Rival watch

I thought the winners would score 3 just didn't expect it to be Watford

 

The bottling begins...

 

This is lose-lose. Liverpool are uncatchable anyway and Arsenal fans are banging on about being the insufferables again.

 

I said this the other week. Their season is fizzling out although their next set of fixtures is pretty favourable on paper. With Chelsea dropping points yet again, a win tomorrow and we'd weirdly be in sight of 3rd place. With Kane and Son, I'd go as far as saying we'd already have overtaken Leicester. Just another thing to get pissed off about this season. It has never been so easy to claim a CL place, yet we've been afflicted by the plague.

 

What is it about Johnny-come-lately teams banging on about what they did decades ago?

 

I thought Michael Oliverpool refereed the game properly now that the title is all over. His 6th Pool game of the season so far.

 

What stands out is that Watford's goals were all pretty straightforward: the first from a long throw, the second a through ball between the left back and centre back, and the third an error forced from the keeper hoofing it long - in other words, the second and third goal both came from putting their defence under pressure quickly and, surprise surprise, it turns out that their defence isn't particularly good at coping with that

In other words, this shows how wrong so many teams have got it against them this season: instead of sitting back fearing the worst and hoping to keep the scoreline down, if you get at them they really cannot cope with that and that's hardly unique, as the same has been the case with The Sheikh Mansour Team for years, but while some teams have been willing to attack the Mansourites this season very few have really tried to go at Saltypool, but what Watford have done (as did Napoli and Atletico Madrid in the CL) is demonstrate that, unlike how Pulisball was guaranteed to beat Wenger teams in the past, the way to beat Norbert's teams is the exact same as Fraudiola's - actually bother playing some football

 

Shock at Watford.....but what about Glasgow Rangers losing AGAIN to bottom of the league Herts. Will they keep their manager? They were fighting for the title with Celticnot long ago.....now they've gone down the pan!

 

I live on the outskirts of Glasgow and work with a few Rangers fans, one of them a few weeks ago said they wanted Walter Smith back as manager to stop the 10 in a row.

 

It seems without Rangers,it's a Celtic doddle every season now...….and what's happened to Hearts?

My second favourite team was Third Lanark until they left the league. Their supporters chairman used to send me their programmes. I've still got them! I'm a horder.

 

Does anyone understand the bizarre outrage in Germany about people slagging off Hoffenheim owner Deitmar Hopp?
Bayern fans held up a banner calling him a son of a whore and the game was stopped.
The players then played out the last 13 minutes passing it to the opposition and refusing to attack.

 

Some of Liverpool's players looked very tired, to me. They have done for a few weeks.
It might just have been one of those days and they'll react well to the loss.
He may want to rotate a little more now though, so that they're fresh for the Champions League and FA Cup.

 

They're still bitter about having to pay an actual transfer fee for Niklas Sule?

 

Press, win possession then long ball, don't let them defend in your half by trying to play it out from the back. Pretty straight forward stuff.

 

One loss this year, one lasy year. its hardly straight forward stuff is it?

 

That's the thing: in the previous couple of season it proved effective against Saltypool, but this season teams seem to have forgotten it - which makes less sense considering more and more teams remember it works against The Sheikh Mansour Team

 

It's the fear factor. The fear that if you commit too many players forward, 'pool are very good on the counter with the GK having great distribution. If you fail to score , they will come at you with lightening speed and punish you.
Teams get into a rhythm and get confident. Opposing teams have a mindset of fear.

 

It is because it has worked in previous seasons. This season many teams have embarked on damage limitation tactics, try to keep possession, pass it out from the back sh!te, doomed to failure. You have been easily the best team this season and deserve the title, but some managers are scared of being on the end of an 12-2 drubbing and set up to draw/lose narrowly. Anti football.

To me, our 7-2 loss to Bayern was not a disaster, we'd lost anyway and conceded another 3 having a go. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes not, it paid off for you v Barca in last seasons semi. Damage limitation only works in the first leg of a match played over two legs.

 

Damage limitation can also work in the first half of a match.
How often do we see ( especially against us ) a team sit back and defend for the first half or even till the 75th minute or so, keep the score down and then go full out attack?

 

Yeh thats all good, but you over simplified what teams need to do to beat us, weve played every kind of side this year, Norwich both games, Chelsea, sheff utd, wolves both games just off the top of my head are sides that came at us and tried to play football, weve also played the sit back sides like yourselves under moureen and Athletico recently.

Weve found a way to overcome all but watford and Athletico so far.

If you watched the game yesterday you wouldve seen us at our worst for near 2 years, totally **** all over the pitch, not one can hold their head up about yesterday's performance bar perhaps Allison.

Credit to Watford yesterday but they were fortunate to find us on a bad day all across the board.

That loss has been coming since the break, im just glad it was 3-0 rather than say 1-0 as i believe losing so convincingly will kick them up the arse as opposed to a slim loss where there may have been room for things like "we were unlucky" or had and "off day"

But yeah point is, if it was that simple to beat us many more teams wouldve done this year and last.