Stoke City are trolling Manchester United now: When football teams beef on Twitter

When struggling Stoke City's Twitter account is firing shots at Manchester United you know things are bad.

José Mourinho has had a tough few weeks at Manchester United HQ.

It seems like everyone's piling the pressure on him - even from within the extended United family. Stories of a rift with Paul Pogba, Paul Scholes calling him "embarrassing" and Antonio Valencia liking an Instagram post that suggest he should quit.

That must chafe. The last thing you need then, if you're José, is the likes of Stoke City (themselves in a sticky spot in the Championship right now) coming out here serving up a roast on Twitter dot com.

It started when this tweet started doing the rounds...

In a since deleted tweet, Stoke City replied "Not quite. We were beating Tottenham and West Ham in 2009." This is of course something United have so far failed to do this season.

That is some salty, salt-beef on the table and we can only imagine that if Mourinho, sat up in his Manchester hotel room, scrolling Twitter for moth memes to tag his mates in, came across this latest show of disrespect, he would not have savoured the taste. 

Still, this is football in 2018. Battle is done between clubs in these digital safe spaces as much as it is on the physical field of play. And, in the age of Twitter warfare, there are winners and losers. Some clubs are good at beefing. Some are just cringe. And others, like many of us, live to regret hitting 'Tweet'.

Manchester United went head-to-head with Ajax in the Europa League final in Stockholm in 2017 and walked away with the trophy, but, before a single football was kicked, the clubs had to engage in the customary feeble Twitter beef.

Dutch giants Ajax kicked things off by sending the following message to Manchester United before the game, highlighting the fact that they had never won a Europa League or Uefa Cup (as it was formally known) in their history.

Ajax may have picked up a Uefa Cup in 1995, but it may not have been a smart move to try and troll a club who’ve won two Champions League trophies to Ajax's one since.

That said, we must salute the polite tone of the tweet.

This is what happened when a cheeky fan in the UK made an attempt to troll the MLS side LA Galaxy, which ultimately backfired.

“Hope you get relegated," the fan replied, after the club kindly responded to an earlier request for an impromptu happy birthday message.

Unfortunately, Twitter user @dxhty did not account for the fact the MLS has no relegation in either of its two conferences.

If you come at the MLS, you'd better have a decent understanding of its league structure.

Tottenham's 1960-61 team were the only side in Europe's top five leagues to ever win their first 11 games of a league season, but Bayern Munich had that record in their sights at the start of their 2015-16 Bundesliga campaign.

However, after 10 wins, Bayern drew 1-1 at Eintracht Frankfurt which meant they fell just short of matching Spurs' record.

The Londoners were quick to catch on, sending a cheeky message to the German giants.

Bayern clapped back, reminding Spurs that the Germans' 2012 Champions League final defeat by Chelsea, meant the Blues nicked Tottenham's spot in the competition the next year.

Karma indeed.

Champions League. 2014-15 season.

Manchester City were getting ready to play Roma for the first time in England when they noticed an interesting stat.

Roma’s star player Francesco Totti had never scored a goal in England, and City enjoyed reminded Roma of the fact.

The Italians responding by saying "there's a first time for everything, and Twitter user @elllyvj asked the two clubs to "stop flirting".

And what d’you know? Totti ended up scoring in the tie.

American metal band Black Veil Brides have something in common with German football team Borussia Dortmund.

If you haven’t guessed it already, it’s that they both have the initials ‘BVB’.

An easy mistake to make when referencing the two, but this tweeter should have maybe double-checked who she was sending this message to before declaring her love for someone called Ashley Purdy (Black Veil Brides’ bassist), simply because "he is hot".

Borussia Dortmund responded with a polite message to notify the love-struck culprit that they were not the band she was looking for, but one of Europe’s biggest football clubs instead.

We're unsure how many people message the metal band proclaiming the hotness of Marco Reus.

Arsenal fans were sick of playing Bayern Munich in the last 16 of the Champions League.

Twice in the previous four seasons, the Gunners finished runners-up in their group, only to be kicked out in the first knockout stage after drawing the German team.

So this season, when Arsenal topped their group at last, fans were looking forward to an easier opponent and a better chance of a first quarter-final since 2010.

Except this time, Bayern finished runners-up in their group, and before the draw was made everyone knew what was coming.

The inevitable last-16 exit followed and it was Arsenal's seventh straight exit at that very stage of the competition - as Bayern beat the Gunners 5-1 both home and away.

The Germans showed no mercy on the pitch or on Twitter.

Harsh words there.

When Aston Villa sacked manager Roberto di Matteo in 2016, the market for potential replacements was wide open and Virgin Trains were offering a helping hand in the club's search for a replacement.

Virgin’s tweet of an empty train carriage as the candidates for the managerial job sparked an exchange between the two.

Villa, who had only clocked up four wins in the previous 12 months at the time, replied with a sly dig referencing Virgin’s late trains, but the Birmingham club had no idea what they were in for when the train service hit back.

Private rail companies aren't exactly popular in the UK, so when they're racking up the likes at your expense, it's time to retire... or get relegated.

These two Bundesliga clubs aren’t exactly old chums and, if we’ve learnt anything so far, it’s that Bayern are comeback specialists both on the pitch and on Twitter.

So when Schalke posted a cheeky poll to see which one of their wins over their rivals was the favourite amongst fans, Bayern responded with pure stats.

"Picking out four wins from 32 is a lot harder than picking four wins from seven," Bayern replied, silencing Schalke with no reply in sight.

Game over.

Article originally published 25 May 2017

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