Big Weekend Live - Are the Glazers doomed?
Join Mark Smith and Sarah Winterburn at 7pm on Thursday to discuss another turbulent week for Manchester United and the Glazer family. manutd manchesterunited mufc
Transcript
[Music] oh [Music] hello it's thursday night at seven o'clock i can only mean one thing it is the football 365 show it's big weekend here on the football 365 show brought to you by paddy power i'm your host mark smith you can see there on our top quality graphics package that we paid zero pounds for mark smith dash host that's me i'm here every time and i'm also here every time with sarah winterburn who wasn't here last time actually that's not completely true sarah winterburner's editor-in-chief of football365.com she'll be here with me talking about everything talking about the glazer protests talking about the champions league talking about all the games coming up this weekend it's going to be a good one going to be a packed show we'll be out of your hair by the time the europa super super league the europa league semi-finals kick off at eight o'clock uh so all that's left to say is this is big weekend brought to you by paddy power [Music] right here we are me sarah winterburn you guys sarah how are you i'm not bad i'm in my bedroom today you've got you've got you've got me live from my bedroom this is this is new i charge i charge a fortune for a live stream from my bedroom generally so we're normally in your kitchen and it's so bright that i can't see anything but here we are behind the scenes behind the curtain um there is so much to talk about this week if it feels like is this the case whenever we're sort of a month out from the end of the season it feels like there's just there's just drama there's story lines and narratives all over the place what we've made of the last uh the last week in football um let's start with champions league because it's been a superb week for um well for the premier league in europe hasn't it it has it's funny are you saying about about lots of things happening when it comes to the premier league there seems to be very little happening and yet and yet this this week again has been fantastic you know it starts with with the pro with the protests at the weekend we've gone seamlessly into the champions league um two great two great performances slightly contrasting performances but two really good performances that man city game on tuesday night was was fascinating in that they played like everyone's been trying to play against man city themselves for the last three or four years and they did it so well they they kept their shape incredibly well they were incredibly disciplined they were not afraid to go very quick very you know on the counter attack play vertically as people like to say these days you know that ball out from and from edison which entirely took out that psg defense and found zinchenko we're not used to seeing this from the city side we're not used to seeing city except not not being in the ascendants and except not having the possession and and sort of handing that initiative to psg knowing full well that psg were looking had to score goals so they were pushed up and city really took took advantage of that gap behind you know kevin de bruyne with a great game phil foden was particularly good we had mahrez again massively underrated what a phenomenal season he's had gets a bit lost in all of it doesn't it but but the defense was was extraordinary i thought really let's talk about mario's for a bit more though because i feel like he he never really gets the the credit he deserves you know we talk about we talk about with with players for big teams to talk about killers those guys that just ice cold in front of goal the step up in the big games that get the job done man city you've got a fair few of them but no more so even aguero including no more so than riyad mahrez he always steps up when it matters and i never feel like he's got one of those glaring misses in him you know the first goal against psg okay look it looks quite simple right it's rolled across the six yard box and he puts it high up where the keeper can't reach it but there are players in that man city side naming their names raheem sterling who who might miss that one in every twenty goes i never feel like morrow's gonna miss one more than one in every twenty that wasn't a 19 in every 20 chance that was that was a 50 50 really with the way it came to him he's the defender's coming at him he's not got a massive amount of time and yet like you say he absolutely trusted him to put it away and he and he did and he he has had a great you almost feel like he'll spend seven eight years at man city and and be excellent in all those seven or eight seasons and yet still leave sort of with everybody never quite loving him and i don't quite know where that is whether he's because he's quiet he doesn't doesn't really attract attention um you know yet he isn't one for big boot deals or you know he you kind of don't see him dear you don't see him get on with it yeah and so maybe he's not he and we we have had this thing over the last five six years anyway where man city players are not appreciated outside of man city fans they're just not you know you know sergio aguero whether it's david silva whoever they never attain those heights that if they play for money united they would be legends why is that then why is that is it just because the size of the club isn't quite there yet the prestige isn't there the fact that it doesn't have the fan base in the same way quite understandably you know i've done this job a long time i know how this works it takes a while because it takes that the foreign foreign fans to take on a club it usually only happens about 10 years after the after a team hits its peak that you see that explosion around the world we saw it with chelsea they were they were when they first came through when robin took van bridge to first took over very little interest and very very few fans anywhere anywhere but in west london within 10 years you get these pockets of african of plans in africa and india and in you know and one city there will be kids in in malaysia or kids in kenya who are wearing man city shirts now so we'll see that coming through but at the moment they're not quite big enough and and there's that resentment a little bit isn't there from out from from elsewhere and the premier league fans that they don't quite you know they don't want to respect man city because of you know where the money's come from et cetera and this sort of idea that they're johnny that's a valid argument though isn't it i don't think it's a valid argument when it about those players it frustrates me that's not the players definitely not the players it frustrates me a little bit because you know the the reaction to tuesday night is very much you know we saw it in the mailboxes they're like oh well you know they've got money but it doesn't really mean anything if you're not watching phil foden and thinking wow and enjoying that i i honestly feel sorry for you because if you can't separate that a little bit and just say you know it's nothing to do with phil foden he's a boy from stockport he's doing exactly what he always wanted to do he's playing for man city the money's got nothing to do with him he would have played for man city if they were if they were 18th in the premier league or in league one you know this was his dream but if you can if you can not watch that and think do you know what you know i i can maybe it's because i don't don't support a premier league team i can separate that and not see because i don't obviously they're not rivals to me they're not rival sodafield towns so you know i can enjoy that and as a as a defender i absolutely love watching reuben diaz i think he's phenomenal he's a he's had an extraordinary season he's ludicrously good he's 23 which in centre-half terms is like a teenager you know he could play at this level for another 10 12 years you know he could get better in that time as well and he's he's undoubtedly been signing the season and to me he's probably the premier league player of the season he won't get that from the pfa players that'll go to bruno fernandez which will be particularly amusing if many united end the season with nothing you know this the city players will be split the boats will be split between them but i can imagine reuben dears getting the football writers award because because they do tend to be a little bit more um don't think too much about you know playing for night players yeah yeah he will you know he has he has been in an a phenomenal seat uh signing and like i wrote the other night he wasn't i don't get the impression he was monster his first choice and there was a little bit of an underwhelming underwhelmingness about when he was signed because sort of city was expected to buy one of the best central defenders in the world or someone was perceived to be that you know a coulee valley or a open canoe or someone that was like a name and there was a bit of a um there's they've paid 60 million quid for who what you know because most of us don't watch portuguese football he hadn't even played in the champions you know it's kind of and yet he has been he's been the difference between that city side looking vulnerable and flawed as we've seen we saw last season at this very start of this season you know remember he came in on the back of that of that of that thwacking by by lester in which then looked utterly exposed and everyone was talking about can pep guardiola last the season he comes in you know that whole defense and what he's done with john stones is nobody could have written this you know john stones looked like he was out on his arse didn't he there was no you know it was a surprise that he was even still at the club at the end of last summer because he'd fallen so far out of favor didn't start the season you know probably start the season his fourth choice center back now he looks as good as he's ever looked and and that's all about having the partnership and that's you know that's it and and diaz even though he's the younger one he looks like the most senior and and that's right quite a trick to pull off and you know i love watching city i think you know i think i think it's possible like certainly it's possible for me to to think i don't like the way the where the money's come from i don't like the the the idea behind it and why city have been bought but this is still the you know the probably the best coach of the last 20 years you just look if you just look at what's happening on the pitch yeah and it's a nonsense to say it's all about money because other other managers could come in and not do what he's done and you know there's no way another you know nine out of ten managers couldn't come in and do what he's done he he's he's what they've managed to do what they've managed to do is get the recruitment right from top down at the club it's not just the manager it's not just the players it's everyone in all those positions it's the director of football it's everyone who who's in scouting in those departments the unseen members of that club have done a belief thinking and you'd be surprised how few how few clubs sort of indulged themselves in joined up thinking how many clubs have had billions and they've done nothing with it absolutely absolutely money is obviously a factor it has to be we can't ignore that you know we're not going to pretend that's an elephant in a big blue elephant in the room but you have to be pretty special to turn it into the kind of performances that they've put in over the last four years you know to win they're about to win their third in four years that hasn't been done um since man united did it um under alex ferguson and it's really difficult to pull off that kind of domination i know they had a season where they weren't quite up to it but that you know that that was the center halfway and they fixed it yeah and they've moved on and you know they they're already the team to beat next season and the season after that you know you already think how how is every team going to reach them that's that's the level of put you're you're ruining my enthusiasm here for everyone watching at home whether it be on facebook or youtube or twitter you can get in touch with the show we've had someone do that philip ennis has got in touch talking about your point about man city globally there sarah philip ennis says in cambodia man city images everywhere particularly on their national beer cambodia beer little plug there for cambodia a bit um i yeah i mean wherever you go now you see those shirts you see chelsea it's that's that's what that's what's gonna happen that that you know as as sort of so-called legacy fans you know everyone's sort of like it's a little bit sniffy about that but you know so much of football is about globalization just as any other business and and it's massively important that city reach those markets to city it might be important to me or you or but it's massively important to city and they're doing this it's why there's comments from ed woodward a few years ago where he said that united don't have to compete to still be globally relevant well actually ed woodward you're going to get usurped by these teams that are competing because the the new generation you know like all generations of kids of a certain age they like to be associated with success and support a team and and you know have that deflected glory so i completely understand that so you can't be finishing top four top five every year when you've got a team like man city or a team like liverpool dominating particularly like liverpool who already have that history and are now creating new history so yeah very short-sighted if you're seven or eight right now you don't choose monday night i think unless you've got a familial thing going on if you're picking you know as as most kids did at that age unless you've got that local affiliation if you pick the best you know i remember being seven and picking the best team the team at the top of the premiership and that was you know unfortunately for me that was tottenham in in those you know 1981 they were the best team so that so they've always retained a soft spot for spurs because of that reason but you know had one city being topped they would have been city and obviously they'd stayed there and you know that's how you get you know seven-year-olds want eight-year-olds they want success they want you know they're not going to pick man united because they're because of their history or because this you know their stadium is called the theater of dreams they need you need to sell success don't you you know success sells sex sells not this kind of or kids don't want to learn about history no we've given man city enough uh enough attention here we don't have too many fans in the future let's talk instead about england's other representative that were fantastic in europe this week it was last night it was chelsea madrid chelsea talk to me about them because i was so so so impressed by them in in both legs actually yeah they were so they were so good last week um and and you just i had a niggling thought that they weren't quite going to score the goals because you just thought they have so many chances and then they see it and you kind of until that second goal even though well it didn't feel close really on the pitch until that second goal goes in you you didn't know did you you just thought it would it would be the narrative would be so easy to write that real madrid to have one chance and score one one goal in that second half it was obviously going to happen obviously [Music] yeah that's what it felt like didn't it yeah but chelsea kept them at bay so well i mean this is this chelsea side you know it's pragmatic in some ways because they are very organized very disciplined get men behind the ball again you know we could talk about that so-called vertical style football where you go quick when you go you go quick and it you know you're not not looking to dominate the ball and i think that maybe is a little bit of a shift going on you know we've had that kind of obsession with keeping the ball and now you know we see with you know antonio conte doing well so well inter uh you know you see that success of sort of actually we don't need to dominate games you know if you've got if you've got that pace up front and if you've got a finisher now chelsea are just lacking a finish i mean we anybody you know we all watch that game and thought if they if they buy a proper striker in the summer you know a 25 goal season man they they they are going to contend for the title no doubt about it because you know they've got a manager who's up to that task now and you know roman brunovich will watch that will watch that game and you know and regardless of what happens against monster in in the champions league final he'll watch that game and thought this is why i invented why i invested in chelsea because we invented chelsea why invented chelsea big shout out exclusive here on the football show do you think this is the worst possible pr for frank lampard what's happening now it's awful i mean i kind of found a slightly sorry for him because he you know he left chelsea with quite a lot of the media saying oh god you know you know that we keep saying you know they shot bambi that was henry winter's response in the in in the times straight afterwards was that roman ravaged a shot bambi maybe the man who remembered a shot shooting bambi and everyone referred us to you know everyone said oh she shows it's only because he's german and they want to appease the germans okay and he kind of looked at it and thought that's utter nonsense you know they've they've sacked a man who was he was overpromoted beyond his station because of his affiliations with the club fine that's what that's the line that's the the road that went down you know we've seen very big clubs doing that in the last two years that's that seems to be a theme and they stacked him and brought him a tactician and a very very good tactician and and for all front lamppods you know even if you're the biggest fan of front line but ever no one has ever referred to him like that you know you could say he got the club he brought the brought the young players through et cetera et cetera but no one ever went oh my god that guy his football mind is astonishing yeah but she it it took it seemed to take uh thomas t kell a week to work out where his strengths and weaknesses were in that chelsea side yes yeah that first game he drew that first game didn't he yeah he played five at the back and everyone oh you know i was really sure about this but he knew straight away where where the strengths were and and the strength is in that same in in that central midfield pivot which is very good you know you use as percola that's oh my word aspellatus and you know he looked at that team that from antonio conte had to win the premier league three years ago and thought how can i recreate that and he and he recreated it close to being that team you know as someone from the outside he knew that was the last time chelsea had been good and he sort of recreated that that pattern of play and i'm not saying he's taking it entirely from conte he's obviously tweaked it as time has gone on but he immediately knew that the power there was in was in the defense and how to be organized and then to use that pace because they've got so many attacking midfielders with pace and obviously timo verna very quick have a is much quicker than he looks because he's got that sort of language tall sort of style vibe yeah a bit quicker than berbatov and and works so much harder than berbatov he's surprised to see he um he ran more kilometers than kante last night and that's really telling because you wouldn't know that from looking at him because he has that language style and that lazy style looks like that but they they use that pace really well so when you like like i said before when they go they go quick and uh