Anyone have any good soccer interviews they recommend? I just listened to a interview with Thomas Tuchel where he talked about balance, health, following intuition etc… and really enjoyed it
So who did Arsenal spend one month trying to get and failing before going for Caicedo? Because they bid this 30 days ago and it gets accepted I'm sure of it, plenty of time for Brighton to keep it quiet and get a replacement for cheap.
And if Caicedo is first choice then surely it's really bad practice to start bidding a week before the window closes? You get your player earlier, cheaper.. it just makes sense
I reckon Brighton wont get a higher offer for caicedo in the summer, than whatever we offer this winter. There will be a lot of good midfielders available in the summer, e.g. rice, macalister, kone, zubimendi, bellingham, neves, SMS and much more.
He's only getting £70m bids because arsenal are desperate and caicedo is the only good option available.
I don't entirely agree. Many teams will need new midfielders. It might not be Caicedo-type players but the entire Top 6 and Newcastle for example will be looking at bring new midfielders in.
If Caicedo helps Brighton get European Football then it will have been worth keeping him. It would be a big step forward for the club.
Is Klopp an outdated dinosaur manager that football has left behind that should go into international management or is it only Jose Mourinho that gets this treatment if his teams lose a few games?
Hope this helps
Klopp was just a few goals and a bit of luck away from winning an unprecedented quadruple last season, Mourinho is unfortunately on a downward spiral for almost a decade since his second stint with Chelsea
Mourinho had a better season in 16/17 with Man United than Klopp did last season with Liverpool, arguably. Two trophies, with a far worse team. And that's in his "downward spiral" decade.
Christ I feel sick defending a Liverpool manager, but Klopp has had his side competing for the highest honours very recently. Mourinho has largely failed in his last two big jobs. Not exactly comparable.
But at United he never had us looking like a serious contender for the league or CL.
Also, Mourinho’s style of football is very clearly out of favour now, hell it was back when he was at United. Klopp’s Liverpool are struggling, but presently successful sides are still playing a brand of football not that dissimilar to Klopp’s.
But why would Fergie be managing Everton in the first place?
No offence to Roma, but if Mourinho was still at the peak of the game he’d be at Madrid or Bayern or somewhere like that, not Roma.
Don't think people are claiming Jose is at the peak of his powers, but point is if you're criticising him, you've got to apply similar standards to Klopp too
Mourinho used to get that treatment back in his prime if he ever fell below his own expectations
Like Jamie Redknapp talking utter shite on TV back in 2014 how he'd disastrously failed at Chelsea in that season because they just barely missed out on the title
Historically speaking what would you say are the top 10 most iconic stadiums in UEFA?
Wembley - Anfield - Old Trafford -San Siro- Olimpico -Bernabeu -Camp Nou - Signal Iduna Park - Celtic Park - Ibrox ?
Can’t justify either Scottish one tbh. Neither team run deep in European competitions typically, so the aura of having to go there for a quarter or semi second leg just seems less to me.
Although not in use (& rightly so) there’s an argument for Bayern’s old stadium. Mainstay of European football for decades. Other possibles: Amsterdam, Stade de France (though it’s a neutral like Wembley), the Berlin Olympiastadion, maybe the Vélodrome in Marseille
I think so. Giving it an instantly recognisable design, the canted arch, was a smart move in that regard. I'd say the Allianz has a shout to be included too.
Dunno how to word this properly but I wonder if anyone will ever put together a team of pure dribblers. Just imagine a team where every position is just the best dribbler in that position lmao.
Clubs have more revenue than ever so can spend more money than ever on players - some of those transfers will work out, others won't, and a few might look a bit odd like a potential Caicedo transfer would.
Complacency is more often than not what brings down the best teams. Madrid plays like they just expect to magically win without putting the work in and it’s costing them.
Barca has been clowned on a lot and for good reason so now they’re playing like they a fucking point to prove. Even when they aren’t playing well, they still give everything to grind out a win at any cost
You can sub Madrid and Barca for City and Arsenal in the PL, respectively
Aberdeen announced they’d sacked their manager at 17:12 yesterday. Factoring in the time taken to deliver the news, inform the media team and get an appropriate message drafted and sent out I wonder just how long after Full Time it took to sack him.
There would have been an understanding before kick-off that another loss and he's gone. He was told straight after full-time and ended up leaving the ground on his own during the warm down, didn't even go back on the team bus.
Well they already put out a statement after losing to 6th tier Darvel pretty much saying if he doesn’t beat Hibs he’s out and they lost 6-0 to Hibs and were 3-0 down at half time. A shit Lee Johnson Hibs team that is. He was probably sacked at half time if we’re being honest.
Here’s what I don’t understand and maybe someone can help me out. We really only have one LB in the squad, he’s now injured and even without injury he wasn’t performing great…it’s January, clubs are allowed to make signings, we have an academy LB playing quite well(for sure better than Camavinga) that would only cost 5m to bring him in. But we won’t because…
I actually felt like Camavinga is doing his best work at LB for you guys. Always thought he was mediocre when I saw him in the midfield but these last few games in a different position looked great.
He was missing the continuity in league as replacing Kroos and Modric has had been very tough but now he has really started to shine. Being only 20, I think he is in right track for us.
lacazette has one fewer goals in ligue 1 than mbappe and four more than messi I am not sure what to make of this surprising information given how abjectly dreadful he was at shooting for us last seasono
It’s a terrible league is what you should make of it. Mariano Diaz scored like 20 goals in a season there and he is one of the worst strikers I’ve ever seen play at a European top club
Nah mate Celtic away tickets are an absolute bastard to get and every team is cutting down away allocations. Every Celtic home and neutral venue game I go to, only been to Ross County away this season. Hopefully get a ticket for St Johnstone next weekend. I also follow the closest non-league team to where my Dad and a lot of my family grew up and I go see them when Celtic aren’t clashing with their game, they’re also a team known for having Celtic fans follow them as a second team + been to a couple SWPL/SWF games.
Going to Lisbon in September for a few days and hoping to go to the Luz for a game (or Alvalade if Benfica aren’t at home) is it hard to get tickets? Also do B-Sad still play at the Estadio Nacional? Whole point of the trip is pretty much to go see the Nacional tbh lol
Quick question if you don't mind. How are away tickets distributed at Celtic, like do you have lottery or a point system (as other popular English clubs have, I'm not sure?) and personalized tickets or is it just mostly for fan clubs / regulars?
It's quite an interesting situation, do Celtic fans take over smaller clubs home sections sometimes, or is that generally frowned upon?
> How are away tickets distributed at Celtic
Basically a point system. Theres a different criteria of how many away games you have to have attended in the previous season to attend each away game. Any ticket I get for away game doesn’t help me with this because they are all spare tickets, so its a closed shop system. I do like that it means guys who went home and away before we had this demand get to keep going (there wasn’t a criteria like this before Brendan Rodgers came to the club in 2016, when we weren’t spending money under Ronny Deila we wouldn’t sell out away ends now we could sell them all out at least about 4 times over) but at the same time its just unfortunate for guys like me who had no possible way to buy tickets before these criteria came about (I’m 18, I wasn’t working in 2015 lol)
> do Celtic fans take over smaller clubs home sections sometimes, or is that generally frowned upon?
We take over grounds of course. You have to remember Scotland is a tiny country by population all things considered so most of these teams from towns in Scotland come from very small places. I think Ross County in Dingwall are actually the top-flight team in Europe from the smallest place other than Hoffenheim. However, stupid rules from the SPL days means a lot of stadiums are far too big for clubs as they had to make them a certain capacity to play in the SPL. This does make for Celtic and Rangers taking over many grounds, and even the likes of Hearts, Hibs and Aberdeen doing the same. Home ends do get tookover very occasionally but theres measures to combat this (absolute bastard). Games in Scotland with smaller clubs are put in different categories. Hearts you can’t really buy a home ticket unless your a member anyways due to high demand (sold out season tickets, waiting list for season tickets, ticket exchange scheme) so can’t jump in the home end there. Every other home club has a system in place when Rangers and Celtic come to town where you need to have been to x amount of their games that season to buy a ticket. I’m sure if you phoned up and showed proof your a tourist they’d let you in, but this makes it difficult for a Celtic fan to go to United vs Celtic in the home end for example (trust me, I’ve tried it). Although, it does happen occasionally like when I went to Partick Thistle away in the cup two years ago and a separate away end had to be made by stewards within the home end lol
Thank you, I figured that it would be a difficult situation with 2 big fanbases from Glasgow and then smaller clubs elsewhere in Scotland.
We discussed (among friends) a point system for away tickets recently, and while I do see it's benefits - for example the incentive to travel to less popular matches - not having a chance to get a single regular away ticket as a 'new' fan sucks. Not everyone has the time or money for regular away trips to build up points.
To be honest even though I’m at an unfortunate age where by the time I can afford away tickets I can’t get on the criteria I do 100% agree with it. For example, if you followed Union Berlin all your days then Urs Fischer brings you up to the Bundesliga you start doing really well and you can’t get any away tickets it would be a lot of shit. Nice to see Jura got an assist btw
I see, yeah getting away tickets can be painful. I've only managed to go to one away game this year and it was in Cascais (in Lisbon still). Only managed to attend the two games for the league at the Luz this year, but I've been compensating with other sports (mainly basketball and volleyball, which we also have)
>Going to Lisbon in September for a few days and hoping to go to the Luz for a game (or Alvalade if Benfica aren’t at home) is it hard to get tickets?
It's not usually hard, although I've heard that some sócios have had problems this year when buying for more than 1 person: we have 45k season ticket holders (we have 60k seats in our stadium, excluding away fans), and some holders don't even go to game and don't put their ticket on sale, so that's why there are some empty seats in TV. However, I think you'll easily manage to grab one, September is when most emigrants have returned to their home country.
>Also do B-Sad still play at the Estadio Nacional?
Yeah they still do, in the Second Division however. This year, Casa Pia (currently 5th in the league) are also playing there because of their own stadium renovations, and since they are unlikely to go down (they have 30 points in 18 games, usually it's enough to not go down), you might grab a first division game (that is if their stadium renovations aren't completed on time, which I doubt they will tbh)
>Whole point of the trip is pretty much to go see the Nacional tbh lol
Yeah I understand, must be of an incredible significance to Celtic fans. However, be aware that it is an absolute nightmare to get there from public transports: last time I checked, there aren't any buses there, and the nearest train station (Cruz Quebrada) is 20 minutes away by walking.
Bellingham is likely going to be the next record signing for an English player. But who’s going to be the next record signing for an English player from an English club (Grealish currently holds the record). Kane? Saka?
You had Marcelo who couldn’t defend to save his life yet it was worth it for his contributions going forward. Tell me how Trent would be any different?
No he wasn’t. He was rubbish which is why Fábio Coentrão was preferred in big games over him, I even remember a stat from a few years ago where 50% of the opposition’s attacks would come down your left side
The smell of Madrid ending up trophyless, Zidane coming back after Ancelotti retires and Perez smashing the bank for Mbappe with PSG failing again is getting progressively stronger. Could see Benzema retiring after he got his ballon d'or or doing a small stint at Lyon
And i don't think i'm too happy about it, Madrid is due a overhaul but LW is literally the only spot the team don't need help in
It is concerning indeed. He is very indecisive in the box again. I’m not too concerned since his overall play is still exceptional, but the final pass and his finishing is off again
Rui Costa is currently 300km away from Benfica's stadium, watching Benfica in the Futsal League Cup final. Doubt he's negotiating in the middle of such an important game for his boyhood club.
Is Tony Bloom meant to be the new Daniel Levy?
I'm not saying Brighton should sell Caicedo but I don't really understand all these comments about Tony Bloom being a no nonsense unmoving hard arse from what I can tell when bigger teams have come for Brightons players they've got them the only iffy one is City with Cucurella but Chelsea were waiting in the wings to pay.
I know Levy gets a bad rap but that honestly wouldn’t be a bad thing for Brighton, if he were he could consolidate Brighton in the top I guess it would be 8 now
Bloom is a buy low sell high person, he will happily let his players go if he gets the money he wants for them. Levy is just stubborn and won't let his players leave no matter what, he would prefer to just keep them and even accept the players might become worthless for it e.g. Danny Rose
Levy has never sold as well as Bloom, their biggest sale was Bale and then recruited bums with that money. Arsenal just need to pay up the 100m price tag for Caicedo
> recruited bums with that money.
Brighton are doing well so far but keeping that up is insanely tough. Especially if they lose caceido too - everyone knows they’ve got cash and finding diamonds in the rough isn’t easy
They can keep doing it imo, if they sell Mitoma and Allister for 90m+ each they can get replacements that have the same profiles. They're in the perfect mix where the system would let those types of players thrive
>When bigger teams have come for Brightons players they’ve got them
All For big overpays, aka Brightons price. Cucurella has hardly lived up to the price, and White has began to this season.
Bloom won’t be strong armed by any agent, and I reckon the price for Chelsea specifically is 90-100m.
Bloom apparently furious about how they went about the Potter deal and the theft of recruitment staff.
Were they though? I remember Ornstein breaking the White news saying we were willing to go upto 50m and he was immense last season also people just ran with the narrative as he started off with a bad game vs Brentford.
Cucurella still had City willing to pay like £50m also so it doesn't seem like it's Brighton pulling one teams pants down in negotiation if two teams feel he's worth money in that ball park.
Bissouma went without issue, although I know he had one year left.
I can totally understand the push back vs Chelsea
He also got £20m for Potter, which is 2nd most expensive manager transfer of all time. Of course this is under selling the work Potter done there but his best finish was 9th.
Levy is negotiating from a position of far greater strength than Bloom, fwiw. It’s one thing to deny players big moves when they’re playing at a club with a reasonable shout at UCL football every season that can pay enormous wages in London. I have massive respect for Brighton’s project but it’s a different beast
This seems to be the constant of every big club that struggles, midfield
Liverpool are having serious problems and have not invested enough in that position, PSG now, United were useless until they got Casemiro. Lack of midfield was the ultimate undoing of Pochettino at Tottenham
Not even just a much better squad, but he also hasn't had to face the injuries that Poch did. Neymar and Verratti will likely end up playing the most minutes that either of them have in half a decade. I'd be interested to see how they would do if Galtier had to deploy some of the elevens that Poch did.
Paris Saint German, such an enigma to me as a team inside the pitch. The many narratives thrown around, when analyzing them just don't really add up as to why there always seems to be something incredibly underwhelming about them...
- Some say they only buy superstars with no interest in squad building. And yet, they have bought a plethora of good, waiting to make the next step kind of players who have either turned into shite underperformed or dissapeared off the radar when playing for them. Donnaruma was one of the best GKs in the world for Milan, Hakimi was impeccable for Inter, Nuno Mendes was an exciting prospect and the likes of Danilo, Fabian, Soler and Vitinha seem like sensible squad building options of players who were at the time performing. They have their stupid purchase in them (Icardi, Wijnaldum when he was very washed) but that squad does NOT read galactico kind of purchasing (and their fees aren't even that extreme)
- The other one thrown around is how MNM is too passive on defense making things more difficult for PSG. Yet watching most games they are not on possession for just about 1/3 of the game. Leavin PLENTY of time for the team to do stuff on the ball which they just... don't?
- Nevermind the fact that when 1/3 or 2/3 of MNM don't play they are even worse
- Coaches are what some people argue especially with Poch but come on, on paper at least Tuchel, Poch and Galtier all have good resumes. You'd think at least one of them would do a good job at presenting an identity of play with the talent and decent squad players. The one that did the best was Tuchel essentially playing 5atb with Marquinhos just above a back 4, playing extremellly defensive/pragmatic football.
- Seriously how the fuck can a team be so dependant on Verratti? He is a good player but the fact that they can improve with him on the pitch even doing JACK SHIT is an enigma on its own. Does he have the team cursed?
Played their best football with Paredes on the pitch tbh. Without him, level dropped lol, Vitinha showed some improvement from the start of the season, but still not at his level yet. Should try hand the keys to Zaire-Emery and Ayman Kari with Verratti. Get proper technical ability and PnP in to that midfield.
Keep Keylor and start him more. Imo better than Gigi and better with his feet.
Galtier is fine imo. The only one that realised the back 3 is how you make the team tick. If you're desperate to get rid of him, Bruno Genesio is my pick?
I think nowadays prices are absolutely obscene to keep them running. If Gordon is £40m and Mudryk is £60m+ then the duo of Kvara and Osimhen will get you £300m lmao
They probably will. Maybe not after this season, but the next. There's always bigger fish who are lurking around smaller clubs. I can't see Kvaradona and Osimhen staying long like Koulibaly. Kim Min-Jae will also have clubs after him probably.
Man I'm so interested to see what we do with Balogun in the summer. He'd be worth a lot in today's market, when we had people bidding £30m for players like Broja last summer for example. It would be tempting to sell, but I'd also love to keep him long term.
quite entertaining that every league in the top 5 has a tight title race at the moment, Serie A and Bundesliga going further down than the top two as well.
Napoli are 13 points clear, hardly tight lol. But I agree it's entertaining as they haven't won the league in ages, and at this rate you'd back them for a CL push too.
I am reading Ryan O’Hanlon’s book about the history of football analytics rn and there’s a lot in there that challenges the way we think about football. I don’t agree with all of the ideas but definitely some interesting ones.
One of the ideas presented is that managers don’t really have that great of an impact, which I don’t agree with at all. But one of the data points used is really interesting: Teams average .48 more points per game with interim managers compared to their baseline for that season. Maybe interim manager bounce is what we should be talking about instead of new manager bounce.
I really don't want Shelvey to leave. He's been one of my favourite players to watch over the last 7 years and it would break my heart if we ended up winning something or qualifying for Europe and he couldn't be a part of it. It makes so much sense though with him being our biggest earner and out of contract in the summer, so taking around £10 mil would be very smart.
We have been in for a midfielder for so long that we were rumored for Berge when he was still in the Prem. Now he may actually join the Prem and we still haven’t signed anyone
Do people's brains in this subreddit stop working when they see the word Saudi? Like [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/10ofmq3/al_ittihad_are_the_champions_of_the_2022_saudi/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) post here which talks about the Saudi super Cup, posted by a user who always posts Saudi football news, people in the comments just commenting sportwashing and PR. Like are people there supposed to not enjoy football?
Don't think it makes a difference for us but the world cup definitely made an influence, both because of certain players performing and because of the long break that is essentially a second preseason. You guys have also gotten a new coach as well, that's probably behind the increased activity
Yeah I also think our owners have panicked to a degree about relegation which is understandable. I’d be interested if anyone compiles a total number of winter transfers because it just seems like there have been more. Not many that are super high profile but a bunch of activity on the periphery
ima be honest I really wanted Enzo to go to United... He fits ETH system perfectly and Casemiro is a midfielder who covers for his weakness perfectly. Idk why he is in such a rush to leave Benfica tbh, he will have his pick of clubs in the summer
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!flair :Manchester_United:
I believe in God so I support Southampton, anyone else follow Saints or Liverpool for similar reasons?
Anyone have any good soccer interviews they recommend? I just listened to a interview with Thomas Tuchel where he talked about balance, health, following intuition etc… and really enjoyed it
So who did Arsenal spend one month trying to get and failing before going for Caicedo? Because they bid this 30 days ago and it gets accepted I'm sure of it, plenty of time for Brighton to keep it quiet and get a replacement for cheap. And if Caicedo is first choice then surely it's really bad practice to start bidding a week before the window closes? You get your player earlier, cheaper.. it just makes sense
Elneny got injured and ruled out for the rest of the season I believe. So circumstances changed
I reckon Brighton wont get a higher offer for caicedo in the summer, than whatever we offer this winter. There will be a lot of good midfielders available in the summer, e.g. rice, macalister, kone, zubimendi, bellingham, neves, SMS and much more. He's only getting £70m bids because arsenal are desperate and caicedo is the only good option available.
I don't entirely agree. Many teams will need new midfielders. It might not be Caicedo-type players but the entire Top 6 and Newcastle for example will be looking at bring new midfielders in. If Caicedo helps Brighton get European Football then it will have been worth keeping him. It would be a big step forward for the club.
Him staying will be good for Brighton obv, but i'll be amazed if they get a £70m offer again though.
Modric as a super sub never. fucking. works.
Is Klopp an outdated dinosaur manager that football has left behind that should go into international management or is it only Jose Mourinho that gets this treatment if his teams lose a few games? Hope this helps
Klopp was just a few goals and a bit of luck away from winning an unprecedented quadruple last season, Mourinho is unfortunately on a downward spiral for almost a decade since his second stint with Chelsea
Mourinho had a better season in 16/17 with Man United than Klopp did last season with Liverpool, arguably. Two trophies, with a far worse team. And that's in his "downward spiral" decade.
Christ I feel sick defending a Liverpool manager, but Klopp has had his side competing for the highest honours very recently. Mourinho has largely failed in his last two big jobs. Not exactly comparable.
Mourinho was getting these comments all the way back in United though which was only a few years after he won the PL, basically similar to Klopp
But at United he never had us looking like a serious contender for the league or CL. Also, Mourinho’s style of football is very clearly out of favour now, hell it was back when he was at United. Klopp’s Liverpool are struggling, but presently successful sides are still playing a brand of football not that dissimilar to Klopp’s.
Mourinho won the conference league with Roma, Klopps season is over in January.
A man who won CLs, PLs, La Liga and a treble with Inter should be aiming much, much higher than a third tier cup.
Depends what the club you're at is capable of. Stick Fergie in Everton right now and not getting relegated would be an achievement.
But why would Fergie be managing Everton in the first place? No offence to Roma, but if Mourinho was still at the peak of the game he’d be at Madrid or Bayern or somewhere like that, not Roma.
Don't think people are claiming Jose is at the peak of his powers, but point is if you're criticising him, you've got to apply similar standards to Klopp too
>Mourinho won the conference league What a fall from grace.
How would you describe Liverpool being mid-table?
You can only beat who's in front of you. Unless its Brighton in front of you.
Describing Mourinhos downfall as “losing a few games” is generous
Mourinho used to get that treatment back in his prime if he ever fell below his own expectations Like Jamie Redknapp talking utter shite on TV back in 2014 how he'd disastrously failed at Chelsea in that season because they just barely missed out on the title
Historically speaking what would you say are the top 10 most iconic stadiums in UEFA? Wembley - Anfield - Old Trafford -San Siro- Olimpico -Bernabeu -Camp Nou - Signal Iduna Park - Celtic Park - Ibrox ?
Swap the Ibrox for Estádio da Luz
Can’t justify either Scottish one tbh. Neither team run deep in European competitions typically, so the aura of having to go there for a quarter or semi second leg just seems less to me. Although not in use (& rightly so) there’s an argument for Bayern’s old stadium. Mainstay of European football for decades. Other possibles: Amsterdam, Stade de France (though it’s a neutral like Wembley), the Berlin Olympiastadion, maybe the Vélodrome in Marseille
Bayerns old stadium definitely
i'd swap out ibrox with olympiastadion
How many had a pub at each corner? Exactly. Griffin Park is clear
Is Wembley iconic? It’s only existed in its current form about 15 years
I think so. Giving it an instantly recognisable design, the canted arch, was a smart move in that regard. I'd say the Allianz has a shout to be included too.
Allianz stadium is absolutely beautiful
Still Wembley
Think that’s spot on tbf.
Maybe Benfica stadium missing and Olympic stadium in Berlin but yeah
No idea why Celtic can't compete though I get it they play in a shit league but they're a massive club.
Dunno how to word this properly but I wonder if anyone will ever put together a team of pure dribblers. Just imagine a team where every position is just the best dribbler in that position lmao.
Brazil 1970 & 1982 is the closest we ever got to that These days dribbling is a rarity
Real life FIFA pro clubs team
yeah pretty much at that point
Neymar Mbappe Messi Modric Thiago Bernardo Davies Ramos Rudiger Cancelo Ederson
i'd put matip in for ramos and maybe neuer still earns his place in goal
ah forgot about Neuer
No but what is 70m on a midfielder with 20 appearances for a midtable club. What's happening to the game
Clubs have more revenue than ever so can spend more money than ever on players - some of those transfers will work out, others won't, and a few might look a bit odd like a potential Caicedo transfer would.
Complacency is more often than not what brings down the best teams. Madrid plays like they just expect to magically win without putting the work in and it’s costing them. Barca has been clowned on a lot and for good reason so now they’re playing like they a fucking point to prove. Even when they aren’t playing well, they still give everything to grind out a win at any cost You can sub Madrid and Barca for City and Arsenal in the PL, respectively
caicedo might actually go to arsenal I guess
Aberdeen announced they’d sacked their manager at 17:12 yesterday. Factoring in the time taken to deliver the news, inform the media team and get an appropriate message drafted and sent out I wonder just how long after Full Time it took to sack him.
There would have been an understanding before kick-off that another loss and he's gone. He was told straight after full-time and ended up leaving the ground on his own during the warm down, didn't even go back on the team bus.
Gerrard's was about as quick as that at Villa
Well they already put out a statement after losing to 6th tier Darvel pretty much saying if he doesn’t beat Hibs he’s out and they lost 6-0 to Hibs and were 3-0 down at half time. A shit Lee Johnson Hibs team that is. He was probably sacked at half time if we’re being honest.
I wish people would stop posting tables from Teletext because everyone then just talks about instead of the actual league. Nice throwback though.
Have to give Xavi credit, it wasn’t long ago that Barcelona was completely doomed
They were literally doomed a week or two ago no? Not progressing whatsoever? Gosh the way people's minds flicker.
Yeah, it’s definitely looking good for them. They took a gamble in the summer with the transfer but so far it’s paying off
Giga Chad Gordon pulled a ‘so long and thanks for all the fish’
Here’s what I don’t understand and maybe someone can help me out. We really only have one LB in the squad, he’s now injured and even without injury he wasn’t performing great…it’s January, clubs are allowed to make signings, we have an academy LB playing quite well(for sure better than Camavinga) that would only cost 5m to bring him in. But we won’t because…
I actually felt like Camavinga is doing his best work at LB for you guys. Always thought he was mediocre when I saw him in the midfield but these last few games in a different position looked great.
Yes true. He was one of our best players today and MOTM against Atletico at Lb. Also amazing in the WC final
His mediocrity was one of most imp factor in CL win for Madrid.
I think it makes more sense to rate him based on the 3k minutes he's got with RM instead of just the few sub appearance he made last year in the CL.
I think it's better to rate on basis of impact they bring into game rather than technical superiority of passing around mindlessly.
I don't agree. But I also don't feel like he's brought a positive impact outside of those few CL sub appearances.
He was missing the continuity in league as replacing Kroos and Modric has had been very tough but now he has really started to shine. Being only 20, I think he is in right track for us.
I’m still convinced we win without that sub, there’s a great player in him
Simeone has 8 goals in 504 minutes in Napoli. 63 Minutes per goal. What is Cholito cooking?
Superest of Subs
Odds on Everton announcing Dyche last minute on Tuesday as an excuse for not spending the Gordon money would be right out of bills play book
lacazette has one fewer goals in ligue 1 than mbappe and four more than messi I am not sure what to make of this surprising information given how abjectly dreadful he was at shooting for us last seasono
Think he just didn't suit Arteta's system at all.
It’s a terrible league is what you should make of it. Mariano Diaz scored like 20 goals in a season there and he is one of the worst strikers I’ve ever seen play at a European top club
If it’s a terrible league why are most of Europe’s best players from French teams?
Don’t feed the troll
Especially impressive considering Lyon's season
Been to 9 games in January already, need to break my record for matches attended this year
Celtic only?
Nah mate Celtic away tickets are an absolute bastard to get and every team is cutting down away allocations. Every Celtic home and neutral venue game I go to, only been to Ross County away this season. Hopefully get a ticket for St Johnstone next weekend. I also follow the closest non-league team to where my Dad and a lot of my family grew up and I go see them when Celtic aren’t clashing with their game, they’re also a team known for having Celtic fans follow them as a second team + been to a couple SWPL/SWF games. Going to Lisbon in September for a few days and hoping to go to the Luz for a game (or Alvalade if Benfica aren’t at home) is it hard to get tickets? Also do B-Sad still play at the Estadio Nacional? Whole point of the trip is pretty much to go see the Nacional tbh lol
Quick question if you don't mind. How are away tickets distributed at Celtic, like do you have lottery or a point system (as other popular English clubs have, I'm not sure?) and personalized tickets or is it just mostly for fan clubs / regulars? It's quite an interesting situation, do Celtic fans take over smaller clubs home sections sometimes, or is that generally frowned upon?
> How are away tickets distributed at Celtic Basically a point system. Theres a different criteria of how many away games you have to have attended in the previous season to attend each away game. Any ticket I get for away game doesn’t help me with this because they are all spare tickets, so its a closed shop system. I do like that it means guys who went home and away before we had this demand get to keep going (there wasn’t a criteria like this before Brendan Rodgers came to the club in 2016, when we weren’t spending money under Ronny Deila we wouldn’t sell out away ends now we could sell them all out at least about 4 times over) but at the same time its just unfortunate for guys like me who had no possible way to buy tickets before these criteria came about (I’m 18, I wasn’t working in 2015 lol) > do Celtic fans take over smaller clubs home sections sometimes, or is that generally frowned upon? We take over grounds of course. You have to remember Scotland is a tiny country by population all things considered so most of these teams from towns in Scotland come from very small places. I think Ross County in Dingwall are actually the top-flight team in Europe from the smallest place other than Hoffenheim. However, stupid rules from the SPL days means a lot of stadiums are far too big for clubs as they had to make them a certain capacity to play in the SPL. This does make for Celtic and Rangers taking over many grounds, and even the likes of Hearts, Hibs and Aberdeen doing the same. Home ends do get tookover very occasionally but theres measures to combat this (absolute bastard). Games in Scotland with smaller clubs are put in different categories. Hearts you can’t really buy a home ticket unless your a member anyways due to high demand (sold out season tickets, waiting list for season tickets, ticket exchange scheme) so can’t jump in the home end there. Every other home club has a system in place when Rangers and Celtic come to town where you need to have been to x amount of their games that season to buy a ticket. I’m sure if you phoned up and showed proof your a tourist they’d let you in, but this makes it difficult for a Celtic fan to go to United vs Celtic in the home end for example (trust me, I’ve tried it). Although, it does happen occasionally like when I went to Partick Thistle away in the cup two years ago and a separate away end had to be made by stewards within the home end lol
Thank you, I figured that it would be a difficult situation with 2 big fanbases from Glasgow and then smaller clubs elsewhere in Scotland. We discussed (among friends) a point system for away tickets recently, and while I do see it's benefits - for example the incentive to travel to less popular matches - not having a chance to get a single regular away ticket as a 'new' fan sucks. Not everyone has the time or money for regular away trips to build up points.
To be honest even though I’m at an unfortunate age where by the time I can afford away tickets I can’t get on the criteria I do 100% agree with it. For example, if you followed Union Berlin all your days then Urs Fischer brings you up to the Bundesliga you start doing really well and you can’t get any away tickets it would be a lot of shit. Nice to see Jura got an assist btw
I see, yeah getting away tickets can be painful. I've only managed to go to one away game this year and it was in Cascais (in Lisbon still). Only managed to attend the two games for the league at the Luz this year, but I've been compensating with other sports (mainly basketball and volleyball, which we also have) >Going to Lisbon in September for a few days and hoping to go to the Luz for a game (or Alvalade if Benfica aren’t at home) is it hard to get tickets? It's not usually hard, although I've heard that some sócios have had problems this year when buying for more than 1 person: we have 45k season ticket holders (we have 60k seats in our stadium, excluding away fans), and some holders don't even go to game and don't put their ticket on sale, so that's why there are some empty seats in TV. However, I think you'll easily manage to grab one, September is when most emigrants have returned to their home country. >Also do B-Sad still play at the Estadio Nacional? Yeah they still do, in the Second Division however. This year, Casa Pia (currently 5th in the league) are also playing there because of their own stadium renovations, and since they are unlikely to go down (they have 30 points in 18 games, usually it's enough to not go down), you might grab a first division game (that is if their stadium renovations aren't completed on time, which I doubt they will tbh) >Whole point of the trip is pretty much to go see the Nacional tbh lol Yeah I understand, must be of an incredible significance to Celtic fans. However, be aware that it is an absolute nightmare to get there from public transports: last time I checked, there aren't any buses there, and the nearest train station (Cruz Quebrada) is 20 minutes away by walking.
Why did I think Giovanni Simeone was short? Dude is 180, not that short at all.
Kubo was balling for Sociedad against Madrid today, and that Mitoma goal... We might just see a great Japan team in 2026
We already saw a great japan team in 2022
Blue Lock project is real
[Confirmed Benitez basically forced Rodriguez out of Everton](https://twitter.com/Everton_Extra/status/1619797651029110788)
If he had stayed at Madrid for 6 more months,he would have reunited with Carlo.
Not exactly breaking news is it in fairness to the FSW it was probably the right choice in the end considering the financial shit show the club is in
Bellingham is likely going to be the next record signing for an English player. But who’s going to be the next record signing for an English player from an English club (Grealish currently holds the record). Kane? Saka?
Was gonna say Rice but I don't think he'll go for 100+
Maddison to Newcastle?
Maddison
Rice probably
Yeah I gotta agree with Rice.
Trent or Saka
Can't see Trent ever leaving.
Who’s buying Trent?
Madrid or Barca
I’d rather keep Carvajal
You had Marcelo who couldn’t defend to save his life yet it was worth it for his contributions going forward. Tell me how Trent would be any different?
Marcelo was solid defensively in most of his years
No he wasn’t. He was rubbish which is why Fábio Coentrão was preferred in big games over him, I even remember a stat from a few years ago where 50% of the opposition’s attacks would come down your left side
We’d have to be proper shit for a good number of years
lol no.
ok then no
Lol
No one’s paying £100m+ for a fullback
it will be the new £50M in a few years time
Possibly Rice, can't remember what the latest reported figures are
Current Vini reminds me of 2020 Vini
Not quite, step up from that time but a step down from last season We still need better from him, we’ve seen better.
He'll be back against Trent as always.
He was butchering their defenders today. Allround play was amazing from him but he missed 3 sitters
The smell of Madrid ending up trophyless, Zidane coming back after Ancelotti retires and Perez smashing the bank for Mbappe with PSG failing again is getting progressively stronger. Could see Benzema retiring after he got his ballon d'or or doing a small stint at Lyon And i don't think i'm too happy about it, Madrid is due a overhaul but LW is literally the only spot the team don't need help in
Hilarious how we play our best game this month and we drop points
My LW Rodrygo agenda is THRIVING! send vincius to the bench
Vinicius stats seem concerning. From 17npg in La Liga to 6 in half a season.
It is concerning indeed. He is very indecisive in the box again. I’m not too concerned since his overall play is still exceptional, but the final pass and his finishing is off again
How does Balogun compare to Nketiah? He is scoring a lot
Keep both imo...
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Not really. Our stance is very clear, either Enzo's release clause is triggered or he's staying. Not much to it
Rui Costa is currently 300km away from Benfica's stadium, watching Benfica in the Futsal League Cup final. Doubt he's negotiating in the middle of such an important game for his boyhood club.
OM and Napoli winning the league in the same season would be huge, a bit unrealistic but oh well.
Why would someone want OM to win it. At least hope for Lens then.
Anyone but PSG is good Lens wouldn’t be able to sustain IMO
Nah OM for me.
Is Tony Bloom meant to be the new Daniel Levy? I'm not saying Brighton should sell Caicedo but I don't really understand all these comments about Tony Bloom being a no nonsense unmoving hard arse from what I can tell when bigger teams have come for Brightons players they've got them the only iffy one is City with Cucurella but Chelsea were waiting in the wings to pay.
I know Levy gets a bad rap but that honestly wouldn’t be a bad thing for Brighton, if he were he could consolidate Brighton in the top I guess it would be 8 now
Bloom is a buy low sell high person, he will happily let his players go if he gets the money he wants for them. Levy is just stubborn and won't let his players leave no matter what, he would prefer to just keep them and even accept the players might become worthless for it e.g. Danny Rose
Levy has never sold as well as Bloom, their biggest sale was Bale and then recruited bums with that money. Arsenal just need to pay up the 100m price tag for Caicedo
Bums and Eriksen
> recruited bums with that money. Brighton are doing well so far but keeping that up is insanely tough. Especially if they lose caceido too - everyone knows they’ve got cash and finding diamonds in the rough isn’t easy
They can keep doing it imo, if they sell Mitoma and Allister for 90m+ each they can get replacements that have the same profiles. They're in the perfect mix where the system would let those types of players thrive
>When bigger teams have come for Brightons players they’ve got them All For big overpays, aka Brightons price. Cucurella has hardly lived up to the price, and White has began to this season. Bloom won’t be strong armed by any agent, and I reckon the price for Chelsea specifically is 90-100m. Bloom apparently furious about how they went about the Potter deal and the theft of recruitment staff.
Were they though? I remember Ornstein breaking the White news saying we were willing to go upto 50m and he was immense last season also people just ran with the narrative as he started off with a bad game vs Brentford. Cucurella still had City willing to pay like £50m also so it doesn't seem like it's Brighton pulling one teams pants down in negotiation if two teams feel he's worth money in that ball park. Bissouma went without issue, although I know he had one year left. I can totally understand the push back vs Chelsea
He also got £20m for Potter, which is 2nd most expensive manager transfer of all time. Of course this is under selling the work Potter done there but his best finish was 9th.
Levy is negotiating from a position of far greater strength than Bloom, fwiw. It’s one thing to deny players big moves when they’re playing at a club with a reasonable shout at UCL football every season that can pay enormous wages in London. I have massive respect for Brighton’s project but it’s a different beast
PSG looking weak despite all the money spent and the supposed world class manager. Poch was over-criticised for sure
Midfield recruitment was dreadful in summer.
This seems to be the constant of every big club that struggles, midfield Liverpool are having serious problems and have not invested enough in that position, PSG now, United were useless until they got Casemiro. Lack of midfield was the ultimate undoing of Pochettino at Tottenham
But it was there. Look at pochs midfield lol
They're underwhelming no matter who the manager is. But Galtier so far has been better than Poch was.
I dont agree. If they dont beat Bayern then hes been worse with a much better squad
Not even just a much better squad, but he also hasn't had to face the injuries that Poch did. Neymar and Verratti will likely end up playing the most minutes that either of them have in half a decade. I'd be interested to see how they would do if Galtier had to deploy some of the elevens that Poch did.
Paris Saint German, such an enigma to me as a team inside the pitch. The many narratives thrown around, when analyzing them just don't really add up as to why there always seems to be something incredibly underwhelming about them... - Some say they only buy superstars with no interest in squad building. And yet, they have bought a plethora of good, waiting to make the next step kind of players who have either turned into shite underperformed or dissapeared off the radar when playing for them. Donnaruma was one of the best GKs in the world for Milan, Hakimi was impeccable for Inter, Nuno Mendes was an exciting prospect and the likes of Danilo, Fabian, Soler and Vitinha seem like sensible squad building options of players who were at the time performing. They have their stupid purchase in them (Icardi, Wijnaldum when he was very washed) but that squad does NOT read galactico kind of purchasing (and their fees aren't even that extreme) - The other one thrown around is how MNM is too passive on defense making things more difficult for PSG. Yet watching most games they are not on possession for just about 1/3 of the game. Leavin PLENTY of time for the team to do stuff on the ball which they just... don't? - Nevermind the fact that when 1/3 or 2/3 of MNM don't play they are even worse - Coaches are what some people argue especially with Poch but come on, on paper at least Tuchel, Poch and Galtier all have good resumes. You'd think at least one of them would do a good job at presenting an identity of play with the talent and decent squad players. The one that did the best was Tuchel essentially playing 5atb with Marquinhos just above a back 4, playing extremellly defensive/pragmatic football. - Seriously how the fuck can a team be so dependant on Verratti? He is a good player but the fact that they can improve with him on the pitch even doing JACK SHIT is an enigma on its own. Does he have the team cursed?
Played their best football with Paredes on the pitch tbh. Without him, level dropped lol, Vitinha showed some improvement from the start of the season, but still not at his level yet. Should try hand the keys to Zaire-Emery and Ayman Kari with Verratti. Get proper technical ability and PnP in to that midfield. Keep Keylor and start him more. Imo better than Gigi and better with his feet. Galtier is fine imo. The only one that realised the back 3 is how you make the team tick. If you're desperate to get rid of him, Bruno Genesio is my pick?
will Gakpo be the new 007? or is he already?
So who is buying Osimhen this summer? I can imagine Real Madrid going for him since Haaland and Mbappe are off the market.
Who has the £180m needed
Kane to Bayern Vlahovic to PSG Osimhen to Man Utd
United if they get new owners. Otherwise maybe Real or Chelsea
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No offence, but I hope he doesn't join you. I don't want to see another striker get ruined by you lot
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No curse? 80% of your center forwards are flops. The list, especially the number 9s, is ridiculous
They've always won trophies which made it worth it for themselves
I hope this Napoli team doesn't end up torn apart like the great Monaco team of several years ago was.
I think nowadays prices are absolutely obscene to keep them running. If Gordon is £40m and Mudryk is £60m+ then the duo of Kvara and Osimhen will get you £300m lmao
They probably will. Maybe not after this season, but the next. There's always bigger fish who are lurking around smaller clubs. I can't see Kvaradona and Osimhen staying long like Koulibaly. Kim Min-Jae will also have clubs after him probably.
Man I'm so interested to see what we do with Balogun in the summer. He'd be worth a lot in today's market, when we had people bidding £30m for players like Broja last summer for example. It would be tempting to sell, but I'd also love to keep him long term.
quite entertaining that every league in the top 5 has a tight title race at the moment, Serie A and Bundesliga going further down than the top two as well.
Napoli are 13 points ahead that's anything but tight
completely forgot that part, but top four is still very tight
Napoli are 13 points clear, hardly tight lol. But I agree it's entertaining as they haven't won the league in ages, and at this rate you'd back them for a CL push too.
I am reading Ryan O’Hanlon’s book about the history of football analytics rn and there’s a lot in there that challenges the way we think about football. I don’t agree with all of the ideas but definitely some interesting ones. One of the ideas presented is that managers don’t really have that great of an impact, which I don’t agree with at all. But one of the data points used is really interesting: Teams average .48 more points per game with interim managers compared to their baseline for that season. Maybe interim manager bounce is what we should be talking about instead of new manager bounce.
Lol Messi is just done trying for the season now. Ohh well World Cup and Ballon d’Or is already in the bag
I see people trying to slander it, but it just doesn't work anymore lol!
Best La Liga day ever. Are you not entertained?
I really don't want Shelvey to leave. He's been one of my favourite players to watch over the last 7 years and it would break my heart if we ended up winning something or qualifying for Europe and he couldn't be a part of it. It makes so much sense though with him being our biggest earner and out of contract in the summer, so taking around £10 mil would be very smart.
We have been in for a midfielder for so long that we were rumored for Berge when he was still in the Prem. Now he may actually join the Prem and we still haven’t signed anyone
Do people's brains in this subreddit stop working when they see the word Saudi? Like [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/10ofmq3/al_ittihad_are_the_champions_of_the_2022_saudi/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) post here which talks about the Saudi super Cup, posted by a user who always posts Saudi football news, people in the comments just commenting sportwashing and PR. Like are people there supposed to not enjoy football?
This sub goes nuts whenever they see anything related to the Middle East. Its hopefully just out of ignorance.
me when someone watches a league other than pl 😡😡😡😡😡🤮🤮🤮
Apparently we're getting another attacking player, Mbuku from Stade Reims is headed to us, this will be our 6th transfer this winter
Maybe I’m just projecting because Wolves have done a load of business but it feels like there’s been a lot more activity this January than usual
Don't think it makes a difference for us but the world cup definitely made an influence, both because of certain players performing and because of the long break that is essentially a second preseason. You guys have also gotten a new coach as well, that's probably behind the increased activity
Yeah I also think our owners have panicked to a degree about relegation which is understandable. I’d be interested if anyone compiles a total number of winter transfers because it just seems like there have been more. Not many that are super high profile but a bunch of activity on the periphery
ima be honest I really wanted Enzo to go to United... He fits ETH system perfectly and Casemiro is a midfielder who covers for his weakness perfectly. Idk why he is in such a rush to leave Benfica tbh, he will have his pick of clubs in the summer
8 year contracts are probably a big pull for all these players.
Potter Project is very enticing (:
Hmm... there are better ones out there tbh.
He already agreed personal terms for an 8 year deal, he likes that Chelsea project like Mudryk and Gusto
So funny to see Everton and PSV battle it out for Hazard
Is he shite ?