Topic: Premier League Prediction Thread (EPL) - page 522. (Read 1199179 times)

What job could he possibly be holding out for? If any manager gets offered the United job they should take the honor as there's not many other bigger teams and he's already managed Real. The only thing he may be concerned about is his own reputation. It's much easier coming in at the start of the season where you can build your own squad, buy the players you want and bond with the current squad. At the moment he has to turn around an under-performing United and that won't be easy and what happens if they finish badly at the end. Will he then be disgraced and people calling for his sacking?


He probably wont be, but he's probably the only option they have right now without getting someone arguably worse than Mou or who is seen as a step-down. No point firing Jose to get someone who's not even as good as him. New managers rarely come in and turn the team around straight away though either. When teams are playing poorly or not to expectations they just need a fall guy and someone to blame for the issues and the managers are put on the chopping block as it's easy to blame one person than the entire team. I don't think Jose is doing anything tactically inept. Sure, there are always different formations and tactics to try, but he's won plenty of titles before playing essentially the same or similar way.

Why would Zidane be any better than Mourinho for United? Zidane had peak Ronaldo during his Real tenure, peak Bale, Ramos, Modric, Benzema, Varane, Marcelo too.

My Nan could manage Real and have a good season. United with their current squad is a much harder job. The ghost of Fergie hangs over whoever takes over.

true Newcastle Everton and Bournemouth on paper is not a difficult teams to face but I'm afraid that United could fail to win over them that will make their situation even worse. While sacking Mourinho and replacing him with Zidane is not a great solution. Zidane is not a manager that can build a team he is more of managing an already built team full of stars so Zidane will be risking his reputation if he gets United job as you can see every manager came after SAF in United have seen a decline.

^  YES!  I'd rather see Mou stay, if he's up to the task of rebuilding United, than seeing those over paid little sh*ts they call players run around and don't give the fans what they need to see.

Stability is key...  I think Woodward and Mou should have a sit down and talk about their predicament very carefully and discuss how they should move forward.

I don't think he can either, but I'd like to see him there even if it's just to prove me wrong. People put too much emphasis on managers making that much of a difference or expect them to come in and revolutionise the squad and win trophies immediately and that just never happens unless you have a world class squad to begin with. Managers like Pep and Zidane already inherited world class squads from world class clubs. I mean, who couldn't win a title with Bayern and Barca? Let's see them manage a mediocre Championship team and see if they can win them the Championship and then the Premier League within a few years. Then I'd call them a world class manager. At least Fergie started from scratch with United and built his team up to be great. People should start blaming the players more instead of using managers as a scapegoat (unless they're just tactically going to pot) but they rarely do. Sometimes teams just don't gel or have a bad run of forum and sacking the manager for a new one usually does very little to remedy that. United getting Zidane probably won't make any difference, especially this season.

And the club has to consider if Zidane really can get the club out of the rut beyond this season, which I don't think he can do really... 

United needs to start rebuilding the club from the ground up.  There's no other way around it imho.

Newcastle United, Everton and Bournemouth aren't difficult matches. Nobody will expect them to win again Juve, City and Chelsea either, especially away. If they lose or draw against the first three Premier League teams then maybe arguably he should go, but if he can get some points from the home games in the Champions League then I think that would be fair enough. I doubt they'll let him go unless they can 100% confirm Zidane as a replacement, especially considering they'll have to give Jose a huge pay-off to get rid of him and Zidane is probably going to command one of the biggest salaries for a manager.

Nice little win there, roll on Saturday!

At the moment Im thinking another multi for Arsenal, Tottenham, and Chelsea. Man Utd are in a bad spot and I think the Liverpool v Man City game is going to be hard to predict

I think Mourinho will go, the question is when.

A loss to Valencia would mean almost certainly being knocked out of the Champions League after the second leg with Juventus. Does he go then? Or do they wait until a top 4 place is out of the question like they did with Moyes and LVG? Rumors are that he has already lost the dressing room. Maybe they can bring Big Sam in after Christmas to save them from relegation.  

The question is: Does Jose Mourinho survive? Because he haves difficult matches :
- Valencia (H)
- Newcastle United (H)
- Chelsea (A)
- Juventus (H)
- Everton (H)
- Bournemouth (A)
- Juventus (A)
- Manchester City (A)

Newcastle have always had their best in front of the devils, Chelsea and Manchester City are competing against the Premiership and the question of winning them seems almost impossible at this time, especially as the United level fluctuates. So it's possible that he will not see the end of the season with United specially when he lost the trust of players and fans and it's a matter of time that the board lose faith in him.

I am also expecting a high scoring game with result like 2:1 but can't decide for which team. I have played both to score and over 2.5 goals so don't really care

Regarding Man Utd. It is famous 3rd season by Mourihno. That is the one where players realize they had more than enough of his methods and after first few bad results decide to stop giving their best. Valencia is dangerous team and if Man Utd plays like last few games they could easily lose. But just to make it more safe bet I will probably play Valencia to score. They can score even against top teams and Man Utd is not playing like a top team at the moment.

I have been reading even on Guardian that there is conflict between players and Mourinho
Not only Pogba and Mourinho
Mourinho has bad time.He was sentenced by Spanish court for two years prison exchanged for 10 mln euro penalty for tax hiding.He is nervous i guess and now all that story with Manchester. Whatever club has to decide fast or support him or find new coach
I think that players will give his best in CL but it can be different in EPL
It is typical Man United story
Great club with huge funds and always disappointment at the end

I'll laugh my ass off if Mou gets the sack, but Man Utd really should take Valencia.

Anyone looking at the Palace game tonight? I'm thinking BTTS or total goals +2.5, got a feeling it's going to be a high scoring game.

Man Utd would pay Zidane very well for sure but do you think he’d risk his reputation by going there? I guess United would give him a lot of money to spend but did Real really do so well because of him or was it to do with CR7 being a genius & players like Ramos, Modric, Bale, Marcelo etc being at their absolute peak?

United’s squad sucks ass, they start players like Lukaku, Smalling & Phil Jones.

It would be a hell of a lot harder to get success at United.

Suuure he did...  But I'm pretty sure Zidane would love to get the United job.  If he really isn't go after it, then he should prolly tell his reps to quit talking to United and accept Juventus' offer.  I think they want him as CEO or something...  That's a huge step up imo.

Oh and Zidane is learning English.  Mou shouldn't calm down.  Lol.

That video was only for show (the practice was open to the media for 15min, what a coincidence), Mou and Pogba knew there was a camera out there so they started that small scene to trigger more rumours and speculation so that people forget that the team is playing like shit.

I don't think the match against Valencia will do much to the whole situation, if they lose, sure there's a crisis in the team, but I don't think they'll sack Mou...what are they gonna do after they fire him? hire an interim? I think the Man Utd board would rather take their chances and keep him for a few months than hiring an inexperienced manager because, like I keep saying, there aren't many 'top managers' looking for a job right now.

It only keeps getting on worst for Mourinho it's now been confirmed Zidane called him to calm him down, and insisted he has not been offered the job directly, but he did mention his representatives have made him aware a job may open up soon. It's unofficial but Mourinho has only one week to save his job win both matches, loose one or even both and that's the end of Mourinho.

He has many issues going on 1) What to do with his star Player who Sir Alex had shipped off, who Mr Van Gull was against is building a rebellion inside the dressing room, 2) The misfiring expensive flop Sanchez needs to be sold but there're no buyers, 3) 12 first team stars are out of the contract and most notably the list included De Gea and Shaw.

If the board keeps Mourinho we may loose 12 first team stars for nothing, I feel bad for him I do, but he's not the right coach to lead the club, the board should work out a package for him and save Manchester United before it's too late.

Last week in Bournemouth, Burnley took a defeat in the game with Burnley. They lost the game by 4-0. The Palace had a goalless draw with Newcastle at home. The Palace is more comfortable in away games, everyone knows it. My preference is over 2.5 goals.

I definitely agree with that, Valencia are more than good enough to beat Man Utd. They play attacking, expansive football & certainly won’t fear United. They’ll come to win & I think they will.

After watching the horrible performance of Manchester United on their match against West Ham, I think Valencia might even stand a high chance to beat Manchester United at the stadium of Old Trafford, if you check through the match playing records between both of these teams, you could see that Valencia does not have a good match record against Manchester United whenever the match is played at the stadium of Old Trafford, and it seems that this would be the best timing and opportunity for Valencia to change the record if they could beat Manchester United in front of the red devils fans.