Men's Soccer (Football) Thread [ARCHIVED] Soccer • Page 1963

Thank you to those in here (and the two other friends who don’t post here who are also miserable Tottenham fans) who told me to watch Brighton over Leeds.

 

The amount of energy people use to claim Spurs are bottlers every chance they get pales in comparison to the level of energy used by people to explain why Arsenal didn’t bottle anything this year.

(I think all the bottle stuff is stupid but not as stupid as this double standard lol)

 

Unfortunately, Spurs will have to win trophies to shake off that tag I'm afraid - Arsenal may not be what the once were but they have picked up a fair few FA Cups in recent history.

"it is the history of the Tottenham"!

 

I want to laugh at Arsenal but yeah Arsenal actually win things, I also don’t think it’s possible to bottle the league against a financially doped side with 2 first teams good enough to win the league. It’s borderline impossible to compete against them through a full season.

 

Do you ever think you'd make it over to England to see Brighton play? I know it's early days in your support of them, but yeah, just curious!

 

Ideally that would be awesome but not sure when a trip to England would be in the cards for me.

 

That's understandable. Well, I hope someday you can make it to a game. Have you managed to take one in closer to home yet BTW?

 

Yeah, I don’t know if we bottled it, we probably did. But when you have the youngest team, youngest manager, no title race experience, and you’re up against Man City, I don’t think it’s surprising.

I’m not going to say too much on this because I don’t wanna cause hassle with people on here, but I really understand how Liverpool fans felt.

You can have an amazing season, do unbelievably well, and yet you fall at the end and get overtaken by the best team in the world.

And it makes you feel bitter, honestly. It does, Especially because as a club, they are a financially doped, sportswashing exercise. One with 130+ charges of financial irregularities hanging over them. But you have to say, they are the better team, and will win the league and there is no point thinking about it.

In the end, you just have to remember what a fun season we had. Maybe we compete next year, maybe we don’t. It’s been fun and I like the vast majority of our team. I feel like it’s more likely we get closer than they pull away.

 

Just local games. I have a Detroit City FC game on 5/27 I’m going to and I went to a handful of Lansing common games a few years ago.

 

Cool, cool. Good to know you've taken some in already/plan to take more in!

 

Glad you are hitting DCFC, wish the men's team was doing better. I probably will end up attending more woman's then men's matches because I think the woman's team is going to end up pretty good this year.

 

DCFC offensively are so putrid this season. It’s such a bummer.

 

I mean the defense looked even worse last match. Its been absolutely wild. Love Trevor James but it really sucks looking at Charleston and what Ben is doing there and not think hmmm. Also would love if we can finally get that NISA severance payment off our back so we can invest some more money in the squad.

Though Ben and the Battery getting blown out 7-nil to San Antonio is objectively a worse loss than ours was this weekend.

 

I bought 2 tickets through work to take a buyer I know who is a Man U fan but he bailed. I have another person lined up to take for professional reasons but if they fall through it’ll likely just be my wife and i using them. I haven’t kept up with the team at all.

 

Park at the Secretary of State on Joseph Campeau and walk over, eat the food trucks pre-match (Balkan House and Srodek's are my two faves), and drink cheap Stroh's. You can also hit the Fowling House pre-match but the supporters group walks over like an hour and half before kickoff.

 

In regards to Arsenal

I liked what the Men in Blazers twitter account said "you needed to be perfect and you were merely human"

im kind of excited for the on-field product once Saudi Arabia and UAE start battling it out.

 

The whole "bottling" talk is a load of bollocks and always has been, both for Spurs (as funny as it is to joke about it) and now Arsenal. Competitive sport is a tough thing and teams are always going to come up short, particularly when cards are stacked against them - true for Spurs in relation to breaking into the traditional Big 4 in general, and true for Arsenal against a nation state.

City have essentially broken English football at the minute. They combined the best manager in the world, with the best players in the world, and the best front office in the world, all backed by a cheating nation state with unlimited funds. Even despite Arsenal's relative collapse over the last month or so, they would have had enough to win the league in the majority of the seasons prior to the City takeover (or more realistically, Pep joining).

Perfection should not be the expectation for winning the league. It never had been previously. And yet City has made it so. Yes, Liverpool proved it's possible to triumph still, but they're the exception. There's no shame in Arsenal falling short.

 

I find it interesting that at the start of the season there was a lot of talk (in this thread as well) about City's depth and criticisms/questioning for the sell of players and "squad depth". Then I see now we have two world class squads and all of this depth while I don't think our "B" team would even compete in the top 8 of the Premier League.

I mean before the season nobody thought Grealish and Ake would be playing like this nor would the emergency signing of Akanji work out to be a revelation and him starting. Like their success rate on signings is insane. Plus Pep has just moved players to new positions and roles to deal with that depth. Before the season nobody would have thought Ake or Stones would make as many appearances in the some of the positions they did.

 

I mean Grealish was a £100m player. Ake was a £40m player. They were underperforming previously, not overperforming now.

 

And other clubs in the top four have not paid that much for players to have them not perform? I mean United and Chelsea have splashed a ton of cash on players that don't hit. I mean in the last three seasons of transfers other than Kalvin Phillips what signing has City missed on? I mean I am back to 19/20 and can't find one other than Phillips and lets see what happens after in his second season. Also lets see if Grealish keeps this up and its not one year thing.

The thing is that the way the depth is talked about is you think we have almost a Chelsea situation going on and need two dressing rooms.

 

I think the unity of vision between Pep and front office is more crucial to this run of success then anything. I fully expect some definite regression when he ever decides to leave. I don't know too many managers who can compete by throwing Ake out at LB and decide John Stones is going to be a new version of Pirlo.

This would be Barcelona if they did not have to change their President every few years.

 

I mean, Arsenal go down a CB and they have to play Rob Holding. United have played Wout fucking Weghorst half the year. City can rotate a front three of Grealish - Haaland - Mahrez and replace them with Foden - Alvarez - Silva. Dias - Stones - Ake - Akanji is CB depth no other team in the league can afford to come close to.

 

I don’t think anything you’ve said is untrue, but City have had the money to put this structure in place. Chelsea are haphazardly buying players, much like United have been to try play catch up against a state backed team. The amount of money City have dumped into the club as a whole allows players like Grealish to take a year to get up to speed, is he miles better this year than last? Yeah he is, but he’s absolutely helped by not being a needed winner the second he walks into the City team.

You can replace Grealish with any other City there. No other team in the league is comfortable enough to spend that money on Grealish or Philips and give them a free year while still winning the title. My point isn’t City are buying a ton of players every season, it’s that City have a system that they can buy a player and give them all the time in the world to fit in as they already have top class players at every position. It’s an insane luxury no other club has and benefits City to no end over the course of a 38 game season.

United can’t do it, Chelsea can’t do it, Arsenal and Spurs certainly can’t. Case in point Kiwior who’s a good young player thrown into the deep end of an Arsenal title challenge and has struggled a bit to replace the players they’ve lost to injury. Whereas City have Laporte hanging around in the background which every other top 6 club would snap your hand off for.

 

United have pissed more money away on players so I love the Weghorst comment. I mean Arsenal bought Kiwor for more than what we paid for Akanji. Like really?

We have had 18 players who have played more than 450 PL minutes this season (The equivilant to 5 full games), and, for the sake of context, the next player has 167 minutes. That's the same as Arsenal. In the top 7 only Brighton (17) and Newcastle (15) have used fewer players for over 450 minutes.

Man United have 21 players who've played that much. Chelsea have 26. Liverpool have 21. Spurs have 20.

 

Basically what City have done/are doing is what you should expect from a club going about things with properly unlimited resources. When you’re working with no limitations and all the time in the world to get it right, no one is going to care or be impressed when you finally achieve the pinnacle under these circumstances. This is what people mean when they say this City side and regime are lifeless and soulless.