I’ve never been sold on Jurgen Klopp, and this despite finding him incredibly endearing as a person. Both his Dortmund and Liverpool sides just seem to play some horribly sloppy defense at times. As impressive and gutsy as the comeback was, it feels like Klopp teams are always playing against themselves as much as they’re playing against the opposition.
On the note of defense, City had better be praying they don’t draw Atletico in the CL. That team is absolutely ruthless - I really have a soft spot for teams like Diego Simeone’s Atletico and Mourinho’s Inter side that are perfectly willing to park the bus when it’s prudent and good enough at said bus-parking to shut out otherwise lauded teams such as Barcelona.
In fact, I think it’s really refreshing to see a team like Leicester on course to win the league on the back of a solid defense and efficient counterattack. IMHO people buy too much into the tiki-taka hype and forget that football is a contact sport and that sometimes roughing up your opponent and drawing a few yellows is how you win the game. Even Lionel Messi can’t win a game if he’s taken off his feet (cleanly and without malice, of course) every time the ball gets near him.
As an Arsenal fan, I couldn’t agree more… I can only barely imagine what it might be like to know that you can actually keep the other team for scoring if you have to.
That’s the first time I have heard of that Alan Ball story. I have no idea if it’s true but it ought to be. It’s exactly the type of thing City are known for.
Im not claiming any great predictive powers but as soon as I heard of this billionaire taking over City I just knew they would make the classic billionaire owner mistakes - short-termism, throwing money at any problem, picking some poncy foreign manager in the assumption he’d transfer his skill to English football etc etc.
Saying all that they did look semi-competent against PSG.
It’s more than just that sense of security to me. Ultimately, football is about who wins in the end, and I can’t help but appreciate a team that’s willing to win at any cost - even if that means turning the fight into an ugly back-alley brawl.
That said, there’s a fine line. I think Atletico do a great job of playing solid, physical defense without getting unsportsmanlike and violent. A team like the 2010 World Cup Dutch side revolts me, though - there’s a difference between taking a guy off his cleats and taking your cleats to his chest :mad:
It’s true - though the game was 2-2 not 1-1 - and big Niall Quinn wound up running down the touchline telling the players that they’d got bad info and needed to start attacking. See video for a 2 min capsule of that one.
I know I am the only one saying this, but I don’t know how you can watch Leicester play and still say that they are the best team in the league and not just the luckiest. They absolutely deserved to lose to West Ham. That penalty at the end was super soft. The hammers lived in their box all game and should have had another two goals at least.
Maybe I just don’t understand football defense as well as I think I do, but honestly their defense is shit. I can not understand why people don’t score more on them. Their keeper is good, their entire back line is always out of position and their midfield defense is a joke. Yet they don’t give up goals.
Very good team. Good for them if they win the league. Regression is coming. Maybe not this season, but I really don’t see how this lasts.
Another Man City maths howler, albeit not one as pivotal as the Alan Ball incident, was a couple of seasons ago in the Champions League when they went 3-2 ahead of Bayern Munich and then settled for it by withdrawing their striker, wrongly thinking that they needed 5-2 to top the group, a scoreline they considered too risky to aim for. In fact 4-2 would have been enough, and they might have been better off going for another goal, as many viewers will have been shouting at their TVs. They admitted afterwards that they got the sums wrong.
Kind of amazing that they can spend millions on salaries and have armies of nutritionists and “sports scientists”, and yet seemingly not employ anybody with a GCSE in maths.
Release the hounds, because the fox hunt has begun!! Spurs 4-0 over Stoke, picking up ground on LCFC and further distance from third, um, fourth place Arsenal.
Discuss: What should the name of the day be on which we clinch a finish above the Gooners? I favor “Arse Hashanah”, myself.
But a friend feels what would annoy them the most is just to keep “St Totteringham’s Day” and “rebrand” it.
I think 3 points next week makes it mathematically impossible for them to finish above is based.
But who cares about the Gooners? They aren’t the real rival for a top team like Tottenham. We are really competing with Man City and Chelsea and Leicester. Probably West Ham. Top teams.
COYS!
Also, Harry Kane has more goals than Villa, and Deli Alli is the youngest player to ever score 10 in one season.
Eh, they already have crap tons of money. The fenway group (or whatever they call themselves) had as much money to spend as any oil barron. I do wonder if this means more personal involvement from ownership though.
Leicester are absolutely dominating Swansea today. This is the first game from them in a long time where they really look like title winners, but they absolutely do right now.
Plus, now there’s something to talk about during the off-season - how many years should David Duckenfield serve at Her Majesty’s Pleasure, what parts of the Taylor Report should now be scrapped because Hillsborough wasn’t the fans’ fault (“let’s start with bringing back the terraces…and don’t you dare bring Heysel into this”), and how can we find a way to blame Mrs. Teabag for - wait…what? My bad - how can we blame Baroness Teabag for all of this?
I have no idea if it’s true but it ought to be. It’s exactly the type of thing City are known for.