Outside of his goal, I wasn't all that impressed. Thought their offense looked worse then ours until Eriksen got into the game. He completely changed things and made others look better. If he pushes his way before end of Aug, they may struggle a bit early in the season.
Yeah, I absolutely hate that aspect of Almiron (and anyone else who "plays" that way). I would hope that his reputation will catch up with him and the refs will start giving him simulation yellows. In fact, I think if the ref blows the whistle for simulation, like he clearly did for Almiron yesterday, it should be an automatic yellow. That would be one small but forceful step toward eradicating that scourge. Edit: Perhaps they already have? I see that @chjoak clarified that he did in fact earn a yellow for that dive in the box.
I recall several examples of diagonal through balls out wide to our wingers or wingbacks. I sense that we'll be seeing a lot more of that.
Thanks for sharing. I'd listen to it, except that I literally stopped listening to Jose somewhere during his ManUre phase. Now I literally tune him out, turn him off, or fast-forward through anything he says. It's sad, because he's probably got quite a bit of wisdom inside there. I just finally got saturated by the a$$hole that he is. Luckily there aren't too many people on that list with him.
I was pleasantly surprised because I expected his arsey behaviour to continue But actually he offered insights at a much higher level than Carra and Neville Basically he showed they don't understand game management very well
I do t mind mourinho these days tbh. He is very insightful, sadly his philosophy could do with updating Football has gone to a deep stage of high pressure in specific areas with tactical fouling (pep loves this) and looking for cut backs That seems to be the meta
I'm trying to understand the disconnect between the opinion of many on this board that Xhaka is sh*t vs. the opinion of our manager, who has made Xhaka one of our captains and starts him in roughly 70% of our fixtures. So what gives? A lot of you talk about Xhaka like it's just a matter of time before he's sold, but clearly he's a big part of the club's plans in midfield.
Much appreciated, lol! Seriously, I've been trying to understand it for some time, maybe I'm not the most scrutinizing of observers. I can tell when Mustafi screws up, but as far as Xhaka goes, he seems pretty serviceable to me. What is it that he should/shouldn't be doing??
I wrong a post about him in the pre season thread right after our game vs Bayern, if you care to take a look. The short story is he is deficient in too many areas for us and only excels at 2 things, moving the ball forward and set pieces. He’s a liability many times and the team set up is half the reason. He really needs two players next to him to make up for what he lacks. I feel like a lot of his mistakes aren’t noticed immediately and they get pinned on a CB later. Resting between sets at the gym lol..
Wouldn’t be so bad with 2 CMs that are defensive minded but in an Ozil-Xhaka-Torreira midfield, he gets exposed.
Just so I'm clear, are you saying he should be played as more of an attacking / creative midfielder, or that he shouldn't be played at all?
I’d prefer not to play him but if we are going to maximize his skillset, he needs to have less defensive responsibility.
I really hope I’m wrong because I like his game, but I don’t think Torreira is going to make it here. (The reaction to this is going to be interesting.)