Salah
That free kick is absolutely majestic to be fair.
Best free kick taker of all time.
You almost feel for Liverpool, 3-0 is unbelievably harsh. Almost
No better than United. And they had Phil Jones playing.
Messi's not fucking about here. Someones taken that 5th place finish in the Ballon D'Or to heart.
Horrendous decision making in the final third yet again.
That free kick is fucking bonkers. His 600th club goal too.
Dembellend's double bottle will cost them in the 2nd leg when they inevitably get thumped and we all experience another MAGICAL EUROPEAN NIGHT AT ANFIELD.
I believe that's game over. If Leicester don't do a number on City then that's that as Brighton ain't doing sod all.
One day.
He probably is. What are his statistics compared to Juninho?
And Sinisa Mijcan't look his name up on my phoneovic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juninho_Pernambucano
77 in his career for Juninho.
Skills-wise I would say Lee Trundle has the edge as well.
Would like to see them as ratios to attempts, since Messi has always had others around him taking them too.
Messi's freekick taking ability is over-rated because there are currently nowhere near as many good freekick takers as there used to be. The Jimmy Floyd "Nobody can actual kick the ball" hypothesis.
Beckham was at least as good at freekicks as Messi.
Hasn't Messi only really been scoring them this year? I seem to remember reading something about how his ratio is only slightly better than Ronaldo.
Jimmy Floyd was probably my favourite free kick taker, the single step
That one he blasted in against City for Middlesbrough with one step from a mile out is the best Premiership free-kick after Ronaldo vs Portsmouth.
Riise's 900 mph rocket was easily the best
Elano against Newcastle
And Payet’s against Bournemouth is still the most mental one with the way it dips in from relatively close.
Juninho's the only one that felt truly one of a kind. I know a few players have got a handle on the skill of keeping the ball flat to create motion but no-one has control of it like he did. Probably the only player to have experimental walls/lack of them deployed against him regularly that I can remember?
His free-kicks were made even better by how matter of fact they felt. Unspectacular but really effective.
Verón was pretty good at freekicks.
As was our Redders.
I'm a twit
Really enjoy that Messi now plays in short bursts and reminds everyone how great he is. That free kick is something else.
Replacing both him and Suarez is going to be challenging.
They'll probably get another 5 years out of Messi to be fair.
What an odd game.
With the benefit of hindsight maybe Gomez wasn't the right option, but really that's only because of the result. They probably played about as well as could be expected and how it's ended up 3-0 is anyone's guess (although you could say the same about the Porto away leg where they were properly gypped). Get Arnold, Firmino and 'The Ox' back for the second leg and attempt to run riot. It's not like 3-0 at half-time is insurmountable.
Liveprool had three good chances and should have scored. Mane's half volley, Milner straight shot at the goal keeper and Salah 3 star weak foot should all have been scored.
Not like they are going to win any trophies this season anyway. Robertson and Wij have been excellent, every single time ive watched them play.
I scientifically proved that Messi will be good to go until his late 30s when I got him on a free in my FM15 Newcastle save.
That save also proved that Kenedy is a world class striker so I get that the system isn't entirely flawless....
If you got Messi into his late 30s. Kenedy still has time on his side to become 'world class'
Salah hitting the post with the goal gaping from about 6 yards summed it up really, particularly when contrasted to the freekick Messi scored.
Looking at highlight reels of Juninhos free kicks, I love how keepers quite often never seem to know which way to go on them and just sort of stand around and then it goes in because by the time they do jump towards it, it's too late.
But yeah, hasn't Free Kicks always been the one thing Messi wasn't very good at (and maybe penalties)? He does seem to score them a lot now, and always in the same "effortless" way he does everything else.
One thing I do remember about Juninho is that he was able to put free kicks from fairly close, in the bottom corner.
I preferred Dinho, Beckham and Pirlo personally.
Beckham and Ashley Cole are there only players who did good in an Enlgish shirt during that generation.
Messi's freekick was deflected, guess he's shit:
https://streamable.com/pvmf5
Messi's on about 50 freekicks so he could catch Juninho.
Aesthetically I think Beckham's were the best.
Yeah but The Little Magician's deflections are the best ever.
JWP to eclipse all before him.
For some reason I kept reading that in my head as "Juan Wright-Phillips" and I have no idea why.
I voted Liverpool, grudgingly, but I would much rather them than City. If we've gotten to a point of 'at least we can say they bought the title' then there isn't any point to all this. If a team deserves to win, then I'd rather they won. I think Klopp is a twat, but the Liverpool team is very likeable at the moment.
Are they both on for some club record points tally? EDIT: City aren't, Liverpool have already broke theirs.
Last edited by Shindig; 02-05-2019 at 06:20 PM.
I think after 36 games we have more points than most winners get after 38. I may have misheard this though?