The College Dropout

This season will earn Zidane so much leeway and leverage at the club. 3 CLs as manager. 1 as a player. It all went to shit when he left. He’ll be teflon now.

50m on Richarlison is all him. I also don’t think he’s kicked on the promising youngsters that they have. I like Bernard but for all the good he’s done, it would’ve been better to give Luqman those minutes. Likewise Calvert-Lewin needs games.

What’s the defined philosophy? He wants them to knock it around a bit - ok. What’s so hard to implement? Sarri-ball I get. I can see what he’s trying to do. But Silva? Don’t see what the vision even is. Also his track record isn’t great either. All 3 of his jobs in England have the same arch. Good start. Tails off. I’m not saying he should be sacked. But questions have to be asked. I personally wouldn’t trust him with another £80m net spend in the summer.

WBA - slim chance of automatic promotion or dropping out the play offs. Seems weird imo. Silva - agreed. If he were PFM he would be getting loads of stick. I wonder what the fans think.

I do think that challenge was unnecessary.

250k overall. Top 50 on NO. If I can finish in the top 40 on NO and top 200k overall I will be delighted.

The way VAR is being used is awful.

That golden era is officially finished. No coincidence that Real went to the semis at least in 8 of the 9 seasons Cronaldo was there. Everyone since the first. Need to rebuild the squad.

I thought the challenge was a little naive. It favoured Snodgrass 70-30 imo. But Longstaff has long determined he was going for it. No biggie.

Piss poor defending for Rice’s goal.

His range of passing is really excellent. And he can run a bit. Defensively aware.

My change of heart lead me to captain Salah over Pogba because Pogba felt the obvious move.

Arsenal Gilberto and Vieira era. Pace, power and technique all over. Man United. Tevez, Rooney and Ronaldo era. Barcelona Ronaldinho, Deco, Eto'o era. Barcelona Messi, Villa era. Real Madrid that 1 season they didn't win anything but often played a midfield 3 of Kroos, Modric and James. BBC up top. Fun as owt. Liverpool Suarez, Coutinho and Sturridge season. Those last 20 games they were absolutely tremendous.

Thi is where VAR is useful. Kane is blatantly offside. You can see it the first time. Arsenal robbed.

The ref could probably book and them send them off for time wasting but not for refusing to be subbed off. I think the suggestion is that the ref simply carries on with play. The player doesn’t have to go off, so if he says no. Play on. In this case the ref went over and asked Sarri what he wanted to do. Sarri seemed to suggest he wanted Kepa off. Kepa refused. Sarri blew his top. And after awhile... play on.

So we are suggesting Carrick didn’t reach his potential? The £100m is a mad statement at this point. 7 starts.

Prep for next season.

I don’t think that’s the case at Real or Barca. Pellegrini - bought the second gen galacticos and crashed out the CL same stage. Think he only had 1 season but he failed there. Mourinho - overall a success. But did his thing by falling out with everyone. Ancelotti - Overall successful. Harshly sacked for not winning a major comp in his scone season Rafa - players hated him. Too many instructions. Told Modric to stop passing with the outside of his right foot. They called him the playmaker or something for banter. Not too big for the club but too big for Rafa at this point Zidane - success Biggest issue is being fired for a single bad season.

With Schar and Lejeune in the team there’s absolutely no need for Shelvey. Beautiful goal.

He and Longstaff have added so much dynamism in midfield. We can actually press high up the pitch. Get midfielders in the box. Good work.

Terrible left back. Ok right back. Perhaps a decent wing back. Technically he's a sound player but that's close to it. On the right he looks much more comfortable.

He ate that long ball shite like Scooby snacks. So good. Looks more comfortable on the ball too. Not so much in passing but carrying it forward.

this is why the likes of rafa are head and shoulders above, no doubt in my mind he could rock up to any PL side and do a job But it’s the people side that would mess it up. I think the majority of top 7 teams, he’s too defensive for their fans and maybe some of the players too. That’s what done him at Real. Players didn’t buy into him at all and it caused him to fail.

Probably. But when discussing managers a lot of people just talk about managers being ‘good’ enough or they’re just rated by their tactical acumen. And there so much more to it.

I think most PL managers are ‘good’ managers. It’s just that some are better fits for some clubs and teams than others. Some are able to step it up to higher levels and some aren’t.