Football: The Giggs up!

[polishgenius]

 

[Consigliere]

United confirm that Cavani's contract has been extended for another year. 

[Mexal]

1 minute ago, Consigliere said:

United confirm that Cavani's contract has been extended for another year. 

Seems like good business there.

[polishgenius]

It's great because while we should still get a true 9 if there's a really obvious opening, it allows us to prioritise other positions while also giving another year to seeing how Greenwood develops in that role.

[Consigliere]

 

[BigFatCoward]

Bottom 3 confirmed with 3 games to go. That feels very unusual but I can't be arsed to check. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Bottom 3 confirmed with 3 games to go. That feels very unusual but I can't be arsed to check. 

It's legit. Bottom three are all -10 with three games left.

7 hours ago, Consigliere said:

United confirm that Cavani's contract has been extended for another year. 

And stateside queue the line that Cavani will absolutely come to MLS next summer.

Feels like I've heard that for a few seasons now. 

[BigFatCoward]

5 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

It's legit. Bottom three are all -10 with three games left.

 

I meant I couldn't be bothered to check if all 3 teams had ever been relegated with 3 games to go. Normally there is at least 1 team fighting it out until the final day. 

[polishgenius]

13 hours ago, Consigliere said:

 

 

It doesn't, but I hope that means we're signing Tielemans.

[baxus]

1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

I meant I couldn't be bothered to check if all 3 teams had ever been relegated with 3 games to go. Normally there is at least 1 team fighting it out until the final day. 

My memory may be faulty but I don't remember relegation battle ever being over with three games left. More often it's the title race that gets decided by then but relegation is usually down to the last match day.

[BigFatCoward]

53 minutes ago, baxus said:

My memory may be faulty but I don't remember relegation battle ever being over with three games left. More often it's the title race that gets decided by then but relegation is usually down to the last match day.

BBC are saying it is the only time its happened. I should be happy as its us that's safe, but it does render a lot of games meaningless. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

4 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

BBC are saying it is the only time its happened. I should be happy as its us that's safe, but it does render a lot of games meaningless. 

Strange. I would have assumed it was a regular thing.

[BigFatCoward]

7 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Strange. I would have assumed it was a regular thing.

Normally the bottom few teams come back to the pack towards the end of the season as nobody wants to be relegated, while a lot of mid table teams have nothing to play for and often get sucked into the relegation fight through apathy. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

48 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Normally the bottom few teams come back to the pack towards the end of the season as nobody wants to be relegated, while a lot of mid table teams have nothing to play for and often get sucked into the relegation fight through apathy. 

Makes sense. I would just have assumed it wasn't so uncommon for the bottom three's fate to be sealed by now given how hard it is for the have-nots to compete.

[Heartofice]

37 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Makes sense. I would just have assumed it wasn't so uncommon for the bottom three's fate to be sealed by now given how hard it is for the have-nots to compete.

I think it’s because the premier league is usually split between the big teams who challenge for the top 4-6 places ( rarely changes) then there are some mid table sides who hover there perpetually, unless having a really bad year ( like Everton) and then there are there are the relegation battlers which is normally a mix of the promoted sides and the usual suspects who just want to stay in the prem every year like Burnley and Newcastle. 
 

Normally those battlers are roughly as bad as each other, but I think this year Sheff Utd and West Brom were uniquely awful, Fulham also were very bad despite Parker getting praise. 
 

Then Newcastle who were dire, somehow managed to pull together some decent results.

So I guess what I’m saying is that there are usually  6-8 teams in the league that are just rotten and show no ambition, but this year there were 3 teams who were even worse than that normal low standard 

[Consigliere]

It's difficult for the smaller (or newly promoted) clubs to compete for a top 10 position but the bottom half (or bottom six) of the league is usually quite close.

I don't actually classify premier league sides to be 'have nots'. Thanks to the large broadcasting deal and the very even distribution of that money compared to other leagues, even small teams in the premier league rake in huge sums in broadcasting money. Clubs like Burnley or Brighton pull in around triple the revenue (or more) compared to similarly sized clubs in the other top leagues.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

So Ole tunred on the random line up generator and has rotated 10 players in?

Not blaming him, he had to do some rotating with their schedule. But 10 changes feels a bit extreme.

[mormont]

I can understand the logic. This way, Solskjaer can basically tell his first team to pretend this game wasn't in the schedule, and they get a decent rest. Meanwhile, if you look at Leicester's recent results, the idea that you can turn up with ten randomly selected squad players and get a result is probably credible.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Like I said, not holding a heavily rotated squad against him. I expected six changes or so. They are playing their season and probably don't care who takes the final CL starting spot too much (could be Leicester, Liverpool or even West Ham for all they care). But basically rotating anyone not named Greenwood out is just really extreme.

[mormont]

Yeah, I guess my point is rotating out more than two or three players gets you to a point where in some sense you might as well rotate ten. Then you're basically swapping in a whole new team, and don't need to disrupt training and other routines for the first team.