Football 16-17

[ThomThomDrum]

Easy win for Liverpool? That usually means they will struggle so. 

And of course Sunderland have just started to score and win with Liverpool coming off a frustrating 0-0 draw.

Could be a lot more interesting than paper suggests. 

[zahidf]

Utd's worse start in the premiere league era: 20 points (2 less than Moyes and LVG)

Jose with a one + match ban 

11 points from the top and 8 behind top 4

 

Herrera saying the team doesnt know how to win.

 and

https://twitter.com/danielstorey85/status/802958915453460480

 

Needless to say, Jose seems to have lost it.

[The Nal]

14 hours ago, zahidf said:

Utd's worse start in the premiere league era: 20 points (2 less than Moyes and LVG)

Jose with a one + match ban 

11 points from the top and 8 behind top 4

Yet oddly, a lot more positives in terms of play. Much more attacking and aggressive, positive and better to watch. It'll all click at some stage but Utd were never challenging for the league this year.

Herrera saying the team doesnt know how to win.

You really are the fake news believer we've been reading about this year aren't you? Doesn't matter what the subject is!

He said "We don't know what we have to do" to win. As in we're playing well but just not winning. Very very different to "we don't know how to win".

Deary deary me. 

[eFestivals]

On 11/25/2016 at 11:41 AM, TheGayTent said:

Looks like easy wins for Leicester, Liverpool, and West Ham for me. 

But they were expected to qualify for the Chumps League.

How's the bank balance going?

 

[big__phil]

José getting himself sent off, again, is starting to wear thin. He's so bloody petulant. Having said that, it looked like Man Utd played pretty well (I only saw the highlights), and probably should have won the game. Happy with a point @TheGayTent?

On 11/25/2016 at 11:37 AM, big__phil said:

...but Swansea v Palace looks huge...

...and it was. Who says relegation battles are cagey affairs? 7 second half goals, with the lead changing hands all over the place. Palace looked dreadful defensively, although you could say they were unlucky not to get something out of the game.

A good win for Arsenal yesterday. Still not quite playing the fluid football of earlier in the season, but it feels like the Xhaka and Elneny in the middle could be the combination to stick with. Elneny's work off the ball work is fantastic, and really sets the tempo for the rest of the team to press the ball.

[TheGayTent]

13 minutes ago, big__phil said:

José getting himself sent off, again, is starting to wear thin. He's so bloody petulant. Having said that, it looked like Man Utd played pretty well (I only saw the highlights), and probably should have won the game. Happy with a point @TheGayTent?

No, livid. We were poor first half, 3 points were there for the taking. 

[TheGayTent]

14 minutes ago, big__phil said:

Palace looked dreadful defensively, although you could say they were unlucky not to get something out of the game.

Watching Chocolate's post game interviews are a lot of fun. 

[big__phil]

8 minutes ago, TheGayTent said:

Watching Chocolate's post game interviews are a lot of fun. 

Dreadful man. Although he did give us this, which was rather delicious when they eventually lost the game:

[The Nal]

14 minutes ago, TheGayTent said:

No, livid. We were poor first half, 3 points were there for the taking. 

Yeah West Ham defo could've nicked it alright. Hammers are far better than the leaguie position would suggest. 

See Barca are in a bit of a crisis. For them anyway. 6 points behind Madrid now with El Classic on Saturday in the Nou Camp. They were dominated by Sociedad yesterday. Should've lost 5 or 6 nil. Maybe the worst I've seen them play since they got hammered by Bayern 7 nil over 2 legs. 

Edited November 28, 2016 by The Nal

[TheGayTent]

40 minutes ago, The Nal said:

Yeah West Ham defo could've nicked it alright. Hammers are far better than the leaguie position would suggest. 

The game on Wednesday is far more important (to me) than yesterday's was. 

[TheGayTent]

41 minutes ago, The Nal said:

See Barca are in a bit of a crisis. For them anyway. 6 points behind Madrid now with El Classic on Saturday in the Nou Camp. They were dominated by Sociedad yesterday. Should've lost 5 or 6 nil. Maybe the worst I've seen them play since they got hammered by Bayern 7 nil over 2 legs. 

Largely lost interest in Spanish football. I watch lower league English football, Bundesliga, and Serie A before La Liga these days.  

[zahidf]

1 hour ago, The Nal said:

Yet oddly, a lot more positives in terms of play. Much more attacking and aggressive, positive and better to watch. It'll all click at some stage but Utd were never challenging for the league this year.

You really are the fake news believer we've been reading about this year aren't you? Doesn't matter what the subject is!

He said "We don't know what we have to do" to win. As in we're playing well but just not winning. Very very different to "we don't know how to win".

Deary deary me. 

Dunno about that. 4 draws at home in the league in a row doesnt exactly scream 'exciting football'

also, they didnt hire jose and let him soend 150 million without top 4 being a minimum achievement

[The Nal]

5 minutes ago, TheGayTent said:

The game on Wednesday is far more important (to me) than yesterday's was. 

Actually turning into a decent competition. Hull/Toon, LFC/Leeds, Arsenal/Saints, Utd/WHU.   

4 minutes ago, TheGayTent said:

Largely lost interest in Spanish football. I watch lower league English football, Bundesliga, and Serie A before La Liga these days.  

Yeah same old every year I suppose. Sort of getting back into Serie A a bit.

Dunno about that. 4 draws at home in the league in a row doesnt exactly scream 'exciting football'

also, they didnt hire jose and let him soend 150 million without top 4 being a minimum achievement

Oh yeah top 4 is the goal, no question. But the league was never a runner. 

Footie has been decent! I've enjoyed watching them play again. Control most games, very attacking but just not clicking in the final 3rd. 

Edited November 28, 2016 by The Nal

[TheGayTent]

1 hour ago, eFestivals said:

But they were expected to qualify for the Chumps League.

How's the bank balance going?

 

Better than it was after my trip to the Hennessy on Saturday 

Albeit I missed out on the big race. 

[TheGayTent]

24 minutes ago, The Nal said:

Actually turning into a decent competition. Hull/Toon, LFC/Leeds, Arsenal/Saints, Utd/WHU.   

Will be interesting to see what teams they each put out. 

[The Nal]

3 minutes ago, TheGayTent said:

Will be interesting to see what teams they each put out. 

Would be very surprised if Utd make a lot of changes. 

[mjsell]

1 hour ago, big__phil said:

 

...and it was. Who says relegation battles are cagey affairs? 7 second half goals, with the lead changing hands all over the place. Palace looked dreadful defensively, although you could say they were unlucky not to get something out of the game.

A good win for Arsenal yesterday. Still not quite playing the fluid football of earlier in the season, but it feels like the Xhaka and Elneny in the middle could be the combination to stick with. Elneny's work off the ball work is fantastic, and really sets the tempo for the rest of the team to press the ball.

Going by that Swansea Palace game if they both continue playing like that they will both go down. For a '9 goal thriller' aside from Sigurdsson's free kick (and even that was completely avoidable) there wasnt a good goal amongst them. I've never seen so much bad defending.

Arsenal looked a bit better yesterday, I always think that of all the premier league teams Bournemouth are the one that suits our playing style the best so it was nice to have a game against them at home to get out of our drawing slump. As November collapses go, this one could have gone a lot worse for us. Draws against PSG, United and Spurs aren't the worst results in the world and we are still right in amongst it in all competitions.

Thought Spurs were mightily unlucky not to get a result against Chelsea Saturday, as were Burnley against City, United arent looking a threat and as much as we were better there are still big cracks in the armoury - this season is going down to the wire.

Edited November 28, 2016 by mjsell

[zahidf]

from football 365

'Manchester United
Fewer points in their last ten Premier League games than Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City, Chelsea, Tottenham, Watford, Stoke, Everton, Southampton, Bournemouth and West Brom. The squad is not perfect, but it’s nowhere this bad.'

[zahidf]

Jose Mourinho’s self-fulfilling prophecy
It isn’t hard to see why Jose Mourinho might underplay the strength of his Manchester United players. Leaking stories to his media friends about needing two more transfer windows to improve a broken squad both reduces the pressure upon his own performance, and improves the chances of a high transfer budget heading into each of the next two transfer windows. Should United not invest significantly in January and next summer, Mourinho can plead that the club have broken promises or failed to match his own ambition. The focus is therefore on what Mourinho hasn’t spent, not what he has.

People buy it, too. “Jose Mourinho is not the root cause of Manchester United’s problems — the players just aren’t good enough. Everybody gets carried away with what a manager does but if you haven’t got the players, the job is very difficult” said Harry Redknapp earlier this month.

“After breaking the world record transfer fee for Paul Pogba, only winning the title will be good enough for Jose Mourinho at Manchester United this season,” wrote that same Redknapp in August. “The race for the top four will be tougher than ever due to the presence of six great managers at Premier League clubs with big squads but Mourinho knows he wasn’t brought to Old Trafford to get second place.”

Sarah Winterburn gave Mourinho at least one barrel in our early loser feature, but the manner in which Manchester United’s manager has absolved himself of any blame really is incredible. Not everyone will buy the spiel, but plenty have. A reminder, therefore: Mourinho has now taken fewer points in his first 13 league fixtures than both Louis van Gaal and David Moyes. United are eight points from the top four after 13 matches, losing 0.6 points per match on fourth place. I don’t buy the line that Mourinho is finished, but let’s not pretend that this is anything but concerning under-performance, whatever happens next.

Blaming the quality of the squad through media leak is a bit of a d*ck move at the best of times, but doing so after spending £150m on four first-team players is quite another. Comparing anything to Leicester 2015/16 is folly, but Claudio Ranieri achieved success by making his squad far greater than the sum of its parts. Mourinho’s calls for further investment are predictable, but what happened to a manager improving what he has? Wasn’t one of the reasons for appointing Mourinho his record in getting the best out of a group failing to meet its potential? Has that now been lost from his repertoire? Questions, questions.

The million dollar issue is what effect Mourinho’s disparaging leaks have on United’s current players. Luke Shaw, Anthony Martial, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Morgan Schneiderlin are four players who must feel royally p*ssed off at their current situations, but what of the rest? Having the media report that you are not as talented as your manager first thought is a risky motivational tool, that’s for sure.

Mourinho’s siege mentality used to incorporate every individual in his club, but no longer. He’s increasingly the paranoid dictator, locked in his bunker and distrustful of all but his closest circle of confidants. 

[The Nal]

12 minutes ago, zahidf said:

Mourinho’s siege mentality used to incorporate every individual in his club, but no longer. He’s increasingly the paranoid dictator, locked in his bunker and distrustful of all but his closest circle of confidants. 

Thats certainly a worry. I still have issues with him living in a hotel! At least Guardiola bought an apartment in Manchester. 

Funnily enough they live less than half a mile from each other.

[big__phil]

Hard to disagree with much of that. I do think that the author perhaps gives Mourinho a little too much credit though with regards to his 'two transfer windows to sort it out' tactic though. Outfoxing Harry Rednapp is hardly the most difficult task. Let's not forget, Harry Rednapp is a man who ran over his wife recently.

Mourinho just strikes me as a man who doesn't doesn't enjoy what he's doing, and doesn't really like his players.

[ThomThomDrum]

It is pretty amazing how things are panning out for Moany and Utd thus far. Especially after the really easy start to the season they had; the money they spent; and the across the board agreement by most that they would be a force this year in the league. 

Utd fans now reassessing; aiming for top 4; and saying Moany needs a few more transfer windows to splurge even more mula to "fix it"............. a lot of popcorn is required for the following of this.............

[eFestivals]

1 hour ago, Scruffylovemonster said:

Big test coming up for Liverpool approaching the busy Christmas schedule. Lallana not fit (unsure if he's expected to be ready this weekend), Coutinho fubarred, Sturridge injured again and Firminho with a slight knock too. Will see if the squad is up to it over the next few weeks

lucky for liverpool it's a run of 'easy' games - teams towards the bottom.

Id been thinking they had a bit of depth to the squad, but filling all of those places towards the front with good-enough cover would be difficult for any club I reckon. Liverpool need most of that list back before Mane goes off to ACoN.

Not sure Phil is going to be back any time soon, is he? It didn't look good.

 

[The Nal]

5 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Not sure Phil is going to be back any time soon, is he? It didn't look good.

Certainly didn't.

 

[big__phil]

9 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Not sure Phil is going to be back any time soon, is he? It didn't look good.

As I was saying to my mate who's a L'pool fan over the weekend, you have more than just one player who can drag you through these days. Losing someone like Suarez was terrible news because he was your best player by some distance. Now you have Mane, Firmino, Lalana and Coutinho who can all make the difference, and tactically you don't rely on one player too much. He's still obviously a big loss though, and adding Lalana to that injury list will make things trickier.

Having Origi back and scoring must be nice as well - he's a player I really like the look of. *Insert 'good feet for a big man' cliche*