Football 2015/16

[TheGayTent]

Quite. The Lanzini decision was atrocious, he was miles onside. 

Monreal is a better diver than Daley! 

All about Wednesday now. 

[Celery]

On 4/8/2016 at 8:40 AM, eastynh said:

Makes no difference to me whether he does or does not. They could get beat every week and I would still support them.

I have made my views clear on Pellegrini on here and the sentiment is shared by the vast majority of City fans. 

 

Agree completely. Mediocre at best. Has massively underachieved given the squad you've had. And his signings, de bruyne aside, have been poor 

[ToffeePopcorn]

Think Chelsea are about to fall into poor form again; It's what happens when you announce a manager in the middle of the season.

Source: See Man City

[pink_triangle]

1 hour ago, Celery said:

. And his signings, de bruyne aside, have been poor 

I thought he wasn't in charge of transfer policy? I think in 2016 it's difficult to judge managers on their signings as very few premiership managers are in sole control.

[RobertProsineckisLighter]

The tops of all the league's are fairly exciting this season both in terms of automatic promotion and the play offs. Plenty of twists and turns though. Just as Vardy does it again. 

[The Nal]

[mrtourette]

On 4/9/2016 at 9:55 AM, eastynh said:

City need a win today otherwise we have no chance of winning the league 

Yes with that win City are right back in the race for the title.

[The Nal]

9 minutes ago, mrtourette said:

Yes with that win City are right back in the race for the title.

They're only 15 points behind, with a game in hand! Good momentum now for City with that win. 

All they need to do is win their remaining games and for Leicester to lose their remaining 5 games. And for Spurs and Arsenal to have complete meltdowns aswell. May stick 100 quid on City.

Edited April 11, 2016 by The Nal

[mrtourette]

it seems odd to believe that City can still win the title in such circumstances while also believing they have a fucking useless manager.

[Celery]

On 4/10/2016 at 1:09 PM, pink_triangle said:

I thought he wasn't in charge of transfer policy? I think in 2016 it's difficult to judge managers on their signings as very few premiership managers are in sole control.

I guess you're right to some extent but I can't imagine he has no say at all though so he must take some responsibility. Navas, for example, seems like a Pellegrini signing though we will never know. Anyway, i'm judging him more on results than signings. City have been dramatically underperforming for his entire time at the club - only reason he won a title was because Chelsea  & Liverpool bottled it. 

[pink_triangle]

10 minutes ago, Celery said:

I guess you're right to some extent but I can't imagine he has no say at all though so he must take some responsibility. Navas, for example, seems like a Pellegrini signing though we will never know. Anyway, i'm judging him more on results than signings. City have been dramatically underperforming for his entire time at the club - only reason he won a title was because Chelsea  & Liverpool bottled it. 

I'm not sure its fair to say they won a title because other clubs bottles it.  They finished on similar points to others that have won the leage in recent years. As for results they have certainly underperformed this season, however so have all the other big teams.  I certainly wouldn't class Mourhinio as a terrible manager for underperforming by a far greater level in the season.

In terms of transfers I think people ioften fall into the trap of analyzing things through the perspective of a premiership manager from 10 years ago when things have changed.  I have heard many times the media either giving managers praise or criticism for transfer policy when they aren't even in control. I also think its simplistic to judge managers on certain players (which they are thought to have chosen) and not others.  If Manager A buys player B to be a squad player, yet he then ends up playing averagely regularly as first teamer because the general manager invested substantial money in player C who ends up being no better. Who shoulders the most blame for the club being short in that postion?

[ThomThomDrum]

12 hours ago, Celery said:

City have been dramatically underperforming for his entire time at the club - only reason he won a title was because Chelsea  & Liverpool bottled it. 

That is utter shite - unless you applied that stupid excuse of logic to all league winners in history, because you could use that fallacious argument each and every year if you wished.

[ToffeePopcorn]

12 hours ago, Celery said:

I guess you're right to some extent but I can't imagine he has no say at all though so he must take some responsibility. Navas, for example, seems like a Pellegrini signing though we will never know. Anyway, i'm judging him more on results than signings. City have been dramatically underperforming for his entire time at the club - only reason he won a title was because Chelsea  & Liverpool bottled it. 

 

I personally think Leicester are only gonna win the league this year because Villa bottled it.

[mrtourette]

Every league winner of the last 10 years has only won it because Arsenal bottled it.

[TheGayTent]

Every league winner since 1895 have only won it because we didn't want the acclaim that comes from winning the league. 

We're nice like that. 

[Celery]

Every time Liverpool or Chelsea had the advantage they would blow it almost immediately against lesser teams. We lost to Sunderland and Norwich I think and Liverpool lost to us (when we were out of it and focused on CL) and blew a 3:0 lead against Palace. There were other results too but I can't be arsed to look them up. If that isn't bottling it then I don't know what is. Compare that to how Chelsea won their Mourinho titles with several games to spare - no one bottled it there, we just smashed it. 

I hope my point is clear now. I welcome any constructive debate (see Pink Triangle) but anyone just saying "you're talking shit" and making no point is wasting their time. 

[Celery]

Great effort from City tonight, even if PSG look subpar. Glad they look to be through though I guess I am in the minority here wanting English European success. Hopefully they'll knock Pep out in the semis

[TheGayTent]

On 6 April 2016 at 10:03 PM, thetime said:

pellegrini load of shit. 

Proving it again 

Edited April 12, 2016 by TheGayTent

[pink_triangle]

56 minutes ago, Celery said:

Every time Liverpool or Chelsea had the advantage they would blow it almost immediately against lesser teams. We lost to Sunderland and Norwich I think and Liverpool lost to us (when we were out of it and focused on CL) and blew a 3:0 lead against Palace. There were other results too but I can't be arsed to look them up. If that isn't bottling it then I don't know what is. Compare that to how Chelsea won their Mourinho titles with several games to spare - no one bottled it there, we just smashed it. 

I hope my point is clear now. I welcome any constructive debate (see Pink Triangle) but anyone just saying "you're talking shit" and making no point is wasting their time. 

You could make the argument that when Chelsea last won the league there opponents also bottled it, they just bottled it at the start of the season instead of the end. After all the last Chelsea and Man City title winning teams both did it with similar amount of points. Also Liverpool losing that lead to palace can be seen from the perspective of a team who thought there only chance of winning the league was increasing the goal difference. I think it was a mistake, but can understand the logic.

[ThomThomDrum]

Let's also not forget that the Palace result for Liverpool changed nothing. Not one thing. The damage was done against Chelsea. 

And believing a team only won the league because another bottled by not winning 16 in a row is stupid. Utterly so 

City were the best team in the league that year. Simple. 

Teams don't win leagues because others bottle it. They win them because they drop less points and thus are better. 

 

 

[pink_triangle]

11 minutes ago, ThomThomDrum said:

Let's also not forget that the Palace result for Liverpool changed nothing. Not one thing. The damage was done against Chelsea. 

And believing a team only won the league because another bottled by not winning 16 in a row is stupid. Utterly so 

City were the best team in the league that year. Simple. 

Teams don't win leagues because others bottle it. They win them because they drop less points and thus are better. 

 

I think anyone who ends up with the highest points total deserves to win the league.  I don't think it automatically follows that the team who wins have been better than the team who comes second, particularly when the points difference is minimal.  However the league while not perfect is the best system we have.

[kaosmark2]

1 hour ago, Celery said:

Great effort from City tonight, even if PSG look subpar. Glad they look to be through though I guess I am in the minority here wanting English European success. Hopefully they'll knock Pep out in the semis

I want good quality attacking teams that aren't the usual culprits to have success, regardless of competition or nationality. Man U, Chelsea, and to a lesser extent Liverpool have all been quite defensive in Europe making it harder to want them to succeed.

[Celery]

2 hours ago, pink_triangle said:

You could make the argument that when Chelsea last won the league there opponents also bottled it, they just bottled it at the start of the season instead of the end. After all the last Chelsea and Man City title winning teams both did it with similar amount of points. Also Liverpool losing that lead to palace can be seen from the perspective of a team who thought there only chance of winning the league was increasing the goal difference. I think it was a mistake, but can understand the logic.

You can't bottle it at the start of the season. The point is they both had it in their hands with a few games to go and threw it away stupidly. City were without doubt the best team that season and should have won far more convincingly. And they have underachieved since. Going back to the original point, I don't believe MP is good enough to keep a team of stars playing consistently near their potential over a campaign. This season perfectly illustrates that. Stormed through to the semis of the CL and have been dire (relatively speaking) in the league. He's not a bad manager, just a bit average. 

[Celery]

2 hours ago, ThomThomDrum said:

Let's also not forget that the Palace result for Liverpool changed nothing. Not one thing. The damage was done against Chelsea. 

And believing a team only won the league because another bottled by not winning 16 in a row is stupid. Utterly so 

City were the best team in the league that year. Simple. 

Teams don't win leagues because others bottle it. They win them because they drop less points and thus are better. 

 

 

You're completely ignoring Chelsea's results there and how we blew it against poor teams. Bottled it. And that Liverpool Palace game was a total joke. Fine, go for the goal difference but when you concede the first or second, isn't it time to just think about holding onto the 3 points? Liverpool lost their heads. The Chelsea game too, why take unnecessary risks when a draw would have been fine. Bottled it. 

And I never said City didn't deserve to win the league, the opposite in fact. The point was that they shouldn't have had to rely on Liverpool and Chelsea messing up - it should have been won with games to spare given the squad they had. The main reason they only limped over the line is, in my opinion, MP. 

Edited April 13, 2016 by Celery

[Celery]

1 hour ago, kaosmark2 said:

I want good quality attacking teams that aren't the usual culprits to have success, regardless of competition or nationality. Man U, Chelsea, and to a lesser extent Liverpool have all been quite defensive in Europe making it harder to want them to succeed.

Fair enough.