But surely that shows how competitive the league is. In the last few seasons we have done better as some of the big clubs have been weak and we had a good squad. Our squad is slightly weaker this year, we had extra games and a massively weird timetable (three games in 5.5 day over Christmas, eight weeks without a home game then a load in April which cannot help. Selling Mane and Pelle is surely also a massive contribution when our midfield do not score enough goals either.
They probabaly mean in terms of how utterly dominant barca can be and therefore the game as a contest is over before it really began. Personally i fail to see how the football they have played over the past 10 years hasn't been beautiful and brilliant to watch!
Point missed there; it's about styles of play. Chelsea are happy to let their opponents have the ball. They set up very defensively, knowing that they have the players to capitalise when they do have possession. As for Barca - I expect they'd still be entertaing to watch without those three. They just wouldn't be as effective.
I'm with you for sure, but believe me it's not about the dominance. People on this forum have said it's dull too. *shakes head*
To be fair you didn't articulate that point at all - you simply said take away their front 3 and most entertaining players then they wouldn't be entertaining. Same could be said for any club to an extent.
Why is it when someone sees something differently to you, the other person "missed it"? Bit tedious really. Anyway, have a nice night.
Having had a couple of days to reflect on the situation, my personal feelings about Claude being treated slightly harshly have faded. As a teacher, I often say to the kids I teach about how I thought their grades were after an exam. A lot of the time, they say.... they were OK............. And that's how I feel our season can be described at best..... yes, there were circumstances... but even with rose tinted specs, it was OK is about as good as it gets. The club position on development is clear, the posters and billboards adorn the exterior of the church we all worship at.... sadly, they don't say "we never stop marching on in an OK way, or the Saints way is OK. This has got to be factored in, the style is far from OK, goals scored, not OK, performance of key players wasn't OK, reinvestment in playing squad wasn't OK, motivational ability of the coaching staff was not OK, the whole Fonte thing was not handled OK, player unease being pretty open for parts of the season was and still is not OK. I concede in the upside that the improvement of JWP/Romeu/Stephens has been fantastic to see, as was the Cup Final.... but that's about it. I want the club and board to acknowledge their part in the stagnating this season and once again making decisions to start the club marching on again.
Spaced - read it again. It's clear as day mate. Your mind took you where it wanted to go and you thought I was saying you were on about you. One thing I do is apologise when I missed something or got something wrong.
Had a bit of time to think about it and here are my thoughts. If you look at the league table the only clubs who finished between 8th and 17th who I would say would be happy with their season would be Burnley and probably Bournemouth. You could make a case for everyone else being disappointed with their point haul/finishing position. Of those teams 3 changed manager (Palace, Swansea and Leicester), and all of them were looking threatened to be relegated at the time of the change, something we haven't really looked like at any point this season, despite how poorly we were playing there was just too many other teams who had to get their **** together for us to really be in trouble. Swansea were only mathematically safe after 37 games yet we, finishing 8th, finished closer to them than we did the team in 7th, which shows how weird this season has been. Clubs bigger than us and of a similar size have struggled with balancing Europa and PL football, usually suffering in the league as a result, and as has been said loads of times, us finishing on 46 points would usually see us much further down the table than 8th, fitting in with the trend of previous clubs in the Europa. Throw in the loss of key players through injury and the League Cup run and from a neutral perspective it is pretty obvious why we would struggle in the PL points wise. As for the style of play, the one question that is still yet to be answered in my view (and if Puel goes will never be answered), is did he decide to play a defensive approach as that was the best way to earn points in a fixture congested season (rotation for the Europa, no goalscorers in the side once Austin went down, our defensive players are of a much higher standard than the attacking ones Romeu, VVD, Bertrand mainly), or is this his style of play in general? If it is his way of playing then I think he probably should go as, despite all the circumstances that led to us not getting wins, this style is only acceptable if you are winning games. If however this isn't his usual way of playing and the circumstances and squad were the reason why then I think he should be given til Christmas to see how he does with this squad + whoever we decide to bring in.
Oh mate. While I fundamentally disagree with you politically I'll always maintain your right to say something, but come on. Which nasty party should be exempt from criticism? The Front National in France; the neo-fascist Hitler lovers in Germany; the white supremacists of Scandinavia? Actually, I think a tad of criticism of holocaust deniers may be in order, or does your belief in free speech extend to these groups too?
I implied that or at least have said it earlier. Can't argue with position or the cup final. Still boring football though.
I was thinking more along the lines of the Tory party. My point was more pointing out a trend these days that people on one side attack criticism of "what has been decided is exempt from criticism." So you had to like La La Land because every critic and the whole internet had decided after "such a bad year or 2" it was a great uplifting film. If you didn't you were mad or ignorant. You had to like Moonlight because it ticked all the boxes "ethnic, LGBT, oppressed and abused." IF you didn't like it you must be a mad racist homophobe with no sensitivity. If you try and criticise them you get caned by the "crowd" who have all convinced themselves that everybody must like these films. I was making a veiled link to our own happy clappers!!! I found La la land boring. So did the wife but then she likes black movies (meaning not very good comedies with virtually only black actors in them.) Neither of us enjoyed Moonlight either. Found it quite slow, pretty boring. Not our cup of tea at all. I enjoyed Jason Bourne but then I like the Bourne films. I did have a moan that the Moby music at the end had been updated because it didn't fit in. Wife didn;'t like it but then you can refer back to the part about "black films" there. No idea why she loves Jason Statham films. maybe he is secretly black or she is colour blind? So in answer to your post. I was not talking at all about any "extreme political parties." I was trying to incinuate anything not accepted as gospel being exempt.
