Match Day Thread 2017/18 Premier League, Cups & Euro Watch

It's definitely a step down in spite of the fantasies of a few folk trying to convince themselves that their teams are better than Barca.

I mean they lost the highest quality league (at the top) in Europe by a single win to the best team in Europe. only made the last 8 of the CL and won their domestic cup. They are definitely ****e lol.

As for the merits of the French league versus La Liga, it's not even a debate:
https://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/uefa/data/method5/crank2018.html

But in Neymars defence, whilst everyone will focus on the money (unsurprisingly), I think he does have a real desire to get out of Messi's shadow. That's brave in some ways. If he can lead PSG to the holy grail of the CL, it will seem like a good decision. If not he'll be fooking loaded !!

 

No doubt Barca are a better team than psg. No doubt Spanish league is more competitive than French league (even more so now Monaco have sold half their star players).

However psg are Aiming to be one of europes elite and made huge strides in last 6 years to be at a level where they are knocking on the doors of the big 3. Ignoring the money, it's clear he wants to get out of Messi shadow and be the star player. Huge ego but all best players do. He was arguably the 3rd most important player in barcas msn and he clearly wants to be his own player and be talked about on his own not as an accompaniment Messi.

He'll win the league a few times. Win the cup a few times and if he wins the CL with psg in the next 3/4 years then you'd argue his move is a huge success.

 

You have all missed the point. That neymar was bullshitting the barca faithful for daddy there.

 

I'm not bitter but this type of transfer has changed my thought of football.

I've become the old mentality now where money is ruining game. I never thought that previously. Even with the Pogba transfer at least was done in a decent manner and he's young so the money it cost is probably logical.

This signing completely ruins the window now. Barca could go out and give Liverpool 150 mil for Coutinho. We could then big 100 mil on another player and it keeps going around and round. That potentially means three different teams in one window could smash the Pogba fee. Which is insane.

This can't last forever and it probably the pinnacle of ridiculous transfer fees now. We will face a massive crash where fans have to suffer as a result. Which is probably needed tbh.

 

Welcome to the club.
This has been coming for ****ing years but those of us who said so have been mostly laughed at for being old and outdated. You'd have to be blind not to see it.
Although it's **** all to do with them, I wish La Liga had managed to put a spanner in the works and somehow bring down the whole house of cards and we could get back to the stage where it was football that mattered - not this ridiculous media circus.

 

Apparently Neymar wants to win the Ballon D'or and feels leaving Barca will give him the spotlight to finally be noticed.

As you said, i think he was the third best last season out of the MSN. Suarez and Messi are currently better than him and i think a few players are still above him i struggle to see how he can win it in a worse league.

 

Nobody wins it because of the league though. They win it if they've won the CL. I'd wager the winners in last few years have either won the CL or won heir league and a International trophy that year.

He leads psg to glory then he'll be ahead of other 2 to claim that title.

 

La Liga are just upset because finally a club have taken a player who is in there prime. The countless times Madrid and Barca have done that and done nothing about it they have no argument for it.

 

Depends. I think Ronaldo won it because of his Euro performance rather than the Champions league win.

I think Neymar is trying to follow with what Ibra did. Try and looking world class in a lesser league so gets noticed more. I love Ibra but he definitely took a step back from the other teams going for him.

 

Hoffenheim, CL draw

 

That's a pretty tough draw tbh, they were really good last season, were top for a long while, faded a little towards the end though, but there were some who thought they might win the league.
Other than maybe Napoli, this was probably the toughest draw you could get.

 

But in a way that's good for us as we won't take anything for granted.

Rather play hoffenheim than say young boys who some on here assume would be an easy game.

 

Can see us going out sadly
Proper upbeat me

 

If we play like we did against bayern we should be fine.

Awaits rivals comments about coutinho lol

 

Hoffenheim was without doubt the hardest draw imo...

However, we up our game against better opponents and Klopp (and Firmino) will know a lot about Hoffenheim.

Quite simply if we can't beat them over 2 legs we don't deserve to be in the CL anyway.

Game on.

 

Hoffenheim wont be great in the competition so Sky is right. We aren't good enough either if we can't beat them.

Tough draw still.

 

Their likely line up for 2017/18 season

http://www.bundesliga.com/en/news/B...nn-s-hoffenheim-line-up-in-2017-18-455557.jsp

 

Napoli v Nice. Hardest draw.

 

Better than travelling to Istanbul. If we beat them our group would be a lot harder opposition, so I would hope we can beat them over two games. If not, then the group stages would be a slaughter for us anyway.

 

I was hoping for them

Easiest travel, Klopp will have them sussed, and we do better against decent teams than ones who know their crowd will let them get away with 13 men behind the ball