All over. Schalke needed a lot of breaks to even stay close. When the calls all go against you, never gonna come close to happening.
Their wings are diabolically bad. Caliguri is a good right back, but he ain’t no winger. The new Belgian kid didn’t do anything. Oczipka is average AF at LB, Kenny same thing on the other side and Burgstaller shouldn’t be a starting forward for a big/good Buli team. Sad to see a huge team like Schalke filled with so many shit ass players.
Caliguri really is almost good - but the last ball just isn't there, and it really needs to be. And they play to him like they think he's better than he is.
He's certainly among the most central. He really played a B2B/holding midfield role today - often getting the ball from the CD/FBs, turning to circulate, then crashing the box as Schalke gets forward. People going to hate on for saying this, but he reminds me a lot of Mikey in the Heerenveen/BMG days. He's not a pure "anything" middie - just a guy with great lungs and lots of heart who is comfortable (but not special) holding and pass the ball, comfortable (but not special) getting forward. Wes is more willing to play a "stopper" role as well and has better ups than MB ever did, but they have a similar game. Wes does not (to me) stand out for any specific footballing skill, but the sum of his parts makes him pretty effective/dynamic. Be great if his ball-holding ability improved. If he had better deep-lying distribution, he would be even more effective.
Yep, as noted. But his "role" on this team - and I think most teams - would be most improved with better holding skills and better long-ball vision. Not that he lacks either, but the better those two skills (and his general circulation ability) become, the better player he will be (kinda self-evident, of course, but true nonetheless.)
i liked bradley when he was at his peak but Weston is far more dynamic, faster and with quicker feet. all at a younger age too
Perhaps - but he still reminds me a bit of this guy (don't miss him, the hair will fool you...) To me they play a fairly similar game (Wes, albeit, at a higher level at this stage/age.) (and yeah, I know I'll regret this... but what the heck...)
Wes was a monster today. Great on the ball, slick touches, and box to box like I've never seen. Heart and soul of the Schalke squad. Lazy, tired foul that led to 3rd... cant do that anymore. One of my favorite games by him.
Surely, there's an all touch on the way.... If he had a breakthrough in the second half of the Wolfsburg game last January, this 90 minutes against Bayern was his coming out party.
Did anyone else catch at 77:20, right after another bad call from the ref, McKennie turned towards the ref, raised his eyebrows and made a very deliberate motion like he was putting something in his pocket? Pure speculation but was he implying that the ref was in Bayern’s pocket, or that Bayern stuffed the refs pockets, etc. I’ll see if I can’t clip it but I am not very good at that so no promises. @zlebmada what do you make of this? It looks like he is looking at the ref and making a your in Bayern’s pocket gesture? pic.twitter.com/D2lCTlzqOf— Justin (@Justinpaul10) August 25, 2019
He's definitely among the best. I'd say top 3 easily. That's not saying a ton though because this squad isn't the best he's played with at Schalke by far. Saw that, but I don't think any of the refs saw it real time, so I doubt it actually comes to anything. Definitely tempting fate though.
Schalke were denied what should've been a clear penalty under the new rules (or interpretation, or whatever they call it) that could've made it 2-1. Bayern got a penalty (thoroughly deserved). Every 50/50 call seemed to go to Bayern. When call after call goes against you and a clear penalty is missed, you're going to complain. That said, bad refereeing is not match fixing - suggesting that it was is the bad look, not that the score was 3-0.
Problem is that Bayern seems to always be on the end of those types of calls in the BL.. last year in the match they needed to win and got a red card and a penalty that really werent deserved.. i wanna say it was match day 30 or 31.... perhaps the nurnberg match where they drew... but it just showed that Bayern will get calls when they need them. I question whether they are in pockets but its odd how they seem to get calls no one else does like Duke in college basketball..
Did you see the call against him at the top of the box on Lewandowski? That directly led to the second goal, and it was one of the softest calls of all time. Wes touches his shoulder without any other contact at all and Lewandowski goes down. Later, there was a real shout for a penalty after Wes got a shot off in the box only to get stamped in the middle of his shin just as the ball was heading toward the goal. It was clearly a foul and clearly affected his shot. I would say that Wes did a great job of keeping his composure and this subtle protest was well in bounds, despite the score line. Those were just the calls directly involving McKennie. There were also the hand balls in the box mentioned above.
I imagine the ref, even if he thought all the calls were right, had to recognize that McKennie was on the wrong end of multiple goals and can handle a little hand in pocket protest. It seems like someone gets up in a ref’s face screaming virtually every game without punishment, don’t see why this is nearly as bad as the constant verbal abuse that seems to be acceptable now.
What was the thing that Dolo got dinged for years ago - point to his eye or making the "crazy" finger around his ear or something? It was really innocuous but is one of those "no-nos" in German footie. Anyway, the two no-handling calls were absurd, but the flop on Wes was silly - and is often given as McKennie was beat and made contact. No foul, but give the player the ability to sell the dive. Looked like Fritz wanted Lewdowski to come to Xmas dinner and was making sure not to annoy him.
Yeah, sorry, but Bayern gets the calls. It was terrible. If Wes's tiny grab there was a foul, then every grab is a foul. Watch the game and see how many actually were. A ref can call whatever grab they want, since no grabbing is legal, but they sure as shit better call it the same both ways and all game long. And the lack of calls against Bayern... I am not prone to conspiracy theories. But what other theory is left once you have VAR so you can't just say "aw, the ref missed it because he wasn't in the right spot to see it"?
It's infuriating, reason why I only watch the Bundesliga to see the Yanks play --and to see if Dortmund can win one again. Otherwise, I'm not wasting my time watching a fixed league.