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Football: Roll of the Dyche


Iskaral Pust

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Another transfer win for Liverpool. They paid less money for the better Leipzig CB.

 

 

20 hours ago, Consigliere said:

Matic has confirmed that this will be his last season at United. Says he's already spoken to Rangnick and the board. His contract runs to 2023 so remains to be seen whether it is terminated by mutual consent or he moves for a nominal fee - Milan were interested previously.

Update on this: reports saying that the 3rd year on Matic's contract was optional. He informed the board that he'd like to leave and asked that the option not be triggered so it looks like he will be a free agent at the end of the season.

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Fernandinho should be off here. That should be his second yellow at least.

Arsenal are properly messing up this race for fourth.

ETA: And Mane gets a yellow for doing something to Fernandinho that Fernandinho did twice in the first half. Good consistency Oliver.:lol:

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2 hours ago, Consigliere said:

Wolfsburg have utterly imploded in the space of 15 minutes.

Testament to Glasner's ability as a headcoach. He was pretty much the only one who could get consistent performances out of that team in like a decade (at least it feels that long). Ok, Labbadia also did alright with them. Not that I particularly like VW sports. 

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On an unrelated note. Is soylent alright, haven't seen him complain about the awfulness of Liverpool for two games, I think. 

Firmino will win the Ballon d'Or next year, and Curtis Jones will win the golden boy award at the World Cup.

That should get his attention.

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Race for fourth (aka the Wenger Trophy) looks somewhat interesting.

A few weeks ago it looked like Arsenal would get it fairly smothly. Now that they hit a patch of bad form (Robbie share the money!), and Spurs also decided it's ok to drop points United are somehow back in contention. 3 points + GD (well, effectively 4 points) behind Spurs. 

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United have got zero chance of 4th place. We barely scraped past the worst team in the league at home and Norwich had the better chances too. Looking at our remaining fixtures and taking into consideration that most of this squad have already checked out of the season, we aren't picking up more than 4 points from our remaining games and might be lucky to get even that.

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Another really good game between Liverpool and City, although I thought the scoreline and injury time glimmer of hope flattered City a bit on balance over the full game.

I know City are pointing to their rotation but Liverpool and City changed three and four outfield players respectively from their sides last weekend — which sounds pretty similar.  Plus the GK change was an unforced choice, and City have spent far, far more on their squad to be complaining about squad depth.  Liverpool have played more games than City so far in 2022, and they had more players at AFCON (and for longer).  City don’t get to cry about having to rotate.

These ties are so close that they often come down to energy levels.  Liverpool looked tired in the PL tie after they had traveled midweek, and now City looked tired after they had traveled midweek.  City’s press dominated the match when they were fresher, and vice versa.  Personally I would have preferred if Liverpool had been fresher for the PL match rather than the Cup, but we don’t get to choose.

Mane played really well in the false 9 role.  I thought we needed Firmino there to disrupt City’s MF anchor — which we really lacked a week ago — but Mane did a good job.  Liverpool’s MF were much better this time, even if Fabinho allowed Jesus to set up the first goal.  Thiago is just a joy to watch, and Keita played very well — he’s in better form than Henderson.  I hope that pair can stay fit but of course we’ll need to rotate them.  Our MF changes every game.  Trent defended much better this time (it was Robertson who got caught upfield for both goals), and Diaz played really well again.  Diaz really should get more goals for the quality of his general play.  He’s the inverse of Jota. Hopefully the goals start flowing for him.  Salah is on a bad goal drought since AFCON; only penalties in that period, I think.

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United only squeaked past Norwich at home but yet find themselves right back in contention for 4th.

Brighton outplayed Spurs, even if they only grabbed a single late goal.  Potter’s coaching and tactical system is really top notch.  It seems like he’ll be a candidate for a better-resourced job.  Just imagine if he had a striker who could finish chances.

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23 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Just imagine if he had a striker who could finish chances.

 

He's been there long enough that I can't not blame him for their finishing at least somewhat. And honestly, it doesn't just come from the quality of the final shot- they're very good at controlling games but they're a little hesitant to take risks to break through the final line, which means often their shots are from wider, or just generally scrappier, than they could be if they had more players who'd turn or dribble on the edge of the box. 

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9 hours ago, polishgenius said:

 

He's been there long enough that I can't not blame him for their finishing at least somewhat. And honestly, it doesn't just come from the quality of the final shot- they're very good at controlling games but they're a little hesitant to take risks to break through the final line, which means often their shots are from wider, or just generally scrappier, than they could be if they had more players who'd turn or dribble on the edge of the box. 

Their goals are usually quite a bit lower than their XG, they are famous for it. This suggests either XG is broken or they have some bad finishers.

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I think Brighton's scoring issues are more down to quality rather than Potter not being able to get the best out of his forwards. Improvisation is a big part of the game even in highly structured and meticulously coached systems like City's and Liverpool's. The effectiveness of that improvisation is also heavily influenced by the technical and decision-making abilities of individual players - higher quality players tend to be more technically skilled and make better decisions on the fly and are thus able to consistently beat defenders through dribbling and incisive passing.

Brighton's issues are further compounded by their system which allows them to control possession in most games (only City, Liverpool and Chelsea average more possession than Brighton) but also means that they are often facing a low block which is difficult to break down with players of limited technical ability.

Potter has done as good a job at Brighton as Dyche did at Burnley and with resources just as limited - Brighton have a solid defensive structure, control games well and press well. Potter has also gotten Brighton to play a much more aesthetically pleasing brand of football than Dyche has ever managed.

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