...::[The Footy Desk]::... (Part 2)

[TheSantader25]

I'm glad we have 3 candidates to win the Prem this year. I hope it stays the same till the last fixture. When there are 3 candidates, it's always gonna be exciting. That's why I think the 2014-2016 la liga title races were peak La Liga.

 

As it stands, my money is on City. They are playing like robots this season. Liverpool have improved a lot since the beginning of the season. Their biggest concern should be Salah or Mane's injuries. Or maybe even TAA. They are their irreplaceable players. They have no one on the bench to fill in for them. But City don't seem to have a single irreplaceable player at the moment. They still do lack a goal scorer though and that's why everyone in that team contributes equally.

 

I hope Chelsea maintain form as well but something tells me they might fall off the more we get close to the end of the season.

 

[smokeless6]

I suspect that City's lack of a real striker will do them in. They play like a machine, watching them ping it around in the snow yesterday. But I'm not sure they have enough goals in them. As long as they keep it so tight at the back they'll be fine, but some injuries along the backline could see them struggle to outscore other teams. We'll see. I think we have three co-favourites.

 

Liverpool will lose Mane and Salah to the ANC right? That's gonna sting.

 

Chelsea have enough in them. Especially with Lukaku fit. Tuchel has turned them in to the EPL's best defensive side. Remarkable really. Mendy was an inspired signing, brave after spending so much on Kepa. But this is what top clubs do. They don't dwell on mistakes, hoping the player will come good and prove them right. Chelsea are ruthless in that respect. Kepa didn't work out like they hoped. So let's get someone who will. That's championship mentality.

[Eutyphro]

On 11/29/2021 at 3:58 PM, smokeless6 said:

I suspect that City's lack of a real striker will do them in.

Gabriel Jesus is actually a really good player this season I think. A pragmatic coach would start him every game, but Pep being Pep he's mostly benched. If Pep makes some more pragmatic choices he could win everything, but Pep's gonna Pep, so probably he's gonna start a decisive game with Gundogan as sole DM and Foden as striker, or something goofy like that, and not win.

Edited December 2, 2021 by Eutyphro

[smokeless6]

5 hours ago, Eutyphro said:

Gabriel Jesus is actually a really good player this season I think.

 

He is a good player, everyone on City's squad is. Except maybe John Stones lol.

 

But I'm not sold on him as their first-choice striker. He blows hot and cold, seems to disappear at times. Not sure he's the right player to lead the line, another one who would fair better, I think, in a partnership with a better hold up man, a target man. I think Pep doesn't fully trust him either, which could be down to skills, work rate, application and industry or attitude. Maybe he just doesn't do what Pep asks him to do.

 

And if he goes down for any length of time they really have no one left that's a first-team striker. This could change in January,and I could even see Conte demanding Kane's sale, not only to put his stamp on things, and ship an unhappy soul, but to get the funds needed to bring in the players he sees fitting in to his system.

[Eutyphro]

It's mostly that Pep likes playing without a striker, because he wants to play as many midfielders as he can.

I don't think Conte will want to sell Harry Kane. If Kane leaves Spurs they'll be even more hopeless than they are,

[Lonely-Martin]

Was hearing noises that with Conte's arrival, Kane wants to stay more so than previously. But it could be paper fluff. I think he stays until the summer and reevaluate things, if we show progress or even nick a cup or 4th for example, I can see Kane stay.

 

That said there's a lot of talk about us being keen on a striker from Serie A but I forget his name. Been mentioned alot but also Arsenal interested I think. Vulkovic or something, lol. I'm awful with names. 

 

But if Paratici and his past with Juventus proves a problem from that ongoing investigation, including them looking at us over the Romero deal, could be a real problem and makes things trickier. I hope we did nothing wrong though.

 

Anyway, Brentford shortly. They play good when they're up for it so hopefully we don't go in thinking it's a breeze. With West Ham dropping more points last night it'd be key to make ground. Gonna be tight for the title with the top 3, and Spurs, West Ham, Arsenal and United for 4th. Gonna be interesting to see how this all plays out indeed!

[smokeless6]

Probably talking about Dušan Vlahović  from Fiorentina, Serbian striker.

[Lonely-Martin]

2 minutes ago, smokeless6 said:

Probably talking about Dušan Vlahović  from Fiorentina, Serbian striker.

 

That's the fellas. I was way off, lol. 

 

Must add, I don't really put much stock into rumours but I can see us looking to make big changes and bring in new faces, and with Conte (and Paratici potentially too) in, that could help raise the level of player interested. But we need to keep with that top 4 race to give us more chances too. 

 

So naturally, I just have my fingers crossed things just don't go belly up. 

[smokeless6]

2 hours ago, Eutyphro said:

It's mostly that Pep likes playing without a striker, because he wants to play as many midfielders as he can.

 

If that's the case why did they pursue Kane all summer?

 

Pep likes playing without a striker in the biggest games, when he outfoxes himself by being too clever.

[Eutyphro]

Maybe because Harry Kane is one of those rare strikers that has great passing ability. Kane drops back and sets up other players a lot, which is what Pep likes. I know that Pep has criticized both Lewandowski and Aguero, and he's generally pretty dissatisfied whenever someone plays as a pure striker.

[smokeless6]

OK fair point mate. Yes Kane has been really good in sharing the ball and playing others (especially Son) in on goal.

 

I'll concede he does bring that element when few other prolific strikers do.

[Lonely-Martin]

7 from 9 in the league since Conte arrived, good start considering we're no where near perfect, lol. I'll take it. 

 

12 minutes ago, Eutyphro said:

Maybe because Harry Kane is one of those rare strikers that has great passing ability. Kane drops back and sets up other players a lot, which is what Pep likes. I know that Pep has criticized both Lewandowski and Aguero, and he's generally pretty dissatisfied whenever someone plays as a pure striker.

 

As shown again tonight. Should have scored when in on the Brentford keeper, but a swift ball from midfield into Reguilon and a simple tap in for Sonny. Kane's a proven predator though obviously not scoring many this season but with his skillset, he can still get involved very well. Very much a pep/current City type of player TBH. Flexible and great at whatever he's asked to do.

Edited December 2, 2021 by Lonely-Martin
Spelling.

[Jason]

Sloppy but a huge result tonight.

 

Carrick's spell was worrying on paper but he's steadied the ship and given Rangnick a good position to start from... and then to the surprise of most if not all, he's ended it there and then and left the club. Be interesting to see what he goes next, into management, part of another managers team, etc. He's got incredible experience as a player and now years of experience as a coach which is more than some top PL players have had when they went into management at around Championship level, so I'd wager he'd have some interest.

[smokeless6]

Are all of Ole's lieutenants gone? I thought it was odd to retain them, but makes sense if it was only transitory and Rangnick brings in his own backroom.

 

Good win for United, just what they needed. They'll need more than Ronaldo scoring goals, but they have players capable of finding the net. It will be very interesting to see who the new gaffer sees as his first-choice eleven.

[smokeless6]

I saw a quote from Rangnick

 

"You always have to adapt your style or your idea of football to the players you have available, not vice versa," Rangnick said.

 

Amen. I think I talked about this earlier in this thread. So many managers do it the reverse. That bodes well (in my view) for United's near future.

 

Another thing I was thinking about when this appointment went down, was Rangnick's status as short term interim, that he would be replaced for next season. Honestly I don't know much about the man. I know he was at RBL and Shalke I believe, the "godfather of gegenpressing".  Klopp rates him. But he's never managed a top club. What he is known as is a builder, his expertise being building them up from the ground floor. Six months isn't a lot time to much of that. I know they plan to give him a front office job where he could continue to build the squad. But I suspect, if he has success over the second half of the season, and the supporters take to him, that he'll be named permanent manager. We'll see.

 

 

[Jason]

The board are massive fans of Poch and the ETH links aren't going away so the board will probably look at it as letting the chance to get either of them for many years gone, especially ETH, his next job is gonna be a big one so I'd expect that the board would need a very very good reason to make Rangnick the permanent manager, ie, trophies. Think a CL/PL is the only way I'd be convinced unless we won an FA cup and had really good surprise runs in both the PL and CL. The PL would require an absolute freak run and is extremely unlikely of course.

[Eutyphro]

Poch, the overrated one. The only real coaches for Man U they might attract in the summer are Rodgers and Ten Hag, and that's it. Have you seen some of the football PSG is playing with the biggest names in football? They get completely outplayed on every level by Man City. If that is what you want hire Poch.

But anyway, I'm interested what Rangnik can do. If he does very well it might be hard to move him out.

Edited December 4, 2021 by Eutyphro

[smokeless6]

Agreed about Pochettino, or at least I think I agree. Hard to tell really, how good he is. As Eutyphro says though, on the PSG evidence you might conclude he's not a top manager. PSG is a strange club anyway, so I think I'd wait for results at his next job to really know.

 

Rangnick may turn out to be an inspired appointment, but if I were a United supporter I think I'd worry about the gegenpressing, if that's indeed his intention. Not sure you have the players to pull that off, when you think of core forwards like Ronaldo and Cavani. I guess we'll see. Maybe this is why he talked about adapting his vision to the players at his disposal.

 

Liverpool took care of business in the Merseyside derby. They are easily the top scoring side in the EPL. Things are clicking at the moment. But City and Chelsea continue to get results too. Should be a great season.

 

I spoke too soon! West Ham 3 - 2 Chelsea! Come on you Hammers!  Liverpool deadlocked scoreless in second half against Wolves.

 

Origi! Get in!

Edited December 4, 2021 by smokeless6

[Jason]

I don't judge Poch on his PSG stint at all, because that is a garbage club ran by garbage people that is run, in footballing terms, as poorly as any top club in world football, they simply get away with it cause they have an endless supply of money. I doubt Poch even picks his own team at this point, or at the very least he is required to play that front three despite knowing their defensive effort will be essentially zero. I look at his Spurs stint instead where he took a team who had only flirted with the top 4 into a proper top 4 club, who had a season or two of challenging for the title and took them to a CL final. All of this despite being on a budget that was tiny relative to what the other big teams were spending. His prior stint at Southampton was successful as well. Neither of those jobs were a fluke, he's a really good manager and has proven it.

 

However the part where he's over rated for me is style of play and the identity of his teams. British press seem to think his teams play attractive football all the time but that's not the case, he is far more pragmatic than those pundits would like you to believe. He chopped and changed his formation, tactics and line ups depending on opposition a lot and I don't think that's something a top top team can really do now. You look at the best teams in Europe, which for me right now are Liverpool, Chelsea, City and Bayern and they all have a style of play that's more "this is how we play, deal with it". You coul even point to Pep's overthinking and tactical blunders where he's tried to change how his team play to nullify the opposition and lost big games because of it, they're always at their best when they play like they normally do.

 

It's also why I think LVG is the best manager we've had since post Fergie. He was past his prime but he won us a major trophy and had set up the team in a way where everyone knew their jobs, how to play, etc. The main issue was our recruitment was absolutely terrible and we could not solve our midfield creativity problem, if we did solve that he'd have done much better I think.

[Eutyphro]

13 hours ago, Jason said:

However the part where he's over rated for me is style of play and the identity of his teams. British press seem to think his teams play attractive football all the time but that's not the case, he is far more pragmatic than those pundits would like you to believe. He chopped and changed his formation, tactics and line ups depending on opposition a lot and I don't think that's something a top top team can really do now. You look at the best teams in Europe, which for me right now are Liverpool, Chelsea, City and Bayern and they all have a style of play that's more "this is how we play, deal with it". You coul even point to Pep's overthinking and tactical blunders where he's tried to change how his team play to nullify the opposition and lost big games because of it, they're always at their best when they play like they normally do.

I think that is also one of the main points why I call him overrated. Modern top class football is highly energetic tactically rigorous attacking football. I don't consider Poch that. He's a rather conservative minded coach I think. He's not a Pep, a Tuchel or a Klopp. He is not the type of coach United need. I think when it comes to playing style ten Hag is the most qualified coach. If United want to keep up with Pool, Chelsea and City, they have to keep up in terms of playing style.

 

I also do think Poch can be judged on how he does at PSG. He has a world class squad, and he plays below mediocre football with it, occasionally getting rescued by the individual brilliance of one of the megastars in the team. Meanwhile ten Hag and Rodgers have been playing several seasons of great football on below the top budgets.

Edited December 5, 2021 by Eutyphro

[TheSantader25]

I personally think Poch underperformed with Spurs as well. 2016 is a good example. The title was up for grabs and Spurs could take it but fell short. The lack of trophies finally dried the squad and led to his sacking. I think Spurs had a very good generation and they blew it. Now they have to rebuild again.

[Jason]

Lot of positives in that first half, we looked way more organised in our press (to no ones surprise) but also our attack. Lot more aggression in general especially from centrehalves in the middle of the pitch, was good to see. Be it tired legs or frustration or w/e the positives fizzled out in the second half but we still had moments of good play and did get the winning goal in the end, so good result and a good step forward especially with the clean sheet.

 

Gotta say though, there's been lots and lots of talk around Fred in recent months and none of it has been pretty but it's harsh when he has a quiet run of good games, gets nothing from pundits, but has a bad game, and gets an absolute kicking. Meanwhile McTominay is out there being absolute sh*te week in week out and no one in those pundit jobs is batting an eye. Don't want to bring up certain reasons why as I'd like to think that's not it, but yea McTominay is bloody awful.

 

Fred's probably not a long term solution mind you, it's clear from toward our weakest link is that midfield two when they're in possession. Can't imagine it'll be long before VDB gets a proper go in there... unless history repeats its self, anyway.

[Lonely-Martin]

3 goals and a clean sheet, what a treat indeed.

 

I know we've played lesser teams on paper, but 10 points from 12 with 3 clean sheets is something to build on. We'll know more where Sours are when we play teams in and around us though, so I'll not get carried away. 

 

But to be 2 points off of 4th with a game in hand isn't a bad place to be considering we're so broken. Conte's right though, lots of hard work ahead and hopefully he's learning more and more who's up for it or got it in them to step up. I still say we need to sell plenty and basically a whole new defence along with creativity in midfield. Kane needs to find his scoring boots but so long as we're winning, I don't care who gets the goals. Sonny has found some good form and you can tell he's enjoying playing for the club, more of that all round please!

[Lonely-Martin]

Well, we're in for a fun couple of weeks!

 

Poxy covid!

[smokeless6]

Yes, Spurs, despite all the drama, sit in a good position. After the top three it's wide open this year. I could see Spurs, Wolves, West Ham, Leicester, United or Arsenal finishing fourth. Long way to go. And Chelsea, despite how good they've been, feel like they have an implosion in them. Can't put my finger on it, but there's doom in the air.

 

Well done to Liverpool, who navigated what could have been a tricky group. Topped the group, winning every fixture. It didn't hurt that Milan seemed to collapse under the pressure. Very disappointing campaign from them, and I expected more. They could go on to win Serie A, but they'll regret mailing it in in the CL.

 

This year it's Dortmund who take the parachute in to the Europa League, and if they turn around and win the thing I'll be even more sour on this soft landing. It really shouldn't be a thing, and Dortmund should be out of Europe having failed in the CL.

[TheSantader25]

I have more hope in Kiev than ourselves tonight. Bayern lack some key players and their fans, but still they're facing the worst Barca of this century. Should be easy enough for them. Funny how things change in 2 years. 2 years ago we were 3-0 up against Liverpool hoping for our 6th CL. Now we're here.

Edited December 8, 2021 by TheSantader25

[Lonely-Martin]

10 minutes ago, smokeless6 said:

Yes, Spurs, despite all the drama, sit in a good position. After the top three it's wide open this year. I could see Spurs, Wolves, West Ham, Leicester, United or Arsenal finishing fourth. Long way to go. And Chelsea, despite how good they've been, feel like they have an implosion in them. Can't put my finger on it, but there's doom in the air.

 

Well done to Liverpool, who navigated what could have been a tricky group. Topped the group, winning every fixture. It didn't hurt that Milan seemed to collapse under the pressure. Very disappointing campaign from them, and I expected more. They could go on to win Serie A, but they'll regret mailing it in in the CL.

 

This year it's Dortmund who take the parachute in to the Europa League, and if they turn around and win the thing I'll be even more sour on this soft landing. It really shouldn't be a thing, and Dortmund should be out of Europe having failed in the CL.

 

Could be what see's us out the race because normally I'd say it's time for the squad players/back up to step up and shine, but so far under the past 3 managers (including Conte), they clearly won't so I feel it's going to be a real tough winter for us given recent news. 

 

What's worse us we just don't know how big an issue it is fully and could be spreading it to the likes of Rennes or Brighton and beyond if testing isn't picking it up right away. Hopefully it doesn't impact football further though. But with Chelsea having at least one case (as of yesterday, not up to date with them just yet), it could get real messy.

 

Also agree regarding the way the European cups are done too. Losing shouldn't be rewarded with another chance until the next season. Never really liked the idea of teams dropping down to the Europa League (was meant to mention that when you previously mentioned it).

 

And seeing news that Pele is having treatment for a tumour, hopefully that goes well. 

[smokeless6]

5 minutes ago, TheSantader25 said:

I have more hope in Kiev than ourselves tonight. Bayern lack some key players and their fans, but still they're facing the worst Barca of this century. Should be easy enough for them. Funny how things change in 2 years. 2 years ago we were 3-0 up against Liverpool hoping for our 6th CL. Now we're here.

 

 

That second half was some of the most extraordinary football I've witnessed. Of course for me it was fantastic, I'm a biased Scouser fan, but yeah, when you think about it, that could be seen as the pivotal moment, when it all started to unravel for Barca.

[smokeless6]

2 hours ago, Lonely-Martin said:

Also agree regarding the way the European cups are done too. Losing shouldn't be rewarded with another chance until the next season.

 

Yep. I singled out Dortmund but they aren't alone riding the silk elevator. The other spots (three?) will be determined today, but Dortmund are joined by Porto, Sheriff, RBL and Zenit. Not only is this a soft landing and a reward for failure, the winner's then parachuted in to next year's CL regardless of how they finish their domestic season and straight in to the group stage. I'd like to see this route closed off.

[Eutyphro]

I'm watching Bayern Barca, but United is playing the entire second team and Matic in defence, and still winning, haha. What is even happening.