HIAG and Greez are my favourite Not606 posters (Matth was up there but he isn't around anymore ) On the thread topic, its hard to say.....We got told in 2012 after we finished 6th that we were done, that we would slide down. Fact of the matter is, this was such a strange season. HIAG was kinda right when he said that Leicester were very fortunate that it all came together for them in the same season that it went to **** for everyone else. Arsenal are just Arsenal and always will be, 3rd or 4th every season, their board doesn't give a **** as long as they are lining their pockets, so their is no incentive to push the club on to win league titles and the such, plus the manager passed his sell by date about 10 years ago and is clueless. City have suffered from the lack of an ambitious manager, plain and simple, plus a lack of activity in the transfer market. For the record I think Pep will be exposed in this league, he wont know what hit him. You could put Forrest Gump in charge of 2009's Barca team and they would still have walked the title. Like Wenger he is tactically naive and just relied on the fact that his team were better than everyone elses to win games. Sorry Peppy, in England we don't play that way, try your tippy tappy **** over here and your players will be booted off the park. United have been a bit of a mess, should have kept Moyes on for another season to be honest. Hiring LvG was a complete waste of time, he hasn't really added anything new to the side. He spends fortunes on attacking players, then keeps his entire team camped out in their own half. Makes very little sense to me. Chelsea.....the **** man!? Jose managed to piss off that entire squad, the medical staff....everyone! Just a clear sign of players not meshing with their manager, and Jose no longer had his fan club of Drogba, Lampard, Ashley Cole and Cech here to have his back. We saw instantly what a new manager did for the team (we havent lost since Jose left). And we are now the only team in the league to be undefeated in the last 12 games. Still too many draws in there for my liking though, but Guus has turned the defeats into draws and the draws into wins, so thats a success in my book. I know very little of Conte other than he plays what most people would deem boring football and he has been successful little where else other than Juve (not exactly hard), so I am not particularly stoked with his appointment. As to who will succeed next year, its dependant on many things, who everybody signs, we still dont know who will be managing United or Arsenal (Hopefully Arsenal keep Wenger so that rules them out). This was a long way of saying I dont know
I agree, as I've already said, that Pep will find the PL more difficult than he may at the moment think. Although he's no idiot, so I think he'll be better prepared than some may think. Fact is that City's squad needs major surgery. Without Kompany - who is quite possibly on his last legs, literally! - their defense is ****e. I reckon half their squad will be looking for a new club. As for the tika-taka, you can get away with it, if you have the players to do it. City currently don't. Many side from all over have tried to kick Barca off the park. Very, very few have succeeded.
I think they will get a much different kicking in UK. I think the referees are more lenient to the physical side of things whereas you watch european football and anyone flopping about normally gets a free kick
They've played a few English sides, and mostly won. I watch them in Spain, teams try all sorts of different tactics to nullify them, including the rough stuff. None of it works. If Barca were that easy to kick off the park, everybody would be doing it. But City are different. You have to have the players with the instant control, first touch, etc, City, nor any English side does.
The only English side that rough housed them was Chelsea, and we had lots of success with it. I don't watch La ****ga football admittedly, because it bores me to tears. (Only really like PL and Bundesliga). Did the lower Spanish teams try to rough house them? I cannot see that in Spain.
I think City are an unknown quantity for next season. As well as the new manager they will have to replace Yaya who has been central to all their successes when in the right mood and at fault for many of their failures when in the wrong mood. Plus as someone else said, Kompany seems to be coming towards the end. They've already spent a fortune on other centre halves and midfielders, all of which seem to be ****e. Aguero has made no noises about leaving which is a major bonus for them. Maybe Pep will be able to attract some top class players with the promise of his awesomeness, CL football and **** off sized wage packets.
They've tried it. Barca know what to expect and it rarely works. The only way you can beat them, IMO, is to attack them, their defense is not that good nowadays. But, that means you have to get the ball and keep the ball. Most English sides are nowhere near skilled enough to do that.
Again you are basing this on La ****ga, where the ref blows the whistle every time a cheating lying **** of a Barca player hits the deck like a sack of **** every time he is brushed. In the PL, it doesn't quite work like that.
No. It doesn't work like that in Spain either. Referees are different, as with anywhere. If you watched El Clasico at the weekend, there was a lot of very naughty stuff going on from both sides - stuff that would get you a red in England. Ramos eventually did get a red, but only after he'd earned himself 5-6 yellows! Ok, Real won it - just. But that was because Barca played badly, missed a load of chances, etc. Real hit them on the counter and sneaked it.
What decision was that? You talking about the defender who threw himself to the floor Willem Defoe style when he realised Bale was gonna beat him to the ball?
