McCormick

Plus Qatar already have a club representing them in Man City who would probably be their main focus, not us. It’s PSG mate, not Man City. City are owned by Abu Dhabi, who are a Saudi ally against Qatar (and Iran) Abu Dhabi is a city. UAE. Ha. Yep, my mistake. Brain not engaged properly. I meant UAE. No you were right first time, Dubai and Abu Dhabi are autonomous Emiratis. UAE is more a country of convenience. To be fair, both descriptions work. Abu Dhabi and Dubai are emirates of the UAE, with their own rulers, and also have capital cities with the same name as the emirate. Yeah, apologies. They're under the UAE banner as a country and operate politically as 1 country.

Plus Qatar already have a club representing them in Man City who would probably be their main focus, not us. It’s PSG mate, not Man City. City are owned by Abu Dhabi, who are a Saudi ally against Qatar (and Iran) Abu Dhabi is a city. UAE. Ha. Yep, my mistake. Brain not engaged properly. I meant UAE. sorry, didn't mean to be arsey but it was said twice in row and it's always annoyed me.

Plus Qatar already have a club representing them in Man City who would probably be their main focus, not us. It’s PSG mate, not Man City. City are owned by Abu Dhabi, who are a Saudi ally against Qatar (and Iran) Abu Dhabi is a city. UAE.

Plus Qatar already have a club representing them in Man City who would probably be their main focus, not us. Qatar is not UAE.

Also, I explicitly talked about this being a vanity (or I suppose a sportswashing) project and the country not needing it now. I could be wrong but I don't see this as the same type of venture as those other investments. Like I said, prominent PIF directors- albeit in a vastly different sector- think the same thing, but we'll see.

They're not. It's hardly news over here; I get the distinct impression that this means more to Qatar than it does to KSA. With all the financial restrictions and belt-tightening measures taken by the government due to a covid-related economic downturn, this is fast becoming a headache that KSA do not need. Additionally, with salaries going down by 40%, vat increasing from 5 to 15%, the timing for a 'vanity project' like this is ill-judged here at present. I have many friends - leading directors- in the housing project at PIF that echo these sentiments. Broken record and I hope I'm wrong but I heavily doubt this will go through. So why are they investing all over the place then, including sums far exceeding what they will be paying for the club. Crisis investment and diversification. How many of these bigger investments were met with the same criticisms? I don't see the ROI's on this deal being worth the hassle and associated bad press.

They're not. It's hardly news over here; I get the distinct impression that this means more to Qatar than it does to KSA. With all the financial restrictions and belt-tightening measures taken by the government due to a covid-related economic downturn, this is fast becoming a headache that KSA do not need. Additionally, with salaries going down by 40%, vat increasing from 5 to 15%, the timing for a 'vanity project' like this is ill-judged here at present. I have many friends - leading directors- in the housing project at PIF that echo these sentiments. Broken record and I hope I'm wrong but I heavily doubt this will go through.

This will not go through. Qatar's vested interest in this will see to that.

Keep banging this drum but as a Saudi resident, the beoutq thing was pretty flagrant. They were organizing and advertising (on terrestrial tv channels and huge billboards as well) these beoutq viewing tents for the World Cup. Just have to hope that the PIF legal team have done an extensive amount of prep-work.

I'm sure it wouldn't be very hard to provide proof that the Saudi Government were involved in Beoutq tbh; it was a widely known "fuck you" to Qatar when their feud meant that the entire country (which is football obsessed) couldn't have access to World Cup. The Saudi government even set up these massive World Cup viewing tents with food and whatnot, which were in most hyas (districts). Went along to a few and it was good craic tbh, the ad breaks on BeoutQ were just embarrassing pictures of the Qatari royal family to the backdrop of goofy tuba music and fart noises. Really childish but the crowds loved it. Worrying if they have something concrete and sent it in.

Correct, should be Crown Prince. Yes and no. They use the term Sheikh here (I've been living in KSA for over 20 years) but MBS is the Crown Prince so people would precede his name with either Aamir or Malik (as he's basically the King).

Good player, just what we need in midfield.

Real Rafa performance. Good 3 points.

Wtf... I think that vote was me, lads. Completely by mistake by the way

I mean Sterling has got to be one of the top 5 attacking players in world football, but I guess that depends on what you mean by 'dictating' games, really. I do think though, that this is the first England team in my lifetime that's actually underrated.

Sterling?

Rafa on Paul Dummett. https://sportslens.com/rafa-benitez-says-paul-dummett-is-one-of-the-most-underappreciated-players-he-has-ever-worked-with/274836/ I agree, chronically underrated.

That's a fair assumption too. First half though I saw enough of our play off the ball to suggest that there was some defensive organization and understanding going on. Completely agree with your second point.

Why?

Well yes and no; in different parts of the play you obviously have to shift your defensive block. That's true (and there's nothing wrong with a very high press, Liverpool do this with great success), there was quite a high press during goal-kicks and throw-ins in their defensive third. What's your point? I'm just trying my best to have a balanced discussion on tactics and, by your own admission you didn't watch the match.

This is going to be a very unpopular opinion on here but, much to my surprise, i thought we looked- tactically- relatively good against Arsenal in the first half. We honestly did look quite drilled with our mid block pressing just after the half-way line and doing well retaining the shape while retreating to a flat low-block when Arsenal's attacking play sped up (and were able to get through the lines). Our compactness off-the -ball did go some way to limiting Arsenal's chances in that first period. The one stark criticism you could make is that our 3-5-2 formation, with our full-backs lying so deep, meant that in order to cover their over/underlapping full backs and wingers our midfield pairing had to go wide to cover, leaving a lot of spaces in the middle for a good passing side to exploit. This is where Rafa's 5-2-2-1 shone out of possession; you had Almiron and Perez covering these wider areas so the team kept its defensive shape a lot better during transitions. Much like we were under Rafa at times, we were quite poor in possession and our attacking play was quite predictable really; it was dependent on Almiron breaking and trying to pull the defenders away to make space for Joelinton (who did very little wrong with his limited service) . The second half was tactical shit-show though in parts. The shape changed when Willems was brought on; you could be generous and say this was because he didn't have a lot of time to train with his new team-mates, or you could rightfully slate Bruce for not effectively communicating his role to him before he came on. Ritchie's naive pressing in midfield was also comical, and meant we were always exposed in the transition as he was never where he needed to be. He was literally just chasing the ball and getting pulled all over the field. All in all it wasn't a terrible performance. Yes, it wasn't the strongest Arsenal side but they were tactically very astute and had the benefit of working under a system and manager for a longer amount of time. I'll be very interested to see how we fare against a Norwich side who are very well-drilled offensively, but maybe lack the defensive nous at this level to consistently keep clean sheets.

Saw on some news site that he got 145 on an IQ test

If it wasn't a Bruce-managed side, you could very easily say that this is a better team, talent-wise, than the one we started last season with. Despite his lack of tactical nous, I imagine a back 3 who've had at least a year or so of Rafa drilling them defensively coupled with Bruce's naive high-pressing style; we should, at the very least, see some more entertaining* football as well. I reckon we'll stay up. * In the "I'd rather see us lose 4-3 than win 1-0" sense.

If someone told you we'd be signing a player with 23 goals in the championship, at 15 million, to play 3rd choice we'd be pretty happy with that. Check out his goals this season on youtube, some really quality touches and finishes.

I've no doubt Rafa would have moulded him into a top-class centre/left back; he's already so composed and clever with his positional play while being quite an athletic defender. Unfortunately the only place I can see him in our team is on the left of a back 3, where he's got Dummett, Lejeune, Fernandez and even Clark to contest with. Really don't see him being an effective attacking threat as a wing-back in our current system though.