Football: Just Slaven Away

[Iskaral Pust]

7 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

It's a bit weird to still be downplaying Sterling at this stage, surely? He's a great player.

I don't mean to sound like I'm trashing him.  He's a good player, not a great player, and as expected he does well with strong teammates but would not do very well without them.  His goals this season have been hugely valuable in points while most of them included a decent chunk of luck with deflections, fluffed clearances, balls dropping right at his feet, etc.  Utd were similarly lucky with leg goals for a long time.  Being in the right place and taking your chance is a skill too, as is pressing hard until the very last minute to create those half chances against tired opposition.  

He's definitely limited relative to Jesus or Aguero, but his contribution has had an outsized impact so far. 

[Mexal]

No Lacazette for Arsenal against United on Saturday. That blows.

[Jordan La Cabra]

First visit over to Stamford Bridge this season to witness a Fabianski masterclass. Decent performance all round from Chelsea; Swansea barely caused a threat.

I’ve been loving Andrea Christensen’s progress so far this season, but to witness him in live action you notice just how good he is. I don’t think he gave the ball away once and totally bossed the physical battle with Bony. He may only be 21 but he plays with the assurance of 30 year old. Big future ahead for him.

Shame the night ended on a slightly sour note with another late Sterling winner for Man City. It seems impossible to gain any ground on them at the moment.

[polishgenius]

20 minutes ago, JordanJH1993 said:

Shame the night ended on a slightly sour note with another late Sterling winner for Man City. It seems impossible to gain any ground on them at the moment.

You should be more worried about Burnley than City tbqh.

[Jordan La Cabra]

9 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

You should be more worried about Burnley than City tbqh.

Burnley who are closer to Man United than Man United are to Man City...

But, Polish, I am sorry for showing a glimmer of optimism that the title race isn’t completely over for Chelsea, or for any of the other teams lagging way behind Man City.

I hereby concede that the title is Citeh’s, and Chelsea’s three points did nothing more than help keep a bit of distance between us and Burnley.

Better?

[polishgenius]

1 minute ago, JordanJH1993 said:

Burnley who are closer to Man United than Man United are to Man City...

Who said I wasn't worried about Burnley?

We're probably not in danger of dropping out of the top 4 to them though.

[Jordan La Cabra]

2 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Who said I wasn't worried about Burnley?

We're probably not in danger of dropping out of the top 4 to them though.

I’d have more confidence in Chelsea finishing in the top four than Man United this season. But maybe I’m just biased. Or maybe we play better football and don’t go away to our rivals and play like a lower league club trying to nick a draw to get an FA cup replay.

[polishgenius]

 

5 minutes ago, JordanJH1993 said:

Or maybe we play better football and don’t go away to our rivals and play like a lower league club trying to nick a draw to get an FA cup replay.

By that logic, Watford, Spurs and Arsenal are all going to finish above you coz they're more attacking and play prettier football.

[Jordan La Cabra]

7 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

By that logic, Watford, Spurs and Arsenal are all going to finish above you coz they're more attacking and play prettier football.

Ahhh, Polish, give a guy a break. I’ve just flown over to London and watched my team win. No need to start ganishing about negative stuff like Man City having already won the title and the chances of Chelsea missing out on top four to Burnley or Watford. Proper buzz kill.

[Spockydog]

2 hours ago, polishgenius said:

It's a bit weird to still be downplaying Sterling at this stage, surely? He's a great player.

Yeah, I'm kinda wishing we'd signed him in the summer.

[Spockydog]

Just now, Soylent Brown said:

I don't think that was ever really an option though, just something Arsenal suggested out of hope when City were chasing Sanchez.

What the general consensus on Sanchez and Ozil - will they stay until the end of the season or leave in January?

I hope we sell them both in January. Otherwise, they'll be rockin' up to Manchester in the summer.

[lmanion]

Sell them in january and Arsenal probably finish 6th

[Iskaral Pust]

Can's contract situation seems to be dragging on him.  He's on the bench more lately and looked pretty useless and undisciplined tonight. 

Klopp is doing a lot of rotation lately, no doubt recalling our collapse last January.  It helps that we have more depth now because last year there was only untried teenagers on the bench. 

[Nas!]

4 hours ago, Soylent Brown said:

Anyway, if anyone in contact with Hereward or Nas could check in with them and make sure they're okay, it would be appreciated.

I'm not okay, but I appreciate your concern, my friend.

That game showed what a total sporting failure this ownership group has been since their arrival.

They claim to love the club, but they've made a lot of really poor footballing decisions since purchasing it from an extremely motivated (i.e. bankrupt) Icelandic banking consortium all those years ago now.  

The London Stadium move will have made them a lot of money, but little thought or planning seemed to go into the transition.  I'm not going to say that it was a bad move for the club just yet, but I will say that it came with a lot of cheap talk from the owners about being a top six side.

This could have been off-set by the owners having an actual fucking plan for the club, but instead they've flip-flopped from one wildly different playing ethos to another, hiring optimistically and then showing their timidity and lack of footballing comprehension by their reluctance to make the tough decisions on behalf of the club at the appropriate time.  Basically, they've been consistently reactive instead of proactive and the result is a total mish-mash of playing styles and an incohesive unit as they bounced from Zola to Grant to Allardyce to Bilic to Moyes. 

I feel bad for Manuel Lanzini.  As a West Ham fan I would be crushed to lose him, but as a decent human being I'd like to see him move to a proper club and get the credit he deserves as a player (and not just from Polish Genius, who recognized early on just how good Lanzini is).  He faded towards the end of the game tonight, and he was a bit confused by his number eight position at the start, but for the middle half of the game he was pure quality.  Honestly, if he played for Barcelona, you'd all agree with me that he's a real peach. 

Joe Hart was dogshit, and exemplifies why West Ham are useless from the top down.  I mean, what did Adrian really do to deserve this? He was brilliant for Allardyce and brilliant for Bilic's first (and by far most successful) season.  He got replaced by Darren Randolph during a shaky patch last season and then got properly fucked by the loan arrival of Joe Hart this season and the public dick-slapping of the owners when they announced that Hart was the best player they'd ever signed or some similar nonsense. 

And this is really just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.  And it all boils down to a total disregard for the business of football.  There is clearly no overall plan.  

Meanwhile, the club continue to  sign an aimless and horribly expensive array of players and then change managers and playing philosophies just to complicate their woes.  While Moyes says differently, what the fuck is Javier Hernandez really going to do in a David Moyes managed side? Haven't we seen this play out already once before?

It is bad business.  It is poor general management.  It is failure at the highest level.  How could any thinking person believe otherwise?

Having said all of this, I still suspect Moyes will keep us up this season. Which is probably a shame for the club in the long run.   I don't even think we were as bad today as the scoreline indicated.  Penalties that went different ways, et al.  I think Moyes has inherited a complete mess and is doing his best to organize it.  I've seen worse performances that got better results this season. 

The sad truth is: I don't see any lasting, long term improvement without a change in ownership.  And I don't think a change in ownership will happen anytime soon. 

[Raja]

3 hours ago, Soylent Brown said:

 

What the general consensus on Sanchez and Ozil - will they stay until the end of the season or leave in January?

I'm pretty sure they'll stay till the summer.  Why would you miss out on a fat signing on fee? 

Man, Ozil rocking up at Old Trafford will make me sad

[polishgenius]

5 hours ago, JordanJH1993 said:

Ahhh, Polish, give a guy a break. I’ve just flown over to London and watched my team win. No need to start ganishing about negative stuff like Man City having already won the title and the chances of Chelsea missing out on top four to Burnley or Watford. Proper buzz kill.

I honestly wasn't expecting you to react that strongly to what I thought was a pretty gentle dig, to be fair to me.

[Jordan La Cabra]

3 hours ago, polishgenius said:

I honestly wasn't expecting you to react that strongly to what I thought was a pretty gentle dig, to be fair to me.

The reaction must have looked worse than it was. Probably should have said ‘haha’ or ‘lol’ to show I wasn’t actually livid. 

But no one really wants to just hand it to Citeh just yet. I’d be happy if any team gave them a chase, even if it was Man United. Less so if it was Tottenham but still would be better than watching Pep’s boys run away with it.

[baxus]

9 hours ago, Soylent Brown said:

What the general consensus on Sanchez and Ozil - will they stay until the end of the season or leave in January?

I don't see a single reason why either of them would want to leave in January. Why would either of them go through the hassle of prolonged transfer saga with Arsenal deciding which club they can or can not go to? Just wait for the contract to expire and get a big chunk of money for saving their new clubs transfer fees.

[Consigliere]

I'm sure Wenger recently said that neither Özil nor Sanchez will be sold in January. I don't think the Arsenal board would go ahead with a transfer without Wenger's permission.

 

2 hours ago, JordanJH1993 said:

But no one really wants to just hand it to Citeh just yet. I’d be happy if any team gave them a chase, even if it was Man United. Less so if it was Tottenham but still would be better than watching Pep’s boys run away with it.

Can't see Spurs mounting a title challenge this season. The gap is now just too big coupled with their poor away record against direct rivals and that they don't have the fortress of WHL to fall back on either. Think Chelsea are better equipped to challenge City than United primarily due to Conte's tactics rather than quality of personnel. Liverpool, in terms of playing style and personnel (Mane and Salah on the flanks), still look like the team most capable of hurting City.

City are going to take some stopping though. They are far better than last season with major upgrades in fullback and GK positions. Stones and Sterling must be among the most improved players in the league as well. Pep has also got their defensive system running like a well oiled machine - City aren't conceding sloppy/soft goals, concede very few shots at goal and even fewer quality chances.

[Jordan La Cabra]

27 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

I'm sure Wenger recently said that neither Özil nor Sanchez will be sold in January. I don't think the Arsenal board would go ahead with a transfer without Wenger's permission.

Did Wenger not say he didn’t see either of them leaving in January unless something extrodinary happens? That doesn’t completely rule it out. Wenger also has a habit of saying players won’t leave in certain windows then for the player to leave. RVP, Nasri, Fabregas to name a couple.

 

27 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

Can't see Spurs mounting a title challenge this season. The gap is now just too big coupled with their poor away record against direct rivals and that they don't have the fortress of WHL to fall back on either. Think Chelsea are better equipped to challenge City than United primarily due to Conte's tactics rather than quality of personnel. Liverpool, in terms of playing style and personnel (Mane and Salah on the flanks), still look like the team most capable of hurting City.

City are going to take some stopping though. They are far better than last season with major upgrades in fullback and GK positions. Stones and Sterling must be among the most improved players in the league as well. Pep has also got their defensive system running like a well oiled machine - City aren't conceding sloppy/soft goals, concede very few shots at goal and even fewer quality chances.

The thing Man City also have in their favour is that they’ve gained such an impressive early lead that they can just keep winning games and sit back and laugh when the teams beneath them take points off each other like Chelsea v Man United ending with Man United dropping three points a few weeks back, then last weekend Liverpool v Chelsea ended with both teams losing two points a piece and Man United v Arsenal this weekend will see at least one of them drop points.

Going to be seriously hard for anyone to topple Man City unless one of the teams beneath them break away from the rest and go on a Man City-like run of wins. At the moment, though, Man United, Chelsea, Arsenal etc don’t look much better or worse than each other, as their closeness in points suggests.

 

ETA: Just seeing news online that Gareth Bale picked up another calf strain. Reports saying it’s not serious and he may only miss one game.