Football: The Kids Are All Right

[Raja]

 

[Spockydog]

1 hour ago, Raja said:

 

Think it was The Athletic who ran a detailed piece on his blackmail case before the Euros. He is going down.

 

[Teng Ai Hui]

2 hours ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

Sheriff scored the 2nd against Real Madrid. 

It's a bit of a shocker to see them atop their group.  I only first heard of them 2 weeks ago.  It seems that their owner is trying to become the next oligarch.

[Corvinus85]

35 minutes ago, Teng Ai Hui said:

It's a bit of a shocker to see them atop their group.  I only first heard of them 2 weeks ago.  It seems that their owner is trying to become the next oligarch.

It's a team that has often made it to the Europa League, seldom advancing far.

[Consigliere]

AC Milan were robbed. 

[Mark Antony]

1 hour ago, Consigliere said:

AC Milan were robbed. 

It was badddd. The red card was very harsh. The ref was not conisistent after giving two yellows to Kessie and just stopped carding pretty much after that for fouls that were more egregious than either of Kessies. The pen was also never a pen. Rough return to the cL for them. Absolutely robbed by the refs 

[Consigliere]

Arsenal confirm that Xhaka will be out for around 3 months.

https://www.arsenal.com/news/team-news-update-granit-xhaka

 

[Corvinus85]

2 hours ago, Consigliere said:

AC Milan were robbed. 

 

54 minutes ago, Mark Antony said:

It was badddd. The red card was very harsh. The ref was not conisistent after giving two yellows to Kessie and just stopped carding pretty much after that for fouls that were more egregious than either of Kessies. The pen was also never a pen. Rough return to the cL for them. Absolutely robbed by the refs 

It's always ironic when the commentator praises the ref at the start of the game and then he goes and screws it all up.

While that was bad, at least it was delicious to see Real face-plant at home again against a severe underdog.

[Spockydog]

42 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

Arsenal confirm that Xhaka will be out for around 3 months.

https://www.arsenal.com/news/team-news-update-granit-xhaka

 

I have mixed feeling about this.

On the one hand, can't wait to see the back of him. On the other, we don't have much in the way of cover, and Xhaka was pretty good against the spuds.

I'm hopeful that Sambi can slot in and make the position his own.  

 

[Iskaral Pust]

Liverpool just love playing at Porto, it seems.  Curtis Jones, after starting the season deep in the shadow of Elliott, put in his second very good performance within four days.  I won’t hype him up because consistency wasn’t his strong point in the past, but he seems to have developed his game awareness a lot.  Here’s hoping.  Jota played well too in both games, but his shooting was poor against Porto; he almost always tries to blast it, which often makes his shots too central and rising.  TAA missed through injury and will be missing against City too so Milner will be up against Grealish.

I got to watch finally on Sunday the Liverpool game vs Brentford.  It was a really entertaining game, but very frustrating not to take the win, especially looking at some of Raya’s saves, Salah’s chip over the bar, and Jota not getting a penalty in the last few minutes.  That looked a blatant foul in the couple of replay angles that NBC Sports showed — I think the ref just wasn’t willing to go against the home fans who finally woke up.  But Brentford were really good and they earned their draw, especially by somehow grabbing a couple of scrappy goals despite barely having a kick of the ball for the preceding ten minutes each time.  They had a specific targeted plan to occasionally surge men forward and hit a long cross to an overload on the back post.  Each goal was scrappy but the extra numbers counted.

Liverpool’s defense needs to deal with this.  Toney and Mbeumo offered a good outball and threat in a 2v2 against Liverpool’s isolated CBs.  The long direct passing evaded the MF press.  And the occasional surge of players into the box for set pieces shouldn’t be that disorientating.  It reminded me slightly of the Villa defeat early last season.  They need to learn from it.

Liverpool scored 3+ goals in all six games for the month on September, despite missing so many of the chances created.  They’re playing good football, but let’s see if the MF can stay healthy.  No word on Thiago’s return yet.

[polishgenius]

I do not understand what is happening with Jadon Sancho. Even accounting for time to adapt and that he may have been a bit overrated or whatever, what's going on with him makes no sense. It's like he's forgotten how to play. Not beating players very often and when he does he far too often makes what seems like it's meant to be a safe, simple pass except the receiver isn't within five yards of the spot he put it in. Really hope he gets himself together coz it's concerning. 

[Raja]

Koeman - cannot wait to see what job he fails upwards into next.

30 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

I do not understand what is happening with Jadon Sancho.

Sounds like a player lacking confidence. He'll come good with time.

[Raja]

Oh my word. What are these luke de jong misses

 

[Winterfell is Burning]

35 minutes ago, Raja said:

Koeman - cannot wait to see what job he fails upwards into next.

 

Like I've said two weeks ago- Barça are really in danger of not qualifying, because Benfica and Dinamo Kiev have good squads and better managers, plus less internal strife (though in Benfica only barely).

That said, he failed upwards to Netherlands and did a pretty good job there. And that is a job that rotates every two years or so, so he'll get it again eventually.

[Darryk]

Barca and Real are both in severe decline and it's sad to see (at least in Barca's case, I never liked Real much but the Barcelona team that had Messi, Xavi and Iniesta played the greatest football I've seen in my lifetime).

Apparently a Dubai company is offering to buy Barca's debt although I'm not sure what they hope to get out of it, if they see it as a step toward buying the club I'm not sure that's going to happen as I think the Spanish clubs are quite proud of being largely fan-owned.

[Consigliere]

11 hours ago, polishgenius said:

I do not understand what is happening with Jadon Sancho. Even accounting for time to adapt and that he may have been a bit overrated or whatever, what's going on with him makes no sense. It's like he's forgotten how to play. Not beating players very often and when he does he far too often makes what seems like it's meant to be a safe, simple pass except the receiver isn't within five yards of the spot he put it in. Really hope he gets himself together coz it's concerning. 

Sancho played fairly well last night. His performances are improving compared to his early season sub appearances. 

[Spockydog]

Aaron Ramsdale caps an amazing month by being recalled for England duty. Well done, lad.

[Consigliere]

We were really lucky last night. Villarreal should have won comfortably. It was yet another poor performance from us. We are like a less shit version of Spurs (still shit though). Much like Spurs, our only good performance of the season was our first game of the season. We've just been bailed out by a combination of great finishes, De Gea rediscovering some of his best form and shit goalkeeping from the opposition.

It seems that Solskjaer is having his Lampard moment this season i.e. he's got a stronger squad at his disposal but that only serves to highlight even more just how out of his depth he really is. The team just looks very disorganised - slow and ponderous in attack relying on individual brilliance to save the day rather than a proper system of play while simultaneously dodgy in defence. We've got a tough run of fixtures coming up in October and I can't see anything but a very lean month.

[Wilbur]

I like the Liverpool tactics this season of "shoot on sight", highlighted by Curtis Jones deciding to have a pop anytime he gets near the D.  They more you shoot, the more you score, and if the keeper spills it like at Porto, someone else will score.  While the Tricky Reds no longer have Daniel Sturridge, whose shots from distance were quite magical at times, this willingness to shoot can only be a good thing.

[polishgenius]

Leicester ballsing the start to the season right up. Deciding to change the routine of failing to qualify for the CL in the final weeks by just removing any possibility of it at the start.