Tbh it’s really quite common for guys who’ve won everything towards the end of their careers to come back in not the best shape. They’re human after all, some players stay super motivated into their deep 30s but I don’t blame anyone who lets themself go a little bit. It’s more you don’t wanna be on the hook for lying such a player a quarter million a week cos 3 years ago he was a world beater!

You guys are a money-no-object club, you can absolutely afford to take the gambles and pocket the wins. United are having to budget carefully for FFP and they’ve blown a fortune on transfer fee/wages here!

Rashford’s a budget player who turns it on for 7 months when a contract is on the line. Xhaka grew as a player when his role was adapted to provide him better cover to make up for his lack of pace and somewhat questionable defensive instincts. Casemiro has just gotten old after being consistent forever.

Younger players who function better in one system or another or others who turn it on at pinch points in their career are not the same as older player going over the hill.

Yup! I remember getting attacked here for questioning the value of Casemiro at his age/price/contract cos who wants to believe that a player they like might decline soon. Was the same with Peresic who everyone assured me would be a wonderful wingback adapting to PL aged 33!!!

It’s a real minority who play deep into their 30s, handing out big contracts to such players should be done with real care and scrutiny unless you are a monopoly money club then whatever gamble away!

It’s happens sometimes when you spend big on older players. People like to think that top players all stay at peak level deep into their 30s but many do tail off fast.

And 10 early 2000s small teams didn’t even play low blocks just generically bad football with a bit of defence, bit of attack no tactical fouls and big sides would play bottom half clubs in cruise control.

The game is better for smaller clubs being significantly more capable, it’s one change I wouldn’t want to undo at all, but something has to give and tournaments should not be expanding at all as a bare minimum. It’s getting worse not better

Can’t overlook winter World Cup’s impact, that last season just didn’t end add in how competitive pre-season is getting (tours are not hammering a couple of local J-league sides anymore, it’s Arsenal and Utd kicking lumps out of each other!), when is the break? When was pre-season?

Also something I’d add is it’s not just player price, some of the most overworked players are youth products. Look at how much football Gavi and Saka have played last couple years.

Final point is PL related but the number of points needed to win a league now with how competitive the league is all the way down makes rotating players out hard. Sure Man City can rotate between Grealish and Doku, but how many even big sides have a £100m player and a back up £70m player with both happy to be there?

VAR hasn’t ruined football PGMOL, just need to be a little less shit.

You will never end controversy or opinion difference, but cast your mind back to pre-VAR days and just fuck me things were bad. Total guess work everywhere, refs completely cowered by crowds (United went a decade without conceding a penalty at Old Trafford!), it was so much worse.

Literally just get PGMOL to a point where computers not some old guy is running offside lines manually and where apologies aren’t being handed out for wildly incorrect decisions and it’s party time.

The vast majority of gripes aren’t that VAR intervened it’s that they didn’t! Second most common gripe is that VAR did intervene but in a way that it never usually does (pull on a shirt at a corner for example).

Literally just get everyone on the same page, publish some guidelines/polices for commonly encountered situations (say shirt pulls in the box will only be a penalty if they have an observable consequence on the game) and lower the bar for intervention from clear and obvious to material and impactful and we’d be there.

This isn’t a hard situation to solve, it just needs to be iteratively improved, with the underpinning assumptions of what would work best critically evaluated and the games stakeholders communicated with openly and honestly.