Football Season 2023/24

[Hero-of-Time]

3 minutes ago, Julius said:

I love his style of football and what he's done for the sport/Prem, but I can't wait for that bald fraud to leave one day 

I still don't rate the guy. Majority of the time he's walked into a club with a stupid amount of money to spend. 

[darksnowman]

On 14/04/2024 at 3:21 PM, Happenstance said:

It's so frustrating to watch

Think I've seen all but a match and a half this season and it's got extremely predictable recently. Not surprised the opposition has figured it out too.  

21 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Congrats to City on winning the league.

Eze, now. 

A week's a long time in football. Back then it was about putting a dent in Arsenal's goal difference. Now a goal's been clawed back it's all for nought??

[Hero-of-Time]

27 minutes ago, darksnowman said:

Think I've seen all but a match and a half this season and it's got extremely predictable recently. Not surprised the opposition has figured it out too.  

Eze, now. 

A week's a long time in football. Back then it was about putting a dent in Arsenal's goal difference. Now a goal's been clawed back it's all for nought??

I just can't see City dropping points. Maybe against Spurs but other than that they seem to have a pretty easy run.

[Julius]

21 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I still don't rate the guy. Majority of the time he's walked into a club with a stupid amount of money to spend. 

It's a weird one, because I see and understand the argument, but I can't say I'd agree. 

I think the system he utilises requires high skill and technicality, which simply isn't cheaply bought. I do think he would be capable of adapting to lesser teams - to the same extent as Mou dragging Porto and Inter to success, though? Or Fergie churning out several dynasties through the highs and lows at United? I'm not quite sure - because even when he buys these expensive players, not all of them end up working out in his system, but a lot of them come on leaps and bounds in unexpected ways so long as the hard work and dedication is there. Look at the rest of the league - heck, even just across Manchester - and it's obvious that buying power isn't necessarily staying power. 

Someone like that just seems destined to produce results so long as they have the full backing of the board, and I do also think Pep carries out extensive profiling of the leagues and teams he's being offered to take the reins of - it's just as much a case of him finding a board which trusts him and are willing to back him fully, as it is a case of him having access to unbelievable facilities, budgets, etc. I genuinely think the Barça board created this monster with how they essentially forced Pep into wanting to take time out of the game, and the seemingly unlimited funds of a team like City are all too happy to be invested in such a project. I think Pep could hypothetically be unhappy with Haaland in a year's time and the club would be happy to sell him on if it meant Pep stayed. 

He's also just a scholar of the sport, more so than any other manager I can think of today. It's clear he has a passion for its history, revisiting ideas from its past, and he's one of the few managers you hear about having met up with other managers, some of whom who aren't necessarily in that top echelon from all over the world for a dinner or a drink to discuss football, beyond just the typical post-game drinks; off the top of my head I can think of Tuchel, Bielsa, Wenger, and a few others, I think he even called Sacchi up at one point to discuss something he was having trouble with. 

I think the best analogy I can think of is comparing Pep to Christopher Nolan: while I would love to see Nolan make a budget $10 million indie film today, someone of that calibre in their field deserves the backing and freedom to produce films (teams/football philosophies) which pushes their profession and medium forward, and if that means getting backed to a silly degree, then so be it. They're once-in-a-generation talents at their particular role. 

[Hero-of-Time]

I also think Nolan is overrated and I don't think much of a lot of his movies.

[Julius]

29 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I also think Nolan is overrated and I don't think much of a lot of his movies.

[killthenet]

Both Nolan and Guardiola are utter bores who are absolutely full of themselves. The fact he couldn't win the Champions League while at Bayern Munich is proof enough that Guardiola is a bald fraud 

UTV!

Edited April 15 by killthenet

[Happenstance]

Also neither of them can do sound mixing for shit!

[Julius]

18 minutes ago, killthenet said:

The fact he couldn't win the Champions League while at Bayern Munich is proof enough that Guardiola is a bald fraud 

Yeah, I still find it hilarious that Bayern thought that they wanted and needed Pep so bad - just six months after making it to the UCL final - that they effectively forced out a legend like Heynckes, whose team in 12/13 then went on to break multiple records and won an unprecedented treble. 

The ultimate middle finger from Jupp because Pep then not being able to win the UCL with that team is probably the only real stain on his CV, I love it 

18 minutes ago, killthenet said:

Both Nolan and Guardiola are utter bores who are absolutely full of themselves.

Eh, Tenet has massive issues and is pretentious as hell, but up until that point Nolan's films pretty much all bang. I love the Dark Knight trilogy but so many of his "smaller" films I'd argue are a much better showcase of his talents, like Memento or The Prestige. 

Funnier yet, though - with @Hero-of-Time not rating Nolan in particular - I think Nolan is to modern film what Kojima has been for games and have for a long time - how they tackle their auteurship is kind of freakily similar, they both absolutely need focus and to be reined in - and the critical response to Death Stranding reminds me a lot of the response to Tenet 

Edit - didn't see your post before mine @Happenstance so a quick edit, but yeah Nolan's sound mixing sucks ass, idk how but it's got worse over the years 

Edited April 15 by Julius

[Hero-of-Time]

Good first half for your lads, @Julius.

[Julius]

2 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Good first half for your lads, @Julius.

Yup, a solid night in the end, nice to see a big win. Been a disastrous couple of seasons since Ted and co. took over, but hopefully we can finish the season strong and kick on. 

This team needs some more experienced players around, though, as seen from the spot kick shoving around that went on; it's simply not acceptable. This is what happens when you spend big on a bunch of kids though, I guess, it was good to see Gallagher stepping in but well, there needs to be more to it  

Actually heard a bit of Dele Alli's punditry on it around them not showing up to be fighting for the pen late on against United but wanting to nab it off the now joint scorer in the league this season when we're already 4-0 up, it's embarrassing. 

But enough of that, crazy stats time: Palmer is the first to score in 7 (!) successive games at the Bridge, and has scored more goals this season for us in the Prem (20) than Havertz did in three combined (19). If he continues to kick on this then I'll consider City's De Bruyne debt paid off by karma 

[Hero-of-Time]

Very happy to see City being knocked out of the Champions League last night. Usually I still cheer on any English club that is in the competition but never them. I'm hoping Chelsea can do them over in the FA Cup as well.

Rough week for both Liverpool and Arsenal. Both were in the title race and both were in European competitions. Title race now looks iffy, Arsenal now out of the CL and its gonna take a miracle for us to remain in the Europa Cup this evening.

[Julius]

Bayer Leverkusen have now gone unbeaten for a stretch of 44 games in all competitions – breaking the previous record (43, set by Juventus in 2012) for the longest unbeaten run by a team in one of Europe's top five leagues. 

Actual insanity; they're less than 10 games away from an invincible treble. 

(& I've totally just jinxed them, haven't I?)

Edited April 18 by Julius

[killthenet]

The offside law needs to be changed. How does it improve the game to get so forensic about offside decisions? Haji Wright gained no appreciable advantage from his foot being millimetres ahead of the Utd defender - there was no legitimate reason to rule out Torp's goal. 

Such a shame that football fans have been robbed of a historic extra time winner because the VAR quibbles over a couple of millimetres. Just seems so petty. 

[bob]

16 hours ago, killthenet said:

The offside law needs to be changed. How does it improve the game to get so forensic about offside decisions? Haji Wright gained no appreciable advantage from his foot being millimetres ahead of the Utd defender - there was no legitimate reason to rule out Torp's goal. 

Such a shame that football fans have been robbed of a historic extra time winner because the VAR quibbles over a couple of millimetres. Just seems so petty. 

To be honest, I feel the same about many other laws of the game. Players getting a hand-ball called against them because the ball just happened to touch their arm even though they're facing the other way - surely that's not in the spirit of the game - the player clearly isn't trying to gain advantage in that scenario.

It's the same with tackles in the box - most of the time the attacker just has to move near the defender and roll over their leg for it to be a foul. It's ridiculous.

 

I don't know how you would change it all though, because a line has to be drawn somewhere - in your example, it is drawn a exactly at the outstretched point of his toe. For the handball example - it either touches his arm or it doesn't. It's easier to call, even if the result ends up being ridiculous. 

[Hero-of-Time]

Well, that's our season over with. Ridiculous the drop in form we've had over the past few weeks. I swear, when we had all of those injuries, the youth team that Klopp fielded were better than what's been on the pitch lately.