ponsaelius

Have you not watched him play since 2011 or something? He's awful these days.

Neymar was fucking ridiculously wasteful but he was involved all game. Bale was totally anonymous, genuinely forgot he was playing until he took a throw-in at about 85 mins.

Did Ronaldo switch from pro-Barca to pro-Real at the same time he went Tory?

Barca somehow managed to play absolute shite, miss a load of chances and still win the game all at the same time.

Proper weird seeing Barca score from long balls over the top.

Yep, enjoyed it. Barca need to attack more. They need to get control of the ball more first. Desperately missing Busquets. I can't remember the last time Madrid looked like having the better midfield in a Clasico.

Smoggie, though.

Got a funny feeling Madrid might win today.

Hardly, the lad is garbage.

grimmest of the grim

England never made that 'commitment' because there was better players ahead of him. Players who were carrying their teams to titles, not just being another player in a squad which is what Carrick has always been. Can't say I've ever once thought Carrick was elegant, tbh. This is a player that was falling on his arse/giving the ball away two years in a row to cost Man Utd a CL quarter final and an FA Cup semi final not that long ago. He was widely derided at that time, which was harsh, but he's come full circle to be massively overrated now.

If Fergie was able to get ridiculous performances out of him over his career then surely the only evidence we have to see if he was good was those ridiculous performances? I worded that wrongly, I meant as a collective. Man Utd frequently dominated regardless of the side they played. The 8-2 vs Arsenal always comes to mind, their team that day was shite on paper. As was Arsenal's admittedly, but the performance was totally rampant. I very rarely remember them getting caught out despite frequently playing unimpressive line-ups, they just seemed to get by totally on the aura. They got to a CL final in 2011 before anybody put them to the sword. Look at the team they put out that day FFS. The veil has seriously been lifted on some of their squad since Fergie went, and even spending hugely hasn't got that swagger back yet.

He's never been more than good tbh, apart from a couple of seasons ago (Fergie's last) where he had an excellent season. He's no better than Darren Fletcher was a few years ago, in fact when they played together Fletcher was frequently the player who would take games by the scruff of the neck and was a more dominant midfielder. Anyway, it's criminal that Fergie left Man Utd with that pool of CMs. Froggy is bigging up Carrick here but he was convinced Cleverley was gonna be one of the best midfielders in the league fairly recently, a bloke who's barely good enough for a shite Villa team. The state Fergie left that part of the pitch in is pretty much the main reason they've totally gone to shit.

Carrick being widely praised seems to be a very contempary opinion as far as I can tell since everybody got fed up with Lampard/Gerrard and it was in vogue to have a 'controlling' central midfielder in international football. That ignores the fact Carrick is simply not that good. He's one of a number of stable but unspectacular players Fergie managed to lift ridiculous performances out of throughout his career as far as I'm concerned.

Also our CB pool is ridiculously bad these days. That's less of a problem since it seems to be a global trend I guess. Forward line is the most exciting thing about the squad, and tbf, it is pretty good.

All that being said, I'm not particularly enamoured with our CM options going forward. Particularly as Wilshere is continually crocked and Oxlade-Chamberlain can't seem to kick on/nail down a position. Reckon Gerrard/Lampard/Scholes being shoehorned in and going out in the quarters will be looked retrospectively as halycon days after the next couple of tournaments.

I only said dogshit for Froggy tbf

Carrick is 34 in the summer, and has never been particularly good enough to be a regular for England. No way he should be part of a squad going forward.

He's a magnificent cunt.

All the potential line-ups I've seen for this look like that Sky Sports app when it fucks up and has all the players in the wrong place. Gonna be grim as fuck.

Exactly

2 assists and 2 goals in the last 2 years, fear not though, he brings 'control' (by passing backwards).

Carrick is dogshite.

Zenit vs Sevilla Dnipro vs Club Brugge Dynamo Kiev vs Fiorentina Wolfsburg vs Napoli

Nowt more tedious in football than the announcement of an England squad followed by numerous people whinging that their club's shite player didn't get a call-up.