Football: International Break-Up

[Consigliere]

1 hour ago, Sandokan I Ironborn said:

Here is a small random question to you guys : do you think that Tottenham is stepping up this season ?

I don't think Spurs are much different to last season. I do think their squad is better than last season though - Sanchez has been a great addition, Aurier is not a downgrade on Walker (he might even be a bit better) and Llorente is a big upgrade on Janssen.

 

1 hour ago, Sandokan I Ironborn said:

a strong midfield (although technically weaker that United's and City's IMO)

I don't see their midfield as being weaker. Not as creative as City's but well balanced and with good depth. I'd say Spurs have the most well balanced squad in the league and they have no trouble breaking down opponents and scoring goals either. Spurs should definitely finish in the top 3. They have the talent to win a league title but whether they have the mental strength to do so remains to be seen.

[Jordan La Cabra]

Sky sources saying David Unsworth wants the Everton job on a full-time basis.

[Rorshach]

Yeah, I’m still not sold on him. I just hope that he’s not going to get an unsustainable bump in form in his short interim period, and then proceed to be found out as a lightweight - leaving us with a third manager to get rid off in a short time.

As to whether Spurs are stepping up ..

I think they are maintaining their level. As someone pointed out above, there is a bit more depth to the squad this year, but they do need it, seeing as they’ll be in the CL longer this year. 

A lot also depends on them keeping their Wembley level at Liverpool-level. 

And, of course, catching City. I’m not completely sold on City yet - waiting for a bump in form, and how they will react to that - but they do seem imperious so far.

[polishgenius]

4 hours ago, Sandokan I Ironborn said:

Not to mention Eriksen who is one of the most underrated player in the league.

I actually think that he's slightly overrated, in the sense that his presence seems to keep anyone from thinking that they need to improve in the creative deparment, and as good as he is, he probably shouldn't be the best creative player in a team looking to challenge for PL and CL honours. Like, compare him to Hazard (okay, he's a lot more consistent, but nowhere near Hazard at his best) or KDB. Heck, I don't think he'd even be certain to get into City's squad with their depth in that position.

The other thing they really need is another box-to-box midfielder, coz although Harry Winks is filling in quite well atm, they always look a far less cohesive team when Dembele isn't playing.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

22 hours ago, ljkeane said:

There was no reason to be playing an offside trap in the first place though. The initial set piece was a throw in and then it was a nothing chip over the top. Kane's good at a lot of things but he's not that quick, if Lovren's just marking him normally either he wins the ball himself or he gets in the way enough that it's the keepers.

There's still no reason for a fullback to fall behind centrebacks. The centrebacks are the last line of defense, not the fullbacks. That's football 101. The two centrebacks worked under the assumption that anybody who is past them will be offside. Lovren had a mare of a game, I am not questioning that, but for that goal a good share of the blame belongs to Gomez.

 

20 hours ago, Horse of Kent said:

Turned Bayern down apparently as Rummenigge wanted him but Hoeneß only reluctantly agreed. After the division at BVB he wanted to go somewhere he had 100% backing. He seemingly is waiting for Conte to leave at the end of the season and will then go to Chelsea. To me that is the right calibre of move for him next - still needs some more time at big clubs before a super one despite Barcelona's alleged interest.

More like the two bosses at Bayern wanted somebody they agreed on. And Tuchel rumoredly raised quite a few red flags.

 

20 hours ago, Horse of Kent said:

One manager I'd like to see back at a Premier League or Bundesliga club as we come into sacking season is Roger Schmidt. Probably a better idea for a side struggling to score rather than defend, however. His last season at Leverkusen is probably the closest parallel to Liverpool yesterday I can think of but his first couple of years and spell at RB Salzburg (kickstarting Mane and Kampl's careers) show he is better than China.

You just managed to pick the one manager with even bigger social issues than Tuchel, without Tuchel's skills. Despite all his flaws, nobody has ever questioned Tuchel's expertise. Towards the end of Schmidt's reign at Leverkusen they felt the need to give him some PR guy as some sort of babysitter. Kießling said something to the extent, if Schmidt were still manager, he would have retired after the last season. No matter which Leverkusen player was interviewed, you could pretty much hear between the lines, that they were just relieved when Leverkusen got rid of Schmidt.

[polishgenius]

13 minutes ago, Notone said:

You just managed to pick the one manager with even bigger social issues than Tuchel,

Roy Keane is still in management...

[A Horse Named Stranger]

No, idea how terrible Keano is. I only judge managers I've seen. In terms of ex-players, being horrible at managerial positions, nothing beats that freakshow Effenberg. His short reign at Paderborn was just glorious and pure comedy gold. The result being, that his chances of landing another job at a German club are probably even lower than Matthäus's. But they still got their pundit gigs going for them.

[Jordan La Cabra]

Say what you want about Manchester United, but their away fans never fail to bring the noise. Absolutely embarrassing the Swansea home 'support' tonight.

[MisterOJ]

So, one thing about soccer I don't understand. Why are there two cup competitions in England? Don't most countries only have one? Or do other countries have a couple of tournaments too, you just never hear about their version of the League Cup?

[Jordan La Cabra]

1 minute ago, MisterOJ said:

So, one thing about soccer I don't understand. Why are there two cup competitions in England? Don't most countries only have one? Or do other countries have a couple of tournaments too, you just never hear about their version of the League Cup?

France have a league cup and a federation cup. I think, but not one hundred percent sure, that Portugal has one, too? I know Germany had one for a time, but no longer have one. 

The FA cup is the oldest cup in English football, and contested by 736 teams all across the country, beginning with really small clubs in the early preliminary rounds during the summer. Then, as the competition progresses, the professional clubs start entering in later rounds. PL teams don't enter until the 3rd round in January.

The league cup is a smaller cup that takes place mainly during the first half of the season, and is contested by the 92 teams in the English football league system: Premier League, Championship, League One and League Two.

[Philokles]

Yeah, Portugal and France the only other places I can think of with one.

League cups are pretty much an irrelevance everywhere they are played. Only really lower league clubs searching for an easy route to a draw against a big club and managers desperate for silverware give 100%.

[Iskaral Pust]

12 hours ago, Rorshach said:

I think re: Koeman that it’s  damning that he really didn’t seem like he had any sort of plan after the City game. Since then, we’ve had several games where we’ve lost badly, line-up changes constantly, changes in personel .. and it all looks (from the outside) rather desperate.  Like Koeman knows he’s in trouble, sees (like everyone else) that things aren’t working, but has been unable to find a plan for how to solve it.

I think everything would look different if people could see some sort of plan, some kind of long term idea - but, instead, the games I’ve seen look like desperation from the manager. Hoping that he would get it right. 

We may end up worse, no doubt, but I think it’s eminently possible we’ll end up better as well.

It's true they've looked hapless in recent weeks.  I would have given him more time to experiment with his very unbalanced squad.  If he was responsible for recruitment in the summer, then I'd be less patient but the Rooney deal felt more like the owners than the manager.  They lost a lynchpin #9 and replaced him with 3 #10s, on top of their existing #10 -- that's the real problem so far.  Pickford was a great addition.  Keane and Siggurdson will be good once they settle.  It's unfortunate that Bolasie is unavailable with injury.  They basically inherited Utd's Rooney problem (why!?) and compounded it with Klaassen, who would always have difficult transition even if he eventually succeeds in the PL.  Their league position is scary, and they should have reverted to a more defensive shape until the forward line finds some sort of shape, but this is a manager who comfortably/boringly finished seventh last year, who added some good players but lost a key goal-scorer.  I would not have hit the panic button this early.

[Jordan La Cabra]

To be fair to Rooney, his goals have won them at least four points in the league, which is half of their overall total of eight. Without him, they'd likely be worse off. He's actually been one of their better performing players this season.

[Iskaral Pust]

8 hours ago, Sandokan I Ironborn said:

Here is a small random question to you guys : do you think that Tottenham is stepping up this season ?

I think they're playing consistent with their last two seasons, when they were very good and challenged for the title while also improving their points total by a large margin.  86 points last season, improved from 70 the year before, would win a title around a third of the time.  They're relying on mostly the same players again, although they have added some better depth -- but they're still very vulnerable to the absence of key players in their spine, especially Kane, Alli, Eriksen, Dembele, Alderweirald and Loris.

Whether they can go a step further this year depends on the caliber of opponents and them keeping their star players healthy.  Similar to 2015/6, their competitors look weaker than last season, especially Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal; and it remains to be seen if City can sustain their form -- they've had short-lived purple patches before.  So far Spurs' main players are healthy but they've been unusually lucky with injuries to key players in recent years and you can never tell when that run of luck will end -- playing more games (CL) and on a bigger home pitch won't help.

They should be top contenders again this year.  I think they're a top two team, but only a top five squad.  A lot depends on how deep into their squad they have to reach.

[polishgenius]

4 minutes ago, JordanJH1993 said:

To be fair to Rooney, his goals have won them at least four points in the league, which is half of their overall total of eight. Without him, they'd likely be worse off. He's actually been one of their better performing players this season.

The problem isn't really so much 'they bought Rooney' as 'they bought Rooney and three other players in the same position, rather than one in the position they lost their best player from'.

[Iskaral Pust]

9 minutes ago, JordanJH1993 said:

To be fair to Rooney, his goals have won them at least four points in the league, which is half of their overall total of eight. Without him, they'd likely be worse off. He's actually been one of their better performing players this season.

That's true, but we don't know how many goals they would have if he wasn't slowing their attack and if they had a high quality #9 in the team in his place.  If Lukaku were still there instead of Rooney, I'd bet they would be higher up the league table right now.  Utd's attack improved noticeably without Rooney.  He's not a terrible player, and he will score some goals, but he takes away a lot from the rest of the attack.  He's like the opposite of Firmino's good days (Firmino's bad days are unfortunately like Rooney's bad days).

[Jordan La Cabra]

1 minute ago, polishgenius said:

The problem isn't really so much 'they bought Rooney' as 'they bought Rooney and three other players in the same position, rather than one in the position they lost their best player from'.

Oh, yeah, I agree. But out of the no. 10s they have signed, he's actually been the best one, but he still seems to get critisced. 4 goals in 9 league games is a decent return for him, especially when he only scored 5 in the PL last season in total.

[Jordan La Cabra]

3 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

That's true, but we don't know how many goals they would have if he wasn't slowing their attack and if they had a high quality #9 in the team in his place.  If Lukaku were still there instead of Rooney, I'd bet they would be higher up the league table right now.  Utd's attack improved noticeably without Rooney.  He's not a terrible player, and he will score some goals, but he takes away a lot from the rest of the attack.  He's like the opposite of Firmino's good days (Firmino's bad days are unfortunately like Rooney's bad days).

It's not his fault they didn't sign a striker to replace Lukaku, though, that falls on the manger and the board. We could look at it like we don't know that Rooney wouldn't have been performing even better this season if they actually had a true number 9 for him to play off. 

[The Wedge]

34 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

  So far Spurs' main players are healthy but they've been unusually lucky with injuries to key players in recent years and you can never tell when that run of luck will end -- playing more games (CL) and on a bigger home pitch won't help.

Seeing Kane grabbing the back of his left leg as he subbed off on Sunday was worrisome.  He's already had a heavy load between Spurs, national team qualifiers, and Champions League.

[Rorshach]

59 minutes ago, JordanJH1993 said:

To be fair to Rooney, his goals have won them at least four points in the league, which is half of their overall total of eight. Without him, they'd likely be worse off. He's actually been one of their better performing players this season.

True enough. There are two problems with playing him, though: it slows play down, as he has no speed any longer, and it removes Sigurdsson from his best position as well. 

Also, since Sigurdsson was courted openly and for a long time, he can’t be dropped. So that gives us two number 10s, who are both on the slow side, and unable to function well out wide. 

On balance, I think I’d choose Sigurdsson in general, and let Rooney play the bit-part player. But I have made errors of judgement before.