Suddenly my Twitter feed is full of "Barnsley's Moneyball is working and it sucks". Pretty sure the ultimately distilled version of this is to play for every set piece, specialize in every free kick and throw in situation you can possibly conceive. They'll machine learn that shit. Different, ever more ridiculous set pieces. They'll have both looping and flat long throwers. Two guys will be hanging by the sideline like on a free kick so you don't know which it'll be. It'll be 10 NBA power forwards and a center and we'll all want to puke.
Both things can be true. MLS average technical quality may be slightly higher than the championship. But its not high enough for me to wish to watch consistently (I catch a few matches). The big problem is the league's format discounting the league season via MLS Cup. That's not a format I'm a fan of, and I suspect it holds a minority of potential fans back as well (outside of the other issues we're all aware of). Dike needs to score in this second leg.
His teammates need to find him in better spots. I know they love their route 1 football, but that first leg was ridiculous. Dont think he had even a half chance in that game.
Agree they over rely on his hold up play, but they actually almost made it work, somehow. Dike had a cross he over hit by about a yard that would have almost certainly been a goal (it was like a 5 on 1 break) and then he had a masterful bit of play winning the ball and flicking a half volley through ball that the Swansea keeper made an excellent read on to clear. Swansea seem a very good defensive side that can grub it up, even for the Championship.
Well, so far Dike has not scored against any of the 8 top teams, so scoring against Swansea would prove he can score against better defenses.
Partly. It was imported from European club football in the mid-50s, partly to avoid the boring football you mentioned, but primarily to avoid replays and the extra travel involved. Back then, Everton, say, playing Sporting Lisbon meant a propeller plane with a refueling stop somewhere in France. Each leg of the flight would easily have been 2 hours longer than the equivalent today, so at least four hours extra each way. Even today's long-distance flights on soundproofed jets really do take it out of the players, so you can imagine what 10-12 hours on one of those would have done. That's the player fatigue issue. Nobody had to tell the organizers and the clubs about flight safety. Even before Munich, there'd been Torino in 1949 and two crashes involving the Czech ice hockey team in 1948 and 1956.
Game starts at 1:30 pm eastern on ESPN+. Game day thread: https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/dike-20-21-all-games-pbp-thread.2113904/page-11
He'll play, probably coming off the bench round the 65th minute and his performance today will tell us a lot about his actual level. Swansea having one of the three best defences in the division this season shouldn't surprise anyone - they were a Premier League side 3 years ago. They still have 6 players around from that season, and have been signing or loaning lower EPL-quality defenders since then: 3 of their 5 CBs are on loan from EPL sides. Maybe the first leg was simply a bad day at the office for Daryl, or maybe a better-quality pool of defenders, coached by a guy whose resume includes managing Liverpool's academy and England's U-17s is a step too far for Daryl to handle - or perhaps (man)handle - alone just yet .
The commentator mentioned that the Barnsley coach thought the players depended on Dike too much the last match. And that they want to get their leading scorer Woodrow in advanced positions. So that’s why he isn’t starting along with Morris playing so well off the bench last time out.
Ugh, this game is like nails on a chalkboard. Someone please let me know when Dike comes on, I can't subject myself to this without a rooting interest. The ball barely touches the ground. Makes the concurrent Cincy/MTL game look like La Liga by comparison...
Welp, thats it. No way theyre scoring 2 goals in this game. Good run for barnsley but they arent premier league level
BS foul call on the Barnsley player that lead to the free kick which resulted in the goal. ********ing grandpa Routledge was pulling his shirt. They should at least have VAR for the playoffs. Swansea's goal in the 1st leg wouldn't have counted either
Could it be the refs were getting "instructions" that Barnsley were too small a club to let into the PL ?
More likely their instructions were to punish the team that plays like your local public high school.
Thank god that’s over. I grew a soft spot for Dike and Barnsley but got tired of that brand of football. Even there at the end of today’s match there were way too many balls up in the air with hopes that Dike would do something magical. He rarely had a chance to try and build anything going forward. I think Brentford beats Swansea but now my watch of championship football is over.