Football: You Can't Handball The Truth

[Iskaral Pust]

7 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

Atleti were playing with fire though. Partey had a low release clause and has been rejecting contract renewals for like a year now. There was always a chance this could happen. They should probably have negotiated with Arsenal earlier in the window (cash + Torreira deal) instead of basically telling them to pay the buyout or gtfo.

And they can still offer the player a better contract to persuade him to reject Arsenal.

No doubt it’s tough for a club to involuntarily have a player sold late in the window, but all Spanish clubs have buy-out clauses on all players, so they know they need to agree contracts to promote loyalty.

[Mexal]

44 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

'Tis a mystery to me why the big Labour advocate manager of Manchester United might be wearing a red tie.

On Partey: it's just really harsh for him and Arsenal to do this on the last day of the season when they had the whole summer to give Partey time to organise a replacement. I gather Torreira's moving the other way on loan at least but come on.

Arsenal didn't want to pay the release clause. Once all their other deals fell through, they didn't have much choice because Atletico refused to negotiate. Such is life.

[polishgenius]

Anyway, worth noting that as much as we've been a total failure in terms of first team players, we have very aggressively been signing youth players just on the edge of breaking into the first team. Think I saw we've signed 10 players, for a total of over 50mil (though the bulk of that is Traore, and this Pellistri we're supposed to be getting from Uraguay). So at least on that side of things someone is making plans and paying some kind of attention and the plan seems to be to blood at least some of them throughout the season the way we did Greenwood, Williams, Chong and Gomes last year, and continue that into the future.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

To paraphrase the tie.

We'll have the best youth players in the world. It's a beautiful thing. People say, they are coming from the South Americas and Uruguay, from everywhere. Isn't that great?

[yes, I am trying to make that theme]

[polishgenius]

Make Manchester United Great Again

[A Horse Named Stranger]

You mean: Four more years! [Ole at the Wheel]

[Iskaral Pust]

My brother was texting me today.  He’s so depressed about Liverpool’s loss: the aura of invincibility is gone, the defense doesn’t trust Adrian and now Alisson is out for six weeks, other teams will take note of how to beat us, something’s not right with the players, we missed a chance to pull away from City.  It’s ruined his day, and possibly his week.  

I must be a bad supporter because I just cannot give that much mental energy to it.  At this stage of my life it’s an amusing alternative to all the economics, finance and politics that I consume for my job.

[MercenaryChef]

a few things:

* Callum Wilson is a fucking joy! his smile as he bags goals warms my heart!

*Gunnersaurus should have been allowed to move to Southampton on a free transfer. 

*the sheer amount of money man united has spent since Fergie's departure vs their success is absolutely hilarious. 

[Consigliere]

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

Anyway, worth noting that as much as we've been a total failure in terms of first team players, we have very aggressively been signing youth players just on the edge of breaking into the first team. Think I saw we've signed 10 players, for a total of over 50mil (though the bulk of that is Traore, and this Pellistri we're supposed to be getting from Uraguay). So at least on that side of things someone is making plans and paying some kind of attention and the plan seems to be to blood at least some of them throughout the season the way we did Greenwood, Williams, Chong and Gomes last year, and continue that into the future.

Nicky Butt is the one who has turned around our youth setup. The initial fee for Traore is less than what was first reported but still a massive fee - €21m + €20m in add ons. We paid Pellistri's release clause which was $10m. We also completed a deal today for Willy Kambwala (a CB from Sochaux). Apparently he's highly rated and a physical beast - 6'3 at the age of 16. Our U18s will be a better watch this season than the senior team, that's for certain. 

[baxus]

9 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

My brother was texting me today.  He’s so depressed about Liverpool’s loss: the aura of invincibility is gone, the defense doesn’t trust Adrian and now Alisson is out for six weeks, other teams will take note of how to beat us, something’s not right with the players, we missed a chance to pull away from City.  It’s ruined his day, and possibly his week.  

I must be a bad supporter because I just cannot give that much mental energy to it.  At this stage of my life it’s an amusing alternative to all the economics, finance and politics that I consume for my job.

Obviously, I don't know your brother but to me he sounds like one of those guys that are really obnoxious while their team is winning and know they'll be given all kinds of shit once their team eventually loses.

[Rorshach]

Well, we've broguht in another Scandinavian keeper to try to keep Pickford on his toes. I haven't been entirely convinced by Robin Olsen when I've seen it, so not really happy about that. 

We've loaned Walcott to Sunderland, however. That I'm more upbeat about. He's no longer an option to throw on, which is a net positive in itself, and will mean that Gordon is closer to the first team. I think he'll be better overall, I trust him more now.

And Sandro has gone to Spain. Thank goodness!

[BigFatCoward]

2 hours ago, baxus said:

Obviously, I don't know your brother but to me he sounds like one of those guys that are really obnoxious while their team is winning and know they'll be given all kinds of shit once their team eventually loses.

The joy as the afternoon unfolded, as the mouthy scousers all over facebook laughing at Man Utd realised how stupid they now looked, was a beautiful thing. 

[ljkeane]

11 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

My brother was texting me today.  He’s so depressed about Liverpool’s loss: the aura of invincibility is gone, the defense doesn’t trust Adrian and now Alisson is out for six weeks, other teams will take note of how to beat us, something’s not right with the players, we missed a chance to pull away from City.  It’s ruined his day, and possibly his week. 

It didn't quite ruin my week, it's hard to get too upset a couple of months on from achieving everything Liverpool fans have hoped for over the Premier League era, but it probably ruined my day.

I do think it's pretty bad for Liverpool though. The whole calculated risk part of the way we play with the high line is kind of based on teams being afraid to try and play through the press. If Aston Villa can do that to us it's hard to see everyone else not giving it a go. Add to that not having Alisson for six weeks and I don't think we're likely to start looking more solid anytime soon with Adrian in goal.

[Hereward]

2 hours ago, Rorshach said:

We've loaned Walcott to Sunderland, however.

Southampton. You don’t send people to Sunderland for minor things like being a bit shit, that would be cruel.

[Rorshach]

4 minutes ago, Hereward said:

Southampton. You don’t send people to Sunderland for minor things like being a bit shit, that would be cruel.

Oh, big slip there. I am terribly sorry - even Walcott doesn't deserve Sunderland!

[Soylent Brown]

2 hours ago, ljkeane said:

It didn't quite ruin my week, it's hard to get too upset a couple of months on from achieving everything Liverpool fans have hoped for over the Premier League era, but it probably ruined my day.

I do think it's pretty bad for Liverpool though. The whole calculated risk part of the way we play with the high line is kind of based on teams being afraid to try and play through the press. If Aston Villa can do that to us it's hard to see everyone else not giving it a go. Add to that not having Alisson for six weeks and I don't think we're likely to start looking more solid anytime soon with Adrian in goal.

The thing is though, it wasn't a secret that that's the way to play against us. It just hasn't quite worked for other teams trying it. There were tons of games last season where numerous teams broke and created good chances, but fluffed them etc. Sunday was just a perfect storm of Liverpool players having a poor game, Villa players having a great game, and, of course, using the right strategy.

I still think Klopp needs to have another look at what we were doing in 18/19, as we were way more solid at the back.

I mean, do you remember when VVD first signed? We looked bullet-proof at the back, with the slightly deeper line. And we scored more too.

[ljkeane]

2 minutes ago, Soylent Brown said:

The thing is though, it wasn't a secret that that's the way to play against us. It just hasn't quite worked for other teams trying it. There were tons of games last season where numerous teams broke and created good chances, but fluffed them etc.

I don't think that's really true.

Sure teams create chances against us occasionally but if you look at the xg it's almost always to Liverpool's advantage. Take the Leeds game, they did pretty well against us and conceding 3 goals looks bad but they scored with three out of their four shots. Teams aren't going to do that very often. 9 times out of ten that game's something like 5-2 or 5-1 to us.

The problem with saying 'oh go back to how we played in 18/19' is teams don't play against us like they used to. We need to give teams an incentive to take risks against us or if they don't punish them by having more players in the attacking third to take advantage. It's a calculated risk but it's worked out great so far. The issue is it works less well without a world class goalkeeper and it's not going to work at all with out a top class pressing game.

[Iskaral Pust]

Shaqiri tested positive for COVID after traveling for international duty.  That’s Liverpool’s fourth in four weeks, with half of them occurring on international duty.  The players are not isolating adequately, and it’s ridiculous to have international games right now. 

[Soylent Brown]

32 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

The problem with saying 'oh go back to how we played in 18/19' is teams don't play against us like they used to. We need to give teams an incentive to take risks against us or if they don't punish them by having more players in the attacking third to take advantage. It's a calculated risk but it's worked out great so far. The issue is it works less well without a world class goalkeeper and it's not going to work at all with out a top class pressing game.

Do teams play that differently against us? We had the second half of 17/18, and the whole of 18/19 where we barely dropped any points - did they only change the way they play against us after that, after 18 months of us being great? That doesn't really make any sense to me.

And I think you place too much emphasis on what other teams are doing anyway. Should we not be looking to impose our own game on them, rather than the other way round? I think our tactics are as much to blame as anything else.

As well as our high defensive line, I think another issue is that we've moved more and more away from going through our midfield. Everything is to the full backs and then into the box these days. The fullbacks are always in the opposition half because otherwise all we have is the centre backs pumping up long balls. I'm not sure when Klopp decided that was the way forward, but I'd guess it was sometime after he signed Keita.

Hopefully Thiago arriving will lead to some variety in how we play now. Certainly in the Chelsea second half, we saw him central to everything, with TAA staying deeper and linking more with the midfield than the forwards.

[ljkeane]

13 minutes ago, Soylent Brown said:

Do teams play that differently against us? We had the second half of 17/18, and the whole of 18/19 where we barely dropped any points - did they only change the way they play against us after that, after 18 months of us being great? That doesn't really make any sense to me.

I don't think there was a sharp dividing line at the end of the 18/19 season but in 17/18 we scored a lot of goals on the counter and we still got a lot of chance to do that at least at the start of 18/19. I think we basically don't get a chance to do that at all now until we're at least a couple of goals up. Pretty much the first thing teams do against us now is try to avoid giving the front 3 space to break into so that means we need to do something different.