado on toast knows the most hipster competition in European football is the Europa League.
It looks like Tottenham – bar the eight-goal swing we all know they are capable of - will join Chelsea in the Europe’s premier competition next season but, truth be told, none of these jokers deserve to be anywhere near Europe's top table.
Somehow Maurizio Sarri and Chelsea are looking like the club of stability out of this sorry mob. The game has gone.
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Tottenham Hotspur's English defender Eric Dier (centre left) and Arsenal's German defender Shkodran Mustafi clash after Dier celebrates his equalizer during the English Premier League football match between Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur at the Emirates St
Image credit: Getty Images
On the subject of hipster clubs: Ajax won something
Ergo, no longer hipster alas, hipsters.
Yes, Erik ten Hag’s side thumped Willem II 4-0 in the KNVB Cup final (see the highlights below), are joint top of the Eredivisie and are on the cusp of the Champions League final. They, even as late a February, were a fine hipsters’ choice. No more.
Anyway, as the above video illustrates, they are completely and utterly sensational at association football. Yet, in all likelihood, they will be torn asunder come the summer, which is a huge shame but the reality of modern football.
Frenkie de Jong has already agreed to move to Barcelona, where Matthijs de Ligt will likely join him. David Neres, Hakim Ziyech and Donny van de Beek might not hang around for much longer either. And that Dusan Tadic lad has definitely seen a football before – he’d do a job in the Premier League. Oh, well done Southampton.
IN THE CHANNELS
The Warm-Up would like to say it will miss Neil Warnock but, as blog of truth, integrity and honesty, the best it can muster is, well, thanks for this.
HERO – Aaron Ramsey
The accompanying chat with this tweet sums it up – Aaron Ramsey is an Arsenal club legend and it is an utter sham that he is leaving the club on a free.
A club that he clearly feels a connection to.
ZERO - Mesut Ozil
Look, hero was already taken, so chin up Mesut.
Mesut Ozil with zero shirts taken.
HAT-TIP
This, by Miguel Delaney, on the subject of United’s fall from grace is brutal but hard to argue with.
The reality is that almost everything about the modern United – bar how they accumulate money – must change. The club is now at that juncture that all of the great football institutions have eventually come to, where they need a reset, a year zero. Barcelona have had it. Bayern Munich have had it. Spain have had it. Germany have it. But they all also had some of the finest football minds to put in place sophisticated long-term plans that were based on a defined identity. By far the most pertinent question at United now is whether they have anything close to the same football intelligence, or will even bring it in.
RETRO CORNER
Roll up, roll up hipsters, for here are your top 10 bangers from the hipster paradise that was the 2017/18 Europa League.
COMING UP
Brendan Rodgers finally wins the Premier League with, er, for Liverpool as his Leicester side beat Manchester City at the Etihad.
Nick Miller, whose hipster credentials are beyond reproach (ask Neil Custis), will take you through the latest slew of 'Pep is a fraud' hot takes...
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