Men's Soccer (Football) Thread [ARCHIVED] Soccer • Page 1370

He's having a better first season than Batistuta! God, I loved Batistuta.

 

I live in this country and yet have no idea where this town is. Despite that, it is still as appropriate as Qatar.

 

Runcorn is one of those places I've passed through on trains probably a dozen times, but somehow still couldn't point it out on a map or tell you a single thing about it

 

I was late home on Sunday but just wanted to say how good it was to be at a match again. It was also pleasing to see Forest manage to keep up with a fairly decent Liverpool team. Wish we’d taken one of those chances in the second half. A good cup match. Now let’s see if we can get in the play offs.

 

Would love to see you guys come up. Proper club, even if you keep beating us lol.

Plus I think you would make a proper fist of it unlike some of the other candidates for the playoffs.

 

That Neville take is the most hypocritical and "yer da" take I've ever seen. Linekar called him out for it earlier this morning too.

 

I’m curious where Dybala will end up. Spurs are linked to him every year but I just don’t see it happening. My guess is Barcelona or one of the Manchester clubs.

 

Kessie to Barca confirmed by Fabrizio. Is this a good signing? Can honestly say I’ve never seen him play.

 

Di Maria (another big name free agent) and Dybala could easily end up at Newcastle imo.

 

I think it’s a fantastic signing, and he was someone I wanted to go to Spurs, but I’m glad it’s Barca if not them haha

 

Absolutely shit take by Neville. The logic there is that if you're not performing great at work, you're no longer allowed to be where people can see you. By that token, he'd never have seen the light of day again after his performance at Valencia.

I normally quite enjoy his analysis and punditry, but his brain goes base jumping out of his ear whenever United are mentioned.

 

Another one for you:

 

He obviously turned you down not long ago but I wonder if Conte will be a big pull for him.

That said, I don't think you need him at all and I think he would be better going elsewhere in Italy or to Spain personally.

 

I don’t remember it being him turning us down. I recall everything being agreed to between clubs and the player but his license deal was expensive and Levy wouldn’t pay it. I’m pretty sure the same thing happened to United when they tried to sign him.

 

Oh this is just based on what the italian football writer Nicky Bandini said on a podcast today where she talked about him turning the moves down. She could be wrong, 'cause I didn't even remember it being a thing if I'm honest.

 

I’m sure Conte and Paratici will want him. If you’re good and play in Italy, you’re a Spurs target. I just don’t see how we could convince him without CL. Next couple months are huge.

 

Yeah, he didn’t turn down Spurs. Just didn’t pay his imaging rights because they felt it was too high and negotiating was a nightmare and took too long. Explained: Paulo Dybala and the image rights conundrum

 

US Open Cup returned tonight and it's so fucking cool. Spectators for Village FC are in lawn chairs on the touch line lol

 

Honestly think Ten Hag is a huge risk as coach for any team. Anyone coming from a hugely structured and organised Ajax club seems to not be able to replicate that success elsewhere lately, and it’s quite a different task to coming to the shambolic and badly organised United.

Ajax have a defined style and identity, and everyone works towards that. Scouts/DoF identify players that would work in it, and the whole youth system makes players specifically for that style of play. It’s efficient and effective.

United are more of a jumble sale where they overpay for flavour of the month players or those they want on a whim, like Lindelof, Maguire, AWB, Fred, (you could argue Sancho and a few others) etc, without thinking how they will fit.

For example, they hired Ragnick who plays a very high tempo 4-2-2-2 german style game, and he’s moving up to back room staff and now they get Ten Hag who plays a fluid 4-3-3 instead?

If it works though, it’ll be great, but they need a proper system and team around him. It does seem a more promising appointment than many recent ones though.

 

It seems like they need someone who can do a decent job with what they already have, while figuring out what the hell they want to be and sorting out the background. Ragnick seems part of the process of sorting the background out, but surely Ole was the coach behind which they should have made more progress in that regard? I'm not sure what any coach can really do now, as the squad seems to be in such a weird state. There are so many previously excellent players who just seem totally out of sorts.

 

Some painful ones in this thread - Suarez WC handball is the worst for me, felt like the whole world was behind Ghana in that game and that nasty little prick robbed them of the winning goal

 

As a US fan, I remember rooting for Uruguay… haha

 

And we literally won nothing. It's the most depressing stat I've ever read.