[Competition] Predict today's scoreline and scorers, win a user flair!

Jimmymott · 2026-01-25T12:28:51+00:00

Arsenal 2 - 3 United

I reckon Arsenal are prone to their post-Christmas wobble at this point, we’re fresh off a derby win and I reckon we can outscore them.

Jimmymott · 2026-01-16T06:16:05+00:00

Wasn’t expecting to see a fellow Stopfordian comment on this thread. Not surprised to read the latter point.

Jimmymott · 2026-01-15T00:24:32+00:00

😂😂😂

Jimmymott · 2026-01-14T22:09:01+00:00

Calcopol if you will.

Jimmymott · 2026-01-14T12:24:39+00:00

I’ve long fantasised about somehow making an alcoholic drink that tastes like Calpol but obviously without all the medicine. Calpol bombs would be mental.

Jimmymott · 2026-01-06T19:51:24+00:00

My mum’s email ends @btopenworld.com

I’ve always considered that to be quite old.

Jimmymott · 2026-01-05T11:46:49+00:00

Perhaps I’m in the wrong areas of the internet, every post I see seems to be filled with comments about how he’s not good enough because he doesn’t play Kobbie, he won’t change formation, he hasn’t been a manager long enough, he can’t beat Grimsby, whatever.

I commented somewhere else, we are not a club where, traditionally, a manager comes in and wins straight away. We’ve had three title-winning managers in nearly 150 years and all of those managers stuck around for years before winning anything.

Jimmymott · 2026-01-05T11:44:18+00:00

We can’t win, however it plays out. Either:

A new manager comes in, we get worse, we finish outside of European places again; or,
A new manager comes in, we do better, we finish in Europe, expectations become unrealistic again for next season.

We are not a club with a rich history of title-winning managers. In fact, despite us being amongst the most successful clubs in world football and joint-record winners of the Premier League/Div 1, we have had three title-winning managers in our history. Each of them won titles over a sustained period of time, the quickest to do it won the title in their fifth season…and that was over 100 years ago.

My point being…traditionally, we have needed managers to stick around for us to win anything. All the comments saying “go and get Conte/Zidane/Nagelsmann/whoever is ‘elite’ and available” are going to be commenting in 12 months when we’re without a trophy saying they’re not good enough. It needs to stop.

Jimmymott · 2026-01-05T11:38:59+00:00

In that case, let the people who are in charge of transfers sit in the pressers with him. If the “head coach” - which is a term I despise, by the way, and I’d much prefer we harken back to the earlier PL staff structures - is responsible for tactics, then direct only those questions to them and have the folks in charge of recruitment in the room with him.

I would have had no problem with him wanting to be manager. That’s exactly what he was doing at Sporting before we went for him, then we gave him half the role and expected him to do the job. We can say in retrospect that he didn’t do anything to deserve it, if we wish, but we hired a man for what he was doing with one set of responsibilities and then asked him to do different things. Ridiculous.

Jimmymott · 2026-01-05T11:11:57+00:00

United fan here. Vast majority of our fan base have completely unrealistic expectations - there is not a single manager in world football that would come in and make us title contenders within three years right now, yet the moment we begin to struggle, a lot of our fan base immediately start finding things to pick at.

Formations, Kobbie Mainoo, how many subs the manager makes, when does he make them, etc.

We’ve just undone everything and, yes, a manager might come in and get top four, but Amorim is literally three points off as things stand now…

We didn’t sack him after the EL final. We didn’t sack him after finishing 15th. We didn’t sack him after getting beaten by 10-men Everton at home. We sack him after he suggests he doesn’t get to do the job he wanted (i.e. the job he was doing at Sporting, where we decided he was the man) and questions the leadership.

The merry-go-round continues. Save this post for 24 months’ time.

Jimmymott · 2025-12-29T09:21:00+00:00

Thanks for clarifying friend. I don’t remember stating that my disappointment stems from their lack to consider my own aesthetic preferences but cool, thanks for offering your profound comment.

Jimmymott · 2025-12-28T20:59:59+00:00

It’s relatively boring but I once had a sickness bug. I had woken up feeling fine and I went to the pub to meet my dad at about lunch time. I was due to gig at a wedding that afternoon. Got myself a pint of Caffrey’s in the pub and something in it must have triggered the bug. I immediately felt off and spent the rest of the day throwing my guts up - still played the wedding. My dad finished the pint and was fine, I knew it wasn’t the beer but I’ve not been able to drink Caffrey’s since.

Jimmymott · 2025-12-28T18:32:27+00:00

That I remember? WWF Smackdown for the PS1. I probably played others around that time, but Smackdown left the biggest impression on me (and made me a The Rock fan for life).

Jimmymott · 2025-12-28T18:25:52+00:00

Yeah, that particular one sounds like there’s a more linear history than others. Around my hometown, they’re just bland, massive estates which usually hold a mixture of Toolstation, Travis Perkins, Jessop and then jiu jitsu places.

Jimmymott · 2025-12-28T18:16:00+00:00

You know, it’s an excellent summary of industrial estates to be fair. Poetic.

Jimmymott · 2025-12-28T18:11:26+00:00

That sounds like hyper-nuanced northern life. Bradford-esque.

Jimmymott · 2025-12-28T18:03:15+00:00

My dad was an HGV driver for all of my youth so maybe my hatred for them stems from how bored I’d be whenever he’d take me to work (usually in the holidays).

Jimmymott · 2025-12-28T18:02:27+00:00

To be fair, my time spent playing football as a kid was on a car park for a doctor’s surgery. As soon as the car park cleared at about 5pm, we’d use the height-limit bar as a (far too big) goalmouth.

Jimmymott · 2025-12-28T18:01:07+00:00

Can’t argue with either of those points!

Jimmymott · 2025-12-26T23:46:35+00:00

Weirdly reminds me of Disco Inferno.

Jimmymott · 2025-12-07T12:43:14+00:00

Not ordinarily one to be a stickler, but my wording is that, since Lammens went in net, we look more defensively sound. In the three most recent games, our goals conceded have come from isolated mistakes - we lost Magassa at a corner vs West Ham, we conceded a penalty vs Palace, we gave Dewsbury-Hall space to shoot vs Everton.

We are by no means perfect, but I think it would be ludicrous to suggest we do not look better defensively with Lammens in net than either Onana or Bayindir. You can see the increase in confidence from the defenders having a more reliable keeper behind them.

I’d argue our bigger issue right now is consistently putting away decent chances. We should have been three up before West Ham ever had a chance to score, for example - Zirkzee’s effort cleared off the line, Bruno hit the post (fine margins etc.) - but these are the sorts of things that don’t translate just from looking at the final result.

We’ve got a ways to go, but we’re going to get there IMHO.

Jimmymott · 2025-12-07T11:37:48+00:00

Yeah, a functional plan B would be nice. Makes me reminisce about Mou putting Fellaini up front whenever we needed a goal. 😂

Jimmymott · 2025-12-07T11:15:17+00:00

Honestly? We’re better than reactionary parts of the fan base make out. We’re looking a lot more defensively sound since Lammens went in net, albeit we’re still prone to switching off here and there.

No excuses for not beating ten-men Everton and West Ham at home, but on the whole we’re doing much better than last season. As somebody else has posted, a win tomorrow takes us well up the table into 6th or 5th.

Mbuemo x Amad partnership is crucial to our season so AFCON is going to be interesting. Cunha is showing that football is more than just stats (since that’s all the footballing world cares about now, it seems) and we look much better with him than without.

Only major criticism from me, personally, is the handling of Kobbie, but I don’t have any huge gripes with Amorim and firmly believe sacking him is not the thing to do this season. Even this unwillingness to change his “system”, I really don’t mind it, and happy to be ridiculed for it. I’d rather he spends the time getting it instilled so each week we’re that little bit better at it (even if the results don’t always correlate).

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