Manchester United Banter Archive December 20 2013

 

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20 Dec 2013 21:39:21
Do we know if there is sufficient interest in Sneijder to sign him in January? Rumours of him taking a pay cut are flying around. I have long said that he could be a catalyst for something great, like Cantona was for Fergie.

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Have you been at the brandy butter Fresh?!

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Seriously tho, would we really want Sneijder at our club at this point? He is old and so past his best. Also, we have enough injury prone players as it is.

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I'm with Dodgy Fresh. There are much better options out there, we don't need another 29 years old, particularly 1 who has injuries.

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Id pay money to watch sneijder play. At 29 for a possible 10 million I think he'd be good even now slightly deeper or as a central playmaker. Certainly knows where the goal is from distance, something we haven't had for years. I think even better than any of our midfielders now. If he looks after himself also then I don't see why not but I think the ship sailed a couple of years ago.

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You guys know I am fan of him. I think he would be quite useful and fill the void we have on the left wing in a 4231. We are nowhere near creative enough down the left and very one-sided, so someone like him even for a few years is not a bad option, if he can be acquired at a reasonable fee. He is not a flash in the pan. I do agree the risk is he is injury prone.

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Have any of you seen him play in the last 2 seasons?

Slow, old and injury prone. He went to Turkey for the money so why is now talking about a pay cut?

There was an interview with Dutch TV during the internationals and he scotched the rumours.

Personally i'll be glad when he retires so we don't have to go through this nonsense EVERY transfer window.

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Mort

Amen my friend

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20 Dec 2013 17:53:13
Gundogan rumours circling around Twitter today, so probably a load of rubbish, though you can't help but hope. Has anyone heard of anything regarding him?

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I don't know anything about twitter, I find their limit on characters per tweet infuriating. lol.

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Haha

That's 2 posts under 3 lines today now Shappy. Careful or you'll harm your reputation ;)

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21 Dec 2013 00:02:49
My doctor said I had to cut down on the number of lines i'm doing or my septum may fall out. Lol.

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Ha, shappy you legend! Made my day;)

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20 Dec 2013 15:59:09
I saw Class of 92 today, the guys were amazing and for a fan like me who is learning all about United, it makes me feel very good. Some where I get a feeling of deja vu that all this is going to happen again with the youth players we have now in the set up.

Chin Up we are United, we have a history to be proud of and I will be a United fan till I die and I hope my kids will also follow my beloved club.

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I understand Santa may be bringing it for me

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Its absolutley brilliant, watching this reminded me of why I love united so much, i'm 31 and that was my era I almost feel like I grew up with them, I lived on littleton road, salford growing up and the training ground (bobs field as we called it) was 200 yards from my house, also we were half a mile from the cliff and regularly walked down as a kid to see the players, it was a different time then it was so open, so so glad I had the oppertunity to be part of it :) LONG LIVE MANCHESTER UNITED!

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20 Dec 2013 14:07:21
teffific news sports fans just in, luis EL PISTOLERO has just signed a new long-term deal at lpool, so you will all get to see this great player in the premership for a while longer, I have a question for you, what if any, are the financial inplications if utd fail to get champs-leauge next season, also do you see moyes in the managers seat after the summer.
ps, happy xmas, new year.

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U know wot i'm always happy when a worldclass player stays in the league regardless of club, the prem has been on a down turn in quality for a few years and keeping worldclass players in it should never be a bad thing.

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Well I can tell you that the financial implications of Suarez signing a new deal are that he will now be sold for top market value probably in 18 months time, but if he has a great World Cup and a massive offer comes in then this could be his last season with your lot.

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Really has the bit between the teeth at the moment, fangtastic news lfc. Let's see if we miss out first before we know what the implications are and even then know one will know straight away. You and your team would know more about the financial implications of not being in the CL. We are well informed however on being in the CL, something we can certainly help you with.

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Bale signed a long term deal with spurs last year too. Means F-all when Madrid come knocking

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Got to give you your due lfc, you are on here whether Liverpool are doing well or not so well. Liverpool could be top at Xmas, means very little of course, but it's still better than previous years so you must be chuffed. Your best player has signed an improved deal, again I am not sure it means much as he will sign for RM soon enough, but it does mean you will get more cash and so will he (hence the reason he put pen to paper). He is in my Dreamteam and will get me points tomorrow I am sure. The Cardiff issues popped up in the media 24 hours before your game tomorrow conveniently, that added to Liverpool being at home and Suarez signing a new deal will put a buzz around the place. A mate of mine (Cardiff fan) asked my opinion on the score tomorrow and I said either 4.1 or 5.1. So we expect a Liverpool win, but I still expect MU to finish some points ahead of you guys. Not the 20 points, but there will be points between us and I do not see you finishing top four. I think the gap between ourselves and Arsenal and ourselves and you will narrow considerably over the next month. Well it's hotting up and I expect to see you on here a few more times this season, but I think you may disappear towards the end, just like Liverpool ;)

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Gareth bale signed a long term contract in 2012 and left spurs in 2013. Contracts aren't worth the paper they are wrote on!

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He is an incredible striker and the best player in the league at the moment. I still think he will end up going to Madrid in the summer for a big transfer fee.

On the league you have 2 away games at Chelsea and City. I don't think you have a snowballs chance at city and believe it or not would love to see a draw but betting on a city win, I am also betting the chelsea game both ways on a draw and a chelsea win. A draw would suit us best as it is like dropped points in the current league and we close the gap on teams above us in a more meaningful way.

We will finish top 4, if not then it will be an interesting summer.

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Gotta love that optimism syd but I can't say I agree, at the minute Liverpool are a steam train picking up pace as they go along, I can't see us finishing above them but I'd absolutely love them to finish 4th and us 5th with us winning the champions league, that would be a dream.

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Saurez being in the league is terrific news; I think it almost certainly guarantees you a top 8 finish again ;)
On a more serious note Liverpool are playing really well and deserve to be where they are in the league.If you can avoid anymore injuries then you have a great chance of a top 4 place.
If we don't finish top four then Moyes should still be given time but football is a results game so there is a very high chance he will be sacked.

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Syd. That is optimism for you. I don't think we'll be finishing above Liverpool this season. They have a good team and a very good manager. And the best striker in the league.
Let's give them credit.

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Sorry anon but if we finished 4th
and you won't the cl

we d both be in next seasons cl

they changed the rule after it hapened to spurs

saying that you haven't a hope in hell of winning the cl

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Nomid

You are underestimating us, we are not great but better than pool. Their win at spurs flatters to deceive. Suarez is currently on form but the match was more about how poor spurs were rather than how good the scourers are.

Let's wait and see how they go after this weekend, not too far fetched to see them drop 8 from 9 points after cardiff.

My concern is that our injury list seems to be growing and looks like Fellaini and Nani are going to be out for an extended period now and hope we stay away from any more serious injuries.

Time for guys like Kagawa, Welbeck to prove they can hack it and perform when needed most.

Sounds terrible but even KFC boy needs to have a performance as it looks like we are going to need him :)

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Got to give Liverpool there due stood firm in the summer and have now tied him down to a 5 year contract I think they are in a strong position to keep him. I also think Liverpool are nailed on for top 4 and I think United will miss out unless with get the right cm in the Jan window

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Nomidfield, Anon, behave yourselves. There is no chance Liverpool will finish ahead of MU this season. I will remind you of this foolishness come May.

Tom, you are incorrect, if that scenario happened then Liverpool would miss out on the UCL just like Spurs missed out on the UCL when Chelsea won the Cup.

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Lets see how Liverpool do against City and Chelsea before people start dismissing MU and backing our biggest rivals. We are 16 games into a 38 game season. Liverpool play the fixtures above this month and still have to come to OT. Eight points can easily dwindle away and become a 15/16 point swing. Like Shahram has said, the issues we have is injuries right now, but if we can soldier on until RvP & Co are back then we will start putting rows of wins together.

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Syd
"I will remind you of this foolishness come May. "

How many points have you been telling people we would finish above Liverpool?

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LOL

Jred/Syd

You 2 should drop this thing. Syd probably had consumed 20 jd/cokes when he posted his now famous prediction. I don't know what the points difference will be but we will finish ahead of Liverpool, Everton, Southampton and Newcastle.

Believe it or not I still think spurs are going to be in the mix, talk about being a contrarian:)

Anyway time to support our guys.

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Jred, it's banter, last season I said we will finish 30 points ahead of Liverpool and we finished 29 points ahead. It's banter between me and the Liverpool fans that come on here.

I believe we will finish ahead of Liverpool and you don't. We will see won't we, but i'm with Shahram, I have faith we will make the top four ahead of Liverpool.

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Syd
Of course you have faith, it's blind faith.
If united buy well we have a chance if not I think we will struggle.
Honest assessment.
I just can't stand fans who can see no good in one team and no bad in an other

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I see plenty bad in our squad and I see plenty good in rival sides. What are you talking about? Do you even know what you are talking about?

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20 Dec 2013 13:49:09
My new year's wish for this site is " I want to see a one line post from Shappy."

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20 Dec 2013 14:27:55
Merry Christmas and happy new year. Lol

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Nice one Shappys!

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Haha thank you Shappy!

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WOW

Merry Christmas Shappy.

Great post MB

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20 Dec 2013 09:56:41
do we have any interest in Maximilian Arnold? He's only 19 building his reputation gradually and seems to have expressed his interest in joining Utd?

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20 Dec 2013 03:40:20
@Shappy good post. Heres my two cents.

1. Real Madrid's model is not something to look at. They have NOT been successful in the last decade. Stability at Dortmund is a very good example, that clubs abroad are looking at it too.

2. Barcelona's success as you rightly pointed out is because of their success at youth level. This also means that instead of having to sign a 3 players with their summer transfer budget, they need to sign just one top player for the big sum (eg. Neymar), which no doubt makes a difference in the way they value players giving them a higher chance of signing them.

The problem at youth level in England is that the clubs aren't allowed enough time with the youth players to coach them. The rules in Spain are completely different. This is a major disadvantage and with a toothless FA, I don't know if that will change.

3. Bayern are the model to follow imo. Theirs too is an excellent youth setup. You correctly point out that they absorb their ex players into the coaching system, which creates a "Bayern Munich" spirit at the club.

This is where I see Moyes doing it the right way.

Scholes and Nicky Butt are already involved with the youth team.

Phil Neville and Giggs are First team coaches. This, no doubt will create a Manchester United spirit within the coaching structure and the right philosophy will be passed on to the players.

He is also making the right changes at youth level. It was high time the United youth structure needed to be freshened up A BIT. Ed Woodward along with Moyes is making determined efforts to change the system and get it closer to that in Spain and Germany.

Januzaj is getting a REAL chance, very few youngsters around Europe, in top teams, get this sort of playing time. Moyes knows how to develop youth, when to play them and when to hold them back. Everton, imo are reaping the benefits of his excellent handling of Barkley. Barkley himself has nothing but praise for David Moyes.

4. I don't think the director of football approach works in England, especially not at Manchester United and I will tell you why.

In Spain and Germany, clubs are owned by the fans, which changes things completely. Their ownership structures mean that they don't have managers, but head coaches.

Also, it inevitably leads to changing of coaches every now and then, which costs the clubs money. It will work in England when the clubs are bankrolled by oligarchs, but not for self sustainable clubs.

At Barcelona, they promote head coaches from within, or people with similar philosophy. In England, the director of football approach means more of divided philosophy.

5. My final point is that, with Moyes and Woodward now we are seeing a shift in the quality of players that are being targeted, and they have stepped it up a notch imo. This means we are not going for "gettable" players, but for higher quality players. We are in a much better financial position to do that than we were before. That is just a general sense that I am getting, and is my opinion.

I will judge this new structure after 2 or 3 years, not after 6 months. There is a reason behind why the club gave Moyes a 6 year contract, and there is a clear long term vision, anyone who believes that Moyes was made manager just because Sir Alex said so and a long term plan would not have been discussed in detail, is kidding themselves.

The key things I will be watching will be which players Moyes let's go first and then in the next 2-3 windows, who he buys. Wanting him to play a high tempo, attacking style with the current squad is completely unrealistic, he simply doesn't have the players to do that.

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Brilliant post red and I agree with most posts along the way.
People calling for moyes' head are prime examples of the new generation of fans who have been spoilt by success, give the man time to put his own stamp on the club and watch things take place when he builds his own squad

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REDFAITH, amazing post.

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Good post, hopefully a lot of impatient naive fans will read this and have their eyes opened slightly.

Redfaith, your last point about us targeting a higher standard of players might be true, obviously we won't find out for a little while if that's true. However it will be harder to lure these players now with the change of management I think. Also while we need to bring in already-top-quality players to fix the obvious problems in our team we still need to go out and buy them young players for a small fee with a lot of potential. SAF was good at this and I think it's also a quality of Moyes when you think of Lescott, Fellaini, Baines, Mirallas etc.

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I agree. An excellent post. One should assume that during the interview process, Moyes must have been required to elucidate a long term strategy to modernize the club. And surely the owners are as aware as all of us that the squad has suffered for lack of investment and will need a substantial overhaul in quality, style and tactics to maintain a real threat at the highest levels.

We are an impatient lot, true - but no more so than any team desirous of success -which will be defined at each club relative to expectations. There are those who simply don't believe in Moyes, and then there are those (like myself) who are prepared to wait and see but believe he and Woodward have made a very inauspicious start, and fear that it's a precursor to a general decline. This fear is compounded by the continuing level of debt and our apparent inability over the last 5 years to sign any of our rumoured transfer targets, except RVP who I consider to be a short term acquisition. It is all too easy for the club to keep saying the money is there while we watch one long term great player after another sign for different clubs. The summer transfer window did nothing to appease that concern. The secondary fear is that failure to qualify for Europe will have the effect of undermining finances and credibility further, thus making top signings even less likely.

One of the continuing traditions at United is that the club is built around a strong nucleus of British Isles players. So one of the questions is whether we can be successful while adhering to that tradition when British youth systems do not seem to be producing the highest calibre of players. Let's face it, this is not a short term fix. It will take the sort of cohesive approach that was taken to reverse the abject performance of our Olympians in 1996 in Atlanta, when the national anthem played but one time, into the glories of this summer. I don't see any reason to expect either that sort of cohesive national effort, or that United fans are going to be happy to wait 20 years while the effort takes shape.

We are fortunate that we actually have a pretty good squad despite the lack of quality player investment since the Glazers took over. It should not take more than 3 key players within the next 2 windows to keep us truly competitive. In the meantime I for one am pretty relaxed about our reduced prospects. This is a transitional period and even with the greatest manager on earth it's clearly not going to be easy to stick with the moneybags owners. Redfaith is correct - give it 2-3 years and enjoy the ride wherever it takes us. It's only a game - yeah, right?

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Its a good post indeed.

But Moyes is a guess for anyone here. Some choose to be positive about it and other choose otherwise. Only time will tell.

By having Gudongan or Reus doesn't mean we'll dominate England again.

Only time will tell.

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Good reply Redfaith but then I would expect nothing less from you.

I mentioned Real Madrid not as an example of a team we should follow but as an example of a team that has long term success. I go on in my original post to say that Madrid are fortunate to be a a situation where they don't have to be self sufficent due to their backing by the Spanish royal family.

I didn't mention Dortmund as they have only recently found a successful formula, and its long term merits have yet to be proven. that's not to say that in the long run they won't be, but in the history of the Bundesliga there has always been one team that has been a constant in terms of challenging for titles, and that is Bayern Munich. There has been many other teams who at times have provided a challenge such as Wolfsburg, Levenkusen, Schalke and Dortmund but none have been a constant threat to Bayern.

I agree that in our recent history we have had more in common with Bayern than we have with any other team in europe, since Sir Alex took over our club have been the one constant, we have been challenged for the title by clubs such as Liverpool, Leeds, Arsenal, Newcastle, Blackburn, Chelsea and now City. But it has always been us and one or two others, none of the mentioned teams have challenged for the title every year. In fact some have only challenged once or twice in that 20 year period.

Barca are the team we should be looking to follow in terms of youth development at a top team. We can include bits and pieces from other teams development programs if we feel it will benefit us, but the main blue print should come from Barcas academy.
The step up from youth football the first team football is huge, the power and pace of the game and the expectation on the players is massive compared to youth football. Barca work on helping their youth players step up by getting the youth teams to mirror the first team in formation and tactics. That means when they are called to step up they are stepping up into a role they have played all their life thus making it easier to adapt.
Barca don't care about youth team results, they care about what the youth players learn. I think in england we are more worried about the results rather than the performance, Barca get their youth players to work on their performance and tell them that the results will come. It is this more patient and player focused system that yields the results for Barca.

This also means they have no need to buy squad players and can their for focus their spending on special super star players.

I have nothing but respect and admiration for Scholes and Butt, and I don't doubt their commitment and desire but do they have the cutting edge training and coaching knowledge to bring the club forward?
There needs to be a blend of club men and the best people in football from outside the club brought in to work together and share their knowledge to move the club forward. As in modern football as in life if your not progressing then your regressing. I would also be making sure every coach at the club is constantly learning about new techniques and coaching methods so as they are constantly improving themselves.

There is one reason and one reason alone why directors of football don't work in england and that is poor implemention of the idea. There is a feeling of mistrust about the idea so when it is implemented it is done so causiously or even half heartedly. At our club we have been fortunate to have ha a great manager who could keep an eye on everything at the club from top to bottom and still keep the club challenging. I don't believe there is another manager out their who can do everything Sir Alex did, now if everything Sir Alex did isn't being done then the club will slide. So we need more than one person to be able to make sure nothing gets left out.

If you implement a DoF in the right way then it can yield great results, the key is to make sure their isn't a power struggle between the DoF and the manager, the key to that is clearly defined roles and a close working relationship. You need a DoF who has no ambitions to be the manager.

What I would propose is a four man system. I would have chief executive who will look after the financial side of everything, from sponsorship deals to making sure the money is in place for transfers.
I'd then have a director of football who'd work closely with the manager and he would be the go between between clubs when dealing with transfers, he would chase down the managers transfer targets and he would arrange the footballing side of things such as friendlies and preseason tours.
You would then have a head of youth development who job it is to run the academy and find new ways to improve our youth set up, he would be incharge of running all things conected with the youth development of our players.
Then you would have the Manager he would be the most senior member of the team and everything is carried out in his vision, the youth team plays in the manner he sets out, the head of youth development would make sure things are run to the managers liking. The transfer targets will be picked by the manager but sorted out by the director of football, and all first team duties will be taken care of by the manager.

Everything will be effectively run by the manager but the work will be delegated out to trusted people with in the management team so that the manager can concentrate on the first team and what is best for the club. This is similar to what Sir Alex was doing although he was more a director of football with Phelan and Rene as first team coaches running things on a day to day basis. We just need to tweak the system so that the power stays with the manager.

As for your final point I would say that publically we have been chasing down more ambitious targets but as yet we haven't landed one, I would say RvP, Hazard and Lucas Moura were just as ambitious as Fabregas, Bale and Tiago but we did sign one of the first ones. I think the club has just been more open about target under the new manager than we have under the last. Now some may see that as a good thing, but under Sir Alex we may have chased the big names but fallen short of signing them, but because it wasn't made public he was able to sign other targets instead. Now if you make the big name targets you are after public then you fail it makes it harder to sign someone else as they look like second best both to the player involved and the fans. As was seen in the summer past.

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20 Dec 2013 00:43:20
Although this happened almost 2 weeks ago, it's the first I'm hearing of it.

After we lost 1-0 to Newcastle a young man in Kenya took his life, according to the police and reports from friends and witnesses it was down to the United result.

It's unbelievably sad news, and I hope that football never drives anybody to do anything like this again, a fan of Manchester United or any other side.

may God bless you John Macharia.

RIP my fellow devil.

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The Moon,

I think I read about this. He bet his family home that Manchester United would beat Newcastle and when the "debt collectors" came round to collect their "booty" he killed himself.

Sad but true.

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I don't know whether this is me being insensitive but when I heard about it I thought it was absolutely ridiculous.

Pretty big disbeliever in anyone taking their life unless they are paralysed or completely dependent on other people to live but to do so after a football result I think is outrageous.

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