Football: Remain in Europe

[Consigliere]

5 minutes ago, Ser Glendon Fireball said:

Yup, good overall game from the team, which we hadn't been exactly used to. Usually we pull on a good half /50min only to bend ourselves in our 15 yards for the rest of the game. For once, we were quite positive and aggressive in our play for more than an hour of football, which is great.

Lukaku and Rashford are probably the only negative points from tonight. While the former did make good runs, created plenty of spaces and worked hard for the team, the latter just couldn't make any decision right. But that's not the 1st time we are disappointed from Rashford when playing RW. We desesperately need someone at RW, and he's only short term "solution".

And it has to be said: Chris Smalling is having a good season start. Albeit he only shown up against weak /average teams so far.

Glad to see Dalot making such a debut. Shaw and Lindelof solid too.

Yeah, Lukaku and Rashford have not had a great start to the season. Rashford's decision making has been his achilles heel - if that aspect of his game doesn't improve then he will go the way of many talented youngsters and end up being no more than average. Right now Lingard is a far better option on the right.

I hope we at least try out Sanchez on the right because he has been liability playing on the left as he keeps dropping too deep and ends up playing on top of Pogba. Then there's those useless chipped passes to no-one. Playing him on the right might actually force him to stay wider and higher up the pitch which would benefit the team. Unfortunately, he will be on the left next game losing possession 80% of the time and getting in Pogba's way.

[Iskaral Pust]

I wrote this back on 8/28 in the old thread:

As entertaining as it is to watch Utd flounder, it’s less than a year since Liverpool lost 5-1 to City and then 4-0 to Spurs a few weeks later.  And the press claimed Klopp was in danger of losing his job.  Rubbish.  A year before that Pep was  learning the PL the hard way.  The crisis label jumps from one team to the next like musical chairs.  It sells plenty of newspapers. 

Since then they've won three in a row (two of them against quite poor teams and one against a very in form team) and all talk of crisis and third season syndrome has disappeared.  As much as I dislike Mourinho and his football, he'll still grind out plenty of results this season.  They're no worse than last season, just no better either.  And they still have a large, deep squad (unlike Spurs or Arsenal).

Mourinho may yet blow up and/or engineer a path out of OT.  But his football will unfortunately be as effective as before.  It's just unlikely to be very successful now that there are more strong teams who can reach higher points totals through scoring more.

[Dolorous Gabe]

2 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Did anyone watch the City game?  What happened to them?

No disrespect to Lyon but if Liverpool without Firmino can comfortably outplay PSG then I expected City to cruise against Lyon, even if Jesus is playing instead of Aguero.

Didn't turn up. To be fair to Lyon they had a game plan and pulled it off well but there was really no intensity or desire in the City team. Very sloppy in the middle of the pitch. Missed KDB massively but might not have done had Bernardo started through the middle instead of Gundogan.

Fernandinho had an unusually poor game and Gundogan has been well below the standard we expect from him this season so far. Jesus appears to have regressed, hardly looks the same player that arrived at the club. David Silva and Sterling tried their best but couldn't quite make it work and Bernardo played much better when he shifted to the centre when Gundogan went off. Leroy injected much needed thrust, whatever his issues have been he deserves to start the next game.

My only explanation is complacency, which kinda kills a Pep team. No room for passengers. And of course, Pep wasn't on the sidelines to rally them into action. I'm sure Arteta will make a good manager but he seemed out of his depth at the moment being in charge in the technical area.

The style of the ref didn't suit us though, he was very fussy yet reluctant to brandish cards so the game didn't flow very well.

[Iskaral Pust]

2 hours ago, Dolorous Gabe said:

Didn't turn up. 

...

My only explanation is complacency, which kinda kills a Pep team...

A pity for Cardiff then who’ll feel the backlash this weekend.  I can’t imagine Pep would accept anything less than maximum intensity next game. 

[mormont]

10 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Since then they've won three in a row (two of them against quite poor teams and one against a very in form team) and all talk of crisis and third season syndrome has disappeared.

It hasn't disappeared, just subsided. Those bad results haven't gone away, and those three results that followed were pretty much just meeting the minimum expected standards. Next time Man United have a bad performance, Mourinho will be back in the firing line - deservedly, I think. 

[baxus]

12 hours ago, polishgenius said:

No way did he pull it. You could maybe make a case that he scratched him.

You were saying?

EDIT:

There's definitely a grabbing motion when Ronaldo pulls. The fact that his opponent has short hair so he couldn't have grabbed it shouldn't count as extenuating circumstance.

Even if he scratched him, that's still a red card. Or is deliberately scratching the top of the head of an opponent who's sitting on the ground now acceptable behavior on the football pitch and I missed a memo?

[polishgenius]

18 minutes ago, baxus said:

 

Even if he scratched him, that's still a red card. Or is deliberately scratching the top of the head of an opponent who's sitting on the ground now acceptable behavior on the football pitch and I missed a memo? 

I never said that, if he had scratched him, it wasn't a red card.

[baxus]

Because it's Cronaldo or what?

[polishgenius]

Now I'm confused. What's him being Ronaldo got to do with it being a red card if he scratched him?

You seem to be reading the 'maybe' in my initial post as 'maybe a red card if he scratched him' rather than 'maybe he scratched him'.

Which looks a lot more certain from the video you posted than the one I saw.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

6 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Now I'm confused. What's him being Ronaldo got to do with it being a red card if he scratched him?

You seem to be reading the 'maybe' in my initial post as 'maybe a red card if he scratched him' rather than 'maybe he scratched him'.

Which looks a lot more certain from the video you posted than the one I saw.

I think he misread your post (so did I initially).

2 hours ago, polishgenius said:

I never said that, if he had scratched him, it wasn't a red card.

Instead of, "I never said, that if he had scratched, it wouldn't be a red card" I also read.

"I never said that. If he had scratched him, it wouldn't be a red card."

I just assume @baxus has made the same mistake.

[polishgenius]

Fair cop.

Yeah, I'm still not convinced whether it was a pull or a scratch but it was definitely one or the other so the red should stick.

[Consigliere]

UEFA have opened disciplinary proceedings against Ronaldo. A straight red card in the CL only results in an automatic one match ban with UEFA determining further sanctions on a case by case basis. In light of the evidence from better camera angles, Ronaldo probably gets hit with a 3 match ban. 

[Iskaral Pust]

That looks pretty weak for a red card.  Vertinghen did a lot worse to Firmino on Saturday and no card given.  (I know hands can often accidentally swipe into faces, especially if players run into each other face on, but Vertonghen was running alongside Firmino with his right arm tugging at Firmino’s left arm, and then raised his left arm and extended it across his body to slap/swipe at Firmino’s face — it didn’t look accidental)

[polishgenius]

2 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

That looks pretty weak for a red card.  Vertinghen did a lot worse to Firmino on Saturday and no card given.  (I know hands can often accidentally swipe into faces, especially if players run into each other face on, but Vertonghen was running alongside Firmino with his right arm tugging at Firmino’s left arm, and then raised his left arm and extended it across his body to slap/swipe at Firmino’s face — it didn’t look accidental)

 

I've not been able to see the actual incident of Vertonghen - wasn't watching at the time and online it's all photos - but one guy getting off with something doesn't make another incident okay. And presumably Vertonghen got nothing because there was a question about it being deliberate (or the ref missed it entirely). There's no such defence for Ronaldo.

[baxus]

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

Fair cop.

Yeah, I'm still not convinced whether it was a pull or a scratch but it was definitely one or the other so the red should stick.

Misunderstood your post. Agree that the red should stick.

I've been hearing all day how ref knows nothing and shouldn't have sent him off. The main argument for that claim among Serbian people is that this same ref failed to award a penalty for Serbia against Switzerland. Go figure. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

30 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

That looks pretty weak for a red card.  Vertinghen did a lot worse to Firmino on Saturday and no card given.  (I know hands can often accidentally swipe into faces, especially if players run into each other face on, but Vertonghen was running alongside Firmino with his right arm tugging at Firmino’s left arm, and then raised his left arm and extended it across his body to slap/swipe at Firmino’s face — it didn’t look accidental)

Well, Vertonghen got lucky (and he did not have a superior German referee, obviously), while one of the assistants caught Ronaldo in the act. So I don't really see your point there, unless you are suggesting anything below the Vertonghen threshold merits a red card?

Anyway, kudos to referee team who saw what was happening a fair bit away from active play, and it was probably the first time one of those goal line assistants actually saw and did something correctly in a game.

[Consigliere]

Big win for Eintracht Frankfurt away against Marseille especially considering that this is a tough group and they had to play over half an hour with 10 men. Very good result for Rangers away to Villarreal as well coming back from a goal down twice to draw 2-2. 

[Philokles]

Frankfurt got lucky (even if their fans were not) that they were the ones to visit the Velodrome for the game behind closed doors. Can't imagine that would have happened had the Marseille supporters been there.

Leipzig playing like they've been ordered to let Salzburg win in the Red Bull derby at the moment.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

That was a surprisingly interesting and quite a good game, as much as it pains me to say that.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

In semi-football related news.

The legal battle between Ivan Klasnic and the former Werder Bremen team doctor and some other doctors is going into the next round.

Backstory for those, who are not familar with the whole story.

During his time at Werder some test indicated something might be amiss with his kidney. The team doc failed to inform Ivan, and tus he continued to pop painkillers (which is not uncommon for footballers, but not great particularly with a damaged kidney) to continue playing. That ultimately has lead to Ivan needing a transplant. They first tried a live donation from his mom, which his body rejected. Then they tried live donation from his dad, which worked in 2007. He gave his comeback, and left Bremen (understandbly) and continued to play for some time France, and England (Bolton I think). Apart from being not anywhere near as good, as he was before his illness, that's arguably also not the healthies idea. Anyway, when he left BRemen, he also filed law suits against M.D.s involved.

The first ruling in 2017 was for most parts in his favour. 100.000 € in damages, plus the costs for future medical treatments + loss of income, which accumulated to some milions. Now, the doctors in question, appealed the first ruling. As in, gross neglience is not covered by their insurance ("normal" or "common" neglience is).

The Bremen doctor's argument is, guys, I am specialist for sport medicne, not an internist or a nephrologist. I send the test results and stuff to an internist. She in turn, had to admit in court, she did not carefully check all the test results, as she usually deals with healthy young athletes. The residing judge suggested a settlement in the range of ~3m €.

As for Ivan, his dad's kidney gave out after 10 years in 2017, so he relocated to his parents home country Croatia (he has dual citizenship), because there the waiting list is way shorter than in Germany, but he had to live there to be on the Croatian list. Leaving his hometown Hamburg was not really something he wanted to do, as his ex and his daughter live here. And he has a new transplant, which seems to work well for him - at least for the moment.