Segun Oluwaniyi

This is a poor loss against an average side, regardless of the fact that it is Manchester United. The manager is a tactical coward. Gifted an early lead against a side who have been ripped apart by Crystal Palace and Brighton, and embarrassed by Tottenham, this team sits back, plays scared, and has no fluency whatsoever going forward. You cannot spend 80 minutes just hoping the other team does not score. Today is a waste. The aversion to Almiron is something I will never understand, either. Frankly, he does a better job tracking on the wing than Hendrick, who provides nothing in this role, anyway. So play him.

Man U selection today is extremely poor. I favour NUFC to get at least a point.

Watching the Nigeria-Tunisia friendly and one of the commentators is Kelechi, one of the boys from Arsenal Fan TV. He is wildly unprofessional.

Loads of friendlies over this weekend. Complete and utter waste of time, and unnecessary risk. Well, tbf, there are competitive matches in this window, with the qualifiers for the Euros, and from the perspective of the FAs and those running the national teams it's advantageous to play the extra matches. Outside of Europe, none of these teams have played together in 11 months. There may just have to be a reckoning with international football over the next two years, though. Every confederation (edit: Asia will not apparently) will have a major tournament before the World Cup in November 2022 and I'm just not sure it makes sense with how the calendar is and will be going forward; not even accounting for inevitable additional problems that will occur with the virus. There will be team-wide outbreaks as we've seen with Genoa in Italy and Tennessee in the USA (NFL). Surely some of the tournaments and events will just have to be canceled? I know the money says otherwise.

Arsenal youth star who has broken into the first team. The amount of Nigerians up in arms from this London-born boy playing for England is astonishing.

It crossed my mind, tbh. Last week Genoa had one or two players test positive then were brutally defeated by Napoli 6-0. It turned out that 15+ people at the club had contracted COVID, a full outbreak.

This is just bizarre This is one of the 2 or 3 best teams in the world, with one of the best managers in the world and they have been victimised in the exact same way again and again from the first minute. How has there been no change or adjustment?

Cannot testify to the veracity of the above.

This is like paying for a prostitute and acting as though you actually conquered a woman. The result is the result, but this was given and not earned. That’s a cracking analogy but doesn’t explain why a defeat is more pleasing. I’m not ecstatic at all but I’ll take the point as whoever is our manager, I don’t want us relegated. Understood, but personally I am describing why I derive no true pleasure from this at all, not describing why I would prefer the team to lose. This also gives me no pleasure. Some people on here actively support the team to fail, which is their right, but I am not one of these people, frankly. At the end of the season, one more point is appreciated, but when that match ended, my initial reaction was anger at the state of officiating in the sport, tbh.

With VAR analysing to this degree, I don't think there is an easy solution. The interpretation of this rule always relied on referees applying common sense. Three years ago, players would have appealed for two seconds, the ref would wave play on, and no one would care about the incident because handballs like this are innocuous for the most part. No fan or player of the game wanted to see more of these decisions given as handball. The crux of the problem now is that the consequence of handballs in the box is far too severe. This has always been the case, but the game was protected from it by the common sense that used to govern football. Now that the sport is governed by VAR, it would make sense to alter the rules to limit the consequences a bit. I would favour making deliberate hand ball stopping a direct shot on goal=penalty + red card, non-deliberate handball stopping a direct shot on goal=penalty, all other handballs in the box=indirect freekick. If we cannot fix VAR, maybe we can lower the stakes.

This is like paying for a prostitute and acting as though you actually conquered a woman. The result is the result, but this was given and not earned.

Just realised the freekick that caused the penalty was given for Joelinton losing the ball under minimal pressure and jumping directly at Hojberg.

This is a disgrace and is genuinely diminishing my enjoyment of the sport that I grew up loving. That is all I will say.

As a defender, you would rather score an own goal than let the ball run across you a yard in front of goal. Complete rubbish from Ritchie. I do not understand how this team looks so passive against a side that was playing in Macedonia three days ago. They were not pushed back, they sat back from the first minute and have no interest in letting the forward players influence the match at all. You would expect a bit of fight or aggression at the least. It should be about 3 or 4 to 0 in the first 30+ minutes.

Kehrer has been very poor.

Maybe it is injury, but Mbappe was rubbish in the first half. My wife supports PSG and she has been in vociferous disagreement with his performance all match. He has been wasteful with ball, seems unwilling to run at full speed, and sluggish in general. The flow of the match favours PSG thus far, tbh, they seem to be creating the better chances, Bayern have not been able to get in behind at all.

I found it very funny how quickly Spain moved to call him up after the below photo happened. IIRC, they called him up immediately after this. They would have been foolish to lose him to Mali, anyway, imo. He is so different to the players they already have. I think he did. Might be age, it certainly was a factor, but he didn't have it in him to make the grade and i'm not overly sold he'd do it now at a top club. I think if he moves in the next few weeks and its to a CL club he'll struggle, and history will repeat itself. If Traore moves to a CL club it'll be the same for him. Might work for Spain having him as a supersub, but if tht's his role at a CL club, was it worth spending £60m on him? Technically he's decent, nowt special. When at manu too many holes in his game which he's improved on, but not to the level needed to be a mainstay at a CL club. I do not understand the idea that he wasn't up to grade at Man U. He was 21 or 22 at the time and made less than five appearances I believe. He was signed under Ferguson and Moyes had no interest. It was a waste of time for everyone involved, and I believe Zaha is quite bitter about it. The boy was never given a chance to make the grade. The likes of Dan James and Tahith Chong have had more chances.

Ekambi always promises more than he delivers. Bayern look weak defensively. There is an incredible amount of space behind Kimmich and especially Davies when Lyon get the ball back. It doesn't matter when they are so dangerous going forward, I suppose. Their attack has been essentially unstoppable since Flick came in. Barca also caused constant danger early on with Messi dropping deep and picking runs behind the fullbacks, but were eventually just overwhelmed, and it might be the same here as well.

Bayern are markedly superior at every position on the pitch that isn't Messi. This is shameful. Barcelona have been complete rubbish since the return from lockdown.

What an incredible ball from Messi. Do not understand how no one finished that.

These high lines are ridiculous.

Tell me a team sport that doesn't have big clubs dominating it recently? ironically american sports seem better about it at least compared to how things currently are in the major european leagues and champions league I am not sure why this is ironic. American leagues are set up to artificially stop the big clubs from dominating and create false parity. It still does not work in some of their sports. I do not really understand the acrimony against Leipzig when compared to the other two clubs. They do not financially dominate. New clubs being created in regions without high level is a positive, imo. I suppose it is just Red Bull?

Lyon were rubbish during the majority of the Ligue 1 season, tbf. This match does not reflect their season. The two recent post-virus break performances against PSG and Juventus have both been very good, though. It will be incredible when Sarri ends his last two seasons with a 3rd place finish in the Premier League, League Cup title, FA Cup Runner up, Copa Italia Runner Up and a Serie A title and manages to be sacked twice in that span.

The state of officiating in the world's richest league is an embarrassment.

Ruining the match for such a simple challenge. Bizarre decision.