Nobody wants him, Enrique that is, needs to find a club so he can live the footballers life without playing again.
Sat... 4-0 against Barca, we're gonna win the league.. Sun... 0-4 against Mainz, we're gonna get relagated.. It's pre-season, all about fitness, a bit of form and finding out who you can and can't trust. I expect us to be in with a shot of top 4, do we get it, not sure but hopefully we'll put up a better fight, esp. with no European footy this year.
So how does your very valid points about fitness and form and who can be trusted align up with two games 24 hours apart, one staying in london and then one travelling after game on Saturday to germany, landing at 2am then playing again.. and some players playing both games... that doesn't seem to align with any normal strategy for those fine things i've ever seen. anyway................ If we can get 60 odd points last year then any improvement should be pushing us closer to top 4 yes. as usual aorund 70 points will be the target. I don't see a 20 point improvement to put us in a title race form what we've done at this point.
Think the Mainz friendly was a late addition to pre-season, no? Maybe part of the Karius deal? At the very least, its more minutes in the legs of some players.. You will have noticed that 8 of the 11 that started Saturday didn't start Sunday, can we read into that most of those will feature against Arsenal, think so.. Hendo, Can and Matip of the 11 that started against Mainz are the only ones that could get into the team for Arsenal.. Can and Matip needed game time given their late arrival to pre-season and injuries during pre-season.
maybe it was but the fact was that it should never have been added 24 hours after another game. I am fairly sure that we know the first team anyway but i do think flying over there after playing.. especially can and then ending up playing 45mins and losing the days trinaing, prep etc was not ideal at all. for me it was a stupid call and might have assumed everyone fit so two entirely different 11s could have played the two games. sahko hasn't kicked a ball. gomez dropped day 2 of trinaing, kariusbreaks hand, grujic ok he could have played the second one..... and so forth and so on. issues for me: 1. moreno played both games. he is only fit LB we have... thats madness 2. Can played both games.. as above 3. Lallana played both games. ok that one is a sub on day 1 and was back later 4. Origi played both games.. sturridge is injured. this i feel is terrible 5. where was benteke... 6. clyne was on bench... ffs he played the whole game the day before. wheres the rest period. up at 2am flying there... ****. 7. wijnaludm flew as well 8. lovern INJURED flew to mainz... WTF 9. mane flew 10. firmino flew 11 coutinho flew for me the message is clear. anyone who went to mainz shoul have been the dregs, not first team players being brought after their first 60/70mins off on a place all the way to germany (2/3 hours?) then landing middle of nihgt, bussed to hotel, checked in.. like... what kind of prep is that. they should have been minded at wembley, packed off home by plane that enveing or to hotel in london to sleep... not flown to germany... I think its mad. the only saving grace is arsenal were in sweden the same day so had to fly home and will have similar rest time.
first half was better, first 30mins. barca were asleep at start and we rodgered them for 2 goals but we were sitting off a lot after a spell. I did enjoy the game though. best period was early when we really got at them.
Ok. Not ideal. I don't think anyone would disagree with that. But they don't play again until Sunday so hardly a disaster. The problems at LB and over-reliance on Can are a bigger issue for me.
I don't even knew we played yesterday.Too soon after playing Barcelona. What about injuries , all these have to be considered.
Surely it was due to some contractual obligation or other and that was the only time we could fit it in. I can't imagine anyone thinking it was a good idea in itself.
why not say ok right we will come first international break or we will come next year? I think it was a strange move to do this. I could understand the first week of preseason to have two back to back with lots of kids but the very last game?
we seem to have got out of it with a bit of luck no injuries to the moreno and can as you've mentioned.
Who knows? Maybe it was felt we'd have to field even more of a scratch side during an international break (curse them, btw). It just seems a daft idea all round, with flying involved as well. Weird.
well given we sold most of ours. but... we could have had manninger who did play yesterday. Randall (if not got shut of) Gomez if not injured wisdom (if not sold Flanagan if not loaned Lucas (if not sold) Stweart (muck) firmino (who didn't go to brazil) ojo coutinho (olmypics is on) Ings (who will never get a cap again prob) so for me would could easily have gone for firs tinternational window and turned up in mainz and played.... they prob could not host it but hey... i just showed we could more easily support it then As i said if a can or moreno limpe doff yesterday this would be a far bigger outcry.
Chievo Verona have made an offer to sign Liverpool striker Mario Balotelli with Italian daily Gazzetta dello Sport claiming that talks have already taken place between the club’s president, the striker and his agent Mino Raiola. Balotelli moved to Merseyside from Milan in the summer of 2014 for a £16million fee but failed to impress during his first season, scoring just four goals in 28 appearances. He was promptly loaned back to Milan but again struggled for form. Reds manager Jurgen Klopp has made it clear that Balotelli is no longer in his first-team plans and the 25-year-old, who has also attracted interest from Ajax, will be hoping a swift exit can be secured.
right.. so "finely tuned" athletes can you know.. warm down with a couple pints in heathrow lounge then jump on a jet as their recovery period for the night. rock up to a hotel at 3am or whenever and get a bit of a kip before some sort of german brekkie then play a game... repeat the trick then turn up at training for the kick off of the season on tuesday.. or whenever. sound slike when we are flat day one i'll know why but a few might be surprised.
I get what you're saying to a certain extent, although I think you're going a bit over the top tbh. I'm sure the journey was fairly nice. Not exactly Malaga on Easyjet!! They have just under a week to get over the flight to Germany. It took me 2/3 days to get over the Festival I went to last weekend and I'm certainly no athlete.
