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Football: “WHAT THE F*CK WAS THAT”?


AncalagonTheBlack

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17 minutes ago, Mark Antony said:

Not the best game aside from the last ten minutes or so which were very entertaining. Southampton could really use some pace.


Assuming that's why they brought Boufal and that kid Obafemi on, but they don't know how to use that pace at all. Both just ended up wandering about waiting for something to get onto. Although Obafemi should have scored the winner.

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11 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Football365.com had an opinion piece a week ago that claimed Chelsea are targeting English strikers because their 25 man squad is already at or near the limit (17) for foreign players, and pointed to Barkley and Drinkwater as examples where they had to buy homegrown squad players in recent windows just to reach 8 homegrown players.  They could fix that with some of their young players on loan, e.g. Tammy Abraham, but either don’t want to or don’t have the right to recall them. 

So if you have to buy an English striker, and your rivals won’t offer you Kane, Rashford, Vardy, Sturridge, etc, then you quickly get linked to a lot of strikers who sound like a terrible fit for the team. 

I don’t think Chelsea will really move for a mid table English striker.  If they have that little faith in Batshuyai then they can sign a striker to take his place in the roster, or they can drop a peripheral foreign player in another position.  Striker is too important to force a square peg. 

Yeah, there has been a recent trend at Chelsea where they have started aiming for English players. In a way, it’s good to see, as I feared we may be losing any kind of identity to the country in which we play in, but it’s not so good when they are almost signing players just because they are English.

I definitely believe that we aren’t able to recall Tammy Abraham. He’s scored more league goals than Carroll, Crouch and Barnes this season; if he wasn’t already our player, we probably would have been linked to trying to sign him by now. I think the hope Chelsea have in him is also why they are looking at English strikers that they could get on a short term deal rather than ones that would look for a longer deal and cost a lot more like Vardy and Sturridge.

I would much prefer we keep Batshuayi than sign any of those English forwards we have been linked with. Batshuayi has scored a lot more goals in all competitions this season than they have and he looked really good yesterday. If Conte gave him a proper chance, I do think he could prove to be a valuable asset.

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On 15.1.2018 at 10:03 PM, Consigliere said:

Heh. Okay, didn't know they were a tabloid since I've found them to be quite reliable when it comes to transfers involving German clubs, especially Bayern. Certainly don't think they are anywhere near as ridiculous as The Sun, at least when it comes to the football side of things.

Going back to the not as ridiculous bit.

I keep the backstory short, although it's so silly it probably deserves a post of its own.

Mainz 05 had elected a new club president (Hans Kaluza), who made some campaign promises he wouldn't keep, and he has managed to more or less unite the entire club against his presidency within a few months (short version the longer one is really silly). Now he has done the honorable thing and will resign, so the club can elect a new president.

One of the candidates is Ms. Eva-Maria Federhenn. Now what did the Bild do, they did an interview with some really absurd (I could've used some other words) questions. Here a small example.

"Ms Federhenn as a woman, what do you know about football?"

Later on the interviewer asked her, whether she would wear red pumps, since her predecessor's trademark was a pair of red pants which Mr. Kaluza used to wear.

 

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11 minutes ago, Notone said:

Going back to the not as ridiculous bit.

I keep the backstory short, although it's so silly it probably deserves a post of its own.

Mainz 05 had elected a new club president (Hans Kaluza), who made some campaign promises he wouldn't keep, and he has managed to more or less unite the entire club against his presidency within a few months (short version the longer one is really silly). Now he has done the honorable thing and will resign, so the club can elect a new president.

One of the candidates is Ms. Eva-Maria Federhenn. Now what did the Bild do, they did an interview with some really absurd (I could've used some other words) questions. Here a small example.

"Ms Federhenn as a woman, what do you know about football?"

Later on the interviewer asked her, whether she would wear red pumps, since her predecessor's trademark was a pair of red pants which Mr. Kaluza used to wear.

Or repeatedly asking Leon Bailey about Bob Marley and weed cause he's Jamaican.

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17 hours ago, JordanJH1993 said:

As a group of football players, I imagine it would be difficult to motivate yourself to play for a manager you’re almost certain isn’t going to be coaching you next season; I think this could be the cause for some of our recent lacklustre performances.

I never understood this. Why on Earth would manager leaving at the end of the season affect players' motivation when they're on the pitch?

Even when the manager leaves, they remain at the club. If they play poorly and don't qualify for Champions League, they are the ones who won't play in the Champions League the next season while the manager may go to the team that will.

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19 minutes ago, baxus said:

I never understood this. Why on Earth would manager leaving at the end of the season affect players' motivation when they're on the pitch?

Even when the manager leaves, they remain at the club. If they play poorly and don't qualify for Champions League, they are the ones who won't play in the Champions League the next season while the manager may go to the team that will.

How do you explain the 'new manager bounce' teams get when a new manager is appointed, especially at teams that are far down the table? Stoke, for example, just pulled off a victory in their first game under Paul Lambert having been on a terrible run of form prior to his arrival. You could say that the uncertainty around Mark Hughes future demotivated them, despite the fact many of them could have ended up playing Championship football next season if they didn't start winning.

It's even happened at Chelsea before, in 15/16, when we were down in a relegation battle and Jose Mourinho was sacked, Hiddink was brought in and we went on a fifteen game unbeaten run - the longest unbeaten run any PL team had that season. A high percentage of the players from that squad are still at the club.

Arsene Wenger even blamed Arsenal's poor form in the middle section of last season's PL on the uncertainty over his future.

Chelsea may not qualify for the Champions League next season, Conte may leave and head to a team like PSG that will be qualified, you are right, but that also applies to the players. Hazard, Courtois, Willian, Fabregas etc could all force a move to a team playing in the Champions League.

 

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I could legitatametly see a full collapse at Chelsea or arsenal over the next five or so years.

man city are in the elite of Europe and will battle for a premiership title every year for the foreseeable future. 

spurs seem dedicated to be at the top 4. 

Chelsea and the gunners have been on borrowed time for a bit.  one team won't spend like a big club and the other won't send a dinosaur manager packing. 

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@JordanJH1993 There is a difference between trying to impress the new manager and not giving a crap what happens with your teams results because the manager is getting the sack either way.

 

EDIT:

A couple of players might force a move to CL playing team, but definitely not all of them and it could happen that none of them would leave.

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I'm happy that we managed to pull off this transfer. Curious to see where Sanchez will play though. I'd be very disappointed if he takes the LW position from Martial who has been really good for us this season. I assume he will take up the secondary striker position that Lingard has been playing and Lingard/Mata play on the right. Guess I'll find out on Friday.

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Liverpool looking a bit toothless so far. These games were teams aren’t really looking to come out and play too much, so there’s less opportunity for counter pressing, are were we’re more likely to feel the absence of Coutinho.

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I don’t think it’s a focus problem so much as our midfield thrives in an open game but has few ideas against a tight, defensive shell.  On top of that Bobby had a poor game and Mane has been off form for months.  

But it is peak Liverpool to play City off the park and then lose to Swansea. 

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Big win for Swansea. They really worked their butts off and put in an excellent defensive performance. Fabianski had a solid game as well but Liverpool didn't create a real clear cut chance right up until the end. Both Spurs and Liverpool dropping points keeps Arsenal in the hunt as well.

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Looks like Kenedy is heading to New Castle on loan. Thoughts are this will open up room for Palmieri to come over from Roma. Don't know much about the guy. Looks like he'll be backing up Alonso who's been pretty decent this year. The fixtures are about to be crowded again with CL in a couple weeks so hopefully he can contribute. I was reading good stuff about him. Looks like he gets up the field well in the left back role. 

The Dzeko portion of the swap is looking promising as well. He killed us in the CL group stage this year. Not sure how much he expects to play considering we have Morata, and will have to sit out the CL, but he has to be better than Michy. 

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10 hours ago, Mexal said:

Have to say, I'm pretty ok with Sanchez leaving. Thought I'd care more, especially with him going to United but nope, don't give a shit at all. Funny that.

I'm ok with it too. I think it's the fact that Sanchez hasn't performed for us this season anyway. Clearly his heart wasn't in it and he was itching to go, so fine - he goes, and at least mid-season this means we get some compensation for him rather than leave for free.

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