Erikse

Man United staring 11: Purchase value: €402.05m Total market value: €330.00m Newcastle starting 11: Purchase value: €191.10m Total market value: €217.50m

Your back 4 was still way better than ours on paper. We started with Dummet-Krafth as our centre backs and Ritchie at the wing. We started 3 players who hasn't started in atleast 6 months. Your lineup looked stronger than ours across the board.

I hope he says that he picked Dummet, Ritchie and Krafth for "tactical reasons".

I feel bad for Willock, he's not doing too bad, but you can see that he's not able to do the things that he used to do yet, and it's frustrating him.

Is Ritchie at RW any better?

Ritchie at LB?

I still feel bad everytime I see Kudus. Why did he have to do that to us?

I guess we're in for another lucky 1 goal win for Man United.

According to votes done by anyone. Messi is a very popular guy, no wonder he gets a lot of votes when he plays well. If Alvarez plays slightly better than him, Messi will get more votes. I got the ratings wrong, I had the setting on "weekly" which only showed the final rating. It's true that Messi had a better overall rating on that site.

I can agree that saying that Mbappe was clearly the best player in the tournament might have been an overstatement, but saying that "anyone who thinks Mbappe had a better World Cup is clueless" is equally as much of an overstatement. I can guarantee you that you would also be able to find people out there who knows 10 times much as you about football who would say that Mbappe performed better, just like there would be highly knowledgeable people who would say that Messi was better.

Not that it matters all that much, but according to whoscored (which actually gives ratings based on objective measures), they got the same average rating throughout the world cup. Messi was man of the match twice (vs Mexico and Australia), while Mbappe was MotM 3 times (vs Denmark, Poland and Argentina in the final). Messi was Agrentinas best player overall, but saying that Messi singlehandedly won them the World Cup is disrespectful to the Argentinian team. They had a lot of good players who performed well.

If Martinez doesn't make that incredible save at 121 min, Mbappe would be the player of the tournament after his hat trick in the final would've won it for them. That would probably also see him win the Ballon D'or. Scoring 8 in a world cup (and a final hat trick) is insane, and 6 of his goals were non-penalty compared to Messis 3.

Should also be a record for 5th place then.

And Man City won their first ever Champions League, while also winning FA and Premier League right after they signed Haaland. Don't think you can disregard Haalands impact, the thing is that he makes space for the other players to shine as the opponents has to put defenders on him all the time. It's easy to just assume that they would've won everything without him anyways, but it's not as simple as that. Man City has been this dominant for years but never won CL.

Peak Barcelona could've won a lot of things without Messi aswell. Doesn't mean that he was not worthy of those Ballon D'ors back then. That's not a good argument for judging who's the best player. That Argentina team was pretty good in general btw, the have some good players.

He was outstanding against shit teams in the league, and ghosted in the Champions League.

Alvarez scored more goals from open play than Messi in the World Cup, and he won the treble aswell. So if trophies matter more than everything, he should've won it. 4 of Messis 7 goals were penalties, and clearly Mbappe was the better player in that WC. Ballon D'or is more focused on feelings rather than facts.

That's what Bruce said too.. Had to play defensive shit football because of the player material, but when Howe came we instanly started playing better attacking football, and the results started to change for the better. Funnily enough we even conceded less while also playing a more attacking style. Look at how Guardiola and Klopp have implemented their style in the clubs that they have taken over.

Has he been banned from all kissing related activities aswell?

Isak has some serious individual skills, but in terms of impact there's a few players that are more important right now. Having Bruno, Botman, Gordon or Trippier (most of our offensive play goes through him) unavailable will impact us more than having to play Wilson instead of Isak in a singular game. The scary thing is that Wilson is the only striker left when Isak is out. Also I know Isak did some really insane things last season, but has he really impressed all that much this season? Not that he has been getting a lot of support in every game, but still. His goal tally is good, but I'm talking about his general game.

Southampton took points from top teams last season. No PL opponent is literally a free win, but you can't deny that Sheffield United is an easier fixture than what Leeds was, and probably also easier than what Southampton was. We're probably going to collect more points away from home going forward though, which we should if we want top 4 this season.

Sheffield United is way more of a free win than what any team was last season though, certainly Leeds away was tougher. West Ham is a bit stronger now maybe, but not that much. You're right though, hasn't been the best of fixtures, but we're literally 15th place in the away table.

Just realised that we have just taken 5 points from 5 in our away games.. They have been tough, but last season we took nearly as many points away from home as in our home games.

Why play them against Copenhagen if that means they wont be fit against Man City, if you would want them to be fit for City?

It's kind of incredible to be honest, considering how much they have spent the last few years.