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Football: dropping clangers and scoring bangers


polishgenius

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I’m thankful that Liverpool snatched a win today.  We’re not playing great atm, especially in the MF (looking at you, Hendo and Gini) and the front three were off color for a long time today.  But Mane keeps trying and trying, and ended up with a goal and an assist — he’s generally our most dangerous attacker because of the variety of things he tries.

Villa’s set pieces definitely targeted our high line approach, scoring one and had a dangerous moment before that too.  Alisson perhaps could have saved their goal.  He’s not yet as sharp as he was last season.

But credit to Liverpool for pushing hard in the second half to win.  Lallana (in the second half), Ox and Keita (as subs) all showed some attacking purpose that has been missing.

Although our performance wasn’t great at times, we were robbed of a goal and penalty by VAR.  I cannot understand why Martin Atkinson is still allowed to make refereeing decisions.  He lost any credibility as an unbiased party a very long time ago.  It might seem lucky to score a winner in injury time, but that wouldn’t be an issue if we didn’t have two goals stolen by rotten officiating.

Trent Alexander Arnold is in some form at the moment.  Unfortunately Salah looks off color, perhaps still struggling with that ankle injury.  We missed him badly against United but perhaps we can afford to rest him against Genk.

The team has definitely lost some fluidity since the last international break.  Unfortunately the fixture congestion gets even worse ahead.  At this point I would prefer to play the youngsters in the Club World Cup and treat it like the League Cup.  FIFA can go fuck themselves. 

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8 hours ago, AncalagonTheBlack said:

Wow.Just saw the scores for Bayern and Barca games. Bayern got thrashed 5-1 by Eintracht and Levante beat Barca 3-1.

What's up with Bayern?

Basically they are playing like shit right now.

Midweek they barely scraped thru against Bochum (16th placed in Bundesliga 2) with a late 2:1, after trailing for most of the game. Frankfurt is also hardly playing any opponents off the field right now (they managed to beat us 1:0 midweek in our cup game). Add to that, that Bayern's defense is right now as inury plagued as Man City's. Süle is out for the season (he will also miss the Euros), Hernandez just had to undergo a surgery. So Boateng was starting for them today, and he got sent off after 8 minutes or so. And like I said, footballing wise they are really not particularly great at the moment. Tolisso and Goretzka are not fully fit after injuries, Coutinho has only shown glimpses of why they signed him on loan. They are basically German Barca right now, with only two players producing the goods reliably: Lewandowski (Bayern's Messi) and Neuer. Anyway, the 5-1 yesterday was really flattering for Bayern. Neuer pulled off some really great saves to keep the score as it was.

That this team was able to dismantle Tottenham tells you everything you need to know about Spurs.

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Spurs, and Everton for that matter, look significantly worse teams than Leicester.

ETA: What the hell is taking so long with this VAR check? It’s hit his arm what more is there to see?

And now they’ve given the decision I’m not sure how that arm isn’t in an unnatural position? VAR is so pointless.

ETA2: Looks like Gomes has a bad break of his leg. Son seems absolutely devastated.

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Frustrating is probably the absolute best you can say about that.

Spurs were awful, and we still proceeded to draw them. We gifted them the goal, and then somehow nice guy Son (no irony) tackles like he's Vinny Jones - and we lose Gomes for the year. 

Fuck that. 

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Just before someone rightfully jumps on me for that Jones-comment - it was half in affect, and half a reference to a tackle with no intention or chance to win the ball.

Also, I can't believe Atkinson gave a red. That's judging by consequence, not action. Don't think he can do that, really.

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45 minutes ago, Raja said:

Annd he's gone

Wish the afc board would be as decisive.

Wish the United board weren't a bunch of clowns either. First they give Mourinho a contract extension only to not back him in the transfer market a few months later, then wait too long before sacking him followed by making a Tim Sherwood sized mistake by prematurely appointing Solskjaer on a permanent basis only to not back him on the clear out he wanted and now will wait far too long to sack him while the season goes down the toilet. 

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8 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

Wish the United board weren't a bunch of clowns either.

May I interest you in a spanish coach renown for his success in the europa league?

Also, seems like kovac resigned? Didn't think *that* would happen, but maybe he saw the writing on the wall.

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Mourinho has been shamelessly campaigning for the Arsenal job this past week through his usual shills in the press.  But now the Bayern job is available, will he suddenly switch his sights? 

I don’t know if Bayern’s “boot room” of former players would accept his toxic culture or his negative football, but it’s certainly appealing for Mourinho to have an easy route to titles in yet another league, and to have a decent shot at a CL while Barca and RM deal with the end of a generation. 

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1 hour ago, Raja said:

Will take unai emery for the rest of the season over mourinho. fuck that dude.

Agreed. Mourinho would be terrible - imagine how even more divisive the place would get if a man with Mourinho's ego were running the joint. Even with huge amounts of money (which he isn't going to get at Arsenal) Mourinho couldn't get United to be successful.

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Another thing about Emery- while it doesn't look like the team has an identity, which is a big problem, the results haven't been too bad except for the last three league games where Arsenal threw away a combined 4 points (winning positions turned into draws, so they at least got half of it right) and unexpectedly lost to Sheffield United.

So if you want to defend Emery, even if we count the Sheffield game as a true loss, four more points from the other two drawn games would put Arsenal on 21 points (still 5th place) and only two points behind Chelsea in fourth. Arsenal have still lost only 2 league games in 11, and it's no shame to have Liverpool counting as one of those.

Some of these articles saying Emery is about to get the sack are a little sensational, I think. If the league form kept going for another 3 or 4 games in a row, sure. But on the basis of three league games is pretty trigger-happy.

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On 11/2/2019 at 11:02 PM, AncalagonTheBlack said:

Arsenal fans,it's Mourinho Time! :)

 

Just a quick question for Arsenal fans - does anyone take these guys seriously?

Not talking about "it's time for Mourinho" since wanting him is basically personal preference but saying that Emery is mid-table manager is insane. Don't have the data before me at the moment but the guy won for 3-4 EL for years in a row, kept the pace with Barca and Real pretty well all things considered. He hasn't been as successful with Arsenal obviously, but how much of that is manager's fault, really? Didn't Arsenal board say last summer (or was it the summer before?) that basically there's no money for transfers? And that's with Emery inheriting Wenger's squad that was in need of a rebuild in the first place.

It's clear that Emery is not the only problem at the club, I'd say he's not even the main problem but I wouldn't mind being shown the error of my ways.

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I think it's fair to say Emery has not been a success at Arsenal, and that the way forward might be to consider other managers, without disparaging his record. Sometimes good managers do not succeed at clubs and it doesn't mean they are suddenly crap.

As for Mourinho, the problem is that now, for a club to hire him, they have to be desperate. Not because he suddenly became a crap manager either: although tactically, he's somewhat struggling these days. Rather, it's because Mourinho has become almost a caricature of himself, and hiring him ensures internal strife and external bad publicity. He no longer even bickers with other managers, really, preferring to bicker with his players and the club heirarchy. Basically, if you give Mourinho a job, you guarantee that the next two and a half years are not going to be about your club, they're going to be about Jose. And that doesn't make sense for a big club unless they have no alternatives. 

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