Men's Soccer (Football) Thread [Archived] Soccer • Page 661

And now a Barcelona fan group wants to raid the pitch to stop them from playing. Players are warming up (another rumor says this is their choice), and it may be an empty stands game.

 

Officially a closed match. Barca wearing the red/yellow senyera kit. I almost feel sorry for Las Palmas.

 

Schneiderlin getting sarcastic cheers from the crowd when he passes forwards!

 

Yeah, I was wrong about Everton when predicting how well they'd do this year after all their signings - they are fucking woeful. Koeman the next to be sacked.

 

This looks bizarre.

 

Absolute disgrace that La Liga are making this game go ahead considering the circumstances going on in Catalonia.

 

3 slow as molasses #10's and some other dross for £150m? They had the worst summer in the league. Horrible.

 

Pickford good and Keane ok IMO, but even though they were free Rooney & Martina are a waste of money on their wage bill. Klaassen I keep quiet about as he was the king for me & my team 12 months ago lol.

 

I think Klassen is an okay piece of business, as is Pickford and Keane. It's not even just that. His team selection/ tactics are baffling. Players out of position all over the place, not enough quality to play in those positions, and no real play when playing.

Instead of trying to play 3 at the back just because it's the fashion at the minute, they could play a 4-2-3-1 and play much more to their strengths.

 

Apparently Busquets can only score if no one is watching

 

Pickford is alright, but he's still Sunderland level imo. Has a high ceiling but is not there yet. Martina must be one of the worst players in the league.

Regarding Klaassen I think I've seen him play 5 times this season so far without actually seeing him play football. Signing him is not a bad shout, but when you follow up his signing with Rooney and Sigurdsson, two players that play roughly the same position and all three are slow as hell, that's incompetence.

Even after that, Lukaku, why did they not replace Lukaku? That's shocking stuff.

 

Koeman had an idea for how we would play and bought 'his' guys and tried to shove his system down their throats despite it being pretty clear it would not work, to be generous, like 3 weeks into the season. His system is bad and he doesn't have players for it even if it wasnt

 

Not replacing Lukaku adequately is something that idiots like me didn't notice that they didn't do with the distraction of big signings like Gylfi & Rooney. Sandro kinda sucks lol.

Klaassen's had a bad start and people have every right to judge him based on that - I often forget that others haven't been watching him for 5 years like I have. I think Koeman plays him CM? CM for Ajax in the Dutch League and CM for the premier league is a whole different sport I swear; He should be used as an SS/AMC (probably from the bench for a time being). Plus, he's always scored more than create - 14 goals to 9 assists in 33 games last season - so Koeman should be looking to use his smart movement + finishing to try & get a goal rather than have him try to create something.

That's my 2 cents anyway, for anyone who cares lol. He captained Ajax at age 22-24 and really drove them to EL final last season, which is an achievement for someone that age - just needs some time to settle in a new country I think.

 

Yeah it was definitely one of those things glossed over during the summer. They needed to replace him and didn't. Sandro is fine for Everton, but not as a leading player. It's weird I think all their buys are good in isolation but when you put them all together in that summer it just does not add up. @Wharf Rat nailed it above.

Yeah he's playing as a midfielder but it's plain to see even if he was a CM he's a Lampard style CM, not what Koeman has him doing.

As you say CM in the Eredivisie is massively different to the PL. Look at Daley Blind, love him to bits and he did well enough in centre midfield for Ajax but it's clear to see he wouldn't work as a midfielder in the league. The physicality of the premier league, I think is overblown, but the time on the ball in the centre is drastically lower than other leagues, which makes it harder for midfielders.

 

Another worn out joke I see

 

Swear Atletico were in for Sandro before their transfer ban, you wonder what role he'd have with them already having Griezmann, Gameiro, Torres and Correa.

I think the way Ajax in particular train and develop their players does not lend itself to PL very well at all. Spurs have the only recently successful players outside Blind to have come straight from Ajax in Eriksen, Vertonghen and Sanchez (Alderweireld had one season with Atleti where he wasn't great tbh). Even then Daley has to play LB for the reasons you mentioned. I can recall Siem De Jong, Viktor Fischer, Klaassen, Jairo Reidewald, Vernon Anita and Van Der Hoorn off the top of my head who all struggled. Ajax/Eredivise is a walk in the park where technique is championed over athleticism, but what good does technique do for someone like Riedewald when Mohamed Salah blitzes past you in a blur, or a striker like Lukaku will knock you off your feet in a shoulder-to-shoulder!

 

Arsenal with AOC
Played: 3
Won: 1
Lost: 2
Goals scored: 4
Goals conceded: 8

Arsenal post-AOC
Played: 7
Won: 6
Drawn: 1
Goals scored: 15
Goals conceded: 3

Liverpool pre-AOC
Played: 5
Won: 4
Drawn: 1
Goals scored: 14
Goals conceded: 6

Liverpool with AOC
Played: 7
Won: 1
Drawn: 4
Lost: 2
Goals scored: 8
Goals conceded: 14

 

This shit is just terrible

Amiens vs Lille: Match abandoned after barrier collapses in away end of Ligue 1 clash

 

colonial settler wankers

 

They've played 4-2-3-1 and close variations of it this season though. It's nothing to do with the shape. Their squad just isn't that great and Koeman's not a good enough manager to perform the sort of miracles they'd need to come top six this season.

Keane and Pickford were significant improvements on what they had before. None of the rest of their signings were upgrades on first team positions. And they've also got a bunch of players that are getting irreversibly worse.

 

The 60 Minutes episode with the Pulisic profile is about to start. Just in case anyone was interested.

 

pique has offered to step away from the spanish team

 

Seeing those Barcelona goals in an empty stadium is strange. And Suarez just leaving the pitch is mad, is he really struggling lately?

 

He's been abysmal since the about that PSG away game, really. Like, doesn't deserve to start at all, honestly. It's strange and shocking. To the point where I'd like to see Alcacer get a run of games, just to see what he can offer.

 

...orly?