Men's Soccer (Football) Thread [ARCHIVED] Soccer • Page 160

We're forcing City to make all the wrong decisions in the final third. Why the fuck did we not play with this intensity against Everton?

 

Arsenal, playing to their level.

 

3-0 Wolves. Thanks lads!

 

BIG DAVE

 

The third goal Arsenal conceded...yeeeeeesh

 

We injured Fernandinho. Congrats Liverpool

 

Walker's hair makes him looked like a balding old white man from behind

 

OH FUCK RIGHT OFF

 

Perfect start to this half!!!

 

THERE IT IS!

 

Jesus Wolves.

I bet Liverpool is

 

SANNNNEEE!!!!

 

GOAL!

 

HUGE win for City and all Liverpool haters.

 

Very good day for Spurs

 

Yes, the idea might be good but if you really think about it, it would be terrible actually. Anybody could dress like a fan of any team and cause trouble. I am generally against punishment against a team because some random fan acts inappropriate.

One thing that also always comes up in these discussions is banning these people from all football pitches for a lifetime. I think that would be wrong and would not solve the underlying problem at all. The perfect thing to do would be to ban them for 2 or 3 years. Additionally offer some kind of education to them in regards to racism. Try to make them better people. And if they really change let them be part of your fans again. That would be a perfect scenario.

 

How easy/difficult was it to get tickets to the game? I have been thinking about going for some time now so any info would be helpful.

 

Very easy, I went on stubhub a few months before the game and was able to get a ticket about 30 rows back in the Gwladys End for like £20 plus fees. 30 rows back might sound like not great seats but I thought they were actually really really good. There were better ones for more money too. I checked stubhub a few weeks from the game as well and similar seats were available for similar prices - better ones were gone though. They open the box office I think 3 hours before the game and you go pick them up. The box office line was very long, took like 20 minutes, although I waited too long to get in line and missed the first two minutes of the game before I got to my seat. But overall a very easy process. I think they have a way you can get a ticket through like a foreign supporters' organization, but I read that's probably better to only use if you're trying to get tickets to an away game. For a home game, stubhub worked perfectly for me.

 

That’s good to here. I’m hoping to go to London for a game in October. The Panthers are playing at Tottenham Stadium October 13. I’m waiting to see if I can see both Spurs and Panthers in the same week.

 

Roy Keane has been absolutely brutal on Sky Sports tonight. Criticised United from top to bottom, said the players cannot be trusted and would throw Solskjaer under the bus like they did Mourinho, implied Pogba was a fraud, ruined Darmian with one line and even went in on poor Gary Neville at one point!

 

Neville deserved it. Can't stand him these days.

 

I still like him, he has much more quality as a pundit than 90% of the others in UK on sky or BT. But I like Souness as a pundit too so perhaps I’m not the best judge lol

 

I think he is a decent enough pundit, although this article from yesterday sums up what annoys me about him (and other former United players).

 

Neville is a decent pundit, but he wrecks my head when talking about United. We get it Fergie was the fucking master. At some point United need to move on. The "United way" wasn't a thing until Neville started that bollocks. He's actively trying to turn our fans against our players. He did the same under every manager since Moyes, the manager can do no wrong etc. etc.

The problem with our club is systemic, yes. It comes from the top but the managers have been complicit in the malaise. Ole less so than most but he was put into an unforgiving position by an incompetent CEO that has way too much control over the footballing side of the club. We CAN'T hand complete control over to a manager, because there is no longer any Alex Ferguson's, at least not available to us.

Fuck, even recently Mike Phelan and Darren Fletcher have been interviewed for the technical director role. That's fine, I like both but the club, Neville, and a lot of our fans are sticking their heads in the sand and saying if we leave it to Fergie's boys everything will work out. Problem being Fergie's boys aren't Fergie. No one is. We need new blood and new ideas. Moyes year, and to an extend van Gaal's first year should have been the transition to a modern club. But the men in charge got everything wrong. Neville saw his name in lights then when we were struggling and used it to his advantage. Now we're going backwards.

 

TL;DR, sorry!

I think it's just insanely difficult for clubs to keep moving forward these days full stop. Chelsea, Arsenal and United declining by previous standards, City blew their chance at their next logical step the CL, Liverpool and Spurs have improved a fair bit but are still yet to win anything. Abroad you have Real Madrid who lost one player and tanked, Atletico who have stagnated after choosing to keep their star player on a huge wage at the expense of strengthening the rest of the squad, Juventus spent 90+ million on a megastar but have not progressed as expected, and Bayern who need their own overhaul this summer.

Football is in a weird place in Europe right now as the non-EPL superpowers at the top of the game have very little competition in their domestic leagues but are not capable of winning the CL over the likes of Barcelona or Real Madrid. Juventus the prime example; they've walked the league 7 years in a row but got to two CL finals in recent years and lost them, and were kinda embarrassed by a smaller team this year when they'd made what they believed to be the big investment that would finally get them to that next level. Them, Bayern, PSG can and do spend millions and millions to progress as football clubs but it just ends up with more of the same; a stranglehold on their domestic leagues but very little else (on the pitch at least).

The PL has the opposite problem in that it is too competitive - you can spend out the ass and still come 6th. Chelsea, Arsenal and United are missing the prestige of being serious CL contenders like in the past (Arsenal a long time ago I know). Progression for them would be regaining that prestige, but they could get everything right and still fall short of expectations. City have the best manager, squad, facilities, coaches, scouting staff, medical staff, everything, yet could very easily take a step backwards and lose the league this year compared to last year's success. For everything they've done to get to where they are, absolutely nobody would put them in the same bracket as United under Ferguson in terms of dominance at home, and they are no closer to European success either.

I've rambled like fuck here because I'm bored as shit waiting for work to end, but basically all these big teams are in a sort of malaise at the moment where progression beyond their current reputations/stature doesn't seem likely at all.