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Football - Leicester's Shakespearean Tragedy


Philokles

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Phew! Valdes gifted one to us there as we were really hanging on for a while. Kudos to Valencia for continuing his run. Much better performance by 'Boro in the 2nd half. Taking off Mata and Lingard cost us much of our attacking impetus. I'll take not playing well but picking up three points any day over dominating a game and only getting a draw.

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3 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

But how long has it been going on for. This cycle of the exact same problems and issues has been a fixture in every Arsenal season for about a decade. I've never been able to get my head around it because its like a constant Deja Vu. 

Can we really blame the fans? I think they've been insanely supportive of Wenger, and the media have given him a free pass for years. If it was just luck each year or he loses out because of tiny margins then fair enough. But no each year they collapse mentally, they don't defend properly, they have no idea how to defend against set pieces... it just goes on and on. 

He should have gone years ago.

Eh, people always ignore the period when we built Emirates, had no money and was forced to sell all our players at a time when oligarchs bought teams and threw hundreds of millions of dollars at them. What he did then is nothing short of a miracle. Look at the team in 2011. Wenger was able to consistently get more out of less than most managers could today. The issue is that he's become loyal to a group of players who simply aren't good enough and he hasn't adapted his managerial tactics to the modern game. It's time for him to go which I think most everyone, including himself, recognizes.

But that doesn't change the fact the fans through social media and the media themselves have created an atmosphere of absolute negativity and that negativity flows into the players, the training ground and ultimately game day. Wenger has to go, not only because his managerial ability is not good enough right now but because in this environment, when every loss equals a massive freak out, he will never be able to get the confidence of his players to where it needs to be to compete. He's just not that kind of manager with that kind of presence with the players and I don't see how he can overcome where Arsenal is no matter who he buys or sells.

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1 hour ago, Notone said:

Nah, them not winning was ok. Not just because it's them, but the game was so poor it really didn't deserve any goals, or a winner. Both teams with pass completion rates of around 50% pretty much sums that game up. (55% Frankfurt I think, and 51% for them).

I only saw highlights thankfully. It didn't look good.

 

1 hour ago, Notone said:

On the other hand Ingolstadt could've and should've walked away with more than praise for their performance in Dortmund on friday. They created quite few really good chances, and they were also denied a penalty. Dortmund was really lucky to walk away with three points instead of nil.

They have improved so much under Walpurgis, but ultimately they are a long way adrift as one of the two worst teams in the league and that lack of quality tells.

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wenger does need to go. his presence is a distraction from progress. but, he is not the failure that the whiny gunners fans say he is. the man is really doing the best he can with what he has. arsenal have failed to get with the times. they are a smartly run business but supporters want more than that, and rightly so. 

to compete not only for the title in england but be a real player on the champions league scene (which they will likely not be part of next year) they need to spend. the money is there. 

who takes over the club though? that is the real question. 

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Liverpool is truly Robin Hood of PL. We're taking points from rich, giving it to the poor - so to speak.

On top of having better depth because we rarely have much of options on the bench, we need to sort out our games against clubs like Swansea, Hull, Leicester.

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3 hours ago, Mark Antony said:

Think that was a clear foul on Wijnaldum. Should've been a pen and Yaya should probably be off :dunno: 

Coutinho has been pretty poor again. 

Ever since that injury.

 

And there goes our lead. Agüero is a damn fine striker.

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I saw a top 6 head-to-head table earlier today and, updated to include today's match, Liverpool has 5 wins and 5 draws, sitting at the top of the table. Not all teams have completed all their top 6 matches as Liverpool did, so the table is far from complete, but Chelsea can come closest to Liverpool, at 19 points, if they win both their remaining matches.

As someone said, Robin Hoods of the Premier League.

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Question is why Liverpool can't replicate this success against lower teams. Motivation, lack of concentration in certain moments, unwillingness of Klopp to fit tactics to specific opponents?  As longs as we drop points against these teams, title is far away.

 

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Motivation definitely has something to do with it, but the main reason I can think of is a thin squad. Klopp (or any other manager fighting for Champions League spot or more) is more likely to try out second-stringers or youngsters against weaker teams then he is against direct competition, resulting in weaker performances and worse results.

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Are you not overlooking the obvious? We beat teams that don't tailor their tactics to defeat us. When teams park the bus and hit us on the counter, we struggle. Come out and play ball, and we'll go toe to toe with the best of them.

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We can beat these lower teams by a large margin and so on. Even if they defend, sure we don't have strength in depth like Chelsea, Man Utd or City but still we're capable of it. We can play beautiful football and then we can easily drop points against the same opponents. Bar injuries this smells of not being motivated enough, simply Klopp pushing them too much or not willing to tweak tactics a bit. Maybe combination of it. When we hace such a squad with basically no bench like others, with such phsycially demanding style. Why can't use their tactics against them? 

Look at out game against Leicester, we played straight to their hands. We tried to play beautiful football, build from the back. Why not change tactics and sacirifice style for points? Defend deeper, wait for them to attack. I mean part of reasons why we are where we are (not a bad position with current squad) and for that matter Guardiola. Klopp and Guardiola are hell bent on their way. If not then they'll rather lose, Conte or even Mourinho are smarter or more pragmatic coaches. They can adapt to their players and play maybe not in the way they want - but it's effective.

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In defence of Pep, I always thought he was a 'can never change his style' stubborn guy but, while true to an extent, his time at Bayern proved that's not entirely true. He initially tried to turn them into Barca obviously but when he realised what he was wasting in Lewandowski by doing that he not only re-organised the team to be more direct and attacking down the wings again but bought players, against his usual strategies, that could replace Ribery and Robben in playing direct down the wings. So he can adapt to his players to an extent.

Haven't seen the same from Klopp though. Liverpool badly lack the focal striker they need to be able to play his style against more defensive teams, and he hasn't been able to compensate for that.

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14 hours ago, Mmerek Hamšzulíe said:

Are you not overlooking the obvious? We beat teams that don't tailor their tactics to defeat us. When teams park the bus and hit us on the counter, we struggle. Come out and play ball, and we'll go toe to toe with the best of them.

That's once again because there is no one outside of the starting eleven to offer anything else.

If you have Coutinho, Firmino, Mane, Sturridge and Origi in your offense, you don't get much variation in the style of play. Every once in a while you just need a big and strong centre forward to shake things up a bit and catch opponents on the wrong foot.

I'm not saying Liverpool needs to sing a Duncan Ferguson kind of player, but they do need players who can execute an alternative gameplan once plan A is not working. Parking the bus is a legitimate tactics and the title contending team must be prepared to play against it, just as they must have a response to any unfavourable tactics from their opponents.

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