yep. yep yep yep.

i'd say shove bravo back to his goal and he should perform just fine

that is if the defense can function ha ha ha

damn, pep. so soon.

and additionally....

http://talksport.com/football/manche...iola-including

Haha, talksport. I have that on every night. Listening to it right now. It's not the most reliable of sources, by any means, but if there's any truth to them it's fucking madness. If Man City have problems (and they do) it absolutely isn't with Silva (trust me on that one) or Aguero - easily the best out and out striker in the Prem and probably one of the top 5 in the world. Priority has to be defence. Kompany's great but made of glass and John Stones seems increasingly error-prone and will never be a 'solid' option in defence. Pep should break the bank and get Diego Godin, but he clearly doesn't want defenders like that. His whole system kind of defines itself against them. But he deserves time to get things right and criticisms of Pep pale beside those being levelled at Mourinho right now. I really wonder if he hasn't burnt himself out. At least with Pep teams, they stand or fall on his principles. It almost feels like Mourinho's just given up. Like the intensity has just evaporated.

yeah i was looking for news of pep and found that stuff about silva. i didn't know that's a radio show! (you say you're listening).

godin could work-- i've seen him charge ahead on the attack much like boateng did under pep. why not? as long as he moves around pep is happy.

as for mourinho-- evil is tiring! ha ha ha ha.

League Cup: I see United is beating City 1-0 with about 15 minutes to go. Don't you people shit on Bravo this time; he's not even playing.

i think bravo is great, i think pep making him play as a midfielder (lol) is fucked up and inexcusable

I accept the reasons why Pep ousted Hart, even though I'm not convinced by this obsession with playing out from the back. Teams are working out how to neutralise it, to the point where I just think it presents more risks than potential benefits. How many goals have Man City scored through this sweeper-keeper thing, compared with conceded as a result of it? But Pep's committed to it so either Bravo improves in that area or he needs to get someone who's better at it, and I can't see him wrenching Neuer from Bayern. I was critical of Bravo at first but I'm starting to feel sorry for him now. He's being made to look incompetent, which he obviously isn't.

The problem doesn't seem to be the mobility of defenders, but encouraging them to pass back to the keeper so much. Stones was crucified for it last week, against Southampton, but it came from an ideology imposed by Pep. It has to be a basic function of any defender to minimise risks before anything else. I think it's great having a keeper who's good on the ball but that should be treated as a bonus, and used when necessary, not something you build an entire method around.

ah, yes. but pep is a religious fanatic who will torture players and teams into the baroque shapes he wants or destroy them in the process.

hilarious thing ribéry said after pep left bayern--that he lacked experience ha ha ha. and that he talks too much but football is actually very simple.

i dont think it's so much lack of experience as being too immersed in his own head/thoughts/idealism. it's like... a communist leader who wants to reprogram society... and ruins it, with the best intentions

maybe i exaggerate but only to clarify my point

We basically agree. The only difference (maybe) is that i do really want his way to come good. Id still rather watch one of his teams play than any other. West Ham aside, obviously, but thats different.

well i really wanted his way to come out good when he was running bayern. and when they did it was pure magic.

problem is he neglected the defense and we know the results of that, in the end.

even though neuer and boateng became amazing under him-- the defense as a whole became weak and vulnerable.

like-- putting lahm as midfielder maybe gave you a good midfielder-- but left a hole on bayern's right back. rafinha did improve under pep though.

a bit of a zero-sum game in that sense. we all expected him to do great things and he did but he also broke others and in the end a case of parturient montes, considering.

Yeah, they broke the all time Bundesliga records for the least amount of goals conceded in a season and the most amount of clean sheets.

ah ha ha. okay. point taken.

but consider that they dominate that league financially and pilfered their biggest opposition, which was dortmund. well, dortmund was otherwise pilfered as well, so that didn't help. kagawa, gotze and lewandowski made dortmund great but were taken, reus stayed but got injured a lot.

when it came to big teams though, real madrid beating them 4-0 was a memorable horror.

his idea of defense as not letting the opponent have the ball only works when the opponent can't counter. not sure if that's what's happening to him in the prem at the moment.

sadly when it came to important games bayern under pep always had a huge 2-lane tunnel down the middle. he did go from 2 holding midfielders to 1. the clean sheets belong to the extraordinary sweeper-keeper. i don't believe the system would have work with anyone else but neuer.

granted, there was also bad luck and injuries--badstuber, javi martinez, spent the years in physiotherapy-- but things like moving lahm up as a "most intelligent" midfielder deprived bayern of one of the greatest fullbacks in the world. you could see this at the world cup-- germany suffered until they returned lahm to his rightful place.

No, it was a cheap point that I made. I know the Bundesliga stats flatter Bayern. Pep's not gonna be remembered as a great defensive coach - even though the stats do prove he's not exactly bad in that area, either. And big losses against Real Madrid and Barcelona were, at the end of the day, against Real Madrid and Barcelona - and in CL winning seasons, at that.

yes one of those years dortmund had a major collapse, scraped the bottom table, and klopp ended quitting, remember?

anyway at the CL there was also juve , who had a disallowed morata goal. game ended 4-2 for bayern but that disallow put the game elsewhere psychologically.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa8ZgyLFQXw

and of course atletico

it's always the same fucking achilles heel with pep. always always always.

fast attack down the middle, POW

ACHILLES.

ps- i see man city is 1st and just won 4-0 haaa haaaa haaaa

No manager's perfect. I've seen him make some howlers already at Man City. But I just think that following Jupp straight after they'd won the CL (and obliterated Barcelona along the way) he was on a hiding to nothing at Bayern, with any mistake pounced upon by fans as a step backwards.We'll never know how Jupp would've done had he stayed, against a re-booted Barcelona or a Real reinvigorated after their meltdown under Mourinho, or a Juventus that was really starting to click under Conte or against what Simeone was doing at Atletico. Fan's need never ask how he might've dealt with an increasingly ailing Schweinsteiger.

Incidentally, you fine mighty football cats may have noticed that after Manuel Pellegrini finished his contract with Manchester City he hasn't coached any club in The Premiership, La Liga, La Ligue 1, Das Bundesliga, La Serie A or even a national team. Guy went for a $eriou$ly lucrative offer from some damn Chinese club. Dude, how much money can you fuckin' need? HO!

The money China's throwing around is ridiculous. Like you say, how much do these people need? It's even more insane for players. Apparently Hulk earns more there than Suarez and Neymar do at Barcelona.

i didn't know he had gone to china but smart money move ha ha

yeah that place is bananas. i wonder if it's a profitable league or if it's some kind of money laundering scheme or what's the story.

sustainable? or opera in manaus?

I doubt that it's profitable. A quick check on google looks like stadium attendances aren't that high, and as long as they continue to give tv coverage to the major european leagues, I can't see it being anything more than a vanity project for a few billionaires. Although I don't think it'll be long before we see those same billionaires starting to buy up some of the big european teams. They already have Inter Milan and Atletico is rumoured to be next on their shopping list.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30910664

i see...

the thing though. if you can get 1 billion chinese interested in their own domestic league, it's a massive audience-- and in their own time zone

so... perhaps a long-term gamble

didn't know inter milan was chinese-owned! at last, someone to compete with the qatari petroprinces.

I can definitely see the Chinese government blocking tv coverage of foreign leagues to increase audiences for its own. If they can block google, they can certainly block the Prem.

I don't think it'll be long before most of the big teams in europe are either Chinese, Russian or Arab owned, which'll probably be when we see the 1st £1bn player.

after the brexit, more like 2bn :D

hey, 3 ties for 1st place at the prem and one is liverpool!

klopp! who knew?

and mkhitarian @ man u nothing or yes? damn greyhound should never have left dortmund

just googled and oh look

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/footba...taryan-9164293

damn you, prem :mad:

Mkhitarian is a real talking point: his agent says he's unfit; Mourinho agrees but insists there's nothing physically wrong with him, suggesting he's mentally unfit. Who knows? I do think Jose's lost it, though. He used to be able to rely on results as justification for his toxic personality and negative style of football but Man U are all over the place. Some of his recent statements make me think he's angling for the sack.

On the £1bn player thing, Real are now paying Bale £600,000 a week and his buy out clause is set at £900,000,000, so it can't be far off. If Messi was 5 years younger I'd say he'd be the 1st but it'll probably be someone who's yet to really emerge.

bayern hoffenheim ended 1-1 and it was a really fun game. it's great to see bayern NOT wiping the floor with the opposition. hoffenheim has been making a lot of progress lately and they remain undefeated for the season-- they're aiming for their first champions league adventure ever.

dortmund 5 hamburg 2! 4 goals by aubameyang. that was a spanking. hamburg last in the table.

Chelsea today. Honestly one of the best 90 minute performances ive ever seen in the Prem.

ah shit, they got conte!

no wonder

i have to start watching that team

also (just googled) sorry h8kurdt!

It's tempting to balance it by saying Everton were awful but they weren't. It was just one of those performances where everything clicks perfectly. You see that in bits of games a lot but hardly ever for the whole 90 minutes. Whether they can do it consistently is obviously the real test.

They really were. I'm not as mad as some as the fans on a forum I go on are, but it was a shocking performance by Everton.

Jagielka needs call it quits. God knows what's happened to Mirallas, and so on and so on. Either way, Chelsea were incredible and my pre-season predictions are slowly coming to light. Save for the one where I said Man Utd would finish third.

I honestly don't think any team would've stopped Hazard and Pedro yesterday. I can't stand Chelsea but credit where it's due. It reminded me of that Champions League final between Barcelona and Man U. United fans could (and did) pick holes in MU's performance but it was ultimately just a masterclass from Barcelona. I do agree about Jagielka though.

rb leipzig (rb is for red bull, ha ha) is the new dortmund. young, fast-attacking, high-scoring, and currently 2nd in the bundesliga. right now beating mainz 3-0 at halftime.

HEY IT'S TIME FOR HALFTIME PANCAKES

--

pancakes were great, and with a 3-1 victory bayern and leipzing share 1st place on the table (bayern ahead only by goal difference)

lazy sunday mornings are the best

Aren't RB Leipzig the team everyone's meant to hate for undermining the whole fan-ownership thing?

riiiiiiiight! they're satan himself!

they're fun to watch though

next year they'll probably be pilfered by bayern and chelsea and west ham etc

The way west ham are playing, RB are more likely to be poaching players off us than the other way around. Already looks like Payet will be off in January.

... although after Payet goes, im not sure anyone will want who's left.

i thought you had all that new tv money!

We can afford to buy loads of players but I don't see any decent ones coming within a mile of us while we're languishing around the bottom of the league. Add to that a new stadium which is a complete vacuum in terms of atmosphere and becoming a magnet for football hooligans (you're likely to see more police there than fans at the moment) and it's fair to say that, right now, we're an absolute disaster-zone of a club!

ah shit, lives of the nouveau rich!

wait wait... it's TOWIE all over again-- yes?

damn.

don't know what to say. i thought the olympic stadium would be a boon but you saw it right. hm...

sorry man. my condolences. everything changes though. you were languishing near the bottom just 3 or so years back yes? more or less? then you went up. so this slump can't be forever.

so they didn't make the tickets cheaper to fill up seats? or did they make them so cheap that even the hooligans can afford them and now the hooligans scare everyone else who could go?

you've been?

Haha, Towie, fuck yeah!



Where to start? The stadium is a disaster. It was never built for football. The way it's laid out and the security can't handle football fans. Plus it's in a location that makes it impossible to segregate rival supporters when they leave. The result? Fighting at almost every match there.

On the pitch we're crap, but crap in a way that I largely accept. We're traditionally a lower mid-table team. Some times it goes well and we creep into the top half; other times it goes bad and we get relegated, but standard for us is between 10th and 17th. I like to hope that we'll turn a corner and improve but it somehow wouldn't feel right if we did.

so mainly the stadium sucks and the rest is as usual.

can't they remodel/reroute?

and are there "safe" seats? you know... the ones where one can bring the family?

eta: i don't know if i'm attracted by that creature or repelled. i mean that ass looks well positioned, but will the pancake and silicone and botox collapse if i touch it? and the hair looks... very chemical and... missing in patches? i'm having confused feelings, like... "mmmmmmmm.. nope... mmm-mmmm... nope..."

!!