I'll keep this one simple, blast Monaco away and hope Brugge somehow manage to steal a point or three from Atlético Madrid. Monaco haven't played in a week and a half due to the protests in France, which could work to their advantage.
The team travelled today without Reus quad Witsel timeout Sancho bereaved Delaney calf LP knee JBL knee Frankly, I would like to see Götze play behind Paco and see how they work together. 1st spot is out of reach at this point. Monaco is going to put on a master call I bet.
Very happy with the squad. Reus and Witsel are badly in need of a rest and a chance for Weigl and Dahoud to show what they have. Hopefully results go our way, but those players were due a rest. Hopefully they grt a break again next Tuesday.
Kicker thinks this is the formation: Hitz Hakimi Diallo Toprak Schmelzer Weigl Dahoud Pulisic Philipp Guerreiro Götze I'm not sure who will be the striker/false 9 this time but I was hoping Philipp would have gotten a chance on the wings. Götze on the 10 instead of Philipp would have made more sense. It's a good combination of rotation and giving a couple of people a chance to impress to get more playing time. I hope that those who saw their playing time reduced don't regard this as a meaningless game but will instead do their best to use this opportunity for their own good. All of the players execept Hakimi should be fresh. With the right attitude, there is still loads of quality in this eleven and on the bench but they'll probably need some time to get used to playing together. I'd like to see Gomez as well.
I can't believe I'm going to say this but Schmelzer is actually good in this match after his lengthy injury layoff. Man of the match so far is Gurreiro. Weigl also hasnt been bad given lack of match practice. Hakimi has played alright. Same with Diallo and Hitz. But the rest of the squad sucks. Toprak passes to the keeper the most. Pulisic has clearly regressed. Dahoud is awful. Phillip gets worse every game. But the cake goes to Götze. He's horrible. I'd sell him to Monaco right now. That's where he'd fit in perfectly.
So now that the two groups of death have been sorted out (I really wanted Spaletti and Inter + Napoli to make it instead of PSG/Liverpool and Spurs), we can face Spurs, Liverpool, Ajax, Roma or United. I'll take anybody but Liverpool. Watch how we get Liverpool and Bayern get United.
Still doesn't change what I saw today. Raphael was very good, but the attack is dependent on Reus and to a lesser extent Sancho. He can compete with Larsen for the spot. Dahoud was very poor and seemed determined to try and throw the match away, but the defence was good. The match confirmed that we are very, very strong at centre back, strong in midfield and have acceptable cover strikers. I think we actually have a very good shot at Liverpool, but I really want to avoid them. Hopefully we get Roma or Ajax. If we get a favourable draw then the board should really push the boat out in January. This could be a great, great year with potentially a double and a CL semi-final. It would really set this young team up for the future.
The counter that Gotze had in the 80th+ minute of the game where he was running with the ball down the right side on a 4 v 3 situation and ends up with a horrible final touch where he let's the ball get away from him to be easily intercepted by the retreating defender was a microcosm of his career thus far....fast upswing that eventually gets derailed. A pity really. He was just flat out terrible today where his most noteworthy stat has been the amount of time that he has been caught offisides. Dahoud was just as bad with turnover after turnover or lateral passes after lateral passes. He is supposed to provide a direct link to our attack but that just never happens. He is just to risk averse despite having the technical capabilities to take on opponents and deliver good through balls. Pulisic has been trying to find his game all season to the point where he has stagnated and his frustration shows. Currently he plays blind football without any success in the final third. His single best action of the season was the assist on the JBL goal vs Nurnberg but it's been downhill from there. Schmelzer was MOTM for me today despite the long layoff.
That is the Mario Götze of today. Back in 2012 he used to run at defenders. Today he passes the ball back. He's turned into an expensive Castro. Even Castro had BS stats to look half decent on paper. We need players who run at defenders. Despite Pulisic making questionable decisions he still runs at defenders. Players' decision making can improve but they rarely go from being a wimp on the ball to gutsy. Even Miki at his trough showed that he had courage. Him wearing the arm band and putting up that display was an insult to that position. Hummels, Weidenfeller, Reus, Piszczek, Kehl have never not given close to their 100% in the black and yellow.
so after winning the group.. do they redraw for next round or is our opponent already tied to us due to the group setup?
There's going to be a draw on Monday. We can't face a German team, so S404 is out. Unless something crazy happens tonight, i.e Young Boys beat Juventus, these are the teams we can meet: Lyon Ajax Roma Liverpool Tottenham Man United
It depends on how highly you rate Ajax (they have some very promising players coming up), but I'd prefer them not beating Bayern which would give them the group win and would increase our chances to get Liverpool/Tottenham.
Man, all the late scores are crazy right now. Only without VAR is Bayern ahead of Ajax, clear penalty and a half in the first half. Every other result is unexpected as of 60' in all the games.
I'll take any team over Liverpool. I hope they face Bayern and put them out of their misery. My preference would be Lyon or Roma. United not bad either.
Y ea 5 clean sheets in 6 matches...although, outside of Atletico, the competition was less then stellar offensively.
Our group was the stingiest group in the CL. Brugge are a defensive stalwart. Atletico is the global benchmark. And we topped this group by allowing the fewest and scoring the most.
I'm just glad we conceded the required 2 goals in our loss to Atlético, as no club has ever won the Champions League by conceding less than 2 goals.