Football (Soccer)

[B]

Teams have worked us out now and without the likes of Odegaard and Saka, we look completely lost. Arteta also looked like he was lost on the touchline on Saturday and out of ideas.

This is fairly normal though that when key players are missing, teams will skip a beat.

Manchester City's record in recent seasons has lulled people into thinking when key players are missing, the 'system' will still prevail. City's case is unique because of the unusual amount of depth they had particularly with forward/creative players. It's not often you've the luxury or the ability to keep players that are good enough to start for the majority of PL sides, content enough to have a sort of squad/rotation role until a key man goes down.

Chelsea probably rival that level of depth now with their squad. In normal situations, the drop off in quality is usually steep when a key player is unavailable.

 

[blueharvest]

 

[PepS]

This is fairly normal though that when key players are missing, teams will skip a beat.

Manchester City's record in recent seasons has lulled people into thinking when key players are missing, the 'system' will still prevail. City's case is unique because of the unusual amount of depth they had particularly with forward/creative players. It's not often you've the luxury or the ability to keep players that are good enough to start for the majority of PL sides, content enough to have a sort of squad/rotation role until a key man goes down.

Chelsea probably rival that level of depth now with their squad. In normal situations, the drop off in quality is usually steep when a key player is unavailable.

Absolutely. However, this all harkens back to our poor recruitment in the summer and previous windows. Everybody could see the problems and the holes we were missing, yet the club and Arteta have failed to properly address them. It also doesn't help that Arteta is so stubborn and seemingly egotistical in that he won't really adapt to situations and oppoistions to set us up to play to the strengths of the personnel we do have. Instead he tries to force players into unnatural positions to make it seem like if it works he will look smarter than everyone else. We have a small squad as is and he doesn't really use it to it's full capacity and only uses the same 14-17 players most of the time. His substitutions are also always reactive rather than pro-active and by the time he tries to make changes when we are chasing a game, it is already too late.

While I agree with what you are saying about City, Pep isn't so stubborn in that he will always tweak his formations and tactics to get the best out of the personnel he does have available at any given time. Arteta doesn't really do this unless his hand is forced. It's incredibly frustrating

 

[B]

I've seen a few footballing accounts I follow on Twitter speaking relatively highly of him recently, I think it was during the international break if I'm not mistaken, from what I've read he's got a good base & profile for the PL.

We need to be looking at any & all LB options, if we could nab one in January it would be wonderful, Shaw is touching his 30's & given he's had a lot of injury problems in his 20's forcing him to miss extended periods, we should be looking at long term replacements as it will only get worse with age.
Malacia's on a similar boat, had a promising debut season, but he hasn't kicked a ball for the first team in I believe we're now approaching 14 months. He's likely only got the remainder of this season to salvage his United career as if he misses the majority of this season again or doesn't impress Amorim, I'd imagine the club will release him as I think his contract is up next summer.

 

[BlackFox]

Interesting CL match up tonight with City taking on Sporting in our new mans last game before joining us.

 

[BlackFox]

Early goal for City to go 1-0 up, been well on top so far.

Madrid down 0-1 to AC Milan at home, not on best form Madrid this season in this competition so far.

 

[BlackFox]

Sporting now 3-1 up!!

Milan beating Madrid 2-1 in Madrid.

 

[Iceman]

Sporting now 3-1 up!!

Milan beating Madrid 2-1 in Madrid.

Some crazy results tonight!

City lost 4-1 in the end to Sporting and Real lost 3-1, another home game with a bunch of goals conceded.

Liverpool beat Leverkusen 4-0 at home.

 

[BlackFox]

Bellingham is really not having a good season since last, I wonder if the Mbappe signing has affected him that greatly or if its just the difficult second season now that players know what hes about a bit.

17th in the table though is not where you would expect to find Madrid at this stage.

 

[blueharvest]

Benjamin Mendy entitled to most of unpaid Manchester City wages, judge rules

Benjamin Mendy has won a partial victory in his case against Manchester City for more than £11m in unpaid wages

www.theguardian.com

 

[BlackFox]

Arsenal lost 1-0 to Inter in the San Siro and Villa went down by the same scoreline in Brugge, a tricky week for the English sides in Europe this week it seems.

PSG in danger of going out at the group stage as things stand at the moment.

 

[blueharvest]

 

[Iceman]

Nice to see Amad get 2 as Utd pick up their first win in the Europa to move nicely away from the drop zone.

 

[blueharvest]

 

[Iceman]

Brighton just came up with a huge comeback to go 2-1 up from being 1-0 down to City. Still 6 mins left though.

 

[Hunter Rider]

I like how he phrased that, I'm sure if Hojlund and Zirkzee don't start scoring then we'll try for Gyökeres in the summer, and we're one of several clubs interested in their exciting young talent, Quenda.

That's the title push over for us for another season, I feel. We're in a top 4 race now. We've looked a shadow of the trajectory we were on the past two season and I'm wondering if we've missed our window of opportunity. City and Liverpool are there, Chelsea are coming, Villa are coming, United will be coming sooner, or later and then you have the likes of Newcastle, Spurs and Brighton in there too. Hopefully, we go strong in the cups rather than putting all our egg's in the League basket and coming up short like we have the last few seasons. We have to go and try and win something, otherwise we are just going to labelled a Pochettino's Spurs, but having spent more money along with the bottle jobs tag.

I think not buying a striker was a poor choice, I know it worked last season but ultimately a proper #9 is a hole in the side.

Brighton just came up with a huge comeback to go 2-1 up from being 1-0 down to City. Still 6 mins left though.

Brighton were excellent in the 2nd half, Baleba came on and started to dominate the midfield, while the other sub Joao Pedro brought powerhouse running to the attack, Brighton fully deserved their 3 points.

 

[BlackFox]

Looks like Liverpool might walk away with the title at this rate. City seem really off it now, the Rodri thing has really done a number on them at the moment.

 

[Iceman]

Looks like Liverpool might walk away with the title at this rate. City seem really off it now, the Rodri thing has really done a number on them at the moment.

The league needed City to calm down for a bit, although I never want that to come about from injuries. Yeah, Rodri is the most important foundational player to their system. I’m impressed that he got recognised by Ballon d’Or voters.

 

[Zantera]

I'm happy if City doesn't win the title but it also feels weirdly anti-climactic that Liverpool might have wrapped it up by Christmas. Unless Nottingham pulls a Leicester this season. Tough game for Arsenal today as well, Chelsea away and potentially more dropped points.

 

[Zantera]

Man Utd - Leicester 2-0 at half time. Bruno got the first one and second was written down as an own goal. Overall a decent first half. We have to win this game to give Amorim a better starting position but also considering the other fixtures this weekend, 3p today would mean that we gain some important points on teams above us. Really fun to watch Amad at the moment. It's crazy to think we basically had our Saka (not saying he is as good, just a similar player type) all along, just didn't give him gametime so that we could play Antony or Rashford there instead.

Also Nottingham up to Newcastle 1-0 at half time, Nottingham 1 point behind City. Spurs are losing 2-0 at home to Ipswich though, what's happening there?

 

[blueharvest]

 

[Iceman]

Said it before but Spurs are even more more Spursy than usual under Postecoglu this season.

Good results for Utd and Newcastle this afternoon.

Chelsea Arsenal on now.

 

[Iceman]

Neto gets a nice equaliser for Chelsea after Martinelli earlier put Arsenal ahead. All to play for with 20 mins to go.

 

[Iceman]

Final score 1-1.

Chelsea and Arsenal are likely to be the 2 other teams in the top 4 outside Liverpool and City (unless their loss of form goes on much longer).

The table is crazy-tight between 3rd and 9th, just a 1 point gap!

 

[Hunter Rider]

Probably our most comfortable 3 points of the season, Ruud has galvanised several of the players and set the team up to be more solid in the middle, Ugarte was really good today, hopefully he's settling in, and Amad has staked a claim ahead of Amorim's arrival, while Mazraoui has been the signing of the season so far for £12M, he's so composed at both ends of the pitch, technically superb and positionally astute. There's lots for Amorim to do but Ruud has steadied the ship well for him.

Big away win for Newcastle today, given the form Forest have been in. It's vital that they hold onto Isak and build the team, hopefully Gordon's injury is just a strain.

Arsenal vs Chelsea was a pretty tight game, I thought Arsenal had the better chances overall but a draw was a fair result.

I didn't see Spurs vs Ipswich but I wonder if the media will now start questioning Ange? 🤔