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


A Horse Named Stranger

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I was thinking Arsenal might have earned a “magical Unaicorn” in the title, but perhaps that would have been a jinx. 

More notes on Liverpool today:

Squad depth was impressive.  With Ox, Hendo and Keita injured we still rested Milner, Shaq, Gomez (perhaps our best player so far this year) and Roberston.  To be fair, Lallana, Moreno and Lovren all had decent games — especially with relatively few minutes this season — but they didn’t look like forcing their way into a regular starting position. 

Salah, Gini and Fabinho were probably our best performances, plus Shaq in his thirty minutes as a sub.  Mane was good too and looked confident but didn’t see quite enough of the ball.  Firmino was OK, but his role in 4-2-3-1 is more battling than creative, and he looked tired by the time he was subbed.  Fabinho allows us to play 4-2-3-1 because none of our other MFs look really comfortable sharing the double pivot.  He and Gini did it very well, I would expect he can share it with Hendo too.  But none of Milner, Hendo or Gini has ever looked as balanced in a CM two together as they do in a three.  

Cardiff were no push-overs but they didn’t have much about them.  In the first half they sat very deep, allowed possession in front of them, and relied on swarming the 18 yard line to close down shots.  Liverpool showed decent initiative with VVD carrying the ball very far forward at times, and Fabinho and Gini taking turns to break beyond the forwards for an overload — at least we didn’t just pass it back and forth across them all day with no penetration.  It kind of worked for Cardiff with only a 1-0 deficit at the half, but they could not rely on good fortune and timely blocks working all day.  In the second half they pushed higher up the field, congested the middle third, and relied on defenders manhandling and wrestling Salah off the ball (which the referee allowed all afternoon).  But some good subs by Liverpool helped them get to grips and then exploit the space to score more.  

Salah did look sharp and hungry, and was rewarded with a goal and two assists, despite no protection from the referee.  I guess that’s what Hazard has to live with every week.

Cardiff even had a couple of blatant dives go unpunished (Murphy’s was worse than anything Ashley Young has done, and Bennett conned the ref into giving a foul that was orders of magnitude weaker than a penalty not awarded to Salah), but I doubt Warnock will ever acknowledge that when he’s next complaining about opposition attackers who go to ground when kicked black and blue all game.  Of course it’s only dodgy foreigners who dive. 

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Well that was stupid. You should know Zaha is going down there so don't leave your fucking leg out. Defending 101. Xhaka at LB was bound to bite Arsenal in the ass.

That being said, horrible decision from Lacazette to just give the ball away for no reason when everyone was in the box.

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Barca scored 5 against Real. 

That should be it for Lopetegui. If the scoreline had not been so bad he would have more of a chance. 

Even though Conte is the highest profile manager that is free atm and there are rumors Real already made some unofficial agreement with him I would not be surprised if today's events make Perez decide to make some sort of a big statement and make a huge bid for Poch. 

What also makes me say that is that I don't think Conte's style suits Real a lot. 

But this could be a situation when they are desperate to bring in a manager who has a good record with trophies even though his brand of football isn't quite what Real fans would like. Kind of how they brought in Mourinho midway through Barca's Guardiola Era. 

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If only Real’s collapse had started a little earlier.  In May would have been nice.  They had just enough guile, luck, flash of skill and cheating to take the CL from us before reality bit. 

Impressive result by Chelsea today without Hazard or Giroud.  Sarri and Emery have both made the PL look easy.  And United are seeing all of their rivals with significantly better coaches/managers while they’re on their third consecutive dud.

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