Men's Soccer (Football) Thread [ARCHIVED] Soccer • Page 1882

Good track record of hitting on managers even before Pep as well. None that would be considered failures.

 

Yeah, thanks to this thread and my other soccer friend for suggesting I follow Brighton a couple of years ago as my PL team. It’s been fun.

 

Yeah it’s crazy the structure that City have built. Also seems like they’re preparing for the post Pep era as well.

 

Calculated in everything they do it seems. Even transfers, they don't play around with players they target. Oh you want to use our offer to drive up your value, well we are out and on to the next player.

 

Their sag was not even that crazy either, it went from like CL spots to EL spots and then two years in 8th and then back up competing. It is actually kind of wild how quick that bounce back happened.

 

And then exiting players aren't forced to stay if they can bring in a good offer (see Gabriel Jesus, Zinchenko, Sterling, etc.)

 

I’d say Brighton, Brentford, and maybe Arsenal would be my pick.

City are very impressive, and the non-stadium facilities are super impressive when you go to the Etihad. I’d argue though that if you’re backed by an actual oil nation, frankly you should be well run. Obviously PSG have shown how you can mess it up, but I simply find teams like Brighton and Brentford more impressive and interesting.

There’s also something to be said for how well Leicester were run until this year. Their failure is their reluctance to renew the squad. Spurs between about 2015-2018 were very well run too.

 

Didn't Spurs also refuse to update the squad?

 

Emery was undoubtedly pretty decent in his first year. Narrowly missed out on fourth place, and got to a European final (something we hadn’t done since ‘06, or since).

The second year was an absolute disaster though. We had absolutely no control over games, and were absolutely abysmal to watch. Granted, we were only eighth, but we hadn’t won in almost two months and he had lost the battle with the difficult players like Ozil, Aubameyang, Guendouzi. He also annoyed our club captain Koscielny, to the point that he demanded to leave and we ended up with only 3 senior CB’s (Mustafi, Luiz, Sokratis - how fucking far we have come).

He’s a great man, and a good manager, but he doesn’t suit big clubs with big players.

 

Yes, absolutely. I think the stadium is partly why, it happened to us. But yes, which is why it stops in 2018 for me ha.

 

Basically the same lineup we’ve been seeing. Curious if the tactics are at least different.

 

Oh Lloris is back? Lol didn’t even notice that when looking at the lineup before

 

That bench is dire lol

 

no Dier is on the pitch

 

Leicester found themselves in a bunch of money/potential FFP trouble, right? Either way it’s poor planning and doesn’t match up with the great work they were doing, but I think it’s different than Ashley not spending a dime on that Newcastle squad for years.

 

Perisic loves giving the ball away

 

JFC what is Doucoure thinking?!

 

One thing I hate about football is when the player that reacts gets a harsher punishment than the one that started the agression

 

I mean, Kane is a dirty player, but he did also get hit in the face. The punishments felt correct to me?

 

I didn't say it's wrong, just that it feels wrong in such cases. Also it looked like Doucoure just wanted to shove him away and did not aim for the face. It was a stupid action but Kane absolutely deserved it

 

Watching Kane realize that he got hit in the face and then decided to fall over is hilarious and pathetic at the same time.

 

Everton are fucking useless, just completely threw away the chance of a result.

 

This angle is particularly hilarious

 

Every player goes down and/or grabs their face when they get hit in the face. But Kane will get dragged for it.

 

The most pathetic thing was that he was lying down for what felt like several minutes