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Football: pool in to the Final Spur of the season


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Batshit ending in the Inter game. That needless tug by Keita in midfield before Brozovic’s goal almost cost them a Champions League place.

Delighted Atalanta got the job done. They deserve that spot far more than the Milan clubs and have got there playing a much better brand of football.

Nice send off for De Rossi at Roma. Feels crazy that he is 35 already - he spent so much of his career waiting for Totti to retire so he’d become captain that he only held it for a couple of years.

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14 hours ago, Raja said:

Not sure if this has been linked here before, but a bit of an inside look at Liverpool's data analysis team - I think the article oversells it a bit, but still a decent read 

How data ( and some breathtaking soccer) brought Liverpool to the cusp of glory

 

There was an earlier article in FT which also gave some insights into data analysis.

Quote

Liverpool are leading the way in world football when it comes to data analytics.

That’s according to Athletic Bilbao director of football Ignacio Palacios-Huerta, who is also a professor at the London School of Economics.

“There is clear leadership by one club: Liverpool. They have a group of four or five PhDs in maths and physics, and they know football,” he said.

The quotes from a lengthy piece in the Financial Times, which actually focusses on Barcelona’s ‘innovation hub’ and their multi-million euro attempts for marginal gains by employing hundreds of analysts – which includes scouting, current player and opposition analysis – amongst other things.

Liverpool are referenced as the benchmark though, which is a huge testament to FSG and the manner in which they’ve recruited.

 

 

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Three very close play off finals in League 2, League 1 and the Championship over the past few days.

As for the Championship play off final today, despite there being Chelsea links in both teams, I was slightly favouring Derby as it would have been nice to see Frank Lampard achieve promotion in his first season as a manager, but it is still good to see a club like Aston Villa return to the Premier League. Also, it was pretty neat to see two Aston Villa fans in captain Jack Grealish and manager Dean Smith lead them back up to the top division. A quite brilliant performance from John McGinn, too, who seemed to cover every blade of grass.

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3 hours ago, Consigliere said:

Supposedly this same group made an approach last year to take a stake in Liverpool.   The Liverpool CEO asked them to post 25 million in escrow beforehand to demonstrate they had financial means to back up their interest.  They withdrew at that point. 

So difficult to know if this group has any real financial depth of their own or just trying to parley the name of an oil state into a leveraged buyout.

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1 hour ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Supposedly this same group made an approach last year to take a stake in Liverpool.   The Liverpool CEO asked them to post 25 million in escrow beforehand to demonstrate they had financial means to back up their interest.  They withdrew at that point. 

So difficult to know if this group has any real financial depth of their own or just trying to parley the name of an oil state into a leveraged buyout.

Sheikh Khaled is a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family though (cousin to Man City owner Sheikh Mansour according to reports). 

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3 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

Sheikh Khaled is a member of the UAE royal family though (cousin to Man City owner Sheikh Mansour according to reports). 

I cannot find the article on ThisIsAnfield because their search function is terrible.  But it was published a week or two ago when this Newcastle rumor first hit.

The gist was that the approach to Liverpool a year ago was made by undefined “representatives” of the sheikh, but it did not stand up to scrutiny.  It was easy for them to dangle the sheikh’s name but they didn’t appear to have any real means.  Perhaps this approach to Newcastle is more serious and has real backing behind it.

Newcastle’s stadium size, fan base and relative lack of funding or recent success make them a great target for investment, depending on the price demanded.  Although sportswashing seems less successful: the success of City and getting awarded the World Cup seems to have drawn more attention to abuses in the gulf rather than deflected it.

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21 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

I cannot find the article on ThisIsAnfield because their search function is terrible.  But it was published a week or two ago when this Newcastle rumor first hit.

The gist was that the approach to Liverpool a year ago was made by undefined “representatives” of the sheikh, but it did not stand up to scrutiny.  It was easy for them to dangle the sheikh’s name but they didn’t appear to have any real means.  Perhaps this approach to Newcastle is more serious and has real backing behind it.

Newcastle’s stadium size, fan base and relative lack of funding or recent success make them a great target for investment, depending on the price demanded.  Although sportswashing seems less successful: the success of City and getting awarded the World Cup seems to have drawn more attention to abuses in the gulf rather than deflected it.

I could only find this article. It does say that proof of funds were requested but never received - it could be that those representative were full of shit but it could also be because the Sheikh was not interested in a minority stake. Per the statement by FSG in the article, they aren't interested in selling but are open to taking on minority investors.

 

ETA. some good news for Chelsea fans. Reports that Kante's injury isn't as bad as first thought and he has travelled with the squad. Not certain whether or not he will be fit enough to start though.

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9 hours ago, Consigliere said:

I could only find this article. It does say that proof of funds were requested but never received - it could be that those representative were full of shit but it could also be because the Sheikh was not interested in a minority stake. Per the statement by FSG in the article, they aren't interested in selling but are open to taking on minority investors.

 

ETA. some good news for Chelsea fans. Reports that Kante's injury isn't as bad as first thought and he has travelled with the squad. Not certain whether or not he will be fit enough to start though.

Yes, that was the basic story.  It was referred to again in a new piece in the last week or two after the same sheikh was linked to a bid for Newcastle.  The recent version was more specific about 25 million as the amount of earnest money requested.

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21 minutes ago, Soylent Brown said:

The talk is that Martinez is going to be the next Barcelona manager. Interesting choice!

They are also looking at Koeman apparently. 

I reckon they should more ex Everton managers in for interviews and then hire Allardyce

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Would you prefer they approached Klopp about the prospect of managing Messi, while he is still around?

Anyway, Martinez has done a very decent job at the Belgian FA, hasn't he?

And arguably, the players available at Barca are perhaps better suited for the way he wants to play football. Although, I admit, it would be funny, if by some freak accident Allerdyce ended up at Barca, and they switched over to hoofball. :lol:

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And the second day of relegation play-offs is over now.

Ingolstadt won the first game away at Wiesbaden with 2-1 and today they lost their home game 3-2. Thus also this game has been decided by away goals in favour of the lower tier team. So Audi-City will play third tier football next year.

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