Solskjaer very much reminds me of Gary Neville in the way that he spouts absolute bollocks coated in a veneer of the timeless majesty of Manchester United. It must be something common to all of that lot because I'm sure Giggs does it too.
Solskjaer very much reminds me of Gary Neville in the way that he spouts absolute bollocks coated in a veneer of the timeless majesty of Manchester United. It must be something common to all of that lot because I'm sure Giggs does it too.
Andy Robertson is an artist in shithousery.
Give that man a new contract immediately.
His nose is definitely getting redder.
Bournemouth really as terrible, celebrates beating us at St Mary's like it was a cup final and they've completely gone to shit since.
Cant play out from the back and cant score goals. Going down.
What was even the plan there?
I believe that's 14 assists this season for De Bruyne. The record for one season is 20 and they still have 16 games to play. He could smash it.
Quite fun to watch Villa get absolutely pumped. Could have been more in that first half alone.
Spanish super cup anybody
Looking pretty grim for Bournemouth and Villa.
fuck me this is boring
Do mbappe and Neymar take it in turns to have yellow hair?
Liverpool have finally gone ahead of PSG in the league odds percentage thing on euroclubindex.
Suarez's injury a major blow to Barcelona as well apparently.
Well all things considered it is nearly there for Liverpool.
City if they win every game can hit 95 points. Of their remaining 17 games Liverpool need 10 wins to hit 91 points. There'd have to be the biggest bottle job in history to fold from this position.
I'm glad they've done it like this, in what will by the time they mathematically do it in April be a boring anti-climactic shrug of the shoulders. If they had done it in either of the recent orgasmic charge of the light brigade attempts it would have been horrendous.
It's amazing how committed Rochdale were to fucking up for that Almiron goal. The other goals weren't much better (from a catastrophic defending perspective) either.
Boro also following the same template.
I don't watch a lot of lower league football. Is it all just useless carthorses being forced to play out from the back?
Whelp, that's his drought done. Good job, Joseph. Tom Allen got an assist. No, me neither.
On the playing out from the back, I still need to have it explained to me why goal kicks going sideways is a good idea against the high press (there was even a law changed recently to encourage this practice).
If a team just went route one in today's game to a big and then little man, you would score 10 goals a game.
Because you beat the press and then exploit all that sweet sweet space in between the lines.
Or you lose the ball and concede.
90% of teams that do it rely on punting a terrible ball into a midfielder and praying they either turn their man or pull off some sort of clever, low-probability flick, which is sort of where it falls down.
It's the flavour of the past few years. Bielsa and his style at Leeds has helped to promote this way of playing, and more of the Championship clubs with lofty ambitions see it as the way to go to get promotion, as if you don't need to buy defenders with a least an ounce of ball control and technical ability.
Only a few teams can really pull it off, one of them being Leeds until it gets to March (or Christmas in the current season), and as much as it pains me to say, Brentford. Fulham do attempt to play that way but a lot of the time the build up play is too slow to be impactful, and a lot of the time we get more purchase with a long ball into Mitrovic to hold it up and bring the wingers into the game.
And yet seems to have led to a mass adoption of the tactic. @phonics
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51107343
Hakan Sukur is now a bookseller and cabbie...
The success rate of any goal kick is zero, because it's a goal kick.
Chelsea were obsessed with a man on each by-line for goal kicks under Sarri. We were quite good at it, and the net result was... possession in our own half. Splendid efficiency, get those analytics down my gullet.
'Playing it from the back' was a huge thing in Mexico in the 90s and early 2000s, with Lavolpe being the alleged 'creator.' That Lavolpe who won one league in 20+ years. Biggest chancer ever.
Most of the time it ended with hoofing the ball upfield after the very talented defenders scrambled around under light pressure. So much better than letting the goalkeeper do it.
Ultimately, you play to your strengths. Rochdale should not be bothering, but they sure did persist. I'm a bigger fan of the keeper throwing it forward to get a quick move going.
That would be a brave tactic from a goal kick.
Incidentally I think playing it out works well with the very best players, but below that level almost no one is physically co-ordinated or well-coached enough to be able to perform it consistently. As such you should then mix it up and be unpredictable.
There, I've solved goal kicks. Next week, throw-ins from your own half.
Fred thinking he’s Alexander Arnold
What a mess.
This new handball rule is an even bigger mess.
In and around 2013 Mark Cooper had Swindon Town playing out from the back (ala Rochdale), the idea being that Nathan Thompson was the 'ball carrier' into midfield. You won't be surprised to find that this cost the team a fair few goals.
I honestly expected him to get run down then.
I can't wait to see how shit this side will be without Rashford.
90% of professional players have the ability to do it. Only 5% have of coaches have the ability to teach it. Arsenal have been trying to play out from the back (in an era where opposition knows how to counter it) for 2 years. Arteta hugely increased the success rate of it in less than 3 training sessions. It’s about players standing in the right places according to the opposition not ability.
Wolves are toothless.