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

An interesting stat to ruminate over:

Only the top 6 clubs have a positive goal difference. The teams from 7th to 20th have conceded more goals than they have scored. All those teams have won less than one third of their games and they have all lost more than they’ve won with the exception of Burnley at 7th who have equal losses and wins.

Shows the gap this season between the top 6 and the rest.

 

If Burnley could score Arsenal would be ****ed.

 

Yeah. Kane and Salah have both scored more than Burnley.

 

This character is as shady as ****, always looking for a cheap foul, always trying to con referees, feigning injury(he's actually injured now), but it looks like he might be playing for Spanish prison team for a couple of years if he he can't con his way out of his appearance before a judge.

"La Liga prosecutors want Manchester United midfielder Ander Herrera to go to jail for alleged match-fixing as they demand four-year prison sentence which would NOT be suspended"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...utors-want-Ander-Herrera-serve-jail-time.html

 

There are only two reasons to call out players. One, you know that come the end of the season you are out of a job. Two, you had no say in the players signed.

 

How quickly Maureen's "match fixing" jibes come home to roost

 

Is this the City side that currently has the joint first best defence in the league?

 

they they are ****.

If they didn't hog the ball for 70% of games they'd concede loads.

Like barca bascially.

tactic 1. win ball, hold ball, don't give it away
tactic 2. hope for best.

LFC exposed their soft underbelly... but not many sides have the ability to do it. From what spurs did to us I reckon spurs could have city no problem.

We must remember city have delph playing LB, otamendi who's average enough and jon stones...

also just in summation. 20 conceded compared to 20 for utd who are completely negative side, 24 for spurs who are a good defensive side and 25 for cheslea who have gone through a bad slump

its not like they are outrageously better than those sides.

TBH LFc are on 32 and city scored 8 of those so... that would be 25 as well...

 

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Out of the 'top 6' Arsenal really are very much 6th. Which is fine for the rest of us, but being an Arsenal supporter atm must be so frustrating

 

yes they hog the ball and thats why they concede the least. However that still means they have a mean defence

 

but not the "best defence"

I'm sure pride would have you thinking hey.... we let in 4 goals after red card to watford and fell asleep at 1-0 up v utd. We are just on a small bad run and we have had a 6 goals swing. cheslea are actually the best cos we have alonso, azpi, rutdiger etc.

But hey if you've no pride in your side fair enough.

 

they are way off yet if they got anchelotti i think they'd be right back inthe mix.

If anything england has a serious problem where 6 into 4 won'#t go so someone is going to suffer here.

1. wages spiralling.
2. tv deals stalled.
3. cl revenue an issue

Someone is going to walk into a serious loss at some point... its going to happen.

Look at how newcastle chased in the early 00s under Shepard and it just becomes unsustainable. Along comes cheslea and LFC taking the cl spot and they implode.

Now we are seeing 3 really big teams usually cheslea utd and city. Thats where the titles go.

That leaves one spot (currently)

Spurs arsenal and us.

If history has taught us anything in the prem its that anyone can crack and fall away even the big boys mentioned but they seem to bounce back.

 

Is it not a matter of how a coach views "defence". Very few managers think of defence as just the back 3 or 4 but the whole team. They all have varying ways they do this.

The likes of Guardiola (Rodgers tried to copy him) best defence is as you described....if the opposition doesn't have the ball they can't attack you....so have a team with the technical ability that can keep the ball for 70% of the match. Obviously Pep had the players to not only keep possession but score goals....Rodgers not as successful.


Klopp/Poch believe best defence is rushing and winning the ball back from opposition in their half. .can't get into yours they can't score.

Mourinho and Fat Sam think of a back 9 ...but still whole team ...

Best defence in the league is based on how many are conceded...thats rarely down to the actual defenders alone....as we know. How many of our goals conceded were because of lazy midfield rather than individual defender errors or set piece set up issues?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you are getting At?

 

Yes. Because attack is the best form of defence.
Come on Jimmy, you know the point I'm making.

 

Moshiri is a #fraud

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/feb/26/farhad-moshiri-everton-unhappy-fans-sam-allardyce

 

dunno what the part about chelsea is. I would say our defence is only solid because of system (we don't commit many men forward) and again so is Citys. If they had a different system where they sat deep, of course they'd probably concede a lot more.

At the end of the day, what they are doing has enabled their defence to keep clean sheets (hog the ball) in the same way that your defence doesn't get tested out enough because teams are scared to attack you until they are losing.

Anyway, Jimmys point was that City are up there because they have the best ATTACK and DEFENCE when saint was trying to attribute it to them having the best attack

 

Perhaps the term "best defenders" would sound better? But I'm sure we all know what we're talking about here and some are just engaging in a bit of semantic gymnastics for fun.

 

put far better than I

yes it would have been but Jimmy was saying they had the joint best defence not that they had the best defenders