Men's Soccer (Football) Thread [ARCHIVED] Soccer • Page 232

Messi probably deserves the ballon d'or just from watching Barcelona without him to start the season. Pedestrian is a polite way to put it.

 

Also I've been #blessed to find back to back games (Atleti-Leganes, Barca-Betis) with crowd noise only streams.

 

triple post but forgot to mention: I cannot wait to see Griez and Messi together.

 

That was a foul on Kane and should’ve been a penalty. Mike Dean can fuck off.

 

Pretty sure the plan was Foyth and KWP at RB which I think would’ve been perfectly fine. Foyth got hurt right at the end of the window which ruined that plan. Trippier was beat consistently and I don’t think Poch liked him.

Rose is a fine LB. Davies is a fine backup. Sessegnon brought in as a long term plan. He’ll eventually takeover but Poch isn’t going to rush him. No different than most 18/19 years old that are bought.

Vertonghen apparently showed up to preseason out of shape and Poch is making him earn his way back.

 

The problem wasn’t the defenders. The fullbacks played fine. Sanchez fucked up on the goal but overall was fine.

The issue is lack of creativity. Just a bunch of pointless passing and not enough actual attack. We had the ball forever but were rarely a threat. That’s been a problem in all 3 games.

 

Griezmann just scored an awesome out of the air volley (that their keeper should've done better on). 1-1. Betis is such a blast of a team to watch.

 

Griez just scored a golazo and then ran to the sideline where someone dumped glitter in his hands and he threw it over is head like an old Kesha video. Did I just fall in love?

 

Relevant to the Spurs creativity issue:

 

Eriksen is clearly a very important piece and I hope we somehow keep him but tbf we’ve been without Dele, today was Son’s first game of the season, Lo Celso and NDombele are still working on getting fully integrated. There are other reasons the team looks stale.

 

LAFC may have the best record but Zlatan owns them

Fucking frauds

 

I really thought you'd press us into a mistake, but we were pretty bulletproof across the backline. I think you got us on the one day a year where we didn't do anything stupid.

Although I just about shat my pants when Longstaff headed the ball to himself in the box and tried to play it out of the area.

That and when Lascelles decided to start grazing under Harry Kane's feat.

 

So both Bury and Bolton could be expelled from League One today due to shitty owners ruining the clubs. Disgraceful that it keeps happening, feel sad for the fans of both teams.

 

Bolton have been given a 14 day extension.

Bury have been officially expelled from the football league. They had sat bottom of league one on -12 points having yet to play a game this season. Pretty devastating that owners can take over clubs and players on wages they have no intention of paying. It’s absolutely not sustainable for a club of Bury’s size to sign a player like Jermaine Beckford on 5k a week without sufficient financial backing. Can’t imagine how their fans feel right now. Truly devastating.

 

Sad day for football

 

Further proof that football is no longer for the people. Two 100+ year-old clubs going/gone because people at the top see them as a business to exploit for their own benefit while everything falls apart beneath them and players, staff and fans alike are the ones that face the consequences. The old Bury owner literally admitted he didn't know they were a football club before he bought them, and never once visited. Plus, 43 out of the 51 businesses he has been associated with have been liquidated. Just an absolute rat.

 

Bolton have just announced that their takeover has been completed.

 

Portsmouth vs Southampton in the next round of the cup is going to be tasty.

 

Chris Smalling going on loan to Roma, no purchase option included. United really getting rid of him before Rojo or Jones?

 

Rojo and Bailly should be first out the door. Smalling is probably our best pure defender. I don’t understand it at all.

even Sanchez, while I’m glad he’s gone. He’s a body we will miss up front. An injury or two and we’re fucked. I just don’t understand this summer.

 

Gotta remember that there has to be an actual demand for a player to leave the club. Bailly is constantly crocked - who would take him, his wages, any other fees when he'll barely play for them? Similar with Rojo, combined with him being an absolute liability.

Sanchez as well, he might be a warm body to put on the field, but he offers literally nothing. He hasn't done the entire time he's been there. Its been like playing with 10 men every time he's played. 3 goals last season I think it was. No point keeping him as he's useless even as depth.

 

I think if Smalling were playing week in and week out he would cost us a penalty every single game because of VAR

 

Your first paragraph is true, but why was Rojo given a new contract recently then?

But regarding your second, why did we not replace him? I don’t consider James a replacement more of a prospect. Is Chong his replacement? He’s played in all of the u23 matches. It’s all well and good getting rid of players, but not replacing them is a huge problem. Martial and Rashford get injured and we’re playing guys with less than 10 premier league appearances between them. Herrera was let go without a replacement. Again, Garner is a good prospect but a wildly different player and barely got a look in during pre season.

i like the idea of getting rid of these players but the execution has been hap hazard when you take our purchases into account.

 

Totally agree about the new contract for Rojo. Who knows. The management of the club is a shambles, there's players sitting on wages that they have no right being anywhere near.

As for replacements, I do agree to an extent. Ole is obviously going with the opinion of promoting youth to fill the gaps. For Sanchez, is replacing him with Gomes or Chong actually that different? Sanchez would not have been starting any games, he would not be playing many minutes at all, and in the minutes he would have played he would have had little to no impact at all (in fact, he was so bad for us it might have been a negative impact). He might not have even made the bench. Is it so different to have a youth player on the bench instead?

I do agree with midfielders. Herrera is going to be a huge, huge miss for us. We definitely fucked it not making any midfield signings.

 

Speaking of bizarre transfer policies:

It’s being reported in Spain that Barcelona and PSG are closing the Neymar deal right now.

Lots of rumors it’s Rakitic+Neymar on loan with obligation to buy next summer for €160m. PSG wanted Dembele, but his agent turned that down. Rakitic’s agent also turned his move down so who knows what’s actually happening (if anything).