Football: Guirassy-ing to victory

[ljkeane]

3 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

But you watched Qatar?

No I didn’t.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Then I take back what I said, I was curious where people draw line, if they thought Qatar was still ok, but Saudi Arabia isn't.

[Padraig]

1 hour ago, Consigliere said:

Tbf, Argentina looked no less ecstatic at winning the world cup in Qatar than, say, Germany did winning the world cup in Brazil.

Television viewership numbers were not negatively impacted either; on the contrary, Qatar 2022 set record viewing numbers. Seems the overwhelming majority are happy to tune in and don't really give much of a shit where the tournament is actually held.

All of the above.  It is really sad that FIFA is so money focused and there will be a lot of talk about how bad Saudi is before and during the competition but it's all ultimately performative.  PSG, Newcastle, Man City, the Qatar WC etc. have all shown that football carries on regardless of the investors.

[BigFatCoward]

Not sure if Newcastle aren't taking the carabao cup seriously or man utd? That team sucks ass. 

[polishgenius]

Hannibal is the most chaotic player I've ever seen play for us. Which is saying something given the current midfield. 

[BigFatCoward]

I almost (almost) feel sorry for man utd fans. But then I remember the are the absolute worst. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Just came here to laugh at Bayern.

[Rorshach]

Well, it was Burnley on the other half, but 3-0 looks good any day. And different people scoring is also nice. Neither has scored a lot for us so far.

We won't progress further, I guess, but it's nice not just crashing out at the first hurdle.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Anyway, second round of the German Cup has been played yesterday and today (well, is being played, as Nürnberg - Rostock are into extra time but that's the last game running.

 

Lowest ranked team still in the competition is fourth tier Homburg, who took out Fürth (2nd Bundesliga this round).

Next lowest ranked team is Saarbrücken 3. Liga who eliminated Bayern today. Kane was rested and got to enjoy the show from his front row seat on the Bayern bench. Bayern lost de Ligt early in the first half to injury and conceded the 2-1 in injury time (90+6) (hahahahaha!).

Other upsets. Freiburg fell victim to Paderborn. Köln was taken out by Kaiserslautern and Mainz season of horrors continued by losing to Hertha.

Before you ask, we are still in the competition by beating Schalke 2-1 after extra time, yesterday.

[BigFatCoward]

Ten Hag has a decent run of fixtures to save his job.  Fulham, Luton, Copenhagen, Everton.  3 of them are away, but I'd say that's a benefit at the minute.  

Edited November 2, 2023 by BigFatCoward

[BigFatCoward]

i expect us to lose to Port Vale in the final after beating City, Utd, Chelsea and Liverpool. 

[Consigliere]

Ten Hag has done a pretty poor job. There are several managers in the league who have done much more with much less (De Zerbi, Postecoglou, Emery, Howe). All those sides have a very clear style of play and are able to control games. Hell, Postecoglou has stamped a very clear style of play on Spurs in ONE preseason and after losing their best player and talisman. Something Ten Hag has failed to do in over a year.

Said it before but he's only been marginally better than Solskjaer (and that's only because he won the chupacabra cup). Every criticism directed at Solskjaer can be directed at Ten Hag as well - no playing style, relies on individual brilliance rather than patterns of play and creating overloads, no control etc. Only United could conspire to replace Solskjaer with the Dutch Solskjaer. United are completely hapless this season - useless with the ball and useless without the ball too so I wouldn't be confident of our chances against any opponent.

[Heartofice]

Postecoglu and Emery are making Ten Hag look pretty bad right now, but it does feel like so many United managers post Fergie have just looked awful, that maybe there is too much chaos going on behind the scenes to allow managers to do their job.
United's recruitment felt like it was improving but there still seems to be glaring holes in the squad, and they still seem to be buying players they don't need because they are available (why Mason Mount!?)

[Consigliere]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

(why Mason Mount!?)

Because, according to reports, he was Ten Hag's top target.

United's weak structure above the manager definitely takes a large portion of the blame too. I know some Dutch guys well versed in Dutch football and they told me last year that United giving Ten Hag so much control over transfers is going to end badly because he has poor judgement in the market. That Ajax team was built by Overmars.

[polishgenius]

Mount is a particularly baffling one. Like for all the frustrations that we might have gone for other options and that some of them are failing, every other player we've got in since he arrived has at least had a pretty clear place in the team and purpose for buying them. Like Antony's a dud, especially now he's made literally no progress whatosever in his second season, but what he's there for is pretty evident. Hojlund urgently needs to start scoring, but his holdup play is obviously useful if we can start getting the players around him firing.

 

Mount has... none of that. He's a player far more suited to replacing Bruno than playing with him except you wouldn't do that because he's obviously worse. So he's playing deeper, in a position where we urgently needed someone who can keep the ball and calm the pace. We've essentially replaced Fred's role in the team with someone who has almost all the same weaknesses as Fred in that box-to-box position but has to date displayed almost none of the strengths. He might yet develop into those strengths but that still leaves how we should have damn well bought someone for that role in the first place.

I mean it's started so fucking badly we're currently playing Bruno in the role we bought Mount for so fucking Scott McTominay can play second striker. That decision has logic in the circumstances, but it's a logic based on things going really badly. 

[Iskaral Pust]

Meantime, Liverpool’s youth CB, Quansah, who arrived unheralded in the senior squad had another good game midweek.  I hope he stays healthy and keeps developing because he has a big future right now.

It’s a bit outrageous how well Liverpool’s three main MF signings have settled in and adapted (sorry, Endo).  It’d be even better if one of them was a natural #6 instead of played out of position, but even so it has been good to see Gravenberch find his feet in recent weeks after Szoboszlai and MacAllister were instant starters.

Fixture overload will start becoming a drag soon though, even with a good amount of rotation so far.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

In other news former Liverpool player Sakho has terminated his contract with Montpellier by mutual consent.

Reportedly at the heart of it was a confrontation with headcoach Der Zakarian, which turned physical a few weeks ago.

Der Zarkarian reportedly called Sakho a crybaby, and Sakho in turn apparently attacked Der Zakarian with a broom.

Edited November 3, 2023 by A Horse Named Stranger

[AncalagonTheBlack]

Rebel group who kidnapped Luis Diaz's father release statement in response to Colombian government

https://www.goal.com/en-in/news/luis-diaz-father-released-soon-possible-colombian-rebel-group-kidnappers/blt52f4d2bed38f1764

[Wilbur]

8 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

In other news former Liverpool player Sakho has terminated his contract with Montpellier by mutual consent.

Reportedly at the heart of it was a confrontation with headcoach Der Zakarian, which turned physical a few weeks ago.

Der Zarkarian reportedly called Sakho a crybaby, and Sakho in turn apparently attacked Der Zakarian with a broom.

It makes me bristle to think that they tried to sweep this under the rug.

[Consigliere]