Football Varararararararararararia Hosannah in Excelsis

[Rorshach]

We did well tonight. Really up for the game, fought well, played some nice football at times and defended (mostly) excellently.

Needed two assists from Trippier to get going, however - how DCL didn't bury his first half chance I'll never know. 

But nice to see Beto score. 

[Winterfell is Burning]

7 hours ago, Consigliere said:

Damn, just saw that Santos have been relegated for the first time in the club's history. From what I've read the club has been in trouble for a while and relegation seemed to be an inevitable outcome eventually. At least Pele didn't live to see his club go down.

Yeah, pretty much. The problem is that the club received a lot of money in sales of players like Neymar and Rodrygo, but somehow always wasted it (and in many cases, the people that ran the club almost certainly pocketed part of it). It's not just a matter of players, because there are comfortably another 4 or 5 that finished ahead of it.

They also insisted in hosting games in the old and cramped Vila Belmiro (which doesn't even fit 15.000 people) rather than playing in São Paulo in a larger stadium (which is something they did in the past). 

 

 

 

 

[Winterfell is Burning]

Regarding the Brazilian league, the biggest story of the season was Botafogo, that had the best first half of the campaign in history, was at one point 13 points ahead of 2nd place...and finished 5th, including losing by 3-4 two home games they opened 3-0. Worst bottle job in the history of football, surely.

[BigFatCoward]

We were dogshit. After a great week last week that was disappointing. Getting further and further from top 4 and team is running on fumes and we have no bench. Jan cant come soon enogh.

At least we get to go to spurs this weekend who are in a similar boat, I'd imagine it will be a pretty good match for the neutral. 

[Spockydog]

7 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

We were dogshit. After a great week last week that was disappointing. Getting further and further from top 4 and team is running on fumes and we have no bench. Jan cant come soon enogh.

At least we get to go to spurs this weekend who are in a similar boat, I'd imagine it will be a pretty good match for the neutral. 

Poor Eddie. If this keeps up, the man will have to start reading newspapers again.

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

In non-football news.

 

Former goalkeeper and world class arsehole (not Peter Shilton!) Jens Lehmann (proud winner of the asshole tripple crown of racism, homophobia and corona conspiracies) will be having his day in court.

He is under indictment for trespassing and damaging property.

Background is a dispute between Lehmann and one of his neighbours. A garage on the property of his  neighbour was obstructing his view on the lake. So what did Mad Jens (allegedly) do? He (allegedly) unplugged surveillance cameras, and took a chainsaw to a roofbeam of the cursed carhouse.

Ofc he is now whining about the big reputational damage he is suffering and the disregard for his privacy.

Like I said, not directly football news, but maybe of itnerest to our resident gooners.

 

Edited December 8, 2023 by A Horse Named Stranger

[Spockydog]

Ah, Mad Jens. Some things never change.

[BigFatCoward]

Ten Hag and Maguire win manager and player of the month for November, what a howl. 

[Consigliere]

No worse than Postecoglou winning the previous month for narrowly beating Fulham, Luton and Palace. Giving out these awards monthly is stupid anyway since the sample size is so small (being restricted to just league games). 

Edited December 8, 2023 by Consigliere

[polishgenius]

Paywalled at the Athletic but Carl Anka did quite a good summary of what's happening and why Maguire is playing so much better (regardless of thoughts on whether he deserves PotM which he obviously does come on now). 

The summary is that he's playing high when we're in possession but dropping off when we don't, which is the opposite of him last season and at the end under Solskjaer, when he was pushing up into midfield to try to win tackles as opponents broke forward, very often. That actually makes a lot of sense: he was doing that (presumably under instruction) to support the lacking DM position, but it was leaving his own position open when he missed the tackle. Now we're even lighter in midfield but with the defense much better equipped to cover for that. 

 

What Anka didn't mention is also that we're no longer asking 'Arry himself to play on the turn from the goalie, when possible. Ashley Williams was having a go at him for it the other week, claiming he's 'hiding' - but it's very blatantly a tactical choice, avoiding the vulnerability of him being the one to turn out, but putting him into place to be a progressive passer from the back, which he's good at and did excellently against Chelsea. 

 

[BigFatCoward]

47 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

No worse than Postecoglou winning the previous month for narrowly beating Fulham, Luton and Palace. Giving out these awards monthly is stupid anyway since the sample size is so small (being restricted to just league games). 

Not saying it was underserved, but the player and manager most in the spotlight both winning is obviously hilarious. 

[Mexal]

17 hours ago, polishgenius said:

Difficult night for Arsenal fans this: watching JWP handle their biggest rivals but still having to argue that Rice is the signing of the summer. 

life is hard here at the top.

[polishgenius]

Big Ange, making Tottenham more Tottenham than ever before. 

[Mexal]

39 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Big Ange, making Tottenham more Tottenham than ever before. 

Love it.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Update on Mad Jens day in court.

 

His neighbour (a 92 y.o. btw.) withdrew his complaint, after Lehmann paid him off with  € 60.000  a couple of days ago.

Lehmann spoke about good neighbourly relationship with the man. Which apparently almost caused the neighbour to burst out in laughter. Pointing out, there's apparently 6 kg of lively correspondence between them.

ANyway Lehmann's version of the main event is quite something.

What was he doing on his neighbour's property? Just wanted to check what he is up to. Why was he carrying a chainsaw with him. Oh, just happened to be in his hand, because he actually wanted to trim the hedges.

When the police showed up, he apparently had a tantrum and hurled insults at them. The coppers were in the court room to give testimony. Mad Jens apologized to them. As he was pretty agitated that morning. But in court Jens has refrained from calling her a liar, and he'd like her to keep that in mind and if she would like to reconsider her testimony. To which the copper responded irritatedly, that she is not lying.

He is on also on trial for a few other minor things (while they are at it). This incident is also wild.

He tried to scam his way out of parking fees in early 2021 at the Munich airport. How do you do that? Allegedly by waiting for another car and and trailing it so closely, that they almost touched, and thus he could leave the car park without paying. Another time he tried to avoid paying for charging his Porsche Panamera E-Hybrid (€ 287). (he has paid off both bills in the mean time).

 

Those are not crazy big sums, esp. for a former pro player, who has earnt millions. He is such piece of trash, and in court he is whining about the damage to his reputation.

Jens if you happened to read this. Don't worry, your rep couldn't possibly get anymore damaged at this point in time. It went down the toilette in between your homophobic remarks, calling Aogo a token black pundit, and spreading nonsense about corona. Honestly, if you used that chainsaw on your elderly neighbour nobody would think less of you than they already do. You could drown kittens and pups in a livestream laughing manically like a hyena and your rep wouldn't suffer. It has hit the absolute nadir.

 

 

Edited December 9, 2023 by A Horse Named Stranger

[Spockydog]

Jesus H Corbett. I remember certain elements of the #FootballFamily trying to re-brand this cretin as some kind of intellectual titan. Although, to some of those people, I suppose he is.

But all I see is a thuggish, racist, sexist little cock-womble. They should fire him and the rest of his disgusting racist family into the sun.

 

Edited December 8, 2023 by Spockydog

[BigFatCoward]

The biggest issue I have with this is that it's so demonstrably false that having played at the highest level makes you a good pundit, or give you a better understanding of the game. 

Also, it's funny how all the gammon online supporting him fail to realise that by agreeing with him they are admitting that they don't know anything about football either. 

 

[Heartofice]

Barton talking about merit when it comes to football commentary is laughable. 90% of pundits are fucking terrible, charisma black holes with nothing of interest to say and no ability discuss tactics or give any sort of relevant insight.

Someone like Alex Scott is a much better presenter than Jermaine Jenas and that should be the real barometer of whether someone gets a job or not. 
 

There was already a ‘jobs for the boys’ aspect to these things that was so tiresome. Why would I want to know what Theo Walcott has to say about a match? How did he get a job?

Barton is probably right that there is an over representation of female commentators on men’s games, as a sort of over correction for diversity purposes, and many of them or not good either. 
 

But really this should be about the ability to discuss football. Which is why especially for pundits I’d open it up to journalists and tactics writers. They have far more interesting things to say than Danny Murphy ( who I will admit isn’t terrible if not held back by MotD). Having played top level football is not really a qualification for being a pundit, as there are many other skills involved. 

[polishgenius]

Being a boxing analyst who never boxed I'm a bit biased here and have skin in the game, but yeah, the idea that you have to have played to commentate/present is just laughable. It's not even purely about knowledge, it's just a whole different skillset and there's no correlation between them. 

Hell, for some former players it's pretty clear that their own experience hinders rather than helps them as pundits, because they can't divorce what they would or could do from what options are on the table to a different player in a different team (I think Scholes is a bit like this, though he just talks a lot of reactionary bollocks in general anyway). 

[Heartofice]

9 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Being a boxing analyst who never boxed I'm a bit biased here and have skin in the game, but yeah, the idea that you have to have played to commentate/present is just laughable. It's not even purely about knowledge, it's just a whole different skillset and there's no correlation between them. 

Hell, for some former players it's pretty clear that their own experience hinders rather than helps them as pundits, because they can't divorce what they would or could do from what options are on the table to a different player in a different team (I think Scholes is a bit like this, though he just talks a lot of reactionary bollocks in general anyway). 

Yeah it also tends to lead to just dull conversations. ‘So, Paul, what would the players be thinking going into a game like this’

Plus MotD is teeth gnashingly awful whenever they do that ladsy ‘oh look at this clip of shearer doing a thing’.

There are a small subset of ex pros who are good on screen, most of them are on Sky, but the overwhelming majority are shit at their job, and that is hardly a surprise.