baxus

I'd say it's more down to numerous issues regarding the club, not so much the player. Sure, he's not been up to his usual standards but there's so much stuff going on in that club that it's not really surprising someone's underperforming there. Wijnaldum played a pretty important role in Liverpool, in a team that won the Champions League and Premier League in back to back seasons and his level dropped significantly in PSG. Or at least that's the impression I get from few PSG matches I've seen this season (mostly in CL).

Not having watched much of Arsenal this season, my impression may be off, but it seems to me that they were all over the place this season. They had good runs and they had bad runs, they had decent results against some top teams and yet they had a couple of losses in a row to teams in bottom half of the table. I guess that's to be expected from a team in rebuilding and with so many youngsters in the squad, but there will come a time when that excuse runs out and the team needs to start performing at top level. Maybe that would come next season or the season after that, but it will come and it will be very interesting to watch.

City seem rather vulnerable on the counter attack, and there's a fair bit of misunderstanding between defenders and the keeper. I still expect them to get something out of today's match but if only West Ham could find a way to punish City's blunders... EDIT: And as I finish typing that, Coufal scores an own goal...

Jordan didn't make Bulls competitive on his own, and neither did Lebron at Cavs nor Heat, Kobe at Lakers, Wade at Heat etc. It is a team sport and you need more than one great player to win the most competitive league in the world. Hell, sometimes even more than one great player is enough - Durant, Westbrook and Harden at Thunder, Malone and Stockton at Jazz etc. First of all, healthy Murray and Porter for the season would probably mean Nuggets would be better placed for the playoffs and would skip Warriors in the first round. Even if not, fully fit (or close enough) Warriors are a title contender. It's not as if they were swept by some underdogs, they lost to one of top teams in the league.

The thing is that with this style of refereeing, even when he does make the right call no one believes it. As a bonus, players get more and more nervous as time goes on and wrong calls (either really wrong or only perceived as such) pile up.

This ref is really letting a lot of things slide.

Jokic was the first player in history to hit 2000 points, 1000 rebounds and 500 assists over the course of the season. And he did it while talking about team effort despite being on a team whose other best players were out for the season. As someone already mentioned, their second option was Aaron Gordon. Hell, they have even given Cousins a contract. Now that's scraping the bottom of the barrel if ever there was one. Take Jokic out of that team, and they're not only not making the playoffs, they won't even have to tank the season to be draft lottery favourites. DISCLAIMER: Before someone points to the fact he is my compatriot and that's why I'm saying it, I need to point out that I'm not much of a fan since he's skipped playing for the national team on multiple occasions. That being said, I believe in giving credit where it's due.

He did carry his team to the playoff with other stars on the team injured for the season, though. Also, this is not playoffs MVP, it's league MVP. Performance in the playoffs shouldn't really count when determining who gets to win this award.

You know, sometimes a movie can be nothing more than a fun way to spend a couple of hours watching pretty pictures. It doesn't need to be an artistic masterpiece for someone (or many people) to enjoy it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing GRRM. Finish ASoIaF, start a new series, retire from writing, you name it, it is his choice and he's entitled to it. He's not my bitch or anyone else's. Still, 11 years (and counting) is a long time between books. Let's put it this way - GoT HBO series was announced, cast, shot, broadcast and finished since DwD came out and we're still not getting anything close to "I'm close to finishing WoW" from GRRM. I hope you'll forgive that I'm not seeing "I'm working on it, trust me" as proof of anything.

If you wouldn't mind, I'd appreciate it if you'd elaborate what you base that confidence on. I mean, it's been 11 years since Dance with Dragons, not only do we not have a release date but we haven't had any updates in a while. Maybe I missed something though, because I've kind of given up on getting Winds of Winter any time soon.

Ask him about Ferdinand's ban for running away from doping control and see how he feels about it then. Joking aside, the most important thing is that doping control in football is insanely poor. Can anyone remember a single high-profile player who was caught doping? The only ones who come to mind are Maradona and Adrian Mutu, and both were positive for cocaine, not PEDs. If anyone thinks players can play 50-60 matches at the highest level, all over the continent, travel to other continents for preseason, with all the training in between and do it all by only eating their veggies, I have an estate in Valyria I'd like to sell them.

Wow, it's as if you were picking a club with most despicable owners. You should've added Newcastle to the mix. I am aware you were picking a team before Saudi takeover, and Ashley still qualified. Competing for the top spot is not the same as being dominant, is it? Sanctions definitely had an impact on players, despite all the special allowances from the UK government that allowed the club to function as close as possible to normal, under the circumstances. That's the other side of the medal when your owner is a Russian oligarch who has no issue with spending insane amounts of money on the club with utter disregard if he'd ever see it again.

You switched to supporting City? When have Chelsea looked dominant this season? Sure, sanctions did bring some instability and insecurity to the club but it's not as if Chelsea were frontrunners in the league before they were put in place. As far as injuries are concerned, you'll have to wait for a couple of seasons at the very least before you get any sympathy from Liverpool supporters after last season when we had 20-ish different combinations of CB pairings. By the way, squad depth is the main reason why City has won as many league titles as they have in recent seasons and every team in the league needs to adapt to that if they want to challenge for the title.

It's funny how they suddenly remembered how much they paid for their tickets, started saying how they have season tickets etc. If only they remembered that a bit earlier, they wouldn't have missed one of the best comebacks their team's had in last couple of decades or so.

Did I miss any of them winning anything with kids? o.O

Maybe watch the game and see? What stuck out to me more than anything in last night's match is how Pep seems to have checked out for extra time. His attempts at changing something and trying out something different started and ended with sending Sterling in. Not really enough for a manager widely considered to be one of the best in the world, is it? Also, I think he took De Bruyne out too early. I get it that the match seemed well in hand at that moment and he wanted to rest his best player for a title run but it turned out to be a wrong move. As time goes on Pep's critics are being closer and closer to being right. Sure, it's an exaggeration to call him a fraud and stuff like that but ever since he left Barcelona he didn't really live up to his potential. Could be wrong, but I don't see how winning league titles and an occasional cup with Bayern and City are enough to secure his top manager in the world status. His squad in City is so good and so deep that he can have a Champions League knockout rounds level of quality match in every single training session. He just needs to do more.

Well, these two clubs are at very different points in their history. Newcastle has just seen probably the least liked owner-manager combo in the league, the investments are starting to pour in, some great new signings are coming in, they got out of the slump they were in for years. On the other hand, Manchester United has been on the decline for almost a decade now, their management structure is yet to be determined, next season squad will look very different, they are pretty much out of competition for Champions League next season and players just can't be bothered to try for Europa League or Conference.

Why would they not give their all? They had nothing to be proud of for half the season, so why would they stop their run once they were sure to avoid relegation? Also, as polish said already, they are VERY motivated to show they can stay at the club and get those contract renewals at much higher rates or at least to get as good of an offer as possible this summer.

Well, as someone who's already lived through similar crap, at least this time around I'd have a successful club to watch while shit is hitting the fan.

Call me selfish, but after all the years of watching likes of Steve Harkness, El Hadji Diouf, Djimi Traore, etc. I'd take a fucking meteor for 10 years of regularly winning trophies.

Burnout is always possible, but if he does win the Champions League (hopefully, not this season ) there is no way he's leaving. City would pile so much money on him he physically wouldn't be able to do it.

Ok, but that still gives them well over a year to come up to an agreement. Who would City sign and/or where would Pep go that would be a better fit for either of them?

Why would Pep leave soon? Where is that coming from? Liverpool didn't push Everton anywhere. Liverpool had to play from the first qualifying round despite being reigning champions.

I had a sort of family emergency so I couldn't watch the Merseyside derby yesterday and am basing my opinion only on bits and pieces of highlights I did see and some stats that turned up in sports news in the past 24 hours. As such, I am perfectly aware that I might be talking out of my ass here and please correct me if I'm wrong, but a team that has 30-40 completed passes in a whole of the first half really shouldn't be looking outside of their squad and staff for reasons they lost the match. I've seen a situation Lampard said should've resulted in a penalty and if the penalty was awarded for that it would've been the weakest penalty (or one of, at the very least) in 24 years I've been watching Premier League. Sure, Premier League can start calling these as penalties but the moment it starts doing so is the moment a lot of viewers turn the TV off, both locally and overseas.