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Football: When God shuts a window, he opens a new one in January.


A Horse Named Stranger

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There's no point even talking about VAR, especially as Varane constantly fouling Jesus but those never being given, whilst you have VAR taking that Martinelli goal away for absolutely nothing.

Still, once we got back into the game we should have been better, and we had plenty of chances. United have one trick, and it's on us for falling for it twice. You have to be a bit more streetwise, which we weren't. Didn't deserve anything because of those mistakes.

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Arsenal played well despite the scoreline. Partey injury is going to hurt them all throughout the season. And now ESR hurt himself during the warm-down. Arsenal's squad is so small (even smaller than last season), it's highly likely they will face a massive injury crisis during the month of October when they have matches every 3 days leading into the World Cup.

 

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5 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Didn't watch but does it look like Ten Hag has worked out what he's doing? 

 

 

Kinda. A lot of the stuff here and against Liverpool was stuff we already knew we can do - hitting on the break and that- and he's just restored confidence in it, but he is starting to build a passing game in there even as he accepts that we aren't gonna be playing from the back as purely as he wishes and adjusting around that idea. 

Our next game is Palace and that'll probably tell us whether we're organised against a team in a low block who can counter fast themselves, moreso than this and the Liverpool result as pleasant as those have been.

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53 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

 

Kinda. A lot of the stuff here and against Liverpool was stuff we already knew we can do - hitting on the break and that- and he's just restored confidence in it, but he is starting to build a passing game in there even as he accepts that we aren't gonna be playing from the back as purely as he wishes and adjusting around that idea. 
 

We were quite good at playing from the back at some point in 20/21 though. I don't know what happened next.
 

Also, I think I saw a stat going that in ~25 PL games where we've scored first, we've been defeated only once. Does anyone remember against which team we conceded a comeback? (I genuinely don't)

 

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4 minutes ago, Ser Glendon Fireball said:

Does anyone remember against which team we conceded a comeback? (I genuinely don't)

 

4-2 Leicester last year. 


But also we've only lost four times in the Premier league when we've been leading at half time, and all of those were away- we haven't lost from leading at half time in the league at Old Trafford since 1984. That is mental

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United were pretty effective as a counterattacking team under Mourinho and OGS.  The problem is that costs them too many points against smaller clubs who play the same style, plus eventually the fans lose interest in watching it.  It was only when United tried to seize the initiative and play higher up that they really got destroyed.  That shift asks a lot more the players and they haven’t previously been able to make that step.

ETH is being pragmatic by reverting to what the players can handle but it has the same limitations.  The real question is whether he can get the team to play in a more challenging formation/style too.  In the meantime it won’t hurt to build some confidence, buy some patience from fans and bank some points.

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Stat tracking shows that Liverpool have been out-run by their opponents by 3.4km per game so far in the PL, reversing a prior advantage of 1.5km per game at the same point of last season.  And fewer high intensity runs.  That’s a big swing.

As the sample size gets larger, the team looks tired and burnt out.  My guess is that there were just too many games in the second half of last season, relying on mostly the same players for most of those minutes.  Possibly it’s a deliberate strategy now to conserve energy ahead of a long season punctuated by a WC, but I doubt we’d be just throwing away the points intentionally.

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The recent spate of injuries, and everyone in the squad over 21 looking leggy out on the pitch makes me think that indeed, the schedule demands of last year are catching up with LFC.

The loss of Sadio Mane is particularly hard in this case, as he was a willing and capable runner despite the grind.

And the team set-up for this season, with Salah and Diaz further out on the wings, is taking two important goal threats and pushing them away from the target.  Meanwhile the players who are instead supposed to "burst through" the gaps opened up by this revised formation lack the energy to make that run.  Or are callow youth.

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51 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

The recent spate of injuries, and everyone in the squad over 21 looking leggy out on the pitch makes me think that indeed, the schedule demands of last year are catching up with LFC.

The loss of Sadio Mane is particularly hard in this case, as he was a willing and capable runner despite the grind.

And the team set-up for this season, with Salah and Diaz further out on the wings, is taking two important goal threats and pushing them away from the target.  Meanwhile the players who are instead supposed to "burst through" the gaps opened up by this revised formation lack the energy to make that run.  Or are callow youth.

I agree that the formation shift doesn’t help either.  Our most potent attackers are further from goal.  Plus opponents are willing to double cover all three forwards rather than cover MFs joining the attack in the inside channel, because those MFs don’t pose much threat.

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11 hours ago, AncalagonTheBlack said:

I've been enjoying the short footy documentaries on copa90. I didn't know anything about SC Freiburg but really admire everything they stand for as a club. I was shocked to know they are owned 100% by the fans!! :o A pity they lost to that fake club Red Bull in the cup final. 

 

I am pretty sure, I whined about Freiburg undeservedly losing that final and also on them missing out on the CL back in the old thread.

Freiburg are a properly run football club, but they are a seller club. Their business model is basically finding young players (or bringing them through their academy) improve them, and when bigger clubs come knocking, they sell, then reinvest and rinse and repeat. It's a rather slow and steady growth model. So I find it a bit amusing that Norwich got a lot of stick for employing a similar model. Freiburg are just 15-20 further ahead. (so they are more like Southampton in that respect). If things got bad, and they hit a bad season, they can end up in the relegation battle. And they will in all likelyhood never win the league, and another cup final appearance might take a good while.

Having that said, best of luck to Freiburg, who are (temporarily) top of the league. They are sorta the role model for smaller clubs, they managed to establish themselves at the Bundesliga. Proper fan scene, too. I hope they do well the in the EL.

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On 9/5/2022 at 9:38 AM, AncalagonTheBlack said:

I've been enjoying the short footy documentaries on copa90. I didn't know anything about SC Freiburg but really admire everything they stand for as a club. I was shocked to know they are owned 100% by the fans!! :o A pity they lost to that fake club Red Bull in the cup final. 

 

Thank you for sharing this. It's an interesting video.

It's funny to see Liverpool in "same teams win everything every year" montage, though. :lol:

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