Messages

How many of the team will be around in 4 years time? Seems like so many of them are in their 30's already

Football punditry is a strange game, listening to lots of ex players who've no experience of playing or coaching; Jamie Redknapp is a clown but somehow has managed to stay employed for over a decade.

Got to be plenty of ex coaches and managers who'd do be comfortable in front of the camera's and do a better although Hasselbaink has plenty of managerial experience and he's not much better then Redknapp.

Emma Hayes is excellent but the rest of the female pundits are dreadful and they won't last long, Alex Scott was appalling yet somehow got a gig presenting and now funnily enough football focus is about to be axed as viewing figures have pummelled.

Glazers appear to be an obsession of non united fans, spending money and been good owners don't go in tandem. They are clueless when it comes to many aspects of running a football club, their rich kids living of daddy's fortune and bring no expertise like Liverpools owners possess. The club has been left behind and its 100% their fault. Ten Hag wanted Anthony all last summer and could have got him for £40m at the beginning of summer but because of the ridiculous policy of one transfer at a time they wasted the summer chasing De Jong and went to Ajax after they'd sold half their team leaving them in a very strong financial position and didn't need to sell forcing United to pay way over the odds. United have held onto too players for far too long that weren't wanted but it looked better on the balance sheet loaning them instead of selling to satisfy financial lenders, football has become secondary at OT for a long long time. Thousands of Galatasaray fans been sold 'corporate' tickets is the latest in a long line of examples of those c***s ruining the club.

Ten Hag is miles off getting the sack and would be idiotic to even think about it, he's the first manager since Fergie to try and implement real change; There's no doubt its a really tough period but there is so many mitigating factors around the club with the ownership then then all the noise around Greenwood, Sancho & Anthony along with the injury crisis we're suffering.  Give him time, I like what I hear he's doing around the club and he did more then enough in his first season to give him that time to put things right, might be different scenario if he'd come into a settled club who'd been on top but he's not and the club is a shitshow and has been for years.

My main issue with him is playing Amrabat at left back, Dalot should be playing there until Regullon is back and play Lindelof at right back, have reservations about him as a midfielder too;  Takes too many touches on the ball but like everyone else deserves a run in the side in his best position first.

Onana is very worrying but Ten Hag worked with him at Ajax so got to trust him but not looking good so far. Whilst Martinez is out Amrabat has got to partner Casemiro, Martinez is a huge loss as he's our only centre half who's good on the ball. Mount looked good last night and Hojlund was exceptional. Fernandes got to play wide right for the next few weeks, its not ideal but needs must.

All is not lost in the CL but United have to go to Galatasaray and win to get out of the group.

ETH is not on borrowed time at. I'll first to admit I'd have got rid of Moyes, LVG, Mourinho & Ole a lot earlier but its different this time. We've got a manager in his prime with a great recent track record who's still dealing with the nonsense of the Glazer ownership, the balls up with Martinez's injury is another to add to the long list of c**k ups. The issues surrounding the club doctor was farcical and obviously player a huge part in this.

Results and performances need to improve but the time to judge him is at the end of the season not a month in when he's had to deal with a huge injury crisis, about as bad as I've ever seen.

The latest potential AFL recruits are Cork's Conor Corbett, Galway's James McLoughlin, Down's Odhran Murdock and Tyrone's Eoin McElholm all will spend two weeks Down Under and are expected to visit a number of clubs who could have an interest in signing them professionally.

The quartet have been involved in ongoing trials and a network in Ireland established by the AFL for potential recruits. In recent weeks, Longford's Matthew Duffy and Kerry's Rob Monaghan have been signed by Carlton, while Cork's Liam O'Connell has joined St Kilda. That trio had been observed by clubs at recent trials in Dublin.

Corbett is probably the best minor I've seen since Clifford, McLaughlin not far behind him but both have suffered so many injuries since 2019.

The criteria for "young" is pretty broad from memory. I would say Gannon would qualify for it too and he's a good one but McEvoy definitely should be right up there with the best of them.

I think it's still U21. Not 100%

Should be U23 in my opinion as there's been a few years lately where there has only been a very limited pick of eligible players.

Jack Glynn won it last year and he'd have been u22.

He certainly didn't hit the heights this year. Looked very average

Missed a lot of the league with injuries and picked up a bad knock to the face when Burns was sent of against Tyrone. Only for having a steel plate from a previous break he'd have broken the jaw again.

The criteria for "young" is pretty broad from memory. I would say Gannon would qualify for it too and he's a good one but McEvoy definitely should be right up there with the best of them.

I think it's still U21. Not 100%

Should be U23 in my opinion as there's been a few years lately where there has only been a very limited pick of eligible players.

Jack Glynn won it last year and he'd have been u22.

Thought Derry had a decent chance before the game but that 1st half performance was way better then I thought they were capable off. That 2nd half will haunt for a long time, should have been 4 or 5 points up going into the final 10 minutes.

Derry's injury record the last 2 years looking from afar is impressive as is Kerry's especially when you compare that to someone like Galway who were decimated this year, Derry playing division 1 next year might find it tougher in that department so finding new blood is imperative.

Thought Derry would need a bit of luck to win the game but the reality is that Kerry got the luck from McQuillan.

Probably mentioned earlier on the in the thread but saw Clifford in the GAA team of the week but but thought it was the poorest I've seen him with his kicking, turns out he scored 1 point from play from 9 efforts.

Would Derry have preferred to play Dublin over Kerry?

Some achievement for this team with back to back Ulsters & semi final appearances, they've a smallish squad and appear to have kept everyone fit.

It was a new format and many of us thought that you had no chance of winning an All Ireland unless you topped the group or got a bit of a luck with the draw, it transpires that is true. I've seen Ray Boyne's stats at full time, suspect it was a lot more even at half time. Dublin though were very impressive especially in that opening 7 minutes of the 2nd half; Eoghan McLaughlin though has not improved his footballing skills since he came on the scene, might even have gone backwards and he's got to score that.

Dublin and Kerry can sleepwalk their way through their province whilst nobody else has that luxury, look its not their fault but we really need a stronger Cork, Kildare & Meath.

As many of us thought Shane Walsh was injured, got injured against Tyrone and walking around in a moon boot since; Like to think Tierney would have done better with those frees!

Hopefully lessons to be learned from playing injured players next year, a fully fit Kelly wouldn't have let that goal happen.

Very difficult to know where Dublin are at so just so difficult to predict and can Mayo put back to back performances together.

Those kick out stats will have alarmed McStay especially considering so many were contested but on the flip side they managed to win despite only winning 12 out of 37 kickouts.

Injuries finally caught up with them year. No Silke or Molloy before a ball was kicked. Dylan McHugh barely played in championship. That's half of last year's starting defence gone. Patrick Kelly another who started last year's All-Ireland final who missed the entire championship through injury. Finnerty was in and out with niggles all year. The injuries to Comer and Kelly finished them though. No team can afford to lose their best two players like that. While they both started neither was anywhere near right. Whatever chance they had went once they blew the Armagh game. Maybe a week off could have got them fitter but once they had to tog out again this week it was going to be very tough. Those two fit and I'm relatively confident they would have beaten Mayo. Whether there would have been anything left in the tank for next week is another story.

Walsh's poor form a big problem also. His free taking was excellent last year but he missed a scatter of frees this year. The two he missed in front of the posts with the wind at his back in the first half yesterday were criminal. He seemed distracted and out of sorts all year. Needs to sort his head out as he's no spring chicken any more. Heaney never really got going this year. Ian Burke looked increasingly ineffectual. His lack of physicality and pace standing out in the tougher games. All he does is recycle the ball back out the field. Not really enough these days. Tierney had his moments but very up and down. Still young though and will be a big player going forward.

On the plus side Galway have two good corner-backs for the first time in a very long time. If anything McGrath was even better than Glynn this year. He done a right job on some very good forwards and was on his way to an All-Star nomination but probably won't get one now. Maher a great find in midfield. Young Sweeney good for the most part. Cooke got better and better as the year went on. Despite a couple bad turnovers in the 2nd half yesterday. Will he even be available next year though? He's often abroad due to work. The management will definitely want him around. Our finishing was poor enough this year. Lost count of how many goal chances we butchered. I counted 6 good goal chances over last two games against Mayo and 0 goals actually scored. Combine that with a serious dip in the free taking this year and Galway have been leaving far too many scores behind them.

Galway suffered more injuries then most this year, I know Mayo suffered a lot last year and Horn put that down to a mixture of issues with pitches and a new medical team. I'm sure it will be looked at internally.

McGrath has been brilliant, Glynn didn't hit the heights of last year but Silke, Molloy, McHugh and O'Flaherty will huge depth to that backline. Lets hope Cooke stays, took him a while to get going this season which is down too him been away from the setup last year.

Comer has only been fully fit for 2 of the last 6 seasons and its no coincidence they were both when Galway went very well. Desperately need a bit of new blood in the forwards and have to find a way of playing without Comer. I've always thought McDaid possesses the attributes to play full forward. Patrick Kelly too could offer something in there, huge shame he's injured as I reckon he'll improve the more football he plays at this level. I hope Culhane can kick on, still looks like he'll need to improve physically given his lack of pace; Galway certainly due to find a forward from somewhere.

Some Mayo people have lost leave of their senses defending what was a trampish act, huge difference between grappling with an opponent as opposed to what he did.

Disappointed but as AFA states the dream died last week, when you've as many injuries as Galway they needed to top the group. Only 10 from last years final started and then add that Kelly & Comer weren't fit it was always going to difficult.

Very ironic how well Galway did on kickouts yesterday, easily the best day under Joyce considering the opposition. Galway had a lot more possession & shots but the profligacy in the first half really cost Galway which has been a familiar theme this year, so many missed easy goal chances have been missed and yesterday was no different.


Mayo were 100/30 with PP at half time which I thought was crazy, they were still even money after the goal went in. No place in the game for what O'Donoghue did and he's lucky its not been completely caught on camera, Flynn tried kicking Kelly too which is a red card offence.

Galway have nobody to blame but themselves anyway, they were unlucky with the injuries but given the amount of them I'm sure they'll take a look and see if they can do something different next year.