Match Day Thread 2016/17 Premier League, Cups & Euro Watch

That first half of Everton v Watford reserves was the worst half of football ever

 

IMO winter breaks make sense in some areas but it makes no sense in spain then...

The reality is leagues with winter breaks do the following

1. They have no 3rd cup
2. They play their own cups midweek... AND they schedule away from europe AND they give top teams seedings to start later in the cups
3. they schedule around internationals and europe and winter better

So if we are willing to delete the league cup make it a lower league comp and take europa league spot off it... which uefa would want btw... and then start FA cup in september and only have fa cup start in late jan with top 8 clus coming into 4th round or so... ok...

the spanish winter break is 3 weeks btw http://www.skysports.com/football/n...to-winter-breaks-across-europes-major-leagues

the main issue to my mind is not really a break or not it is the blocks of football without rest.

a) europe. you play there form sept to december... not every week but you get league cup etc thrown in for good measure. thats 2 per week
b) you throw a heavy christmas schedule including perhaps a game ever 3 days or less
c) you immediately start FA cup
d) you play europe again from feb on..

you can see here that european clubs might have a similar schedule but its nowhere near as packed in or such a slog. our teams are bascially on empty in march.

Real will play 60 matches this year, including 6 in copa (first games are agasint nobodies due to seeding so are for resting players) and they played 2 in world club championship and played super cup

barca will play 59... in super cup in two legs with seville in spain.

Utd will play 63 games.

so you say.. hang on a mo..... thats only 4 games... the point is how they are played and how they can be managed.

As i said about 4/6 of those the top clubs can play kids.

It was an england manager before a tournament we did **** in.

 

Spurs

MITO where are you getting this info from?

The winners of the dutch league (Feyenoord are top) go straight into the Group stage.
The 2nd place team go into the 3rd qualifying round (one before the play off)

But as said before. if Ajax finish second but win the Europa they go into the group stage with Feyenood.

 

the info i got was from a web search this morinng on where dutch teams will qualify for in CL and it came up that they had dropped in coefficients.

the dutch are down to 13th and so neither dtuch team gets a group spot

 

Fair enough. that's the internet for you. It's bollox.

EDIT.

Don't forget country co-efs with regard to qualifying spots are from the year before.
EG:: the country ranking at end of this season will be used for the 2018/19 CL. This may be where your info is wrong.

Club rankings on the other hand are used for the following season.

 

Congrats to the chavs, deserved champions.

 

Yep. No real weaknesses since he went to a back 3. Big favourites for the double now.

 

Disagree MITO, for years the top clubs haven't been playing anything close to their first team squads in either of the cups. Hell even the mid table and relegation fodder don't bother with their first teams til the latter stages so its pretty comparible to the spanish and their cups

 

Apparently Utd have spent more money on players in the last 3 years than Ajax have since WW2

 

Anyone see Evans handball, was a pretty funny moment in the match and the fact he even got away with it!

 

Would have been better had Celta gone through!! Sadly, La Liga has to release its hold on the EL trophy. Hopefully, next year another La Liga team will step up to the plate and win it.

 

Why? Are you Spanish

 

Chupar una polla,
Mierda de aliento

Erm...Espirito Santi

 

Nah, just a twat I think...
He is in Mallorca though, so maybe

A twat either way tho

 

I surmised that United's turnover was probably bigger than the other 7 at the qf stage of this season's EL. It must be at least 20 times that of Celta Vigo, probably much more.

 

And?

 

That's not a very nice comment from his Holiness!!!! Off to Fatima for foregiveness!!

 

And your point is? Not much at all!!

 

Yeah well done to Chelsea, only team that deserved to win it this season

 

Well no, the fact that we didn't attack means that we didn't play into your hands





In seriousness though I do agree, only have to look at the difference between last week and the league cup semi at your place for evidence.

I've said a few times that although we defended well last week we were no where near our best, and if we were I would have fancied us to take all 3.

It annoys me that every defensive performance is classed as 'park the bus' now. There's a big difference between parking the bus and a tactical set up of contain and counter.

Last week was admittedly the former, whereas the efl cup 2nd leg was a great example of the latter.

My point was that instead of Klopp bitching about teams tactics and/or berating 4th official, he needs to learn how to deal with these teams coming to Anfield...

If you're going to be one of the best attacking sides in the league, then you need to accept a large percentage of teams will play that way at Anfield.

We set the blueprint up there in January, plenty of teams have had success doing the same since like Wolves, Swans, Palace etc.

Unless you (Klopp) learn how to break these teams down then you'll struggle to achieve your ambitions imo.