Men's Soccer (Football) Thread (Archived) Soccer • Page 175

Also, I love Ben White so much. The sort of player you adore on your team, but hate if he isn’t.

 

This as well

 

Not sure how to feel about this. Mostly because I’m confused on how it’d work lol

 

I wonder if they'll get that through. The hard spending caps seem like they'd always be quite hard to get through, because if no other European leagues do similar things, the Premier League clubs run the risk of losing a competitive edge. Basing it on the value of the broadcast revenue is quite a neat solution. I wonder how that current cap compares to the spending it would cover though. A quick Google suggests that City and United have the biggest salary outlays (around £200m a year), so it might actually impact their spending a bit.

Most other teams could go absolutly nuts on that budget though. It does mean other teams can invest in players to try to bridge the gap, but it doesn't seem like that figure is going to do anything to keep the clubs from going bust, which is what PSR was really for in the first place... This feels like a rule which might just hinder Chelsea and maybe Forest.

 

Liverpool should try this new tactic

 

Feels like an open secret at this point. I’m glad it’s being said more and more in public though rather than having to read in between the lines of journalists afraid to say he’s gone at the end of season straight out.

 

Feels like a shame the Ten Hag era is ending with a wimper. Could see us failing to win another game this season. Had such high hopes when he joined, and last season was genuinely great for large parts. Just all gone wrong this year and made his position untenable.

 

yay :)

26 g/a in the league, 37 all comps in 41 matches (!), would have so many more assists if Darwin and Diaz had any composure in front of goal and that’s with missing nearly two months with a hamstring issue picked up at AFCON

has been out of form post injury but that’s what injuries do and I’d bet a lot that Salah didn’t become a much worse player over the last 4-8 weeks rather than simply out of form after his first injury in seemingly years

 

Broadly agree

 

Fun!

 

With a rest over the summer and a good pre-season, you'd assume he'd come back good for 20+ goals again, surely?

 

Spurs gauntlet to close out the season will be rough in the moment. But this stretch should help magnify the areas that need improvement. I’m overall happy with Ange’s first season and I’m still just as excited about his vision as I was at the beginning of the season. But there’s obviously some work to be done. Which isn’t a criticism of him. I don’t think we should expect to be much better than we are in his first year and after losing Kane.

Finding a clinical goal scorer up top should be the priority this summer.

 

Everton music intensifies.

 

Chelsea away - draw
Liverpool away - loss
Burnley home - win
City home - loss
Sheffield United away - win

This seems like a reasonable expectation for the remaining games. 7 points puts us at 67 for this season. This should put us in 5th place unless Man United wins out (and in big fashion to overtake us in the GD).

67 points is kinda meh but I think if we didn’t have such a big injury crisis mid-season we could have 10 more points. So still reasons to be optimistic going forward as we keep improving the squad.

Klopp’s first season - 60 points* / second season - 76 points
Arteta’s first season - 61 points** / second season - 69 points

* = Klopp took-over in October, so a little unfair but still was there for a good chunk of the season. Had a massive jump in his first full season and had a couple windows to work with.

** = this is technically his 2nd/3rd season, but he took-over the previous season in December, so felt it was unfair to list that as his first season.

But I think these two entered similar-ish situations as Ange. So I think it’s fair to expect a decent jump next season. The pressure should be a little more intensified for him and the club. I just hope we still show some patience like Arsenal did with Arteta. They stuck by him and believed in his vision and the investment became fruitful. There’s absolutely no reason we can’t reach the level that Klopp and Arteta have for their clubs.

 

Lindelof looks good in blue.

 

hahahahahaha we aren’t picking a point up between now and end of season.

 

I need an article explaining how this spending cap will work. I have a lot of questions haha

 

Sell everybody but Mainoo and Garnacho

 

That reminds me that I still think it’s wild how Arteta has lead to fans saying every manager should be given lots of time while pointing at Arsenal.

He got so much time because the club had a toxic dressing room and we knew it was his first ever management job. We saw what he was building when no one else did, when everyone else was laughing.

Chelsea fans comparing it to giving Poch time is insane lol.

 

Yeah, I think there’s a balance to it.

I had different expectations for Jose and Conte. When you hire those managers, it isn’t a project. You hire them and your fans will expect results. Despite not having the same hardware to back it up, Poch falls into that same category. He isn’t a project manger.

Ange has managed before. But this is a pretty big jump up in competition for him. He’s profile is kinda strange. He’s not young and has a lot of managerial experience. But his trajectory really shot up in the last couple years.

I think hiring Ange combined with selling Kane was somewhat an admission of needing to rebuild.

 

Yeah I actually get it with Ange, because whilst he didn’t come in to quite as bad a situation imo, he’s come in to rebuild and is showing some promise.

But so many fans absolutely hate their manager, say he’s doing a shite job, then say “we have to give him time cause it worked for Arsenal” lol

 

Part of me feels bad for Poch. I feel like he’s kinda tarnished his reputation. But it’s also a little bit his own fault. His two jobs since leaving Spurs were for two of the most difficult clubs to work for in the world. PSG I kinda get because he played there and they had Messi at that time. But after that experience, I don’t get wanting the Chelsea job lol

It’s hard to see his Chelsea tenure ending well. Hopefully his next job will be somewhere a little more sensible.