JPJCB

ACLs are clearly bad luck but Newcastle have had a whole load of muscle injuries which are likely the result of howe’s playing style and lack of willingness to rotate

Agreed and plenty of teams have won these tournaments without a world class striker at the helm. The two strikers for Argentina and France in the World Cup final for France were Alvarez and a 37 y old giroud respectively for example

Mainoo has looked really good and all but he’s literally made only 15 PL starts in his career with his first coming in late November. It’s incredibly early to have any idea how good he’s gonna be. As others have said, there’s absolutely no way he gets that call up if he doesn’t play for Man Utd. The way it’s been done is literally as if Southgate is doing it off one game alone (the Liverpool game). More generally has anyone got the stats on which players have got called up for England with fewest PL appearances? This has got to be right up there which you’d normally associate with a generational talent. Maybe Mainoo is that but it seems a bit far None of this is to take away from his performances so far but one of the biggest stains on the game is the way the England set up entrenches the top 6 bias and this is yet another example. Instead of promoting a more level playing field so that there’s greater development of talent across the board, England will repeatedly favour the bigger sides, incentivising players to sign for those clubs and sit on their bench knowing their England career is better off there than actually playing for one of the weaker sides. We were all completely bemused that chukwumeka pushed to leave to go to Chelsea despite doing next to nothing in the game to date. It’s bullshit like this Mainoo news that makes things like that happen

Government sponsored regulators pay far too little to satisfy the desires of the Eton old boys network

He was absolute wank every time he started for us and I have no problem with the decision not to play even if it was Gerrard who made it. He’s a billy big bollocks who thought he was better than us and made a stupid move to a club which will now hang him out to dry. I’m enjoying watching his failure play out in real time

Oh bore off mate. You clearly hate watching villa so just give it a rest

Yeah I completely agree with this. Every one of the line up decisions feels designed for extra height. Duran and Roger’s in, konsa at RB instead of cash. The only surprise from that perspective is lenglet retaining his place over Carlos who is more aerially dominant. As others have said already, this might pay off on the basis that West Ham aren’t gonna seek to engage in a midfield battle so sacrificing control for physicality could work. I think it’s a massive game for tielemans though and he really needs to step up

Imagine if @CVByrne were a spurs fan right now

Really oddly he says that the BBC has gone woke and then uses the way they treated Gary Linekar as an example of it despite that being an example of the BBC thinking he was too woke. Just goes to show- it’s not because you’re white lawro, it’s because you’re thick

You’re right. Winning against city and arsenal was practically comedic. I was rolling on the floor laughing

They’re a shambles of a club but I don’t think not trusting OGS is one of their worst sins. He reminds me a bit of Tim Sherwood with the way he talks about Haaland. He happened to manage him early in his career but OGS’s later transfer dealings don’t suggest he had any particular niche at spotting talent

One of the athletic journos suggested a line up that I thought could work nicely: Pickford walker Stones. Konsa. Colwill Rice TAA. Bellingham Saka Foden Kane the idea would be that in possession stones does what he does for city and pushes up into midfield to form a box midfield with him and rice at the base, meaning that walker, konsa and Colwill form a back three. That solves the “who do we pair with rice?” question and should give us ample control in possession. You could then be creative with where you put TAA and potentially position him quite far wide almost as a wing back to create space and enable saka/foden to operate more centrally which could suit each player’s strengths better. So in possession it could look like this: Pickford Walker Konsa Colwill Stones Rice TAA Bellingham Saka Foden Kane The big outstanding q is who plays in defence. I’ve gone for Colwill in the LCB/Lb role but shaw could also potentially do it given he’s played CB for united (mings would have been good at it if he was fit). And I’ve arbitrarily put Konsa in the other slot (though that’s largely villa bias). Theres of course absolutely no chance Southgate does this. But if you were to exploit the best way of operating the main tactical innovation of recent years (the box midfield), this would be the way to do it.

I’d probably call up rashford in any case just cause he offers something a bit different to the other wide options. He’s much more direct, has more physicality and effectively plays as a second striker wanting to run in behind which tends to complement Kane nicely when he drops deep. I wouldn’t start him but I think he’s a decent alternative option if we need a goal in a game. Its more difficult to justify picking grealish given foden and saka offer similar qualities in my view- wanting to get on the ball and take players on

Yeah it’s as you first described- it’s basically criticising the team for not being clinical enough in front of goal and therefore coming to rue not having scored later on in the game. It’s interesting though that it sounds odd to American ears. When I lived in the states for a year I used to confuse people by suggesting we meet at “midday”, which I later learned didn’t have any meaning for Americans: “ok so that’s like 3pm right?”

Some bloke called Gary linekar

I think we’re now at a stage in the league where every game is gonna be seen as a cup final to secure CL football. That means it makes sense to rest players where we can for the ECL games in my view. Based on that I’d go with: Martinez Cash Konsa. Lenglet. Digne Iroegbunam Mcginn Diaby Rogers Zaniolo. Watkins

There’s a common theme when we lose control of games that dougie has become anonymous. That’s either due to him switching off a bit or being marked out of the game. Often a combo of both I guess. Luton made the centre of the pitch v congested in that second half which would have made it difficult. But I think there were a couple of times where Luiz made a couple of rash decisions in possession at 2-0 when he could have slowed things down to take the sting out of the game. I think this is the other area where we really miss Pau. Without him (as well as Kamara), we really massively on dougie for control

You can say that again!

Fully in control. Watkins looks unplayable at the moment: a constant threat and contributing loads in terms of hold up play. Looks like he’s hitting a purple patch which bodes well. Honourable mentions to lenglet and McGinn who have been very composed. Roger’s is also fitting in nicely

I take the narrative more to be: “he’s not as professional as he could be and so likely won’t have a career at the top level that far into his 30s”. Feel free to disagree with it of course but I’ve not seen anyone saying that he’s a washed up alcoholic or that he’ll retire by 30

Had anyone said anything near to this?

Their performances, goal difference and XG metrics place them mid table at best. This is an average team getting lucky results. The performances and stats prove it

They went on a brilliant run at the start of 2023 which ETH has been dining out on ever since

The most worrying thing if I were a united fan is that ETH seems to think they’re playing well

I know we do this every week but how, just how, is the Utd - Fulham game first on MoTD. An average game other than the last 20 minutes between the teams in 6th and 13th respectively. Literally the only “justification” is that it’s Utd