Football: gegenposting

[Mexal]

1 hour ago, Spockydog said:

Slightly worrying news this morning. Mesut Ozil, apparently unhappy with the club's lack of ambition, has refused the offer of a new contract and has told the club he wants to leave in the summer. 

This is probably just paper bollox, but you can hardly blame him if it's true. 

 

I don't believe a word of that. Just standard paper rumors with no basis in fact. Besides, where would he go after coming from Madrid?

Also, United

[Consigliere]

One step forward and two steps back. Story of our season. We can kiss the top four goodbye.

[Mark Antony]

4 minutes ago, Mexal said:

I don't believe a word of that. Just standard paper rumors with no basis in fact. Besides, where would he go after coming from Madrid?

Yeah most likely bs. Couldn't see Bayern or Barca going for him so Ozil to City confirmed. 

[Mexal]

43 minutes ago, Mark Antony said:

Yeah most likely bs. Couldn't see Bayern or Barca going for him so Ozil to City confirmed. 

Hah. Ozil is in the middle of contract negotiations. It's his agent attempting to get a better deal. We'll get notice soon enough he has signed a new contract.

[Spockydog]

1 hour ago, Mexal said:

I don't believe a word of that. Just standard paper rumors with no basis in fact. Besides, where would he go after coming from Madrid?

Also, United

Probably a 9 on the old poo-ometer, but one wonders how long he'll put up with Arsenal's failure to sign a top class striker to put all those chances away. The Marca piece cited broken promises as the main reason for Ozil's dissatisfaction, and hearing Wenger's repeated claims that there are no available players who are better than the ones he already has must be infuriating.

And yeah, lol at United. If Leicester beat us tomorrow, they'll be eight points ahead and we're out of the title race. Equally, I doubt LvG's United will be able to overhaul the seven point deficit between them and CL football next season.

 

[Spockydog]

3 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Hah. Ozil is in the middle of contract negotiations. It's his agent attempting to get a better deal. We'll get notice soon enough he has signed a new contract.

Give him whatever he wants, as long as it doesn't involve keeping Flamini in the playing squad.

 

[Mexal]

5 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Probably a 9 on the old poo-ometer, but one wonders how long he'll put up with Arsenal's failure to sign a top class striker to put all those chances away. The Marca piece cited broken promises as the main reason for Ozil's dissatisfaction, and hearing Wenger's repeated claims that there are no players out there who are better than the ones he already has must be infuriating.

And yeah, lol at United. If Leicester beat us tomorrow, they'll be eight points ahead and we're out of the title race. Equally, I doubt LvG's United will be able to overhaul the seven point deficit between them and CL football next season.

Yea, that's a narrative but I always wonder what players really think when it comes to signing players. Do players really care that managers spend insane amounts of money to bring in players that may or may not improve their club, especially after they train/play with someone every day of the week?

And I still don't see who Arsenal would bring in to replace Giroud. Don't get me wrong, I believe we need someone, but it's not like there are an abundance of CF options out there that would immediately improve a team. I mean, just look at United. They were so desperate, they spent a ridiculous amount of money on Martial and it's not like he has transformed that team. Part of that is because LvG has thrown him out on the wing but mostly he's just not good enough yet which normally happens to players who move to the PL. Arsenal fans wanted Benteke to replace Giroud and we've seen how that has worked out as well. It's just not as easy as we fans want it to be.

[Spockydog]

26 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Yea, that's a narrative but I always wonder what players really think when it comes to signing players. Do players really care that managers spend insane amounts of money to bring in players that may or may not improve their club, especially after they train/play with someone every day of the week?

And I still don't see who Arsenal would bring in to replace Giroud. Don't get me wrong, I believe we need someone, but it's not like there are an abundance of CF options out there that would immediately improve a team. I mean, just look at United. They were so desperate, they spent a ridiculous amount of money on Martial and it's not like he has transformed that team. Part of that is because LvG has thrown him out on the wing but mostly he's just not good enough yet which normally happens to players who move to the PL. Arsenal fans wanted Benteke to replace Giroud and we've seen how that has worked out as well. It's just not as easy as we fans want it to be.

The answer to your first question is probably yes. Especially when talking about a player of Mesut Ozil's calibre. He wants to win titles and challenge in the Champion's League. To do that, he needs the best possible players around him.

I don't think we need to replace Giroud. When he's not exhausted, he's guaranteed to score goals, and even when he doesn't score, his value to the team is exponentially greater than Walcott's. So, as it has been for three seasons now, the issue is more who do we play when Giroud needs to be rested?

At the moment, our second choice striker is one whom Wenger doesn't seem to trust anymore. Is there really nobody better than Walcott? How about Berahinho? Lacazette? Javier Hernandez, available at a Wenger-friendly price, went to Germany in the summer and turned into a scoring machine.

Any player can be signed. I'd love it if, for a change, we were the ones tapping up and unsettling our rival's best players. We have the money, so why don't we use it?

[Mexal]

Yea, I think the issue is we gave all this money to Walcott, renewed his contract and are now stuck with not even playing him in the position we're paying him to. I liked what our attacking looked like early on with Walcott at CF. I really did. It was exciting football predicated around pace and counter attacking. Walcott wasn't scoring but Sanchez was and I think part of that was because of Walcott. But we got away from that as soon as he and Sanchez got hurt and we haven't gone back to it since. 

Thing is, I want to replace Giroud, at least as a starter. He scores goes well enough but I never really see him as a threat, one that teams really need to worry about and when he's bad, he's beyond bad. To me, he's a great super sub, who brings power when teams are tired, so we'd have to bring in someone to replace him. Not sure that happens while Wenger is here and especially now that Walcott has a new 5 year contract at 130 per week. Just lots of poor decisions by Wenger staying loyal to his players that just aren't progressing (Chamberlain, Walcott, Ramsey, Gibbs, Flamini, Arteta, Welbeck) but take up squad places that prevent other players from coming in.

In other news, Iwobi has been promoted to first team and will get a lower number next year. I hope he actually gets some opportunities because he has looked good in his matches this season.

[polishgenius]

Why can't Norwich defend?
 

[Rorshach]

How is Roberto Martinez still in a job?

Like, seriously.

[Calibandar]

5 hours ago, Consigliere said:

One step forward and two steps back. Story of our season. We can kiss the top four goodbye.

Yeah this spells the end of any CL hopes I suspect.

Don't need to be a prophet to see that. Just another very poor display. You can see in the press conference that lVG is once again at his wit's end and I'm not even blaming him. Clearly he does what he is able to do as a manager and it's not good enough now, and certainly never was good enough in the first season and a half of his tenure. The players let everyone down, again, including themselves. It seems more and more that LvG is still in charge because United simply doesn't have a suitable replacement lined up. He's even offered to resign and he's still at it, so clearly they think the fault lies not with LvG. Every time I watch United, there is this immense sense of mediocrity about them. If the squad hadn't just been overhauled, you'd think the medicine would be to overhaul the squad.

[Mme Erzulie]

17 hours ago, Spockydog said:

Probably a 9 on the old poo-ometer, but one wonders how long he'll put up with Arsenal's failure to sign a top class striker to put all those chances away. The Marca piece cited broken promises as the main reason for Ozil's dissatisfaction, and hearing Wenger's repeated claims that there are no available players who are better than the ones he already has must be infuriating.

Sounds ominously like the stories circulating around Torres before his much-maligned Chelsea move.

[baxus]

1 hour ago, Mme Erzulie said:

Sounds ominously like the stories circulating around Torres before his much-maligned Chelsea move.

With the notable difference of Torres putting in a transfer request even after Suarez joined Liverpool (on the very same day, if I remember correctly), so it's safe to say that was not the reason he wanted out.

Suarez and Torres - my head spins just thinking about seeing them upfront, especially after seeing Benteke play as the lone striker.

[Spockydog]

At last! Wenger's got his Coq out!

COYG!

 

[Consigliere]

15 hours ago, Calibandar said:

Yeah this spells the end of any CL hopes I suspect.

Don't need to be a prophet to see that. Just another very poor display. You can see in the press conference that lVG is once again at his wit's end and I'm not even blaming him. Clearly he does what he is able to do as a manager and it's not good enough now, and certainly never was good enough in the first season and a half of his tenure. The players let everyone down, again, including themselves. It seems more and more that LvG is still in charge because United simply doesn't have a suitable replacement lined up. He's even offered to resign and he's still at it, so clearly they think the fault lies not with LvG. Every time I watch United, there is this immense sense of mediocrity about them. If the squad hadn't just been overhauled, you'd think the medicine would be to overhaul the squad.

A big issue has been that our business in the transfer market can only be described as a failure. When you think of the amount of money that has been spent since Fergie retired, we really should have a better squad than we actually do. Letting go all of those attacking players and not adequately replacing them has come back to bite us. If you recall, before the start of the season, some of us predicted that United would struggle to create and score goals and that has proved to be the case.

[Rorshach]

It feels sort of strange to have a Sunday where the top four play each other; that Liverpool plays; but that Liverpool's match isn't part of the battle for top four, just a mid-table team playing a almost-already-relegated team.

Also, Leicester are top of the league. Doesn't get any less weird.

[ljkeane]

Leicester in front.

I think they might actually win the league, this is nuts.

[Rorshach]

N'golo Kanté may also be their best buy. He's great.

[Mexal]

I hate Atkinson so much. Gives Vardy a penalty on a dive, ignores a hand ball in the box by a guy moving to stop ball with his hand and gives Arsenal 4 yellow cards to Leicesters 2 fouls. Trash.