Manchester United Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread - Read Mod Warning in OP 7/1/15

i heart chewy louie wrote: »

Your jimmies must be very rustled at the moment lads.
Perhaps you could try responding to the content of the post instead.
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It's great to see that ye are all rallying around, keeping your spirits up by ignoring football talk and instead posting lots of pictures of funny cats and father ted videos clips.

Ok, here goes -

I read about 6-7 or pages in here before I finally came to one that had the LVG 'breakdown' posted, thinking by then that it would be horrific going by the reactions of some Pool fans and members of the Drama Society in here. Those 6-7 pages ended up being nothing but a prick tease, gave me the biggest dose of blueballs that I've had in a long time.

I clicked play on the link expecting to witness scenes of ushers handing out phamplets (wahey!) in the aisles and Louis standing in front of a drop-down screen with a powerpoint presentation on it and a pointer in his hand. "Na-ow, if I may deerect you to pages scheven" - he talking up past games' good results, good points and highs. Nothing like it, nothing at all. Here is what happened though;

LVG employed a tactic in the final 20 minutes of a match in order to salvage something in a losing game, nothing new to any manger. This unpopular tactic known as the 'longball' was used effectively as United went on to grab a draw. Absolutely nothing to see here apart from United being shít, and wouldn't have been, UNTIL...

Big Sam, friend to journos and a man who considers himself a serious underachiever "If I got a shot at one of the big clubs..." is in the midst of one of the best seasons he or any of his teams have had in a long time. This is probably as good as it's going to get for Sam.

On the night in question, his team were on the way to a home victory against Man United, one that wouldn't have been undeserving, and it was robbed from them at the death. In the video I've posted below where Sam makes the comments (and doesn't actually say "Long-Ball United" once) it is complied of him answering 2 questions which are cut out. The first was a general answer on his thoughts on the game. In it, amongst many other things, he mentioned how it's not the kind of goal you'd normally expect to concede against Man United with how it was "punted up the middle", and that was it.

By the time he stopped talking about 30 seconds later and had moved on to other things about the game, some hungry journalist had prepped a follow-up question to pull something out of him to criticise LVG. This is obvious since there is a cut after Sam naturally finishes talking and then he's back suddenly talking after the cut with a pensive look on his face saying "I might criticise Louis Van Gaal with...".



So we live in an age with those "sports writers" where rather than follow-up with something about the football, they look for something to suit their own narrative first. They don't care about the long-ball or the football behind it, they just want the fuel to feed the headlines. 'BIG SAM BLASTS LONGBALL VAN GAAL' is all that was required here. Incidentally, Sam even comments that the longball was effective, if not perfect. But no, doesn't matter, Sam said "maybe you can criticise LVG for the long-ball as much as me for being direct" after they asked him to criticise LVG. As far as the writers are concerned, it's "Job done boys, who's for pints? First round on me."

By the time the United press-conference rolled around today, the media had gone with this Big Sam and Longball United stuff for 2 days. These were 2 days where they might have been reporting how LVG's change had salvaged a point for United had Sam not been so vocal in 'defeat'. There was still enough fodder in the fact that United had to clinch a draw at West Ham for them to toy with if they were afraid of having to give any kind of praise to LVG.

We know LVG by now, every other press-conference he is telling off journalists for not talking about the football and asking the wrong questions. Also, the man is a cheeky, eccentric S.O.B. and there are numerous videos from his pre-United past to show it. All I see this "pathetic" and "embarassing" press conference as is another LVG schooling of the media with his tongue firmly in cheek. He has watched them report and blow-up this Big Sam stuff for 2 days now, so he came in totally prepared in order to get it out of the way.

I'd say that he definitely cock-blocked a few journos in the room, with his 'Here it is and then we'll move on for good' stance, who were itching to unleash their questions about Big Sam and he'll feel their wrath for it. Where another manager might have waited for the questions and then answered/deflected them, our 'long-bewildered with the English media' manager chose to come in and treat them like the school boys that they are. In the age of statistics falling from the sky and shooting up from the ground, the media chose to ignore every one of them and run with their own Soap Opera style reporting of a serious sport, triggered by a couple of comments from a sore manager in Big Sam moments after he got the equivalent of a kick in the nuts out of nowhere. And the reporting of this latest press conference is and will be no different. LVG has come in and talked football rather than give them something they can use to fire the flames, but because it was done in an unorthodox way they are going to focus on that instead, and try to paint it in the worst light that they can.

The A.B.U.s and Pool fans doing this, I can understand. But members of the mainstream media who try to be taken seriously as sports writers? That's a bit disappointing if not still surprising. LVG did their job for them after 2 days of misreporting from them and showed them up for it, that's his crime here.

So if you're still with me Iheartchewinglouis, or anyone, my own jimmies are certainly not rustled over this, and neither were those of quite a few others in here. The ones who are, most of them their jimmies are always on the look for a good ol rustling and it doesn't take much at all to get those jimmies a rustlin'. You guys can enjoy it for something it isn't, LVG is not "lowering himself to fighting with Big Sam", he's just calling Sam and the media on their bullshít and getting it out of the way first thing at the press conference so they can move on from this non-issue.

Lads, to find out which one is Bangkok we'll need a video of the match to see who was the best at taking corners.

Sure I played a bit of ball myself at a decent level. Had a rough patch when I got an 8 month ban for karate kicking a fan who was giving me a bit of lip. I retired early enough so some little asthmatic ginger kid could get games in midfield. #memories #seagulls