Football: Attempting to stay ahead (in your) City.

[Consigliere]

1 minute ago, Heartofice said:

 I guess we just have to accept that players are going to be judged on what they do on the biggest stage, rather than having a consistent high quality over a year.

Oh yes, for sure. It's especially bad after a WC where voters seem to get afflicted with the memory of a goldfish and can only remember a handful of games at the tournament (which lets be honest is of a lower standard than top level club football) and forget everything else. 

[Heartofice]

2 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

Oh yes, for sure. It's especially bad after a WC where voters seem to get afflicted with the memory of a goldfish and can only remember a handful of games at the tournament (which lets be honest is of a lower standard than top level club football) and forget everything else. 

Yes, plus I doubt the voters watch all games. I mean look who is actually voting,  its journalists from around the world, including some pretty obscure countries. Are they watching every single game in all the top leagues, or even mid tier leagues, or are they just watching the big games. 

https://www.marca.com/en/football/international-football/2018/12/04/5c064775e2704e11078b456d.html

 

[Consigliere]

2 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Yes, plus I doubt the voters watch all games. I mean look who is actually voting,  its journalists from around the world, including some pretty obscure countries. Are they watching every single game in all the top leagues, or even mid tier leagues, or are they just watching the big games. 

https://www.marca.com/en/football/international-football/2018/12/04/5c064775e2704e11078b456d.html
 

I also want to mention that there are some exceptions to what i said above. For instance Iniesta, Xavi or even Sneijder were unfortunate to miss out in 2010 but it must be said that Messi had a great season as well. Kroos, Müller or Neuer were unfortunate in 2014 but Ronaldo had a great season as well. The one that really irritated me was Brazilian Ronaldo winning in 2002 - he had only played a meagre 10 games for Inter that season but had a good WC and all of a sudden that was enough to vote him best player in the world.

[Iskaral Pust]

Remember the discussion last season about efficiency?  Especially United and Burnley.  Both were outperforming their expected goals against by a large margin, and slightly exceeding their expected goals for.  The net effect was that they collected a lot of points from narrow wins despite opponents having a larger share of the scoring opportunities.

I claimed last year that it would eventually fail because such narrow margins mean a large drop in points if your efficiency slips even a small amount at either end of the pitch.  A 1-0 is worth disproportionately more than a 1-1 or 0-0, especially if you had a lot of them.

As a biased antagonist of United, I also claimed that mean reversion would come along eventually.  But that was a wishful prediction more than anything scientific.  I'm interested to hear if others think that these two teams are experiencing that mean reversion now and need to fundamentally change to improve, or are they just having a blip for other reasons and the basic principle of relying on 1-0 can be sustained?

When I look at United, they have the same defense and keeper as last year, except now Dalot is added and Shaw is healthy and playing well.  Blind is gone but he hardly played last year anyway.  Lindelof, Smalling, Jones, Bailly, Young, Valencia and Darmian and of course DDG are all still playing.  And still screened by Matic and a defensive MF.  But they are now conceding a lot more goals per game.  I think it's some combination of last year was a bit lucky/temporary form, players aren't playing as hard for Mourinho, opponents are less scared to attack, United are less likely to have a lead to defend and attackers concede possession more.  Some of those problems can be fixed if United gets out of their general funk, but I also don't think that bunch of players can replicate only 28 PL goals conceded all season unless some upgrades are added or the MF continues to play very defensive and limit attacking play.  So ending the funk will mean less screening from the MF.

For Burnley, although they have the same defense and midfield as last season, they were unlucky to lose both Pope and Heaton to injury, with Joe Hart as a decent but lesser replacement.  Last season they specialized in blocking most shots as their defenders and MFs sat deep.  They're still doing that but they're facing even more shots than last year, and enough of them are getting through.  They still score a goal per game, which is similar to last year, but now they concede more than two goals per game.  They will probably improve with a return of Pope or Heaton, but they are still facing a lot more shots this year, so I think it is more likely that opponents have figured out how to play against Burnley.

What do you think?

 

[Consigliere]

As far as United goes, this is just your typical Mourinho 3rd season syndrome. It has no chance of improving until he is gone. We are conceding more goals because of Mourinho's weird team selections, formations, tactics and his systematic destruction of the dressing room resulting in players not playing as hard for him anymore rather than luck or temporary form - remember it was not just last season, we were pretty decent defensively the season before last and the season before that as well with the same players in defence. 

[Wilbur]

Some thoughts on Manchester United:

First, Mourinho is a grumpy dwarf now, rather than the Shiny New Thing that he was a decade ago.  Few players have a strong appetite to play under his current brand of leadership, eg. P Pogba as a current player, or bIg NaMeS that have signed elsewhere in recent times.  Moreover, Mourinho is risk-averse, and would be very unlikely to play promising youth as the more-successful Ferguson did, and his safety-first style is dull and unattractive.  Thus the teams that the Red Devils field just aren't as good as some of the other squads in the league who do possession charismatic managers and exciting playing styles, eg. Manchester City.

Second, twenty years ago Manchester United had monetized the advent of the Premier League and escape from the old Football League First Division to an extent that the wealth gap is only now being matched by other teams such as Chel$ki and Manchester City.  By 2001, every single major Asian capital had a sucker store called the "Manchester United Mega Store" selling poorly-made memorabilia, and they were packed with ignorant band-wagon fans slurping it up and funding the player-buying machine.  Their advantage in money, combined with tricky Scots leadership meant that they could afford to buy better players faster than the rest of the league, and if the bought players meshed poorly with their own home-grown talent, they could afford to jettison them quickly, eg. Popular Argentine Pirate Cosplayer JS Veron.  Look at the distance that Manchester United put between themselves and other successful teams of the old First Division with as good or better European pedigrees such as Leeds and Aston Villa, who failed to capitalize on the Premiere League's riches.

Third, speaking of tricky Scots leadership, no manager since his departure has managed the trick of match official intimidation in the manner of Ferguson.  Think back to the many, many matches that he turned from the sideline with the Hairdryer Treatment on the officials or consider Fergie Time. Subsequent managers also haven't had a cadre of fellow-managers who would willingly roll over for their Manchester United ties on the schedule in the hope of someday winning the job of succeeding Ferguson, eg. Sam Allardyce and Steve Bruce.

Finally, the descent down the table has meant that Manchester United can no longer count on wins against mid-table teams just by showing up to be the flat-track bully.   Remember how Manchester United tried (and mainly succeeded) in taking the naming convention of "United" and making it refer only to them, rather than Newcastle, or Sheffield, or Leeds, or West Ham, etc.?  That sort of self-aggrandisement is largely missing from their psyche today.  Bandwagon fans who came to see and be seen eating prawn sandwiches don't make for great support, but they probably were less painful to play in front of than the current group of disillusioned seat license holders.  Other teams make the trip to Stretford expecting to win, not to be shafted by the referees in the 95th minute, eg. the all-conquering Saints last week.

Certain teams come into happy scenarios where the stars align, and they can leverage it to their advantage, eg. Liverpool's Boot Room with its European-conquering leadership (Shankly-Paisley-Fagan-Dalglish) combined with attractive playing style that drew the best players in the British Isles, along with incredible supporters.  Manchester United's dominance of the past twenty years was happenstance - the combination of a ruthless manager and an overwhelming superiority of funding.  Those two drivers are gone, and no one should expect Manchester United to be similarly dominant again.

[BigFatCoward]

Erm, ok? I agree with the general direction I.e. fuck Man Utd, but some of the criticisms may not be based in any sort of reality. 

[Iskaral Pust]

1 hour ago, Consigliere said:

As far as United goes, this is just your typical Mourinho 3rd season syndrome. It has no chance of improving until he is gone. We are conceding more goals because of Mourinho's weird team selections, formations, tactics and his systematic destruction of the dressing room resulting in players not playing as hard for him anymore rather than luck or temporary form - remember it was not just last season, we were pretty decent defensively the season before last and the season before that as well with the same players in defence. 

But the defensive strength under Mourinho and LVG was at least partly because the team played less attacking football generally.  The fans want to see more gung ho attacking play, but that defense will be more exposed.

I do think that the Mourinho toxic fall-out is the major factor right now, and he has deliberately sabotaged the team selection a couple of times to make a point about the CBs he didn't get this summer.  But I also think that Utd will struggle to suddenly recapture the efficiency of last year.  I think they'll need to significantly increase their scoring in order to be contenders again.

For Burnley, I think their current form is probably a drop below their true average, and last season was a blip above their true average.  I think their defense will tighten up again but in the long run I doubt it can stay tight enough for them to succeed while only scoring a goal per game on average.  So they also need a sustained increase in scoring to get back to mid-table.

I don't want to sound like I'm trashing the defensive style; it definitely can be efficient.  But when you are relying on improbable efficiency relative to xGA:xGF, then I think it's difficult to sustain.  A good defensive team should keep xGA below xGF, not just pick up a lot of narrow wins despite xGA exceeding xGF.

[baxus]

I dislike Manchester United as much as the next guy, but saying that their success in Premier League era is due to bullying other teams and officials helping them out is just ridiculous. Only thing more ridiculous is the notion that former United players who turned managers rolled over when facing their former club.

You can like them or not, but there's no denying that Manchester United played good football and won many trophies. People responded to that.

[Consigliere]

12 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

But the defensive strength under Mourinho and LVG was at least partly because the team played less attacking football generally.  The fans want to see more gung ho attacking play, but that defense will be more exposed.

We played conservatively under both managers but where we surrender possession and play in a low block under Mourinho, we dominated possession and played with a high line under LVG - his system required the CBs to push up to around the halfway line. The big problem with LVG was he demanded rigid positioning and as a result our movement was static and we really struggled to break down opposition that sat in a low block. It's not a surprise that LVG had a very good record against the top 6 - it was the only times under him that we looked good in attack because those teams did not sit in a low block against us.

We do need to get rid of the likes of Jones, Rojo, Valencia and Young though. Valencia and Young are in the twilight of their careers and Jones and Rojo are perpetually injured and thus barely contribute to a season. 

Also, I don't think our defence will be as bad as you might think. Just look at what Emery has managed to do at Arsenal and, player for player, it's not like their defenders are a whole lot better than United's, if any better at all. They get exposed occasionally but because of the quality in attack combined with the system of play, they are too good for most teams. We have similar quality in attack; we just need the right manager whose system of play can get the best out of our strengths. 

 

12 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

But I also think that Utd will struggle to suddenly recapture the efficiency of last year.  I think they'll need to significantly increase their scoring in order to be contenders again.

We have no chance of doing any of that with Mourinho still here. History tells us that things only get worse under Mourinho, not better. 

 

 

 

13 hours ago, Wilbur said:

<moronic rant>

This is the dumbest post I have read in a long while. It's a cross between a deluded fan who sees conspiracies everywhere and a 'journalist' for The Sun. Well done!

[Rorshach]

18 hours ago, polishgenius said:

I'm assuming, though I haven't paid him an awful lot of attention since he moved, that he still also sucks at anticipating or making movement to create space for the pass and therefore needs the creatives to take the initiative and play passes he then reacts to?

He does.

[Philokles]

Hasenhüttl is a great appointment for Southampton. He is unfortunate that his stock has dropped based on an underwhelming final year at Leipzig when much of that was down to the squad - who had only played 35 games the season before - having to fight on three fronts, and the raised expectations from his previous overachievement. Taking Ingolstadt from 2. Bundesliga mediocrity to midtable in the top flight, and finishing runner up to Bayern with RBL is the more telling experience.

Given the weakness at the bottom of the Premier League this season he should keep them up pretty comfortably.

[Heartofice]

23 minutes ago, Philokles said:

Hasenhüttl is a great appointment for Southampton. He is unfortunate that his stock has dropped based on an underwhelming final year at Leipzig when much of that was down to the squad - who had only played 35 games the season before - having to fight on three fronts, and the raised expectations from his previous overachievement. Taking Ingolstadt from 2. Bundesliga mediocrity to midtable in the top flight, and finishing runner up to Bayern with RBL is the more telling experience.

Given the weakness at the bottom of the Premier League this season he should keep them up pretty comfortably.

Its definitely an exciting appointment for all us football hipsters out there. He is the anti-Hughes. 

Also has a great name.

[polishgenius]

Absolutely embarrassing lineup from us today.

[Mexal]

9 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Absolutely embarrassing lineup from us today.

Which means you're going to score two goals in the first 20 minutes. Arsenal hasn't won at OT since 2006.

[Disturber of Peace]

Yeah. 

I see Liverpool are resting/trying out players against Burnley. 

[Iskaral Pust]

A big pity to see Gomez stretchered off.  I hope it's not too bad.

Usual bullshit of allowing small/desperate teams to clog away at skillful teams.  It's no wonder the biggest talents can't wait to leave for Spain.

I'm glad we rotated the off-form attackers.  I hope we have enough quality to eke out a win, but glad we're not sending the usual front three out there to get kicked to bits when they're already below their best and at risk of fatigue/injury as the games pile up.  We have a big midweek game against Napoli coming up.

[Mexal]

Rare de Gea mistake.

[polishgenius]

It's a good job I actually watch Liverpool play sometimes because otherwise I'd actually believe the poor dears are the mostest hardest done-by team that's ever been. As it is since I've seen both them and Burnley- not a dirty side- play regularly I'm just gonna have to assume there's no more fouling than there is in any normal game and Joe Gomez has just been unfortunate.

Anyway, we're terrible and even De Gea is now terrible. Terrible.

[Iskaral Pust]

Just now, Soylent Brown said:

I'm all for some rotation, Isk, but Origi is truly awful. He's not going to make it at Liverpool, so why not give someone else a chance? They wouldn't be any worse than him.

Yeah, I don't have a ton of faith in Origi specifically.  He has never come close to his peak form in Klopp's first season.  I would have played Solanke, Lallana or young Curti s Jones instead.  Not that any of them are particularly ready to play for a PL contender.  I'm hoping Keita, Shaqiri and Sturridge can generate a goal for us tonight.