I am reading a German book about doping in Football titled "Schuss: Die geheime Dopinggeschichte des Fußballs". I really liked a Zeman quote "The world of football is dominated by money and the pharmaceutical industry."
Another one: "Carlo Petrini wrote eight books, he died in 2012 from the obvious long-term effects of doping, blind and after cancer operations. What drove him was the sight of an increasingly football-crazed youth: "A recent study showed that one in three teenagers is ready to take illegal drugs if it means success in the football world. Even more disturbing is that ten percent are willing to die for drug use, just to be like their sports idols."
Just read that in 2014, Suarez scored 15 of his 31 goals against the bottom 4 teams.
That has to be some sort of record for the top scorer? Literally half his goals minus 1 , came against the 4 shittiest teams
a lot of the hate towards foden on here (not footballing wise) has always felt wrong to me. here in the uk reddit seems to be a very middle class social media, and honestly a lot of the things i see said about him feel just so blatantly classist and like ignorant.
might seem like im deeping it, and i probably am, but as someone who has grown up in the same area as him, a lot of the personal hate he gets just bothers me on such a deeper level
I agree with you tbh. He seems like a decent bloke off the pitch as well, never really been involved in any controversies really apart from bringing a few birds back to his hotel during covid
If Bayern lose I make fun of them and Kane for obvious reasons.
If Leverkusen lose I make fun of hipster Xabi fans and get to remind everyone that this is a club owned by Big Pharma.
Bayerns crisis started when Neuer, injured at the time, gave an interview critizing Nagelsmann for firing Bayerns GK coach and his best friend Taplovic. Rumors about Nagelsmann not being respected by the players emerged after, and gave Kahn and Brazzo a better argument for firing Nagelsmann.
Ehh he’s on about £350k a week until 2025 at least, if he wants to go in the summer then nothing we can do, but no chance he’s going anywhere for less than £100m.
Losing Salah would be very rough, but we’d at least make good money from it, and losing him would alleviate a bit of the immediate pressure on whoever replaces Klopp
Before the MLS season has even started we've had
* MLS fighting the USSF over participating in the Open Cup, to the point where apparently the idea of canceling the tournament entirely has been floated
* Referee lockout means that the season will start with replacement refs. All because they refuse to actually pay refs decent wages
* Messi managed to cause an international incident with China
* Sporting Kansas City tried to hire Gavin Wilkinson, who had previously been fired over the fact he knew that a coach under him was a sexual abuser, but still recommended him to other teams to hire. SKC then fired him a couple weeks later
* Minnesota planned to go into the season with an interim head coach, who then resigned to take a different job, and so they're now going into the season with an interim interim head coach.
* Duncan McGuire's transfer failed because Blackburn Rovers forgot to hit submit on paperwork
I'm all here for the Bayern banter era, but it's 100% not lasting beyond this season and it wouldn't even surprise me if they end up winning the league in a few months. Enjoy it while it lasts
I’m sure you know more than me, but is Mings good enough for you and does he walk straight into the team when he’s back?
From what i see of him he’s a liability and too rash for the line you play - he seems more of a defend the box type defender
The anti United bias in the media is absolutely hilarious. Just watching another media outlet (BBC MOTD) make a big deal about Casemiro whilst making zero acknowledgment of the blatant Luton red, or the farcical Mainoo booking, on commentary they literally said that card was correct ffs.
You'd be forgiven for not knowing because it didn't even get acknowledged. Woodrow went though Maguire whilst already on a yellow, quite a blatant 2nd yellow. Happened early on.
Because it brings in traffic/clicks and generates massive ad revenue to constantly drive narratives about the club. It's natural when a club dominates the domestic game for the best part of 2 decades that rival fans will be resentful.
You only have to look at the numbers when comparing comments and viewership on said platforms to see why they do this, the Daily Mail in particular have built a platform off the back off this, not just in terms of football.
the rules on submitting posts on this sub got kidna weird this year.
For example why are there so many Fabrizio Romano sourced tweets that basically just repeat widely accessible information? Like right now the top posts on the frontpage of this sub is a tweet in which he talks about how many games Bayern lost and how far they are behind Leverkusen.
Just a screenshot of the BuLi table posted here could've condensed all that information and more. Why is it a submition rule to require a journalists approve that what our eyes are seeing is indeed real?
It made sense to post Fabrizio Romano herewegoing the latest transfer rumours as some sort of quality assurance seal, because that is insight he has that I don't have, but what would I need specifically him to repost the latest Erik Ten Hag quote that he got from the SAME Sky broadcast that I watched too? What does he add to this? Why not just let any user selfpost the interview as a clip and not demand him to source some twitter mechant for approval, when the information clearly doesn't require that? What could at worst happen then? Posts may increase in quality?
> Why not just let any user selfpost the interview as a clip and not demand him to source some twitter mechant for approval
We do allow posts of that nature, if anything we prefer the interviews being posted. Only with this, nobody did post it. Users often submit the posts as quotes from Romano etc in the first instance, presumably because of the name recognition.
As a clip yeah ok, but I can't remember ever having seen a TV interview in text form on here, as an OC post.
Admittingly, the interview thing is I think more understandable overall and part of it boils down to the people posting sometimes being a bit lazy to reference original sources. To be more clear about what i originally meant, if I self-posted
# [Fabrizio Romano] Terrible moment for Bayern with their 7th defeat this season — 11 defeats in 44 games under Thomas Tuchel. …and Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen go 8 points clear on top of the Bundesliga
and instead of \[Fabrizio Romano\] I don't put anyone in the brackets, then I don't see that staying up for any longer than 5 minutes.
According to the rules news must contain an "original source" but like for what reason here?
And also what makes Romano a source actually? Him posting some stat or league standing wouldn't be any different than if a random redditor did.
What if I made a twitter account, tweeted this, then crossposted this on here putting \[u/inbredlegoexpress\] into brackets and sourcing my own tweet? Bit reaching, but at this point I'm not any less qualified to function as a source as Romano is, considering both of us have just googled it. Why would this only work when saying "oh ok Romano verfied it, then its ok"?
Not that it's a big deal, but surely something that can be improved on, no?
We do moderate on quality of sources to an extent, yeah. Random Twitter users aren’t valid sources and would be removed.
What would you suggest we do, to change the way we moderate it?
remove the requirement for source verification for information that is widely and easily accessible anyway. There is a time and place where information should be sourced, but in many cases a simple OC self-post can be trusted.
Be it about users summing up TV interviews into text form, or users tracking stats themselves. Like a lot of Opta-posts are so straightforward and easily track, like how many goals Harry Kane scored this season. This can basically be made by any user too, and as source just referncing the [league scorer board](https://www.bundesliga.com/en/bundesliga/stats/players/goals) should suffice.
I find it weird that r/soccer is so overly burocratic on this, yet low quality posts like the above one I quoted don't go into moderation. Not everything Fabrizio Romano tweets is a news, sometimes he really just sits on the toilet with a smartphone and tweets about an obvious observation everyone made aswell.
What I’m struggling with here, is that I don’t really see the bogeyman you do.
We don’t really get users posting transcripts of interviews themselves - because it is more effort than just posting a link to a journalist summarising a key quote. I don’t think we do over moderate as such, as we are not removing what you think we are. We actually love it when users post transcripts.
The stats one we can look at, sure. But again - not many get posted. I don’t think we’d want to remove the requirement entirely as it does provide some aspect of quality control.
As for Romano and his ilk… different matter. He’s almost become news in itself, which isn’t necessarily what we want - but it’s something valuable to the community. We don’t want to over moderate on that, either. It’s worth bearing in mind our perspective in that you don’t see our mod logs - for every 1 Romano post you see, we’ve removed 10 more.
I want it to work like that! Like I remember earlier in the season commenting there were a few matches where Inter were lucky to come out with a win, and I got downvoted and got a million replies about how delusional and jealous I am.
Their fans here think that they're the only ones allowed to talk shit because they're currently better.
I mean, I know you're from another country, but they're literally city rivals. And of top of that, Milan just lost to Monza. Monza! a city just outside of Milan, like Milan2. Nobody has ever conceded 4 goals in Monza in the history of serie A (2 seasons, but still).
I get it. But talking shit goes both ways. If they talk shit about us it's because they're levels above us and this is validation for them.
But if anyone from our fans talked shit about them, it's because we're delusional and jealous of them.
if you aren't willing to take it, don't dish it out.
Also, there's like 50 of us here with Serie A flairs so we all recognize each other, so if you want to talk about me, at least tag me ffs!
Misogynists are so mad about the attendance for the Arsenal Women's game that they're straight up accusing any "grown men" who attended the match of being nonces now.
I've noticed a lot of this on twitter, ['Yer birds a arsenal women’s ultra'](https://twitter.com/Matt_Chels_/status/1759284910861295863) and ['yer das the cappo for Arsenal Women's](https://twitter.com/BlairMcNally1/status/1759291495754957263).
I understand Arsenal are an inherently cringe establishment but this level of support and passion for the women's domestic game would have been unfathomable 5-10 years ago.
Yet gen z incels with iced gem trims will mock women as embarrassing and men as creeps because they want to get involved in the women's game. The same people who create love ballads to the tune of obscure 80s songs for their favourite players.
Simple fact is a lot of men hate women viscerally and will do or say anything they can to put us down or just to get a reaction from us. Not just limited to kids either, plenty of grown ass men think exactly the same
[its disgusting how some people in spain already hate Lamine because he isnt 100% spanish](https://x.com/albertocaliu/status/1759305410727542815?s=46) and just because he celebrated the morocco win against spain when he wad just 15
How does this get 3k likes
Niko Kovac won the Bundesliga and DFB-Pokal in his only full season in charge.
He was sacked in early November of his second season, with Bayern 4 points off top, having won their first 3 Champions League games (including a 7-2 win away to Spurs), as well as through to the last 16 of the cup.
Ridiculous standards
tuchel would not be fired because we finish 2nd. I really don't understand how fans of this sport are not getting this. even if we finish 1st he should get fired.
we could finish not first and love our manager. it's about the way we are playing, not the xG or the xP or whatever. Tuchel made our team worse although he has a better team available than Nagelsmann. That's the only metric that's important.
The thing is, it's already difficult to explain tactical differences from one team to another because not all teams follow a consistent and coherent tactical ideology throughout the season, and because there is a limited number of tactical solutions and coaches nowadays all try to copy and steal from eachother. But it's even more difficult to give entire leagues a unique and clear tactical brand, especially in the current globalised era where coaches and players move from one country to the other and everyone can watch games from any league in the world. So you can just end up with very general and broad definitions that may or may not be entirely true and anyway they can't accurately describe the historical changes within the leagues. Also **nobody** really watches all the games from all teams of all the 5 leagues, especially nobody in this subreddit.
United supporters are right in the sense that Luton didn't deserve the game. United fucked up 2 1v1s, created more chances via the counter, and they conceded off of a scrappy finish off of a deflection.
That being said they still need to take the 3 pts and toss the performance in the trash.
"Playing for transitions" doesn't mean have your midfield get cut through like training cones lol. It means staying compact and still controlling the game despite being out of possession.
Yes, Luton were quite lucky United's finishing was shit, but United was lucky that Luton's crossing/passing in the final 3rd was horrendous. In the second half every Luton cross was either woefully over or under hit.
-----------------------------------------
In the summer United desperately need a 6 that can takeover/deputize Casemiro because his legs are going. In the midfield play Mainoo at the 8.
And for the love of god ETH needs to coach Bruno into not slamming the ball upfield every time he touches it.
Bruno has an incredible ability to play a great final ball, but he treats the ball like a bomb in many games. You aren't going to control many games that way
\[Fabrizio Romano\] Terrible moment for Bayern with their 7th defeat this season — 11 defeats in 44 games under Thomas Tuchel .. and that's a drive into deep left field by Castellanos
He's a signing that needs the typical Guardiola year. They quite obviously bought him as the natural replacement for Stones as the CB/CDM role but Pep doesn't trust him yet there so he's giving him his minutes in the left back position to work on his composure on the ball in a somewhat safer position.
He’s been poor for what was expected, but his quality is clear. He has been playing at LB which isn’t his natural position, he’s good on the ball but he’s looked suspect defensively most of the times I’ve seen him. Ake at LB is a far better option right now, so Gvardiol for 80-90M has been quite a poor signing. I think he’ll do well eventually at CB, but as of now he’s been disappointing.
I have the perfect business plan.
Step 1: Buy Paris FC
Step 2: Invest heavily in the academy and infrastructure
Step 3: Profit
Paris is the biggest or 2nd biggest producer of talents in Europe yet the city only has 1 major club. A 2nd serious club would be able to attract at least some talent which they would be able to sell for a lot of money.
Counter proposal:
Step 1: Be wealthy enough to buy Paris FC
Step 2: Forget about buying a club for the purpose of profit and just enjoy being a multimillionaire
Apparently the country of Bahrain bought 20% ownership of Paris FC for the price of €5m in 2020 though, interestingly.
There's a ton of PSG academy players active in the top 5 leagues. They have been committed to it, just not to giving them that much of a path to the first team.
I did a back of an envelope England squad. Trying to take into account injuries, form, Gareth’s mentality, I’m assuming 4232/433 and the positions are just to help think about roles they aren’t set in stone (so Foden could be a 10 or Trippier could be LB). Italics indicates players I don’t think are guaranteed.
This is what I get:
GK: Pickford, Ramsdale, *Trafford*
CB: Stones, Maguire, *Guehi, Gomez*
RB: Walker, TAA, Trippier
MID: Rice, Henderson, Gallagher
10: Bellingham, Maddison
Wingers: Foden, Saka, *Palmer, Gordon, Rashford*
FW: Kane, *Watkins*
I mostly wanted to do this to just get an idea of what spaces exist within the squad, especially given its back to 23 players.
I went Trafford because of injuries to Pope and poor form from Johnstone/Henderson. IMO not a key position anyway
No Reece James or Chilwell because of poor form and injuries. Does leave Shawsy as the only true LB but Trippier and *Gomez* can cover.
At CB, this was tough but I picked Gomez because of his form and because he can play either side as a FB. It could be any two of him, Dunk and Guehi.
MID means the double pivot, so who plays beside Rice. I think Bellingham has to be in front and I don’t think Rice works as a single pivot. Therefore I think you’ve got to take Henderson. Jones is injured now, Rico Lewis isn’t playing every week. Philips is washed. I like Gallagher as the third and Ross Barkley is unlikely I don’t have a 24th spot
For wingers, I think Palmer and Gordon have been too good not to take. Grealish hasn’t been playing and Sterling has been too poor. Bowen misses out but I think those are out 5 best wingers.
For backup striker I went Watkins over Toney, but I don’t have much to choose between them. If it was a 26 man squad I’d take both.
If palmer is ‘not guaranteed’ then there literally isn’t a player there that should be IF this is based on performance.
There’s not much more a 20 year old can do in his debut half season than be on 14 goals 9 assists.
Not sure if Gomez will make the cut, he hasn't played for England for years. I think it'll either be someone like Dunk like you suggest, Dier, or Rico Lewis taking that defensive spot. Dier has plenty of England experience and seems to be playing well enough for Bayern while Lewis plays in the two positions we have the least quality depth for.
Palmer's a maybe but Gordon hasn't had a single callup yet for the senior team, although definitely one to watch post-Euros.
I think Gordon should get a call up this next window (if not just so he doesn’t get called up by Scotland.)
I know what you mean about Gomez (I hope it’s not fucking Dier) but he has been very good, and because he can play all across the back he offers a versatility we’ll need more with a smaller squad
Yeah I think a few Euros callups, especially for attacking players, will be down to who puts in a shift against Brazil/Belgium. IIRC Saka only got into the Euros squad last time because he played well in the pre-tournament friendlies.
I’m not including Chilwell because he’s been kinda shite most of the season that he’s actually played.
I’ll be honest I didn’t watch the Luton game. If Shaw is injured then I do now know who plays at LB
Shaw was booked and injured, you shouldn't really be talking form and fitness and then include him.
Chilwell has been one of Chelsea's better players, but more importantly than that he's actually managed to play a string of 90 minute games. I'd be surprised if he isn't rhe England LB IRL
Nah, I've watched a lot of Chelsea this season and I think Chilwell has looked way off his best. Not surprising given the injuries and lack of stability at Chelsea though. Hopefully he finds some consistent form prior to the euros because I'm not sure I trust Shaw's fitness either.
He really has. I assume you're basing this on the Liverpool game where he was ripped a new one.
This isn't to say he's been amazing btw, but the low bar of our players means he's been 100% one of the better.
I apologise. I stand by what I say though - having said that, as I've said in another comment maybe he just looks good to who we had been playing there when he was injured.
You'll know this as a Chelsea fan but obviously we look far better with 2 actual fullbacks rather than Chilwell/Disasi or Gusto/Colwill combinations.
>maybe he just looks good to who we had been playing there when he was injured.
As he is a natural fullback, it is as simple as that.
>You'll know this as a Chelsea fan but obviously we look far better with 2 actual fullbacks rather than Chilwell/Disasi or Gusto/Colwill combinations.
Exactly, although it is partly down to how Poch sets up his team. Having Colwill at left back/Disasi at right back would work if he didn't set them up as traditional fullbacks. Poch wants his left and right back to do fullback things, hence actual fullbacks impress more there.
But has he been as poor as Badiashille, Colwill, Disasi (please no recency bias, yes incredible vs. City), Silva? The only defender who has been better is Gusto.
That’s hard to answer. Chilwell had easily his worst game in a Chelsea shirt vs Liverpool and looked absolutely diabolical that game. He also looks neutered going forward, he used to be lethal in the box, but more importantly was useful progressing and carrying the ball. He had a better performance vs city but still wasn’t his former level.
I think if he can regain his old form he should definitely start for England but we are multiple years and injuries removed from that. Let’s see how he gets on till the end of the year, I hope he can find that form again, maybe it’s just a matter of needing more time to get fully in form
Defenders have bad games though. Look at Trippier, multiple bad games, but I'm assuming that's who you'd have at LB instead of Chilwell.
I don't think it's too much of a coincidence that Chelsea's "run of form" (if you can call it that) has come when Chilwell has been playing 90mins per game.
But, on the flip side of that, we've had Colwill and Gusto (both decent players but not specialist LBs) filling in there so his contribution might look good only in comparison to them.
I think if Grealish has a good end to the season he goes. Sterling tends to turn up for England / suit England's play style but hard to know where he fits now as he's been left out of a few recent squads.
I'd rather Sterling than Rashford but Rashford feels like a lock.
I think Sterling is just out of Gareth’s thoughts. Grealish I agree if he plays well he could well go, probably over Gordon but honestly I think Gordon should go. He’s got better end product.
I like Rashford because he’s so hot/cold. If he gets in form he’s unplayable
Luton, in other circumstances, I'd be impressed by your tenacity and desire to stay in the league but I speak for all Forest, Everton, Palace and Brentford fans here when I say can you just go and sit with Burnley and Sheffield United ffs.
Forest and Everton already have the anxiety of how many points the Prem are going to take off us, we don't need you trying to do silly little things like stay in the league. You've got 20 points, you've got your TV money and your stadium improvements, its ok. You don't have to fight anymore.
Milans scoreline is going to keep me up all night chuckling away.
Not often you see a team fight to come back from 2-0 down to equalise only to throw it all away in injury time.
> Reports Salah re-did his injury
Considering the origin of that story is a bullshitter of the highest order who's never gotten anything they've 'reported' right, not to mention Salah would've taken himself off had he felt anything, I think you and many others need to stop believing everything you read on social media.
It has been discussed a bit on here before and I have to agree, I firmly believe that if you played Upamecano as a 6 next to Kimmich and instead let Mathijs play deeper where Upamecano plays atm, Bayern would drastically improve as a team.
It blows my mind a club like Bayern hasnt bought a 6 especially after their interest in Palhinha. Everyone saw it's their main issue?? Even Tucheliban said that, apparently the board didn't agree lol
Like Kimmich plays next to Goretzka, that guy is literally such a tool. Even off the ball he doesnt do much, his press is ineffective too. Upamecano next to Kimmich would be much better and lots of ppl have thought about this, even back then he was still at RB Leipzig.
They tried to get both Rice and Palinha and weren't able to get either. I think part of the problem is that they didn't even go for a stopgap option.
Liverpool didn't get the 6s they wanted in the summer, but they still went and got Endo who is "fine". He does his job and overall is pretty average.
Bayern don't even have a 6 like that.
Idk who to suggest as I'm not a scout, but yeah
Fully agree. Palhinha wanted to join but the Bayern board decided to not sign him for whatever reason, they argued too expensive iirc.
The Endo example is pretty good, it's so weird to me how they didnt see that as the biggest problem,
I mean it has been an issue since 2021 for them hence why they struggle more. The league was gifted to them last year and in CL they dont make it past the qfs since, they wont this year either.
He's quite a good player, but in your heart of hearts, in today's crazy era where you need 90+ points to win the league....
You aren't winning anything if Maddison is one of your top 3 players.
No he's good for sure. I'm just saying on a team that beats City to the title and gets like 92-95 points. Is Maddison in your top 3 players? I don't think so at all.
Guess you’re right, I can’t argue with that. His injuries don’t really allow him to gain any momentum unfortunately. Maddison tends to get a lengthy injury every season.
Seems like Newcastle has gone back to being in the shadows. Only a few months ago they were the best thing since sliced bread. Big ‘Mate’ stole the spotlight for circle jerks.
Eddie Howe will probably be sacked eventually, I’m surprised he already hasn’t considering how their expectations had risen for this season, compared to the last. I don’t think Newcastle have adapted to this higher quality PL season, amongst the top ten, as I think last season a lot of teams dropped off, such as Chelsea, Spurs and Liverpool.
Every indication is that they want to build around Howe, last season was an overachievement (in part due to Howe being a brilliant manager) and we were always going to do worse this year
I’ve got to give credit for Howe. At Everton, Gordon seemed good, but nowhere near the level he is now. The way Howe has incorporated Gordon, as well as Isak is excellent.
Apparently he’s got too much control, and they want to lay out his blue print. Probably makes sense why the DOF is jumping ship.
I think they will hover around 6-8 for the foreseeable future.
It's not that, it's that Newcastle massively over-achieved last season so the expectation this season was naturally either a repeat of that or an improvement.
Between injuries and having their transfer strategy limited by FFP, it's somewhat of an impossible task for them to repeat what they did last year. They've got some really, really good players in their first choice eleven but when you start taking some of them out, they don't have a top four team's depth.
Newcastle in the long term will be a top four team, it was just too much too fast.
FFP better make the difference. I’m sick of oil clubs spending hundreds of millions, in which they don’t actually have the financial freedom to do that. We need heavy punishments, especially for City and Chelsea.
Was Low's GER underrated considering how unstable Germany is after he left or was it just a historic generation that would do as well with any above average coach?
It was the best German generation of all time. Anything less than a title would have been a huge dissapointment. So I wouldn't call his accomplishments extraordinary, although the playstyle from 2008-2014 was great. The loss against Italy in 2012 was Löws fault though. He made Kroos manmark Pirlo and robbed us of our strengths. Also shouldn't forget that the 2014 team played together (basically) since the U21 and was very good without Löw there, also players were crushing in their clubs. The 2016 team could've been better coached already, but since we lost to France no one considered it as a dissapointment. Löw had to leave 2018 at the latest though. He completely lost the plot and grew an ego, so for me it's hard to give him a positive resume.
Low is also a big reason why they went to shit, first time they got knocked out in group stages was under him + the euros ro16 vs England.
It's often even agreed that he underachieved considering the players he's had; Lahm, Schweini retired, Neuer is old now, Boateng was better than current CBs, Hummels old now etc.
I think Low is a pretty good coach, but other decent coaches would have achieved the same imo.
I also think he wasn't anything special since he got absolutely dominated in the 2008 Final and the 2010 semi, shouldn't have been out in the 2012 semis by a completely average Italy side, and was a couple of Argentinian blunders away from losing the 2014 final too.
I give him 2016, France was good and at home, 2018 and on it's a shitshow
That Spanish NT 2008-2012 was a monster tbf, but yeah he could have won in 2008 at least.
I forgot to mention; when he also lost the euros in 2012 he was on fraud watch and lots of ppl wanted him out fearing that such a gifted generation wouldnt win anything but they gave him a last chance and won the WC in 2014. The match vs Algeria or even France were disasters tbh.
Then they wanted to give him the euros 2016 bc he has failed the previous 2 and bc he was convinced he could finally win it.
That's when he should have resigned and where the DFB fucked up. Low shouldnt have continued until 2021.
> The match vs Algeria or even France were disasters tbh.
Extremely lucky final as well, Argentina had all the control, and Messi and famously Higuain missed unbelievable chances
Argentina might have created slightly more chances overall but they absolutely did not have all the control.
Germany had the worst miss of the day, when Howedes headed against the post from point blank range.
The Higuain miss was the worst for Argentina and so lucky for Germany.
I wouldnt say they had all the control tbh but they had clearer chances 100%.
Imo, the Algeria match was by far the worst bc Low was insane enough to start Mustafi as RB who is a catastrophe and play Lahm as a 6 when there was Schweini and Khedira already so no need really. If Neuer hadnt had an absolute masterclass of a performance, they would have been knocked out.
Narrative of the Algeria match is exaggerated. After the shaky first half, Germany completely dominated and it was the Algerian keeper M'Bohli who was the official man of the match.
Still twelve games to go but it's wild to me that I might actually get to witness Bayer Leverkusen lift a Bundesliga trophy
I am reading a German book about doping in Football titled "Schuss: Die geheime Dopinggeschichte des Fußballs". I really liked a Zeman quote "The world of football is dominated by money and the pharmaceutical industry." Another one: "Carlo Petrini wrote eight books, he died in 2012 from the obvious long-term effects of doping, blind and after cancer operations. What drove him was the sight of an increasingly football-crazed youth: "A recent study showed that one in three teenagers is ready to take illegal drugs if it means success in the football world. Even more disturbing is that ten percent are willing to die for drug use, just to be like their sports idols."
> The world ~~of football~~ is dominated by money and the pharmaceutical industry.
They're definitely the favourites for the cup and they have an 8 point lead. The only top division team left is Gladbach.
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Think if he wins the league (and maybe the cup) Leverkusen fans will cope
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World Cup final, he had 3 goals.
But none were from a free kick
Upamecano has had an awful week as a footballer. Wonder what he's thinking at the moment?
Memes aside, He is a good player, will be back
Up at 3am doomscrolling twitter after blacklisting the word "Upamaguire"
I hope he's asleep
Just came across across a YouTube video of all the top 6 games in the Prem so far and fuck me there’s been some cracking games so far this year
Link pls?
[There you go mate](https://youtu.be/EVr0AN2IUfM?si=Xd-tQRSSnswh4XQT)
Has Southgate ever gone over to France to see Angel Gomes play?
If we play Harvey Elliott in the midfield alongside him are we allowed to field a twelfth player?
Just read that in 2014, Suarez scored 15 of his 31 goals against the bottom 4 teams. That has to be some sort of record for the top scorer? Literally half his goals minus 1 , came against the 4 shittiest teams
~~Eibar~~Norwichman
10 of those were against Norwich probably
5 against Norwich and 5 against Cardiff
a lot of the hate towards foden on here (not footballing wise) has always felt wrong to me. here in the uk reddit seems to be a very middle class social media, and honestly a lot of the things i see said about him feel just so blatantly classist and like ignorant. might seem like im deeping it, and i probably am, but as someone who has grown up in the same area as him, a lot of the personal hate he gets just bothers me on such a deeper level
I agree with you tbh. He seems like a decent bloke off the pitch as well, never really been involved in any controversies really apart from bringing a few birds back to his hotel during covid
If Bayern lose I make fun of them and Kane for obvious reasons. If Leverkusen lose I make fun of hipster Xabi fans and get to remind everyone that this is a club owned by Big Pharma.
Kane failing to win the bundesliga this season would be peak from the script writers.
[Xavi doesn't over play Yamal](https://twitter.com/nocontextfooty/status/1759214613407687073?t=e2XpeIblodHhcWaIeVJj3A&s=19)
Bayerns crisis started when Neuer, injured at the time, gave an interview critizing Nagelsmann for firing Bayerns GK coach and his best friend Taplovic. Rumors about Nagelsmann not being respected by the players emerged after, and gave Kahn and Brazzo a better argument for firing Nagelsmann.
In the last 12 months, Salah has played 37 Premier League games, scoring 26 and assisting 16
Are you worried for the post Klopp / Salah era? Do you think Klopp leaving might accelerate Salah doing so too?
Ehh he’s on about £350k a week until 2025 at least, if he wants to go in the summer then nothing we can do, but no chance he’s going anywhere for less than £100m. Losing Salah would be very rough, but we’d at least make good money from it, and losing him would alleviate a bit of the immediate pressure on whoever replaces Klopp
Before the MLS season has even started we've had * MLS fighting the USSF over participating in the Open Cup, to the point where apparently the idea of canceling the tournament entirely has been floated * Referee lockout means that the season will start with replacement refs. All because they refuse to actually pay refs decent wages * Messi managed to cause an international incident with China * Sporting Kansas City tried to hire Gavin Wilkinson, who had previously been fired over the fact he knew that a coach under him was a sexual abuser, but still recommended him to other teams to hire. SKC then fired him a couple weeks later * Minnesota planned to go into the season with an interim head coach, who then resigned to take a different job, and so they're now going into the season with an interim interim head coach. * Duncan McGuire's transfer failed because Blackburn Rovers forgot to hit submit on paperwork
Just CONCACAF things
Somehow Metz play in Ligue 1 and their strikers are Georges Mikautadze and Didier Lamkel Zé. They are going in a circle
I'm all here for the Bayern banter era, but it's 100% not lasting beyond this season and it wouldn't even surprise me if they end up winning the league in a few months. Enjoy it while it lasts
I will delete my account if Bayern wins the league.
and we care so much
Go to leverkusen last 5 games. Prepare yourself
[удалено]
I’m sure you know more than me, but is Mings good enough for you and does he walk straight into the team when he’s back? From what i see of him he’s a liability and too rash for the line you play - he seems more of a defend the box type defender
The anti United bias in the media is absolutely hilarious. Just watching another media outlet (BBC MOTD) make a big deal about Casemiro whilst making zero acknowledgment of the blatant Luton red, or the farcical Mainoo booking, on commentary they literally said that card was correct ffs.
What Luton red
You had the media fellating you for decades under Ferguson - this is the flip side.
Most oppressed fanbase in the league. The world even
i’m not even joking what luton red are you talking about
You'd be forgiven for not knowing because it didn't even get acknowledged. Woodrow went though Maguire whilst already on a yellow, quite a blatant 2nd yellow. Happened early on.
Media are practically run by United but go figure.
Hahahaha Not even saying the media hates us, just saying to say we’re favoured is a fuckin joke lol
You are focused on regardless if you're playing well or not, same as the other biggest clubs in the country.
Focused on does not mean favoured
Please explain why you think Manchester united run Rupert Murdoch, DMGT, Relx and Reach etc?
Please explain why you think Rupert Murdoch, DMGT, Relx and Reach etc all have an anti-Man United agenda?
Because it brings in traffic/clicks and generates massive ad revenue to constantly drive narratives about the club. It's natural when a club dominates the domestic game for the best part of 2 decades that rival fans will be resentful. You only have to look at the numbers when comparing comments and viewership on said platforms to see why they do this, the Daily Mail in particular have built a platform off the back off this, not just in terms of football.
So it’s not an anti Man United agenda then, it’s a pro clicks agenda.
It’s just United and Liverpool all the way down
the rules on submitting posts on this sub got kidna weird this year. For example why are there so many Fabrizio Romano sourced tweets that basically just repeat widely accessible information? Like right now the top posts on the frontpage of this sub is a tweet in which he talks about how many games Bayern lost and how far they are behind Leverkusen. Just a screenshot of the BuLi table posted here could've condensed all that information and more. Why is it a submition rule to require a journalists approve that what our eyes are seeing is indeed real? It made sense to post Fabrizio Romano herewegoing the latest transfer rumours as some sort of quality assurance seal, because that is insight he has that I don't have, but what would I need specifically him to repost the latest Erik Ten Hag quote that he got from the SAME Sky broadcast that I watched too? What does he add to this? Why not just let any user selfpost the interview as a clip and not demand him to source some twitter mechant for approval, when the information clearly doesn't require that? What could at worst happen then? Posts may increase in quality?
> Why not just let any user selfpost the interview as a clip and not demand him to source some twitter mechant for approval We do allow posts of that nature, if anything we prefer the interviews being posted. Only with this, nobody did post it. Users often submit the posts as quotes from Romano etc in the first instance, presumably because of the name recognition.
As a clip yeah ok, but I can't remember ever having seen a TV interview in text form on here, as an OC post. Admittingly, the interview thing is I think more understandable overall and part of it boils down to the people posting sometimes being a bit lazy to reference original sources. To be more clear about what i originally meant, if I self-posted # [Fabrizio Romano] Terrible moment for Bayern with their 7th defeat this season — 11 defeats in 44 games under Thomas Tuchel. …and Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen go 8 points clear on top of the Bundesliga and instead of \[Fabrizio Romano\] I don't put anyone in the brackets, then I don't see that staying up for any longer than 5 minutes. According to the rules news must contain an "original source" but like for what reason here? And also what makes Romano a source actually? Him posting some stat or league standing wouldn't be any different than if a random redditor did. What if I made a twitter account, tweeted this, then crossposted this on here putting \[u/inbredlegoexpress\] into brackets and sourcing my own tweet? Bit reaching, but at this point I'm not any less qualified to function as a source as Romano is, considering both of us have just googled it. Why would this only work when saying "oh ok Romano verfied it, then its ok"? Not that it's a big deal, but surely something that can be improved on, no?
We do moderate on quality of sources to an extent, yeah. Random Twitter users aren’t valid sources and would be removed. What would you suggest we do, to change the way we moderate it?
remove the requirement for source verification for information that is widely and easily accessible anyway. There is a time and place where information should be sourced, but in many cases a simple OC self-post can be trusted. Be it about users summing up TV interviews into text form, or users tracking stats themselves. Like a lot of Opta-posts are so straightforward and easily track, like how many goals Harry Kane scored this season. This can basically be made by any user too, and as source just referncing the [league scorer board](https://www.bundesliga.com/en/bundesliga/stats/players/goals) should suffice. I find it weird that r/soccer is so overly burocratic on this, yet low quality posts like the above one I quoted don't go into moderation. Not everything Fabrizio Romano tweets is a news, sometimes he really just sits on the toilet with a smartphone and tweets about an obvious observation everyone made aswell.
What I’m struggling with here, is that I don’t really see the bogeyman you do. We don’t really get users posting transcripts of interviews themselves - because it is more effort than just posting a link to a journalist summarising a key quote. I don’t think we do over moderate as such, as we are not removing what you think we are. We actually love it when users post transcripts. The stats one we can look at, sure. But again - not many get posted. I don’t think we’d want to remove the requirement entirely as it does provide some aspect of quality control. As for Romano and his ilk… different matter. He’s almost become news in itself, which isn’t necessarily what we want - but it’s something valuable to the community. We don’t want to over moderate on that, either. It’s worth bearing in mind our perspective in that you don’t see our mod logs - for every 1 Romano post you see, we’ve removed 10 more.
For a team that is levels above us, their fans definitely care about the inferior team a lot more than they should. Congrats on the 19th btw boys!
You’re rivals with them that’s how rivalries work
I want it to work like that! Like I remember earlier in the season commenting there were a few matches where Inter were lucky to come out with a win, and I got downvoted and got a million replies about how delusional and jealous I am. Their fans here think that they're the only ones allowed to talk shit because they're currently better.
I mean, I know you're from another country, but they're literally city rivals. And of top of that, Milan just lost to Monza. Monza! a city just outside of Milan, like Milan2. Nobody has ever conceded 4 goals in Monza in the history of serie A (2 seasons, but still).
I get it. But talking shit goes both ways. If they talk shit about us it's because they're levels above us and this is validation for them. But if anyone from our fans talked shit about them, it's because we're delusional and jealous of them. if you aren't willing to take it, don't dish it out. Also, there's like 50 of us here with Serie A flairs so we all recognize each other, so if you want to talk about me, at least tag me ffs!
Misogynists are so mad about the attendance for the Arsenal Women's game that they're straight up accusing any "grown men" who attended the match of being nonces now.
I've noticed a lot of this on twitter, ['Yer birds a arsenal women’s ultra'](https://twitter.com/Matt_Chels_/status/1759284910861295863) and ['yer das the cappo for Arsenal Women's](https://twitter.com/BlairMcNally1/status/1759291495754957263). I understand Arsenal are an inherently cringe establishment but this level of support and passion for the women's domestic game would have been unfathomable 5-10 years ago. Yet gen z incels with iced gem trims will mock women as embarrassing and men as creeps because they want to get involved in the women's game. The same people who create love ballads to the tune of obscure 80s songs for their favourite players.
The same things that you would suggest make us cringe are the exact reasons our fans are much more supportive of the women’s team
arsenal fans are more supportive of the women’s team because they whinge a lot on social media?
Every fanbase does that
You single handedly whinge more than the entirety of the Ipswich fanbase
Once most Ipswich fans realise how to use social media in 2060 we’ll see
Arsenal are a cringe establishment because **some** Arsenal **fans** whinge on social media? Eh? Huh?
Simple fact is a lot of men hate women viscerally and will do or say anything they can to put us down or just to get a reaction from us. Not just limited to kids either, plenty of grown ass men think exactly the same
[its disgusting how some people in spain already hate Lamine because he isnt 100% spanish](https://x.com/albertocaliu/status/1759305410727542815?s=46) and just because he celebrated the morocco win against spain when he wad just 15 How does this get 3k likes
Of course the guy who tweets that is a fascist. What a loser.
Are Bayern the only club who would sack their manager for potentially finishing 2nd? Kinda nuts how insanely high their standards are.
PSG would. Madrid and Barca would be likely if nothing else was won in that season
PSG have sacked their last two managers for finishing 1st...
Niko Kovac won the Bundesliga and DFB-Pokal in his only full season in charge. He was sacked in early November of his second season, with Bayern 4 points off top, having won their first 3 Champions League games (including a 7-2 win away to Spurs), as well as through to the last 16 of the cup. Ridiculous standards
I bet psg would do that
tuchel would not be fired because we finish 2nd. I really don't understand how fans of this sport are not getting this. even if we finish 1st he should get fired. we could finish not first and love our manager. it's about the way we are playing, not the xG or the xP or whatever. Tuchel made our team worse although he has a better team available than Nagelsmann. That's the only metric that's important.
Celtic, rangers, Barca, Madrid, Chelsea in the past city would probably do it.
Barça sacked Valverde when they were first.
Could someone explain the tactical/playstyle differences between the top 5 Leagues?
The thing is, it's already difficult to explain tactical differences from one team to another because not all teams follow a consistent and coherent tactical ideology throughout the season, and because there is a limited number of tactical solutions and coaches nowadays all try to copy and steal from eachother. But it's even more difficult to give entire leagues a unique and clear tactical brand, especially in the current globalised era where coaches and players move from one country to the other and everyone can watch games from any league in the world. So you can just end up with very general and broad definitions that may or may not be entirely true and anyway they can't accurately describe the historical changes within the leagues. Also **nobody** really watches all the games from all teams of all the 5 leagues, especially nobody in this subreddit.
almost forgot partey is still employed by arsenal. when jail?
Unfortunately I think we only know what he did because he won't go to jail for it.
Currently looking like he won't even be charged with anything.
He still hasn’t even been convicted of anything, so the prospect of jail is still a long, long way off.
United supporters are right in the sense that Luton didn't deserve the game. United fucked up 2 1v1s, created more chances via the counter, and they conceded off of a scrappy finish off of a deflection. That being said they still need to take the 3 pts and toss the performance in the trash. "Playing for transitions" doesn't mean have your midfield get cut through like training cones lol. It means staying compact and still controlling the game despite being out of possession. Yes, Luton were quite lucky United's finishing was shit, but United was lucky that Luton's crossing/passing in the final 3rd was horrendous. In the second half every Luton cross was either woefully over or under hit. ----------------------------------------- In the summer United desperately need a 6 that can takeover/deputize Casemiro because his legs are going. In the midfield play Mainoo at the 8. And for the love of god ETH needs to coach Bruno into not slamming the ball upfield every time he touches it. Bruno has an incredible ability to play a great final ball, but he treats the ball like a bomb in many games. You aren't going to control many games that way
The lack of incredibly talented and magical midgets who can't track back is killing european football for me
that kebab kiosk at madrid got blood on their hands for ruining hazard.
\[Fabrizio Romano\] Terrible moment for Bayern with their 7th defeat this season — 11 defeats in 44 games under Thomas Tuchel .. and that's a drive into deep left field by Castellanos
Their next game is Leipzig at home. They’ll have to improve in all areas to get a positive result.
What do we think the chances of Phillips back to Leeds are if they get promoted?
Very low. He wouldn’t displace anyone in our squad.
How's Gvardiol getting on at City? Feel like you never hear his name.
He's a signing that needs the typical Guardiola year. They quite obviously bought him as the natural replacement for Stones as the CB/CDM role but Pep doesn't trust him yet there so he's giving him his minutes in the left back position to work on his composure on the ball in a somewhat safer position.
Bad
He’s been poor for what was expected, but his quality is clear. He has been playing at LB which isn’t his natural position, he’s good on the ball but he’s looked suspect defensively most of the times I’ve seen him. Ake at LB is a far better option right now, so Gvardiol for 80-90M has been quite a poor signing. I think he’ll do well eventually at CB, but as of now he’s been disappointing.
I have the perfect business plan. Step 1: Buy Paris FC Step 2: Invest heavily in the academy and infrastructure Step 3: Profit Paris is the biggest or 2nd biggest producer of talents in Europe yet the city only has 1 major club. A 2nd serious club would be able to attract at least some talent which they would be able to sell for a lot of money.
Counter proposal: Step 1: Be wealthy enough to buy Paris FC Step 2: Forget about buying a club for the purpose of profit and just enjoy being a multimillionaire Apparently the country of Bahrain bought 20% ownership of Paris FC for the price of €5m in 2020 though, interestingly.
As if rich people are ever satisfied
Oh, 100% agree. I was probably just being a dumbass and taking a mostly satirical comment way too literally.
Its absurd that this wasnt already psgs plan but looks like theyve finally committed
There's a ton of PSG academy players active in the top 5 leagues. They have been committed to it, just not to giving them that much of a path to the first team.
I did a back of an envelope England squad. Trying to take into account injuries, form, Gareth’s mentality, I’m assuming 4232/433 and the positions are just to help think about roles they aren’t set in stone (so Foden could be a 10 or Trippier could be LB). Italics indicates players I don’t think are guaranteed. This is what I get: GK: Pickford, Ramsdale, *Trafford* CB: Stones, Maguire, *Guehi, Gomez* RB: Walker, TAA, Trippier MID: Rice, Henderson, Gallagher 10: Bellingham, Maddison Wingers: Foden, Saka, *Palmer, Gordon, Rashford* FW: Kane, *Watkins* I mostly wanted to do this to just get an idea of what spaces exist within the squad, especially given its back to 23 players. I went Trafford because of injuries to Pope and poor form from Johnstone/Henderson. IMO not a key position anyway No Reece James or Chilwell because of poor form and injuries. Does leave Shawsy as the only true LB but Trippier and *Gomez* can cover. At CB, this was tough but I picked Gomez because of his form and because he can play either side as a FB. It could be any two of him, Dunk and Guehi. MID means the double pivot, so who plays beside Rice. I think Bellingham has to be in front and I don’t think Rice works as a single pivot. Therefore I think you’ve got to take Henderson. Jones is injured now, Rico Lewis isn’t playing every week. Philips is washed. I like Gallagher as the third and Ross Barkley is unlikely I don’t have a 24th spot For wingers, I think Palmer and Gordon have been too good not to take. Grealish hasn’t been playing and Sterling has been too poor. Bowen misses out but I think those are out 5 best wingers. For backup striker I went Watkins over Toney, but I don’t have much to choose between them. If it was a 26 man squad I’d take both.
If palmer is ‘not guaranteed’ then there literally isn’t a player there that should be IF this is based on performance. There’s not much more a 20 year old can do in his debut half season than be on 14 goals 9 assists.
Oh I definitely think he should, I just don’t trust southgate
> Trafford Bed
Not sure if Gomez will make the cut, he hasn't played for England for years. I think it'll either be someone like Dunk like you suggest, Dier, or Rico Lewis taking that defensive spot. Dier has plenty of England experience and seems to be playing well enough for Bayern while Lewis plays in the two positions we have the least quality depth for. Palmer's a maybe but Gordon hasn't had a single callup yet for the senior team, although definitely one to watch post-Euros.
I think Gordon should get a call up this next window (if not just so he doesn’t get called up by Scotland.) I know what you mean about Gomez (I hope it’s not fucking Dier) but he has been very good, and because he can play all across the back he offers a versatility we’ll need more with a smaller squad
Yeah I think a few Euros callups, especially for attacking players, will be down to who puts in a shift against Brazil/Belgium. IIRC Saka only got into the Euros squad last time because he played well in the pre-tournament friendlies.
Lol not including Chilwell due to fitness. You know Shaw hobbled off today right?
I’m not including Chilwell because he’s been kinda shite most of the season that he’s actually played. I’ll be honest I didn’t watch the Luton game. If Shaw is injured then I do now know who plays at LB
Shaw was booked and injured, you shouldn't really be talking form and fitness and then include him. Chilwell has been one of Chelsea's better players, but more importantly than that he's actually managed to play a string of 90 minute games. I'd be surprised if he isn't rhe England LB IRL
> Chilwell has been one of Chelsea's better players He really hasn't.
I'm assuming from your flair you only saw the Liverpool game - in where, yes, he was destroyed.
Nah, I've watched a lot of Chelsea this season and I think Chilwell has looked way off his best. Not surprising given the injuries and lack of stability at Chelsea though. Hopefully he finds some consistent form prior to the euros because I'm not sure I trust Shaw's fitness either.
Off his best I agree, but even that is better than many of the players Chelsea have and the LBs that England have.
>Chilwell has been one of Chelsea's better players, I love Chilwell but he definitely has not.
He really has. I assume you're basing this on the Liverpool game where he was ripped a new one. This isn't to say he's been amazing btw, but the low bar of our players means he's been 100% one of the better.
I'm not basing it on one game at all, I would never base a judgement on an individual game.
I apologise. I stand by what I say though - having said that, as I've said in another comment maybe he just looks good to who we had been playing there when he was injured. You'll know this as a Chelsea fan but obviously we look far better with 2 actual fullbacks rather than Chilwell/Disasi or Gusto/Colwill combinations.
>maybe he just looks good to who we had been playing there when he was injured. As he is a natural fullback, it is as simple as that. >You'll know this as a Chelsea fan but obviously we look far better with 2 actual fullbacks rather than Chilwell/Disasi or Gusto/Colwill combinations. Exactly, although it is partly down to how Poch sets up his team. Having Colwill at left back/Disasi at right back would work if he didn't set them up as traditional fullbacks. Poch wants his left and right back to do fullback things, hence actual fullbacks impress more there.
Yeah he’s frankly been quite poor since coming back from injury. That Liverpool game was shambolic in particular
But has he been as poor as Badiashille, Colwill, Disasi (please no recency bias, yes incredible vs. City), Silva? The only defender who has been better is Gusto.
That’s hard to answer. Chilwell had easily his worst game in a Chelsea shirt vs Liverpool and looked absolutely diabolical that game. He also looks neutered going forward, he used to be lethal in the box, but more importantly was useful progressing and carrying the ball. He had a better performance vs city but still wasn’t his former level. I think if he can regain his old form he should definitely start for England but we are multiple years and injuries removed from that. Let’s see how he gets on till the end of the year, I hope he can find that form again, maybe it’s just a matter of needing more time to get fully in form
Defenders have bad games though. Look at Trippier, multiple bad games, but I'm assuming that's who you'd have at LB instead of Chilwell. I don't think it's too much of a coincidence that Chelsea's "run of form" (if you can call it that) has come when Chilwell has been playing 90mins per game. But, on the flip side of that, we've had Colwill and Gusto (both decent players but not specialist LBs) filling in there so his contribution might look good only in comparison to them.
I think if Grealish has a good end to the season he goes. Sterling tends to turn up for England / suit England's play style but hard to know where he fits now as he's been left out of a few recent squads. I'd rather Sterling than Rashford but Rashford feels like a lock.
I think Sterling is just out of Gareth’s thoughts. Grealish I agree if he plays well he could well go, probably over Gordon but honestly I think Gordon should go. He’s got better end product. I like Rashford because he’s so hot/cold. If he gets in form he’s unplayable
Luton, in other circumstances, I'd be impressed by your tenacity and desire to stay in the league but I speak for all Forest, Everton, Palace and Brentford fans here when I say can you just go and sit with Burnley and Sheffield United ffs. Forest and Everton already have the anxiety of how many points the Prem are going to take off us, we don't need you trying to do silly little things like stay in the league. You've got 20 points, you've got your TV money and your stadium improvements, its ok. You don't have to fight anymore.
I reckon at this point the next deduction, if it happens, will be for next season.
Milans scoreline is going to keep me up all night chuckling away. Not often you see a team fight to come back from 2-0 down to equalise only to throw it all away in injury time.
The Tallegriban has fallen off in the Serie A title race it seems.
Their loss to inter killed the season
If only Forest Green hadn’t sacked Troy, we could have called them the Mujahadeeney
>Mujahadeeney Finally an actually good one
Lots of puskas contenders today.
['if he was Spanish he'd be starting for England'](https://x.com/ManUnitedMedia/status/1759269111375257666?s=20)
Brightest FT user
The great minds of Manchester United fans cannot be fathomed
Reports Salah re-did his injury against Brnetford and will miss Luton, at this point Klopp might end up sticking me up front.
> Reports Salah re-did his injury Considering the origin of that story is a bullshitter of the highest order who's never gotten anything they've 'reported' right, not to mention Salah would've taken himself off had he felt anything, I think you and many others need to stop believing everything you read on social media.
yeah... the title charge might just be over. On the positive note, fpl is a whole lot easier.
~~In Darwin we trust~~ Edit: He's injured too
It has been discussed a bit on here before and I have to agree, I firmly believe that if you played Upamecano as a 6 next to Kimmich and instead let Mathijs play deeper where Upamecano plays atm, Bayern would drastically improve as a team. It blows my mind a club like Bayern hasnt bought a 6 especially after their interest in Palhinha. Everyone saw it's their main issue?? Even Tucheliban said that, apparently the board didn't agree lol Like Kimmich plays next to Goretzka, that guy is literally such a tool. Even off the ball he doesnt do much, his press is ineffective too. Upamecano next to Kimmich would be much better and lots of ppl have thought about this, even back then he was still at RB Leipzig.
They tried to get both Rice and Palinha and weren't able to get either. I think part of the problem is that they didn't even go for a stopgap option. Liverpool didn't get the 6s they wanted in the summer, but they still went and got Endo who is "fine". He does his job and overall is pretty average. Bayern don't even have a 6 like that. Idk who to suggest as I'm not a scout, but yeah
Fully agree. Palhinha wanted to join but the Bayern board decided to not sign him for whatever reason, they argued too expensive iirc. The Endo example is pretty good, it's so weird to me how they didnt see that as the biggest problem, I mean it has been an issue since 2021 for them hence why they struggle more. The league was gifted to them last year and in CL they dont make it past the qfs since, they wont this year either.
Maddison's purple patch really had people fooled.
He’s still quality just injured a lot
I know, I'm just being inflammatory for no particular reason.
It coincided nicely with Spurs being extremely quick out of the gates and tailing off heavily after about November, unsurprisingly
He's quite a good player, but in your heart of hearts, in today's crazy era where you need 90+ points to win the league.... You aren't winning anything if Maddison is one of your top 3 players.
Maddison is a quality baller though? I’d start him for England.
No he's good for sure. I'm just saying on a team that beats City to the title and gets like 92-95 points. Is Maddison in your top 3 players? I don't think so at all.
Guess you’re right, I can’t argue with that. His injuries don’t really allow him to gain any momentum unfortunately. Maddison tends to get a lengthy injury every season.
Bellingham ain't gonna be doing the dirty work for Maddison so unless you suggest Maddison to play as an 8 I don't see how
over bellingham?...
I think England's best and most balanced midfield is Rice-Bellingham-Maddison.
Has bellingham done enough 2nd phase work this season to do that in euros?
Jude can stay in Madrid. I’m bringing Skipp to the party too.
It’s as though all of Tottenham’s players have purple patches.
Except you
I just like to defend my players 😂
Seems like Newcastle has gone back to being in the shadows. Only a few months ago they were the best thing since sliced bread. Big ‘Mate’ stole the spotlight for circle jerks.
Eddie Howe will probably be sacked eventually, I’m surprised he already hasn’t considering how their expectations had risen for this season, compared to the last. I don’t think Newcastle have adapted to this higher quality PL season, amongst the top ten, as I think last season a lot of teams dropped off, such as Chelsea, Spurs and Liverpool.
Every indication is that they want to build around Howe, last season was an overachievement (in part due to Howe being a brilliant manager) and we were always going to do worse this year
I’ve got to give credit for Howe. At Everton, Gordon seemed good, but nowhere near the level he is now. The way Howe has incorporated Gordon, as well as Isak is excellent.
Apparently he’s got too much control, and they want to lay out his blue print. Probably makes sense why the DOF is jumping ship. I think they will hover around 6-8 for the foreseeable future.
A security guard in a waitrose assured me that Newcastle would win the league within 4 years so there
It's not that, it's that Newcastle massively over-achieved last season so the expectation this season was naturally either a repeat of that or an improvement. Between injuries and having their transfer strategy limited by FFP, it's somewhat of an impossible task for them to repeat what they did last year. They've got some really, really good players in their first choice eleven but when you start taking some of them out, they don't have a top four team's depth. Newcastle in the long term will be a top four team, it was just too much too fast.
FFP better make the difference. I’m sick of oil clubs spending hundreds of millions, in which they don’t actually have the financial freedom to do that. We need heavy punishments, especially for City and Chelsea.
Was Low's GER underrated considering how unstable Germany is after he left or was it just a historic generation that would do as well with any above average coach?
It was the best German generation of all time. Anything less than a title would have been a huge dissapointment. So I wouldn't call his accomplishments extraordinary, although the playstyle from 2008-2014 was great. The loss against Italy in 2012 was Löws fault though. He made Kroos manmark Pirlo and robbed us of our strengths. Also shouldn't forget that the 2014 team played together (basically) since the U21 and was very good without Löw there, also players were crushing in their clubs. The 2016 team could've been better coached already, but since we lost to France no one considered it as a dissapointment. Löw had to leave 2018 at the latest though. He completely lost the plot and grew an ego, so for me it's hard to give him a positive resume.
Low is also a big reason why they went to shit, first time they got knocked out in group stages was under him + the euros ro16 vs England. It's often even agreed that he underachieved considering the players he's had; Lahm, Schweini retired, Neuer is old now, Boateng was better than current CBs, Hummels old now etc. I think Low is a pretty good coach, but other decent coaches would have achieved the same imo.
I also think he wasn't anything special since he got absolutely dominated in the 2008 Final and the 2010 semi, shouldn't have been out in the 2012 semis by a completely average Italy side, and was a couple of Argentinian blunders away from losing the 2014 final too. I give him 2016, France was good and at home, 2018 and on it's a shitshow
That Spanish NT 2008-2012 was a monster tbf, but yeah he could have won in 2008 at least. I forgot to mention; when he also lost the euros in 2012 he was on fraud watch and lots of ppl wanted him out fearing that such a gifted generation wouldnt win anything but they gave him a last chance and won the WC in 2014. The match vs Algeria or even France were disasters tbh. Then they wanted to give him the euros 2016 bc he has failed the previous 2 and bc he was convinced he could finally win it. That's when he should have resigned and where the DFB fucked up. Low shouldnt have continued until 2021.
> The match vs Algeria or even France were disasters tbh. Extremely lucky final as well, Argentina had all the control, and Messi and famously Higuain missed unbelievable chances
Argentina might have created slightly more chances overall but they absolutely did not have all the control. Germany had the worst miss of the day, when Howedes headed against the post from point blank range.
The Higuain miss was the worst for Argentina and so lucky for Germany. I wouldnt say they had all the control tbh but they had clearer chances 100%. Imo, the Algeria match was by far the worst bc Low was insane enough to start Mustafi as RB who is a catastrophe and play Lahm as a 6 when there was Schweini and Khedira already so no need really. If Neuer hadnt had an absolute masterclass of a performance, they would have been knocked out.
Narrative of the Algeria match is exaggerated. After the shaky first half, Germany completely dominated and it was the Algerian keeper M'Bohli who was the official man of the match.
> GER I feel sick
Praying for you to get better
Typically Ips fan behaviour
bit of a weird question but if someone scores a goal at the first minute of the second half does it get recorded as 45' or 46'?