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Fierce_LiNk

Football Season 2017-18

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1 minute ago, Hero-of-Time said:

 

Yeah, I'm not a fan of that either. Klopp has a habit of doing that as well. It's baffling.

I felt sorry for Lukaku during the match. There were a few instances where he ran forward, was free but nobody passed to him. As you said, awful decision making.

It worries me the kind of mistakes that were made tonight. Mourinho is referring to the mistakes as "childish" and he's absolutely right. They're the kind of errors you've forgive children for making (or maybe not!), not millionaire, professional footballers. It's careless. Surely certain characteristics are ingrained into attack-minded players, hitting the target being one of them. It's another thing I don't get. Attackers who don't or can't finish. I don't really care how good somebody looks with the ball, football is about scoring goals. 

Just now, Hero-of-Time said:

Also, I hate how City are running away with the league. It makes the whole thing incredibly boring when there are no stakes.

I can't blame City for the lack of competition. They're being professional and are taking their chances, and they will be deserved champions as a result of it. It's up to all of the other teams to compete and to play catch-up. From a United perspective, we don't even come close when it comes to composure, being clinical with our chances and keeping the ball. 

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Another rough day at the office for Man U. They seem to be in a bit of a rut at the moment.

I'm expecting us to get turned over by Swansea this evening.

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2 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Another rough day at the office for Man U. They seem to be in a bit of a rut at the moment.

I'm expecting us to get turned over by Swansea this evening.

We can't defend for shit, at the moment. Which is the one thing that Jose is supposedly good at. We turn to shit whenever another team gets a set piece. Should be the easiest thing to deal with since you have time to set up your defence and can positon your players exactly where you want them. 

Coming back from 2 goals down is a good thing, and 2 more goals for Lingard is great. He's having a great season. But, I think any fan would would be critical of their side if they went 2-0 down at home. We must be tighter defensively and we must be more proactive in games. The focus should be us winning games from the start and not playing tentatively or waiting for the opposition to strike first.

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World Record for a defender smashed with Van Dijk going to Liverpool for 75 million.

If he helps them get 4th place and have a good run in the Champions League, he'll be worth it.

 

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4 minutes ago, Happenstance said:

That must mean Coutinho is gone right?

End of season definitely, he won't go in January

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That's a crazy transfer fee. Let's just imagine that Liverpool keep hold of Coutinho, along with Keita joining in 2018, that's a great looking squad. Still not enough defensively and the goalkeeping issue is a question mark, but that's a big step in the right direction.

Maybe the Van Dijk fee is because of the lack of quality centre-backs out there, presently. 

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First half of the Toon match has been terrible. Why Rafa thought he could last 90 mins by trying to hold off City with 11 men behind the ball is beyond me. Every time Newcastle got the ball they looked scared and just punted it away. Awful viewing.

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Sanchez played really well tonight. Gosh, anyone would think that there's a transfer window coming up!

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Really, reeeeally poor performance again from United. Didn't look like scoring. Crossing clearly didn't work today, so why did we persist with this throughout the match? There was no control in midfield at all. Pogba's passing was pretty good (and I'm sure it'll look fantastic in one of those YouTube compilations) but I don't exactly know why Mourinho has him playing so defensively. He hardly ever makes it into the opposition box or goal scoring areas. There's no drive from midfield. Mkhitaryan was awful today...again. This was just like watching a Moyes or Van Gaal type of performance. 

Part of the reason why City are so successful at retaining the ball is that they win it back quickly after losing it. I remember reading tons of stuff about this during Guardiola's Barcelona days. They are basically told/taught to win the ball back within 5 seconds of losing it and they win it higher up the pitch as a result. This allows the opposition to become penned in and the defenders can then push up, enabling the midfield to also push up and become part of the attack. We display NONE of these qualities. When we lose the ball, there's no urgency to win it back. It kills me to see professional footballers walking across the pitch and half-heartedly sticking a foot out and calling it a tackle. It's poor. Where's the desire to win and to also win well? You'd have thought we were 5-0 up and winning the league by 20 points with the way we played today. It looked like a pre-season friendly.

The last four games, we've lost against Bristol City, and drawn against Leicester, Burnley and Southampton. It's a poor end of the year.

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Fuck Mike Dean, how on earth was that a penalty to West Brom? Granted I don't think they deserved less from the game but when it's in those circumstances I can't help but feel aggrieved. Never a penalty but good ol' Mike loves being on them back pages no matter what circumstances they may be.

 

Credit to West Brom though, you wouldn't think they were propping the bottom of the league with that performance.

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14 hours ago, Emerald Emblem said:

Fuck Mike Dean, how on earth was that a penalty to West Brom? Granted I don't think they deserved less from the game but when it's in those circumstances I can't help but feel aggrieved. Never a penalty but good ol' Mike loves being on them back pages no matter what circumstances they may be.

 

Credit to West Brom though, you wouldn't think they were propping the bottom of the league with that performance.

I’m still fuming about that decision. What’s the point in paying for Sky Sports and BT Sports if the referee can decide the outcome of the game whenever he wants? So predictable it’s Mike Dean. 

Fuck the FA and fuck everyone who’s kept VAR out of the game for so long. It needs to be fast tracked in for next season. 

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I've only just seen the handball incident. The issue itself is that there is no 'standardised rule' for handball. One referee would have given that, two or so others wouldn't have, and another one wouldn't have seen it. The law needs to be more concrete. Even if VAR was used for this, it doesn't necessarily mean that the penalty would not have been given, since the law is so murky that a referee could argue that the arm is 'moving towards the ball'. 

Similarly, we had a penalty NOT given to us against Southampton when Yoshida ran into the ball with his arms in a raised position. Where is the consistency? We drew the game 0-0 and the handball was in the first half, so it would have had repercussions on the rest of the match. To me, this one is a handball. Lingard would still have been in control of the ball had it not been for the arm. 

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Until we get some sort of clarity with the law, these sorts of incidents will keep on occurring, with or without VAR. VAR won't solve the problem, but it can be a part of the solution. The first step is redefining the law. "Deliberate handball" is such a pointless and useless term. That makes it sound like unless a player physically picks up the ball or punches it away volleyball style, then it's not handball. 

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That game had the best and the worst of the Premier League. Great goals, poor finishing from some players, diving, penalties, players scoring who shouldn't be on the pitch, posts and crossbars being hit, last minute chances. I loved it! Could easily watch that again.

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I can’t believe Holgate didn’t get a straight red for pushing Firmino into the crowd just now. Not even a yellow!

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On ‎05‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 8:39 PM, Happenstance said:

I can’t believe Holgate didn’t get a straight red for pushing Firmino into the crowd just now. Not even a yellow!

Probably deserved a yellow. Whether he went into the crowd or not is irrelevant really, it was a push and that is more deserving of a yellow. Still a stupid thing to do.

So, Coutinho is off then. £142million is a lot of money, until you realise that all transfer prices are now inflated. Virgil Van Dyk being an example of that. May as well just play with Monopoly money.

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Financial Fair Play is totally meaningless and is just a mockery now. I doubt anything will happen and I can see the prices just increasing and increasing. Agents (and others) make far too much money from this game and there are far too many outside interests involved. Football is due a crash.

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It's just going to esculate rather quickly until all Premier League players cost over £100 million each. Even with Financial Fair Play the amount of income coming in for Premier League teams is just pushing the gap between themselves and the Championship even further and is just going to further damage the English national football team even more than it already has as all the established Premier League players get knocked down a division because every club can pay over £50 million to sign any foreign star that looks good in some way. How is any of this in any way sustainable?

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Liverpool on fire! So hoping City won't have an unbeaten season. This has been beautiful to watch.

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What a fantastic football match. Part of me did want City to get the equaliser just to see all those Liverpool tears, but I'm still glad that City lost. Crazy game. More of this, please.

I wish United would hustle and play with the same intensity that Liverpool played with today.

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