And speaking of malcontents, they’ve now signed Rabiot from Juve. It’s like they’re trying to break the club
I suppose Juve accepted the offer; nothing is final until he’s holding the jersey but I cannot imagine how adding yet another underperforming headache is going to help them unless the idea is to have all these pains in the ass cancel each other out.
their fans they seem to be rationalizing it on the basis that he's not McTominay, or Fred. can't argue with that really
McTominay sucks but Fred is a perfectly cromulent squad midfielder. It’s not his fault they paid too much for him. That team is in deep crap. Rashford looks like that penalty miss in the Euros broke him, Shaw looks like he’s turned back into a pumpkin, Bruno looks like OGS running him into the ground broke him and their best striker is their biggest problem and wants to leave. They could absolutely finish in the bottom half. There are plausibly 10 teams that are better.
Hard to know what to make of United. That they've gone the summer without getting a proper 6 in is mind boggling -- I feel like they've needed that for 6 years running at this point. It's hard to see Eriksen as a false 9 working out against many prem sides, for me. Feel like I'd prefer Jadon there. I imagine the counter will be "just the 59M, please". The thing about Haaland is... maybe he won't dominate in this set up in terms of opening the scoring, but he is going to kill a lot of games off for them. Just like this weekend. As soon as an opponent comes out against them, it can be that easy -- 1 perfect pass, 1 finish. Game over.
Just one note - lost in the sad end to our season - your united prediction last season didn't quite work out, no?
Well, he's actually an exceptionally good player. Him, McTominay and Ericcson might be a useful enough midfield to get into the top 4.... not sure about Rabiot's overall temperament though... Deschamps doesn;t seem to want to bother with him....
Yeah, and in the years they finished 2nd and 3rd you both predicted them outside the top 4... so, take it easy. They should be on the phone getting a DM in right now, would make a lot of other decisions easier... but literally most of their transfers not working out for them & their defense falling off a cliff, that tends to make it a little easier to predict their trajectory.
The recruitment strategy there boggles the mind. It’s fascinating from the outside looking it at how an organization with so many financial advantages just can’t figure it out.
No doubt recruitment overall is confusing, and the management decisions have been basically consistently bad since SAF. And Ten Haag... who knows if he is the guy to bring it together. Doesn't look like it, with Eriksen at false 9 at least...
he's as bad as any of their current CBs. Been on a steady decline the last two years. Bit of an odd move.
Chelsea are preparing to offer a world-record fee for a defender in a bid to sign French centre-back Wesley Fofana, 21, from Leicester City.
this is going great .... https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/62471576 Man Utd's Marko Arnautovic interest 'a PR disaster', says Chris Sutton In June 2021, Arnautovic said he was "not a racist" following an incident during Austria's Euro 2020 win over North Macedonia that led to him being found guilty of "insulting another player" and suspended by Uefa for one match. Arnautovic, who has Serbian heritage, had to be restrained by captain David Alaba as he celebrated his goal and appeared to direct comments at opponents Egzon Bejtulai and Gjanni Alioski, who have Albanian roots.
So barca sold 25% of their La Liga TV rights for 25 years. What happens if the financial troubles get so bad they go down. Then they have sold something they can't deliver
The heat death of the universe will occur before Barca are one of the bottom 3 sides in La Liga. The end of that table is like mid table MLS