James this is once again not the fact I was talking about.
James this is once again not the fact I was talking about.
Originally Posted by Don
Big doubts over his goal contribution potential but gave us the solidity to secure our top spot
Let's not kid around, the lad's genius was clear in his first 15 minutes for about 3 months, they fucking collapsed at the sight of him nevermind some of those passes (and headers). We'll sign a CB and play with 11 players for rest of season too.
Fucking bedwetters doubting Salah and Mane
Imagine the trophy haul those Goal Contributions must have got him.
Weird, can't see Pogba on that table?
Only by 12 points then.
Number whatever you like, but the cunt’s not fit to pull Cantona’s wire.
He's pretty good and could be as influential as cantona but this obsession with his stats at the moment is Taz-like. Proof is in the final trophy haul.
It feels like what was a pretty woeful season across the board has taken a turn for the worse in the last week or so. So many eye-bleedingly bad games. Watching all this no possession all out defence wank (which seems to be De Rigueur for almost half the league now), suddenly the way teams set-up in the way back when, before even the time before football, with all the 2-3-5 madness and whatnot, when football was presumably meant primarily as entertainment, sort of makes more sense.
Makes Leeds'/Biesla's stand against the immediacy of modern life and all that all the more refreshing.
There's too much at stake for some teams now and too many wankers at work "optimising" tactics with cardio being nearly as important as being good and possession bores like Guardiola having ruined everybody's perception of what entertaining football looks like. Barcelona and Spain going from playing fast, exciting football where the amount of possession they had seemed as much a result of their superior technique to teams where possession was the endgame a prime example. But it's okay because chin-stroking twats got to compare it to an art form and called it 'fascinating.'
When discussing Big Sam getting West Brom to bore a point out against Liverpool they had a chat on Football Weekly about fixing the issue with bonus points for goals or winning margins or some such, an idea I already hate in rugby and don't want in football.
Changing point systems like that forces a change of philosophy that just isn't sport.
It's bollocks.
I get the thinking, that we all want more games to be entertaining and whatnot but it's also just putting the notion of what good football is into law, helps the rich teams stay where they are (as if they need more help) and you'd end up with situations sometimes where teams win less games but finish higher than their better organised, lower-scoring peers which is sort-of okay if it's just midtable Premier League millions. But if it effects a qualifying spot then it's unacceptable. Like the points for the Six Nations basically has to acknowledge that this possibility is fucking nonsense by having a rule that means a grand slam winner gets five extra points because otherwise you could have had a grand slam winner not top the table.
There's no solution to it, it's just a consequence of professionalism and the business-ification of sport, and from an increasingly casual observer's viewpoint, it's a bit shit. I didn't particularly mean it as a criticism of the way teams now approach the game, which is understandable for the most part, just more that it made me think about why football was so different in the past. The primacy of it being entertaining has clearly gone.
Rule changes have happened, 3 points for a win and all that. I don't know that increasing the bonus for a win over a draw would make much material difference though, as teams would still cling on and hope to sneak a win. Any sort of points for goals Amsterdam Tournament style would be a terrible idea.
And actually thinking about it, it's probably a more modern phenomenon than I'm giving it credit for - as you say probably from the advent of prozone and all that shit. During lockdown 1 I re-watched the first Liverpool 4-3-Newcastle game, and whilst that one is perhaps a bit of an outlier, it was harum scarum from the first minute, barely a pass across the back four, just get it, go forward, lose it, rinse and repeat for 95 minutes and it was quite captivating.
Proper punishments for deliberate and cynical attack-ending fouls would go some way to changing things. Sin bins are the way to go. Im so tired of seeing players get rugby tackled around the waist after getting goal-side of a midfielder. Every team does it and its just a nonsense that it only gets punished by a harmless yellow.
It should be a yellow for the first time in a game a team does it and a red for the second, regardless of which individual player does it.
When the Cov City Youtube page showed the 3-2 win over Arsenal from the 90s I watched and while it wasn't played at quite the pace of that Liverpool game it was a similar feeling. Much more open, none of the endless pissing about you get today, etc. It was genuinely a lot of fun whereas now if I devote my full attention to a football match it tends to bore me. I think it's why I like big tournaments so much because even a shit game has stakes and tension.
'Shape' is king. I can't remember which game it was I had on the other day and one team were a goal down going into injury time, but their attacks had zero urgency because as a starting point every single time they had to get into 'shape', knock it back to the goalkeeper and then have the centre half stand on the ball for thirty seconds shouting and waving his arms. There doesn't seem to be any scope for individual spontaneity beyond maybe one designated maverick per team and the managers don't really like them either.
Bielsa obviously is the messiah in this regard, and he obviously frustrates many given some of the coverage.
I've waffled about this before and I'll do it again: it's very much a thing in my mind that every Premier League team, no matter how dire a relegation battle there were in, used to have at least one of these.
Benito Carbone certainly wasn't getting into anybody's teams for his Herculean workrate.
Benito
Had him and Merson in the same side. Very good to watch (probably conceded a lot too). 3-2 vs Leeds Carbone hattrick lives long in the memory.
It's just a few shit games which football always throws about. We're a week or two away from United 6-2 v Leeds and some other random high scoring games. It happens at all levels, sometimes it's fucking shit.
We've all been right into football for twenty years. The only thing we haven't seen is England winning something. How is Bayern Munich winning another Champions' League meant to be exciting?
Sounds like Brighton.
Leeds are obviously outliers here. We're also a few days out from a dreadful United game (although, in fairness United have probably been just about the best team to watch this season, even though half of their games have been dire, other than Leeds).
There are obviously a lot of factors at play, not least getting older and just not being as interested as days of yore, but for me football has become very much a click through to the result thing, which sort of defeats the whole point of it. I think no fans, and not having actually been to a game for ages, either makes it awful or just shines a light on how shit it is much of the time.
You can thank the analytical statistic-led approach to understanding the game for much of the complaints. Everything is boring when it's stripped to cold hard data which, unfortunately, it can.
This is definitely it for me. I'd have loved to have plotted how to get to Leipzig/Istanbul/Paris for the Champions League (and whoever we get in the Europa) and the same for some of the away fixtures in the UK. But this is just boring shit - even with United being decent at the moment. Without being able to go, it must feel like how fans in China feel, something to do but no real connection or lived experience.
Being a baseball 'fan' (which is about 10 or more years ahead of any other sport in the analytics narrative) I can see this - the future is optimised, which leads to everyone complaining that all the fun has been removed. The next phase for football is the role of the 'manager' being reduced to that of a mere stuffed tracksuit as the 'front office' takes over.
Is the stuffed tracksuit an extension of the binman narrative?
Haven't United been sort of run by the 'front office' since Fergie left?
And furthermore, do 'analytics' actually work above a certain level or do they depend on a level playing field to be anything other than a way for crapper teams to outperform their equally shit peers? Are they not more of a route to interminable mediocrity?
1 year contract extension. Great bit of business by the FO.
God I can't get enough of that pic
He turned out to be some waste of space for all the shaping he did.
Arsenal are still seething about that to this day.
Remember when we nearly won the World Cup with him and 'Dele' as what was apparently a midfield?
Lingard was great in 2017 (?) with some big goals. Shame he's such an unlikeable twat.
The amazing thing about that is looking at those line-ups compared to the plethora of centre-halves and defensive mids Waistcoat insists on now.Remember when we nearly won the World Cup with him and 'Dele' as what was apparently a midfield?
Cavani banned for three games for his indiscretion.
lol
Why does he get three when Bernardo Silva got one?
'Dele' only got one game as well. They're obviously making an example out of the big club.
They probably just conclude that Uruguayans are inherently racist.
It's because the rules changed in the meantime to make it a minimum 3 game ban.
It's still absolute nonsense though. Bunch of old white men telling every culture on earth what is offensive.
He shouldn't have done it on a global forum for millions to see that are from all different cultures.
He could have sent his friend a message privately.
"Don't worry about it, homeboy. I'll be offended for you."
There's too much of that going on.
Tommy Docherty has gone and died.
Dunno why but I find him being 92 quite surprising.
Are those Bruno stats further proof that a major signing arriving in Janaury is clearly an advantage.
What a load of shit. I'm sure there are English words which sounds like a slur in another language. Are English footballers to be banned from using those words? Should they be forced to learn what those words are in case they use them?
And yet there are so many footballers (and other public figures) that manage to not use those words.
This has taken a strange twist.
Those words?
I've no idea about the niceties of modern social media society, but, if, say Paul Pogba was internet buds with an old school gangster rap person (I have no idea if they use twitter) would he be able to use the nuclear word in an exchange with them?
He's an idiot for using the word and the punishment is justified. Don't use it on social media - it's not necessary.
Sad about the Doc. The 70s United under him sounded brilliant - I recommend reading the "Red Army Years" by Richard Kurt if you want a feel for it.
Maikol Negro having to do a 'Memphis' with his shirt number to avoid routine bans.
There's a Chinese filler word which sounds like nigger (I believe it means "that" or "that one" but is often used like we would use um). Should Chinese players not be allowed to say it on social media?
I think that depends on if there's an old school gangster rap person on the opposition team or not.
How old school are we talking? Public Enemy or "My name is blank and I'm here to say I'm about to rap in a major way"?
If a player posted a video with rap music in the background would they be responsible for any language that slips through?
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
