Men's Soccer (Football) Thread [ARCHIVED] Soccer • Page 1144

BOOT THE BALL CAVANI

 

Benfica falling apart now. They had a great game up until our first goal.

 

de Roon gives away a cheap free kick and falls to the ground having a tantrum

 

yeah, floodgates opened with Sane. Can’t help but think if davies was out there today it would have been much earlier. If coman could carve up the left side, davies would have had a big day.

 

Ronaldo’s pressing and work rate today has been absolutely insane.

 

Huge win. Cannot fucking believe we won both this and the Villarreal games hahah. We went from bottom of the table at half time and now we’re top. Still need results against both teams away though.

 

Ole in

 

that was Ole's Newcastle game

 

Not that I disagree, but you couldn’t have given it more than 5 minutes?

 

To be fair, that game shouldn’t really change anything. We’ve played that exact game so many times over the last two years. Go behind, remember we can play football. Ole won’t be sacked until we miss out on top 4 though

 

Bonkers

 

No, I know. Just funny how quickly we can go from proper elation to brutal realism.

 

listen it's how it be sometimes

 

We’re playing Liverpool at the weekend. We don’t have time for optimism

 

I know this may be a flippant comment, but i have wondered about this recently.

I love Arsenal. It’s part of my identity, my families identity. But i don’t like the finances, politics or ethics of top flight football. When you not long ago had a Champions League semi final between a French club ran as the PR offensive of a violent Middle Eastern regime, and their opponents are the marketing arm of an energy drinks company, you have to accept the game is gone and not coming back.

i’ll follow Arsenal, i haven’t reached boiling point yet, but i’m also beginning to follow lower level football. My local club is in the 7th tier of English football. I go see them a bit too now. Things like the two world cups, all these oil clubs, everything else, it just feels more like something I don’t find as enjoyable now.

 

I feel like that’s how every Ole game goes lol

 

I think i’m more in the “don’t think about the upcoming game” mode until we all get to sit down and watch the inevitable play out lol

 

IIRC they add an extra game usually if it’s egregious or the red is given late in the second half.

 

Yeah, there's an amazing amount of ignoring reality and context involved. I've seen so many Twitter clowns try to suggest Bruce was as good as Rafa, but Rafa came up with a Championship side, he had no money to spend at all and managed to make the team tough as nails to beat. Even when we were beaten, it was never too badly and in bad runs, we still played well without getting results. Bruce has had £100m+ of new players, has made us defensively hopeless (with the same players) and a better collection of players looks considerably more out of control at times than they ever did with Rafa. Some of the absolute beatings we've had under Bruce would not have happened with Rafa.

Oh, and we're currently 8 games without a win and only 8 wins in the last 38. What is there to even defend?

Also, the idea that Newcastle fans have been so much worse than others have been to him or other managers seems laughable. He's spent so much of his time whining to the media, getting in scraps with journalists and having his son get on the PR duties as well, that's he's totally side-stepped addressing that his team have been consistently awful to watch and not produced results. Let's not forget, for however horrible you think Newcastle fans have been to him, Villa fans threw a fucking cabbage at him!

 

There's definitely a disconnect between fans of teams Bruce has managed and fans of other teams. Fairly sure the only fans I've ever seen talk well of him are Wigan fans. Says a lot to be hated by every set of supporters, clearly it isn't just a "Newcastle have too high standards" thing.

 

I think he's reasonably respected at Hull and Birmingham City as well. Although I seem to remember he left Birmingham in ugly circumstances.

 

Tbf that's true about Hull from what I can remember having lived there for Uni when he was manager. Though one of my friends that used to work at the stadium isn't the biggest fan, having been scarred for life after walking in on Bruce getting changed after a game...

 

It's not that fans can never be wrong about about a manager but when an entire fanbase takes against one there are usually solid reasons for that. They're the ones who actually watch every game and listen to all the interviews.

It really wound me up in the period during and just after Roy Hodgson was Liverpool manager how many people acted like he'd been hard done by, that we'd all wanted him to fail and that he was this gentleman who couldn't really have done much more with that squad. Those people hadn't paid attention to what every Liverpool fan had witnessed on and off the pitch from Hodgson. I imagine plenty of Newcastle fans are irritated with the same sort of comments about Bruce.

 

Spurs starting such a weak team today. Gonna be stressful

 

Winks is bad