A composite image of Ange Postecoglou, Erling Haaland and Ruben Amorim. Photo by Carl Recine/Getty ImagesPhoto by Carl Recine/Getty Images, Michael Regan/Getty Images and Mike Hewitt/Getty Images
In his exclusive column for CaughtOffside, former Aston Villa striker Stan Collymore discusses some of football’s biggest points, including why Ruben Amorim was right, why Ange Postecoglou shouldn’t be so naive and more.
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Ruben Amorim’s honesty is justified
Ruben Amorim’s honesty is welcome. I don’t think what he said was out of order, I think it was refreshing.
Jose Mourinho was honest. David Moyes and others, if you go back to the post-Ferguson era… every manager since then will have had moments in press conferences where they have spoken their truth.
I think the interesting thing is that with Amorim it’s so raw. Of course the press would jump on the phrase “this is Manchester United’s worst team”.
However, it is no different from what we wrote in the column several weeks ago.
If you were to look at Manchester United’s squad man by man, how many of them would the pundits or football watchers keep?
I would say everyone was on sale and I don’t think many people are.
The reality is that you can’t guarantee that Amad will be a title-winning player, for example. He may still be, and Manchester United would hope that is with them, but it is just one of many peripheral arguments about players who are currently fit and could easily disappear.
The biggest problem at Manchester United is Sir Jim Ratcliffe and the ownership of the club.
A lot of people and processes have changed, but I think the messages have been reflecting the government. ‘Let’s do this. We’re aiming in a straight line. We’re looking to grow the economy’, but the statistics at the moment don’t really bear that out.
The fans were hoping that someone would come in and blow the doors down without necessarily spending fortunes, and have some kind of strategy that everyone at Manchester United Football Club felt valued about.
It hasn’t been and, dare I say it, Manchester United is a bit of an ‘austerity’.
In any case, Ruben Amorim for me is the right man for the job. He is a very good coach, young, talented and progressive, and this was shown at Sporting.
He should absolutely be given the chance to succeed in several transfer windows before passing judgement.
Erling Haaland’s Man City contract makes sense on every level
Erling Haaland’s 10-year contract…
Ten years, two years, one year, it makes no difference. All he does is give the player the whip hand.
Winston Bogarde so many years ago at Chelsea, he was on 40 or 60 odd grand a week and he wasn’t going anywhere. They weren’t going to take him out. He simply took it out and Erling Haaland could do it.
I think there are a couple of key components to think about as well. One, is the player happy? Second, he will get the kind of money that is only slightly dwarfed by Saudi money, and why would you go to Saudi Arabia if you are his age and skills?
I think Manchester City will look at it and say if we lose him to Real Madrid in a few years, we’ve probably saved ourselves £300m/£400m in the grand scheme of things.
how
Think how much it would cost them to buy Erling Haaland two or three times more? The answer is between £150m/£200m per transfer, so if you add it up it’s around £400m/£500m.
Let’s say the contract is worth £700m / £800m. If he leaves before it’s over, they’ve actually made a sound, sound financial decision that even in the head-and-brains world of football makes business sense for them.
They also don’t pay everything up front, it will be paid over a long period of time and that will of course help them with the PSR.
I don’t think it’s just PSR related, but it will be a nice bonus at the moment when other clubs like Villa, Newcastle and others have to look at every transfer coming in and out.
For Manchester City Football Club, it’s simple. A world-class goalscorer who guarantees you 25 goals plus a season. There is no other striker like him and it is a deal that saves them money. no desire
Ange Postecoglou’s Tottenham must learn…quickly
Do I like Ange Postecoglou? yes i do Do I like how he plays football? yes i do
As a child and then as a professional footballer, I wanted to play attacking football. That was what it was all about. I wanted to be a striker, and that’s why I liked to run with the ball, score goals, left foot, right foot.
Now obviously somewhere like Celtic or Japan it will be easy for Ange to succeed but you have to admit in the Premier League these days you can’t be ‘Kevin Keegan in Newcastle MKII’.
I just don’t think Ange’s style of play, being “the cheerleaders” if you will, is conducive to anything other than stretches of four, five, or six games to get big results and then two or three that they hurt a lot
His current situation is not all about injuries and I really like the man. I think there’s something fundamentally very sweet and heartwarming about his style of football, although I don’t want to sound patronizing, but he’s incredibly naive in the Premier League.
He needs to get his basics right. Set pieces, defensive balls, tackles, second balls and the dirty stuff you can still hide under the guise of being a total football team.
Time will tell how good Ange Postecoglou is, of course.
Everyone wants to go out and play these days, and he’s not going to reinvent the wheel at Tottenham or the Premier League.
He can still use the multiple injuries excuse this season, but if we get to Christmas 2026 and Spurs are in the same boat as they are now, I think the club would be looking to pull the trigger. You can’t go on without learning from mistakes.
Tottenham explore Man United transfer hijack!
I think the real elephant in the room though is whether Daniel Levy will ever leave Tottenham Hotspur because I think he should.
I think he as CEO has been successful with infrastructure projects, he has a wonderful training ground and a wonderful stadium, but he has failed spectacularly in the business of running the football departments of the club.
Mixed bag in the UCL could benefit Man City in the EPL
Another win for Liverpool, another for Arsenal… they are in a very good position in the top eight, and their fate is in their own hands. They simply win the next game and are done and dusted, avoiding the playoffs.
Unai Emery was rightly disappointed by Aston Villa’s defeat in Monaco, while Manchester City remain a splashy Ferrari at the moment. They are back in the league for the most part and people are smiling again.
I always think people can look too much into tactical issues, but I can guarantee that City have done nothing different than they have ever done tactically and in training.
What happens is that confidence starts to drop a bit, an injury or two pops up and everyone looks at each other and says “who’s going to stand up and be counted?” Before you know it, you’re in this maelstrom of losing, and it just becomes one thing.
So the engines have been changed in the Ferrari Testarossa, but there are still one or two tuning issues.
Now, would it be the worst thing if Manchester City were eliminated from the Champions League? They’ve won everything there is to win, and if they were out of it this season, who cares? They will be there as long as Sheikh Mansour is involved with Manchester City Football Club, so then you look at it and say ‘what a great opportunity’.
All others; Arsenal, Liverpool and others can qualify and will play more games, potentially get injured etc. City can only concentrate on the Premier League.
A couple of weeks ago I was fond of the column saying could Manchester City win the league? It’s absurd isn’t it, unthinkable… but if they had a clear streak in the league, those six to nine points between them and Liverpool, when the streak comes, is not an impossible goal to achieve.
All it takes is an injury to Salah, to Odegaard, to Rice…
