He's done good opinion friendlies, hmm ... First two games of Aguirre's tenure were bad, whether it's in terms of content or simply looking forward, and I blame it on bad advices when it comes to players selection.
Yeah 1:1 hats off to them for what they are producing. Small but club run in the right way. And it was our countries top scorer's son (as well as Maribor's sporting director) Zahovič's son age of just 18 who scored the equalizer.
Don't think so, right now it's all pretty hierarchical in Sporting. Turnover between league matches and CL matches has been pretty much non-existant whatsoever.
Going to a major Portuguese club isn't a move I would advise to any japanese player. They buy a ton of low risk players and either loan them out or let them rot on the sidelines. Benfica have 13 players on loan and it's an improvement over last year ...
yeah it's true. And I wouldn't be salty if he had, at least, reasonably better players than him before him who sit on the bench. Or, if he had chances in cup matches, turnover and so on. That's on the coach and it's pretty meh
To be fair, Sporting has only a few players out on loan, and they're on loan because we couldn't get rid of them. We can't really afford to sign expendable players. Tanaka's got his position well covered so far, with Slimani (on good form) and Montero (who finally scored and played well recently). Also, our only cup match so far was against Porto, so there was virtually no squad rotation (Montero started though). The league cup starts in November, he should get his chance by then. Plus, Slimani will play the CAN in January.
If the CAN happens ... seriously though, a player who just signed cannot be content with a first chance coming in November.
Maybe Junya will go in January like Slimani, you don't know Aguirre plans. Sure, if he doesn't play are few chances, but...
well covered? I'm sorry but that doesn't mean anything. Montero has played 6 matches already and scored one goal. Tanaka has played 10 minutes and in those he hit the post which lead to a goal. It's really just about hierarchy, which is why you see stuff like this comment There was no meritocracy whatsoever after the pre-season. I'm not asking for Tanaka to play instead of Slimani, but he should've had his chances when things weren't going that well. Those points wasted at the beginning of the season ain't coming back, anyway. A soft rotation usually happens in Champions League as well, unless you want to kill your players, but I guess whatever is in their bottles they get must work well enough. Anyway, gotta hope someone breaks a couple of players at this point. Maybe it will happen, eventually, and I'll be curious watching the coach using players whose fitness obviously dropped. And Tanaka could be going to the Asian Cup too :/.
Judging Montero's performance by his goals is a mistake. He had a good performance against Gil Vicente, coming in with 1 goal and 1 assist, so he earned his spot against Porto. Apart from that, he only played a few minutes on those other games. Yes, Tanaka played really well every time he got in, but we owe Montero the benifit of the doubt, because he has already shown great quality, and it was clear that he was just lacking confidence. Leaving him out of the first choices would kill every chance of getting him back on top form. Trust me, I often begged for Tanaka, but I understand our coach's decision, we can't waste a player with Monero's potential. Btw, that sort of facebook comment is quite usual. Many people can't understand the complex decisions that have to be made. You'll often see people asking for Capel instead of Carrillo, or Lopes for Cédric, which is scary. As for meritocracy, there were only two spots avaliable for it, and they've already been taken: João Mário for André Martins and Oliveira for Sarr. With Slimani in shape, there was no need to change anything up front.
I guess I haven't been clear enough: the problem is that Montero was honestly awful before the end of september. I saw all the games until Slimani came back (that was the last I saw). He did good against Gil Vicente? Well thanks, I bet Tanaka would've done something too if he had 1/10 of the chances Montero has had. That's the sad problem. The only time he played he hit a post which lead to the 3 points. And the coach puts him out of the team? I mean, really? I wish Tanaka had a chance to earn his spot against Porto too :/ It would've been pretty infuriating if Montero wasn't able to do anything - which is why there were comments like the one I posted you for weeks until he finally did something. Then you don't sign a 28 years old player for 5 years, sorry. If Montero has his spot locked on anyway "because of his potential" even when someone is playing better than him then I hope Tanaka manages to get out ASAP at the end of the season despite the contract. If you want to talk about potential, then it has to be the same for everyone, including Tanaka (who's gone double digit in the JLeague too, by the way). You're already assuming Montero is better than him when nobody has any idea about what he can do. And I'm not saying he is better, I can't know if he doesn't even play. Oh, I can assure you it was the same every single week for most of September, so it's not that surprising that it had 155 people on it at that point. You can check for yourself. Of course, fans often have unreasonable demands but that definitely didn't seem the case. It was a simple comment about letting someone else a chance, considering he did well when he was involved, and especially since he was one of the best players in the pre season. I was surprised as I thought portoguese fans didn't give a damn about him but I guess not everyone was blind. Which brings back to the initial problem, which is Tanaka never getting a chance ahead of Montero (or even Manè)
Slimani got injured today. It's your fault! I'm not saying Tanaka didn't deserve a chance. What I'm saying is that I understand our coach's choice of playing Montero. Because we already know what he can do, and he is capable of big things. He took the "safe" way out. Plus there is a problem that maybe outside fans are unaware of: the "Tribunal de Alvalade" (Alvalade court). This means that new players are often judged badly by Sporting's own fans, with the help of the portuguese media. Nani was whistled almost every match before he left to Man Utd, for example. Sporting fans are very unpatient, and we need to be careful playing new players because they may get "burned" quickly by the press and fan base if they don't show above average quality right away. The contract is the same for every player signed. It's like the high release clause, every player signed by this board gets a 5 year contract. I had said earlier in this topic that Tanaka was gaining credit. I'm at the stadium on every home match, and I hear what that commenter asks every time. And I get that. I myself posted here a few weeks ago, begging for Tanaka's inclusion. Maybe with Slimani's injury he gets his chance.
And he got replaced by Montero who sco- oh wait... (just kidding) Again, I certainly didn't see them in september, but can't judge anymore as I didn't watch the team in october. I don't think Tanaka is any afraid of that. Especially after the preaseason. I was curious about the reactions so I went on to check Sporting's biggest forum. There were a lots of "meh who's this guy? :/ " posts when he was signed, as I expected. Well, there weren't anymore after August - if anything, there were people getting angry that he was being left out. While it's true that a player could be burned, I can safely say that the safest way to burn him is completely kill his confidence week after week by leaving him out of the bench when he has delivered like the coach has done. I don't know what would happen if he had to play right now, I can only hope he'd do as well as one month ago. Didn't know, thanks. While I get the release clause thing, this one is very weird and, to be honest, could destroy the career of a player if he doesn't play and doesn't even go on loan.
Carrillo is another example. Last season, you could see fear and despair in his face when he was on the field. He's not an easy player to deal with, he looses a lot of simple plays, but everytime things didn't go his way he was whistled, and it was clear he was touched by it. It was embarassing, to be honest. He showed great mental strenght to succeed after everything he's been through. But hey, I don't know if this had any thing to do with Tanaka's exclusion. But there are two cases that I highly suspect this could happen: Paulo Oliveira (had a bad pre-season, was already starting to get negative reviews and doubts by the fans and press) and João Mário (who played well in the pre-season, but Martins was a "safer" choice to avoid this). They both got their chance, and now they're solid on the first 11. It's an exaggerated measure. I understand the need to protect our contracts after what happened with Ilori, Bruma and Dier, but there should be more caution about this kind of signings. Another one was Salim Cissé, who signed for 5 years, didn't really show anything and now he's lost on the b squad (he's still young but I doubt he'll ever achieve anything here).
What a shitty competition it's that UEFA Champions League. Your team was clearly robbed, Inkie. How to put a russian referee to a Schalke game when they have major sponsor gazprom? the russian referee made everything for Schalke to win. First a red card who was easy granted, then a non-existent PK for a hand ball. The ball hits the face of Sporting player What a disgrace. The same thing happened last year with Basel. Congrats to Sporting who managed to level the score with a man down, but you can't fight with the MAFIA.
But the penalty wasn't awarded by the referee, it was done by the linesman... maybe he was russian too but it seems a bit conspiracy like.