Rival watch

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Speaking of ex-academy goalkeepers, Jordan Archer pulled off a rather unorthodox save for Millwall yesterday:
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Got to be one of the worst back-passes of the season.

He's done a very good job for them this season, apparently.
Keeping the highly experienced David Forde out of the side.
It’s a brilliant lob and a fantastic save, really. It’s always so funny when a player scores an og, or nearly, through a strike of a quality he would never, ever have directed at the right goal.
 
United winning at a stroll. This really has been Men against Boys. Currently 3-0 and United coasting it. Shrewsbury have been very poor.
 
Leicester will have had a two week break in the time the 2-4 teams have played three games each. Surely that should help them...or will it? They’ve also had two weeks to think about a supremely galling loss to the officials at the Emirates. How many times will it have occurred to them that without that sending off they’d probably be five points clear of us, and 8 of Arsenal? Even a draw would have put them three ahead of us, and 5 of the goons.

It’s also just possible a long-ish break may be worse for a team than too many games. Moving forward, City and ourselves are out of the FA cup, while Arsenal are not only still in, but have a replay to jam in to their schedule. On the other hand, they’re sure to be out of the CL soon. We might or might not still have Europa left. Finally, while I still expect City to get back in the race, they’ve done nothing but fall apart since the news they have a lame duck coach broke--which brings back some memories.
It could go either way for Leicester-the players were allowed to go away for a week-does that mean they lose match focus or will they have trained just as hard on their own.
Alot of the Leicester players will get another break soon for the international break-teams 2-4 are full of players who will have to travel and play with their national teams.
 
It could go either way for Leicester-the players were allowed to go away for a week-does that mean they lose match focus or will they have trained just as hard on their own.
Alot of the Leicester players will get another break soon for the international break-teams 2-4 are full of players who will have to travel and play with their national teams.
I'd have thought that most of the Leicester players will be getting called up too, though.
A lot of them are already full internationals and there have been calls for those that aren't to get selected.
They'll be off all over the place too, as they've got a lot of different nationalities in their squad.
 
I've always found matches immediately after an international break to be quite sluggish and rusty. Maybe that's more down to the often excessive amounts of travelling involved but I'm certain that to an extent, interrupting a good, solid streak of games with your club doesn't do you any good. It's always better to keep momentum going than trying to restart it from a bit of a 'square 1'.
 
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I can't blame Arsenal for this, as it's the most sensible approach to negate Barca's game.
It's so bloody boring, though.

The Catalan's are a fantastically talented side, but their style can often make games exceptionally dull.
Total possession with incredibly good players, combined with periods of slowing the game to a crawl.

I understand why they do it and it's very effective, but it can be a terrible watch.
This is especially true in La Liga, as the gulf in class is massive against a lot of opponents.
 
Arsenal discovering one of the problems when you're a possession team.
If you don't have the ball for long periods, then your passing tends to go to ****.
They'll be pretty happy with that half, though.
 
Why is there at least one helicopter hovering over the Emirates for the whole game?
That's not normal, is it?