Football (Soccer)

[blueharvest]

 

[BlackFox]

Bournemouth 1-0 up at home to Spurs, against the run of play but nicely taken from a corner.

 

[BlackFox]

Finished 1-0 to Bournemouth and Fulham beat Brighton 3-1.

 

[blueharvest]

 

[Iceman]

Newcastle lost 4-2 away to Brentford.

City’s poor spell isn’t over, 2-2 draw away to Palace.

 

[Iceman]

Forest ahead at Utd after 2 minutes.

 

[Iceman]

3-2 to Forest with a few mins left.

 

[BlackFox]

Yeah these sorts of games area probably going to happen a lot this season from now until the end.

Teams are not afraid to attack us and we are quite open at the back so we are going to see lots of goals at both ends it feels like for a while until the manager gets to a window and starts bringing in his own players and starts to make it "his" team.

All sorts of a mess of a squad at the moment and didnt see the game today but sounds like there was more than one or two dodgy performers today. 13th at the moment and one of many inconsistent sides in the league, average at best.

 

[B]

Shouldn't have lost today, three really **** goals to concede all of which you could put down to individual error(s) than an overall core team performance issue today.

First goal, poor from Martinez, more interested with trying to wrestle & grab Milenkovic who simply ignored him & overpowered through the foul'ish behaviour.

Second goal, mistake from Fernandes to give the ball away, but Onana, I have no clue what he was doing. Complete lapse in concentration/judgement & got wrongfooted by what was a relatively poor shot that went into the middle of the goal.

Third goal, Dalot, Onana, Martinez all have a hand. Dalot for being afraid to make a tackle on the second ball, leading to a cross that met Wood's head. After the header, I thought Onana should have done more to make a save, it seemed like he watched it loop past him, only for Martinez to also watch it trickle in.

Outside of the goals, we played alright I guess, but you can't gift any side a single soft goal, let alone three.. not when you struggle to convert chances as we regularly do.

 

[blueharvest]

 

[BlackFox]

There is only 6 points between 13th and 5th so it looks bad and we are going to be inconsistent all season now but its not great is it.

We cant even seem to get a new manager bounce that other teams get, seems to have to get worse before it gets marginally better.

 

[BlackFox]

Didnt even realize Everton v Liverpool got postponed yesterday due to the weather, it is pretty bad put there but Everton might need a new stadium anyway so maybe this one blowing down might be a good thing.

 

[Zantera]

Ashworth already sacked, what the hell is happening at the club?

I think he spent longer on garden leave before joining us than he actually spent working for us? Unless there is some big news story about to break about him having some real serious skeletons in his closet this just makes the club look even more like a circus than it already did. His role in the club is one where you see the effects over years, not a "fix everything in 5 months" type of thing.

EDIT: Apparently a strong rumor is that Ashworth wanted a british coach (Southgate) over Amorim and that was the dealbreaker. If so I have no complaints about his dismissal honestly.

 

[Bobber]

Ashworth already sacked, what the hell is happening at the club?

I think he spent longer on garden leave before joining us than he actually spent working for us? Unless there is some big news story about to break about him having some real serious skeletons in his closet this just makes the club look even more like a circus than it already did. His role in the club is one where you see the effects over years, not a "fix everything in 5 months" type of thing.

EDIT: Apparently a strong rumor is that Ashworth wanted a british coach (Southgate) over Amorim and that was the dealbreaker. If so I have no complaints about his dismissal honestly.

Honestly sounds like a hit piece from the club to make the fans get on board with the sacking.

 

[Zantera]

Honestly sounds like a hit piece from the club to make the fans get on board with the sacking.

Yeah I'd take anything with a grain of salt honestly. Feels like weird timing though.

Arsenal drop 2 points to Fulham. If Chelsea beat Spurs they can leapfrog Arsenal into 2nd.

 

[Iceman]

Spurs leading Chelsea 2-1. Seems like quite an open game.

 

[Iceman]

Yeah I'd take anything with a grain of salt honestly. Feels like weird timing though.

Arsenal drop 2 points to Fulham. If Chelsea beat Spurs they can leapfrog Arsenal into 2nd.

Everyone combining to help Liverpool to the title. Not a whole lot of pressure on them.

 

[Iceman]

Palmer will miss a penalty one day, but not today. Makes it 2-2 from the spot.

 

[Iceman]

Enzo Fernandez scores with a good first time shot to make it 3-2 but much of the credit goes to Cole Palmer for causing havoc in the box.

And just as I was typing that Cole Palmer wins and scores another penalty to make it 4-2!

Ange looking pissed off but that Cole Palmer is a top player and just going to get better.

 

[BlackFox]

Cracking game between Spurs and Chelsea but it was a very Spursy performance in the end, you could see it coming at times even when they were 2-0 up they were gifting Chelsea possession and chances and they are not a side to do that too.

Palmer does have ice in the veins on pens and Sancho looked like the player we thought we were getting with a great solo effort.

Chelsea are very much in the Prem title race it has to be said, Arsenal just arent at it it seems this season, but Liverpool are probably clear favourites now.

 

[Iceman]

Cracking game between Spurs and Chelsea but it was a very Spursy performance in the end, you could see it coming at times even when they were 2-0 up they were gifting Chelsea possession and chances and they are not a side to do that too.

Palmer does have ice in the veins on pens and Sancho looked like the player we thought we were getting with a great solo effort.

Chelsea are very much in the Prem title race it has to be said, Arsenal just arent at it it seems this season, but Liverpool are probably clear favourites now.

Yes, exciting and fun game. No real surprise to see Spurs go from 2-0 up at home to 4-2 down lol.

Chelsea are looking like a good bet for second. They've been gradually improving for a fair while and that trend looks to be continuing. Who knows what they can achieve next season if they get their signings right and this group has a proper season playing together in their legs. Palmer is capable of going to another level too, I'll be very interested to see what he can do in the CL next year.

Happy to see Sancho showing more of what we knew he had.

 

[BlackFox]

Yeah the Chelsea revival is an odd one as nobody really predicted it after last season and with a new manager as well it seems they dont really rely on any players, Palmer aside perhaps, but the rest can come and go and sort of just make the system work well enough to get decent results.

It will be interesting to see how they go for the rest of the season now as not many had them pinned for the top 4 so at the moment they look dead certs for that at the very least.

An injury or drop in form of Palmer could put a dent in things but thats a complete unknown at the moment.

 

[B]

Very strange departure of Dan Ashworth a mere months after his appointment after months of pursuit to land him. Hard to really tell what's went on with the standard news media & social media bombardment of unsubstantiated rumours & theories.

Honestly sounds like a hit piece from the club to make the fans get on board with the sacking.

This is instantly what I thought as soon as I read about this earlier.

It seems like a very strange lone reason to effectively sack a Sporting Director in that he preferred one managerial appointment over another. There had to be other mitigating circumstances involved, I don't have a problem believing he was the voice pushing for Southgate or Potter, but unless he threw an almighty wobbler when the club went with Amorim instead, I find it hard to believe this was the only reason for him leaving.

 

[Iceman]

I just heard about the Dan Ashworth thing. Seems like a huge waste of everyone’s time given he was doing well at Newcastle and then a huge tug of war for nothing and now won’t be working for either club.

 

[BlackFox]

I just heard about the Dan Ashworth thing. Seems like a huge waste of everyone’s time given he was doing well at Newcastle and then a huge tug of war for nothing and now won’t be working for either club.

Took months to get him and then after 5 minutes we bin him off because we wanted Southgate/English manager and gets blamed for the previous manager staying when he was already there when he got here. Odd all round and seems like the scapegoat for this season. Clearly INEOS are not all that much better than the Glazers in terms of decision making as it took so long to come to the decision on ETH. No wonder we are still a joke on the pitch if off the pitch is still a clown house.