LucaAltieri

I'm just saying... we're more than a club, until it comes to our bottom line, then we're just a business like any other. All higher meaning can fuck off then.

Got to love the "more than a club" nonsense. Clever marketing but it tends to fall apart when you employ tax evaders, racists, and cheats.

We'll have to bring back Saylor.

He wanted away from quite a while now but he toughed it out. Performances haven't been up to standard as a result. From a football point of view the situation was annoying, but on a human level I sympathize. Happy all round that he got his move. Should have happened a year ago, really.

I think Pardew's confidence is too fragile, the problem England have is they care too much about what people think of them. Exactly Pardew's problem as well.

Probably right.

Also, I just finished reading The Nowhere Men this week. There was an interesting bit in there about how old school coaches and scouts don't like working with modern English teenagers because of the money, media hype, and the lifestyle they get from such an early age. They all think they've made it. I think there's some truth to it. Particularly as we've all just witnessed the contrasting case of Vardy, who was forced to graft well into his 20s. Sort of the exception that proves the rule.

In that situation it doesn't really matter who the manager is. We'd need to fix youth football before we get any nearer a quality national team.

Like what the fuck more do you want from a modern age player?

We got these emotionless robots running around getting applauds for no reasons and here you got a player with some flair and out-of-the-box attitude who actually delivers titles looking away from the Champions League as if that is some sort of indicator for success, yeah let's hate on that.

On top of that he has delivered in all of the top leagues, except the one league that claims to be the best without winning anything of significance outside Chelsea and Manchester United which you can compare to the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus, Milan, Inter/(PSG I'll step back on the PSG claim to the point where they at least have gone fairly long into the final stages with him on the team) to some part whom all have done the same.

Reminds me a lot of when people dismissed Henrik Larsson because he's never done it in the Premier League. Even in his 30s SAF was desperate to keep him in the end.

My dislike of Zlatan stems from his personality off the pitch, rather than on it.

 

You mean the fact he has one?

 

It's tiresome now.

 

Basically the footballing equivalent of Chuck Norris jokes.

You might find James Milner more to your liking.

My dislike of Zlatan stems from his personality off the pitch, rather than on it.

You mean the fact he has one?

As poor a manager as Pards is, he would be a better England manager than Roy.

He goes through good spells with teams before his "methods" fully take hold. He's a tactical neanderthal but it's not like the England coaches get much time with the team. It took him a good half a season to fuck up Palace. With such little contact time he could probably do a decent job with England for a year or two.

The Sun basically picks the England team (and the Prime Minister, but that's a different thread), so there's no real worry about him leaving out our best players.

If he does have any talents, it's that players (except HBA) seem to genuinely like him. He might be ok at managing the egos of 23 big time charlies.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I WANT him to manage England. I'm not saying he DESERVES to manage England, either. I'm just saying, hypothetically, he'd probably be an improvement on what we just witnessed. Given his main selling points are that it takes him a long time to kill teams and he occasionally strings together a run of results in the process, one tournament with him in charge wouldn't be the end of the world.

seeing the Messi goal all over today. Still think Guzan should have saved it. It was on his side.

Yup. He was stood on that side and practically on his line. Still just floated over him.

Should have done better on the first goal, too... although the USA defense probably should take most of the blame. Maybe even klinsmann, too. I'm not sure what their game plan was for corners but when Argentina are trying to beat a back 4* of Bradley, Zardes, Dempsey, and Beckerman you maybe didn't organize things properly.

(* In reality it was more like a back 9, but still...)

He actually looks like an attractive human being with a proper haircut and well-manicured beard.

Shame about the shit tats.

All of them had me LOL like. But who is the specky bald bloke?

I wondered the same. Did Heston Blumenthal ever play in nets?

Borg is a fucking idiot, consistently.

x1000

I'll miss it while preparing for a more important game: The Chickenhead Freaks vs. Killer Tomatoes in the season finale of the Redmond International Co-Wreck Soccer League (over 30s).

There will be more goals in that game.

You know, I can see this happening.

Big Sam knows him, Premier League and European experience, wrong side of 30, enables NETD claims...

Odds on the Mackems offering him a contract?

http://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2016/06/03/usa-winning-copa-america-not-far-fetched-you-might-think?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=News&utm_campaign=Unpaid

Simon Borg believes.

Looks like the American media is copying the English media's pre-tournament excessive optimism playbook.

Giuseppe Rossi might be worth a punt. He's done as a top-level striker but would probably do a decent enough job in the Championship. Would also be a good player to have around for Perez's development.

He is, however, frequently quadrospazzed.

MLS refs are a disgrace across the board. I wouldn't have half these cunts ref a kid's game. Just the decisions against the Sounders alone this season would be enough to get you demoted in a decent league.

Another peach yesterday:

http://www.sounderatheart.com/2016/5/28/11807310/soccer-needs-instant-replay-sounders-head-coach-says

http://www.computerweekly.com/news/450296302/Foxy-Leicester-City-FC-won-Premiership-with-data-analytics

 

 

How do they pass off the other 18 teams that didn't win the league and athe least two that were relegated with Prozone?

Who knows? They do say that Leicester's work with data is "one of the most advanced in the Premier League." But who knows how they justify that statement.

I'm pretty skeptical of data for things like passing and shooting statistics, overall game play, etc. Because there are so many other factors that you can't quantify that have massive effects on the game. Strict adherence to the numbers in that context leads to things like signing Downing and Carroll for massive sums of money. But for things like athletic performance there does seem to be something there.

Didn't watch the game, haven't seen the highlights, only seen the scoreline... I didn't think it was possible to be annoyed by a 5-1 win. Useless fuckers couldn't put 1 past Villa but knock 5 in against Spurs? Bunch of wankers.

If we'd got a good drubbing I could live with the knowledge this group of players just wasn't good enough. A strong win here shows that they are good enough, they just couldn't do it when it mattered. Bottlers, one and all.

Already done in SNWOAT. Never mind.

https://www.facebook.com/a2dradiocom/videos/vb.1488531078058039/1763948567182954

http://www.uslsoccer.com/news_article/show/646173?referrer_id=2333971

Agree with most of it. I'd argue that "Guardiola is tactically inflexible" is a little unfair. He has some key principals but there are some obvious differences between how Barca and Bayern play. In terms of tactical changes within the games, you only have to look at the two legs with Atletico. 1 up front to 2 up front, inverted wingers to traditional wingers. He made changes and it had an impact. It still wasn't enough, but he did it.

The argument that he hasn't been able to fully replicate what he had at Barca is also a little off... if you look at any team that has a very strongly defined system, eventually it gets cracked, teams learn how to play against it, and you NEED to tweak it here and there to keep getting results. A number of managers have figured out how to play against the tactics he used at Barca. Stay compact, defend the middle of the park, pressure the play maker. A change was necessary so at Bayern he's making greater use of wide players.

Things need to evolve and they're going to continue to evolve.

I think he will have a tough time at City, but I think the main reasons will be that:

1) City doesn't have the same draw for players. Very few would choose to sign for City over Barca, Real, Juve, or even PSG at this point.

2) At Barca and Bayern there were systems in place leftover from managers with a similar style. Most notably, he's kind of following van Gaal up until now. Man City doesn't have that same base to build on.

3) The article is right in that forcing his style on the existing City players is going to be tough. Where I think it gets it wrong is by dismissing the existing defenders. I think they're pretty well suited to a Pep team. He might bring in one more, but I think he'll fancy his chances of working with Demichelis and Otamendi.

4) Pep is a motivational coach. At Barca you have the "more than a club" nonsense. At Bayern, there's a history of dominating. At City, that doesn't exist and a lot of the players seem to be more mercenary than the average Barca or Bayern player. He needs the players to buy into the idea or it's just not going to work. I don't know if he'll be able to achieve that.