Long term readers will know I'm a huge Henry Winter guy but it has to be re-emphasised just how well the man executes his craft. Tweet after tweet, year after year, the quality just never drops.
Just 10/10 perfection every time.
Long term readers will know I'm a huge Henry Winter guy but it has to be re-emphasised just how well the man executes his craft. Tweet after tweet, year after year, the quality just never drops.
Just 10/10 perfection every time.
"He wasn't on the pitch but he was my man of the match."
Anyway, saw some of the highlights and it's .... I dunno, comfortable. We've been at that level for years where qualifying is stroll and there's only one pair of games they have to wise up for. It would be nice to smash the minnows for 9 but it seems like only the youth squads have the motivation to do that. We did put 7 past North Macedonia, I suppose.
Fucking Everton.
Shitty and Chavski next.
Just the 13-0 to France so far in this game that could still go any way.
Finished 14. That's a record. Think the old one might have been Germany 13-0 San Marino.
Quite looking forward to the Euros. Romania & Turkey back in the big time.
Zionists better not qualify. Or do we want them to qualify and be utterly shunned by the masses?
there’s my hipster back at it againOriginally Posted by Manc
Luxembourg is the true hipster choice.
And they're in with a decent chance in the playoffs to be honest. Their first tie will be against Greece, and while it's the best we've been in the last decade or so, we're still there for the taking. Kazakhstan or Georgia would be the final obstacle. Very doable especially given how they've been playing this campaign.
Honestly if I was them I'd want any deduction done this season, they could dock them both 50 points and they'd still not get relegated this season with the level of dross down there.Fucking Everton.
Shitty and Chavski next.
Nice to see Wales have ballsed it up. Now just need Scotland in a really tough draw and we're sorted.
Weirdly, could do with Norway turning up tonight. Or at least only losing 1-0 or 2–1 against Scotland. We’re better off in Pot 3 which is a bit mental but there you go.
We’re definitely winning 2-0 tonight and drawing France, Denmark and Switzerland.
I'm seriously feeding off scraps here to keep me going but let it be known, Scotland are a very handy side and Oscar Bobb and Doku are absolute filth, need to be looking at signing those once they're relegated.
This Scotland side isn’t filthy though. Defence and keeper is total reserve players minus Jack Hendry (who needs a back 5 to save him)
Could do with this staying 3-2 and staying in Pot 3.
Halaand injured. Complete bollocks.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/67417862
I've noticed this and good to see my suspicions backed up with numbers, but why does nobody want to blame what is very clearly to blame, which is the uncompromising, unrelenting high press that everyone now plays? The more times a body moves and the faster it moves, the more likely an injury will occur. Seems pretty obvious to me, but the article doesn't really get within a mile of that, and even the least moronic comments below the line are blaming 'too many international breaks' which strikes me as idiotic because that's when the player base at large are playing far less football.
Increasing both intensity [pressing] and volume [number of games] surely inevitably leads to this, although to say it is directly linked to the style of play seems a bit misleading. It's not like Manchester United play a pressing game and they have the most injuries.
Guardiola, or his medical/doping team, was years ahead on this, managing player minutes very carefully - hence the creation of fantasy Pep Bingo where you never really know who is going to play for them, particularly early in the season as minutes are being managed to be used later in the season when it comes to the crunch - also hence their propensity to finish very strongly. Obviously this is a resource thing as much as anything, but is maybe getting to the point where everyone is going to have to start thinking about it a lot more [I'm sure they already do].
You're right about resources enabling that, but the other luxury Pep has, that other managers don't have, is almost unconditional job security. If most managers in the league rotate and cost themselves 4-6 points in the autumn they'll be sacked before they have the chance to finish strongly.
And I'm not saying there's a direct correlation in every case, but if you compared muscle and joint injuries this year to say 2013-14 when nobody was pressing so voraciously, I think you'd see a huge difference.
All about conditioning and looking after yourself. Mo Salah and Conor Gallagher play more than anybody and run about more than anyone yet have barely had a single injury in their career.
It's not "all about" anything. Conditioning will play some part. Genetics will play a big part. Luck will also play a big part.
I think I’m more knowledgeable on the subject over some poncy doctor, mate
Gallagher is a weird one to throw in there, given he's 23 and has only played 40+ games in a season once.
He played 47 domestic games in 2019/20, 32 in 2020/21, 39 in 2021/22 and 45 last season. 182 domestic games at 23 plus however many international games. That’s a fair amount for someone never to have been injured.
None of them can touch Bruno Fernandes. Plays like 60 games a season and has never missed a club game through injury in his entire career. Missed two internationals and that's it.
6th highest total distance covered (apparently) in the league last season as well.
Last edited by randomlegend; 20-11-2023 at 04:34 PM.
Impressed by how good of an indicator of player quality this data seems to be, usually these stats have some proper anomalies but beside poor Hojlund and Jackson being made to look like a respectable human being, it looks a very clean list.
Trotting about putting in 0.45 combined sprints and tackles a game. Please don't compare the diving POS to King Mo.
He actually runs 40,000 miles per game and tackles each opposing player at least four times. Salah has never run or made a tackle.
Jackson is going to beat Rashford’s highest goal tally in the league this year
Impressed by how good of an indicator of player quality this data seems to be, usually these stats have some proper anomalies but beside poor Hojlund and Jackson being made to look like a respectable human being, it looks a very clean list.
Sample size of it is absolutely useless. Nketiah was bottom, then scored a hatrick vs Sheffield United, went 2nd and is now in the middle.
Son continues to have a surreal chance conversion rate, even more so than usual this year.
It's also a tiny sample size. Darren Anderton had played 208 domestic games by the time he was 23.
"Big chances missed" is exactly the type of statistic people make up when they want to prove a point.
He's probably wasted his career more than Kane did at Spurs. He should have been playing right at the top.
Get the GIF of that Maguire incident up, incredible
The problem with showing ambition and having players who make forward passes like TAA and Lewis is your CBs are going to be in the wars a bit more and having that occur to Harry Fucking Maguire is going to be sensational if Gazza gets carried away by the public pressure.
That’s not a penalty but probably evens out Maguire being a complete donkey earlier.
Do we have better centre backs? If not, why not?
You do but they're black or young so it's a no go.
Can we not call Conor Coady back?
Lewis Dunk has been the best English centre half for 5 years plus but has played for the wrong club.
He's also possibly injured at the moment.
Observe Rico Lewis getting capped on the back of a handful of senior appearances, perhaps not undeserved, but not happening if he's playing his trade away from a big club.
England really missed a trick with Ethan Pinnock. Incredibly underrated.
It's only only problem position in the squad, too. As much as I don't like to dogpile on Maguire, he keeps being the wrong man in the wrong place.
I had two carpet-fitters round today, and one of them was seriously claiming that, whilst he is obviously not as good a footballer as Harry Maguire, he is a better right-back, because right-back is a 'specialist position' that he plays every week. His mate was just cracking on embarrassed.
Looked like that would be coming back under VAR.
Oh, they have VAR.
How is this taking so long?
All goalkeepers should be in black boots and short sleeves.
Everyone should be in black boots, unless you're on Messi's level. Keepers should always be long sleeves, but that might be my cricket head talking.
Is the local director refusing to show a replay of anything stymieing the VAR process?
Why are this lot shithousing so hard? Does this mean something to them?
Even with the attacking midfield three of Saka, Philfoden and Grealish, the lack of Bellingham is apparent.
Keepers should have mental multi-coloured shirts.
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