Another reason to give Unsworth credit, unlike 63% of the internet he knows the phrase is COULDN'T care less.
Real seem to be suffering from an acute case of United Trebleitis, where you hit such heights in one season it is impossible to properly motivate yourself the next.
They will put in a shift on wednesday, as losing control of their CL group after drifting 8 pts behind Barca in La Liga, will send their plasticos into white scarf waving meltdown.
I think Zidane has been doing a Poch. His players don't know who is playing until the team sheet goes up.In other words he pretty much had a settled side last year.This year it's been a mess with injuries and rotating the players and it's cost them! 8points behind Barcelona who are NOT messing about with THEIR players!!!!!
There is a definite dressing room problem at Madrid, I would not be surprised to see them drop out of the top 4 after the international break and lose Zidane after Christmas, they are nothing like the team of last year.
Funny that a manager can win so much one year and,maybe, out on his ear the next. Reminds me of Churchill and his generals!
Trump will be harder to shift. Kane playing and we stand a good chance of going through. A team with players worth 37mill beat Madrid in a stadium capacity of 13,500. Come on Spurs, put last week BEHIND you and got for it.
"He's an Everton man", "He loves and understands the club", "He's done great things with the Academy sides", etc. are not any form of indicators of an ability to manage and coach a PL team in turmoil and Everton are in turmoil. Given a general lack of pace at the club, Unsworth selected Mirallas and Lennon up front. Unfortunately, Wayne 'Pirlo' Rooney decided not to play close to centre forward Calvert-Lewin, as he was picked to do, but drop deep into midfield where he has zero effect. The lack of pace in a back 4 up against Vardy should be a distinct worry but instead of staying compact, Everton played wide open in the first half and let Leicester run them ragged. At 2-0 it's game over at half time, Everton aren't scoring 2, let alone 3. There's a dangerous mix of slow older players, inexperienced young players being excessively relied upon and a severely out of sorts midfield. With Siggy, Gueye, McCarthy and Schneiderlin and young Davies, they should be able to muster something relatively decent but it's a shambles. Someone needs to get in there and stop the goals going in because it's unlikely that they'll outscore anyone. Where's Sam?
...and yet these are precisely the qualities that Phil Neville feels so strongly in his Beeb article should qualify Unsworth for the job.
Their squad's actually pretty good, it's just unbalanced. A decent manager could get them going pretty quickly, I think. Not sure that Sam's the man for that job though, as they don't have a target man for his particular brand of football. Someone who's happy to pick players in position, use wingers and train up a solid defence would do wonders, though. Who's available that they can get? Moyes could work again, but it would feel like a temporary fix and a backwards step.
I can tell you exactly where Allardyce is for the next two years: sitting at home, knowing that if he takes another managerial position, he will have to pay Palace £2m out of his own pocket - a detail the papers and bookies keep forgetting when using his name to help people part with their hard-earned.
That is a big problem. Do you throw your lot in with a foreign manager with no PL experience? No matter how big a name can be attracted by Moshiri throwing money around, there's a number of big problems with that group of players. So, Moyes as a caretaker? Right now and short term, they might both need each other? I don't know if Watford would part with Marco Silva? Typically, their managers are short term appointments but Watford might think that they've found their man. Would he walk out on them? I hope not, as I've respected him thus far. So, step forward............Sean Dyche?
I do have this thing where our manager throws in reserves for certain games.It takes a while for a team to gell.Actually playing a game is different to playing on the training ground. For instance.....do you notice todays corner kick takers? They raise their arms,presumably to tell their players it will be a high one.....and then can't get over the first defender! In training I bet all their corner kicks are perfect. Same with reserves.They probably do well in training then comes the big match. That's why I think they should have a reserve league,perhaps in mid week and get to know each others style of play.Loaning out just,in my view, screws them up.Experience,yes. But taught a different system. Helps a few but not the many.
