Football Thread 2021/22 Part 2 - Matt Le Tosser, Dejan Moron and Thickie Lambert

[shoulders]

Is he? That's a shame, I've always had him on my "surprisingly not a cunt despite their appearance" list along with Jay Rayner and Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen.

Atypical haircut for middle aged white man: Cunt?

[sprocket]

Atypical hair cut for middle aged white man: Cunt?

Yes.

[shoulders]

Won't disagree there.

[Utter Shit]

Atypical haircut for middle aged white man: Cunt?

I'd say the haircut comes into it, yeah. The cunt ratio among middle-aged men that choose to look like D'Artagnan must be off the charts.

[SpiderChrist]

Even I can't watch it. Obviously I want England to do well but the whole thing leaves me cold.

Nah, fuck England. And fuck the World Cup too.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61504376

[bgmnts]

For me personally, the 2014 Brazil world cup will take some beating in terms of that kind of bad shit.

Dead workers, protests, the Budweiser bill, massive appropriaton and misuse of public funding, a very dirty nasty set of games and very dodgy reffing. My memory falters but I definitely remember it being a bad tournament surrounded by controversy.

[checkoutgirl]

we've essentially turned into Spain now.

Chelsea, City, Man Utd, Arsenal, Leicester is 5 teams in the last what, 15 years? Blackburn 25 years ago makes it 6.

Yeah, maybe not great. It's been a 2 horse race for 5 years or so but Man Utd will probably come back in the next couple of years to add a third horse.

[imitationleather]

Man Utd will probably come back in the next couple of years to add a third horse.

lol no chance

[Joe Qunt]

I personally back England to get to the final. I would absolutely love for them to fuck it up on penalties again. That summer when they lost the Euros was one of the greatest of my life.

[JamesTC]

Chelsea, City, Man Utd, Arsenal, Leicester is 5 teams in the last what, 15 years? Blackburn 25 years ago makes it 6.

Yeah, maybe not great. It's been a 2 horse race for 5 years or so but Man Utd will probably come back in the next couple of years to add a third horse.

In the last 20 years there have been 6 winners of the English league (United, Arsenal, Chelsea, City, Leicester, Liverpool).

In the last 20 years there have been 4 winners of the La Liga (Real Madrid, Barca, Atlético Madrid, Valencia).

Initially Germany looks more competitive with 5 winners in the last 20 years but then you realise Bayern have won the last ten in a row.

I think a more worthy analysis is how much did teams run away with it. Liverpool and Leicester pretty much ran away with it when they won it (the league tried to push the Spurs v Leicester narrative but that was mostly just to drum up interest). The Invincibles ran away with it. United, City and Chelsea have each had a couple of run away league wins. All together, it seems like every other season there is at least genuine competition for the league title all the way through to the end and it isn't usually from the same teams.

[checkoutgirl]

lol no chance

It's not that fanciful. They have a huge stadium and they're one of the Coca Cola/McDonalds global brand teams of the world. They have a football museum thing in China. They've outspent most teams in the last few years and the money will keep coming in. If they spend the money properly and sort out the staff they'll come back, unfortunately.

Liverpool winning the league seemed just as mad a few years ago.

[shoulders]

Nah, fuck England. And fuck the World Cup too.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61504376

Horrible that the cunts at FIFA found even further depths to plummet to the extent that it is completely indefensible to watch the tournament. As a fan that's as bad as it gets.

[Utter Shit]

we've essentially turned into Spain now. It's either going to be Liverpool or City. Nobody else can get close. Chelsea's time is up, Man United are a shadow of their former selves and Arsenal and Spurs can't catch up.

People said that about United/Arsenal's rivalry, then about United singularly, then about Chelsea...it doesn't happen. You can reasonably assume that City will always be up there because they can have a bad season and just reinvest to sort themselves out. But Liverpool will fall away, Chelsea will come back, United will come back, unfortunately you can assume that Newcastle will be up there soon enough, and there's certainly scope for at least one of Tottenham and Arsenal to become an elite force with the requisite ambition from the owners.

The Premier League winners since the turn of the century are:

Man Utd x7, Man City x6, Chelsea x5, Arsenal x2, Leicester x1, Liverpool x1

Since the turn of the century in the other big leagues around Europe:

La Liga - Barcelona x10, Real Madrid x8, Atletico x2, Valencia x2
Serie A - Juventus x11, Inter x6, Milan x3, Roma x1 (one not awarded)
Bundesliga - Bayern x16, Dortmund x3, Wolfsburg x1, Werder Bremen x1, Stuttgart x1
Ligue 1 - PSG x8, Lyon x7, Lille x2, Monaco x1, Montpellier x1, Nantes x1, Bordeaux x1, Marseille x1

So only Ligue 1 has a better record of sharing it around, and even that is very misleading given that PSG have won their eight leagues in the past ten years. By comparison in the years since City's takeover, there have been five different Premier League winners. 

It's a small silver lining on an otherwise extremely shit situation that is gradually ruining the Champions League (you want to talk about dominance, look at the number of English teams in the European finals over the past few years), but the Premier League's financial dominance over all other leagues has actually made it more competitive within the league itself.

City have all the money, but they can only have 20-odd players registered and the second-tier (Spurs, Arsenal) and even third-tier (Leicester, West Ham, Everton, Villa, Wolves) teams in the league are now able to hoover up excellent players that would once have been at the top sides in smaller league (the likes of Lyon, Valencia, Porto, Benfica etc) allowing them to compete better with the top PL clubs. There are a lot of excellent players around the world, and now the top four, six or even ten sides in the PL are too financially strong for big clubs in Europe to compete for them.

[TrenterPercenter]

Villa get in early with a good signing

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61547623

Too early to say how much of hit he will be he looks suitably tidy.  No doubt the Villa faithful will se him as boring but he is exactly what we need, and thank god he is actually over 6ft which is a start.

[Utter Shit]

That looks on paper (as someone who has never seen him play!) an excellent signing, partly because he's been touted for most of the top clubs in Europe and partly because he's exactly the type of player Villa need. It's also a very handy example of what I mentioned above - a few years ago, would Villa have been able to sign a player interesting most of Europe's top clubs, or sign Coutinho?

[bgmnts]

I was about to say, yeah. That's an impressive coup.

[Inspector Norse]

Looks a promising signing although hotly-touted box-to-box midfielders from Ligue 1 are ten-a-penny: as much chance of landing a Seri or M'Vila as an Ndidi or Fabinho.

[imitationleather]

Worst of all, you could end up with a fucking Ndombele.

[TrenterPercenter]

That looks on paper (as someone who has never seen him play!) an excellent signing, partly because he's been touted for most of the top clubs in Europe and partly because he's exactly the type of player Villa need. It's also a very handy example of what I mentioned above - a few years ago, would Villa have been able to sign a player interesting most of Europe's top clubs, or sign Coutinho?

Especially considering it was a free transfer.

I agree with what you are saying and was saying something similar when Grealish left and we went straight out and bought some Bundesliga hot property.

What villa don't have is the international brand so despite having the 4th/3rd richest owners (£10 billion, 4 billion less than Abramovich when he was there) they are the 10th richest club by net value, about £400 million.  When you look at other clubs like Tottenham for example they are bringing in £2.3 billion net despite their owners only having about £5 billion so you can see how some owners are looking for a business investment to add to their own personal wealth purchasing power.  This is basically what is going on now, all funny money but because there is so much of it they are becoming viable business interests which is different from the silent sugar daddy approach of before (though obviously Newcastle are about to buck this trend).

[Vitamin C]

Regarding Man Utd making a comeback, they finished second in the league last season under Ole. Plus Arsenal didn't play in Europe at all this season and Spurs barely did, and you have to think that worked in their favour in terms of league placings. Let's see how they do with a more punishing schedule next season. It wouldn't surprise me to see Man Utd get top four again, they should, in theory, have a better infrastructure in place to cope with the amount of games than those two clubs.

[Captain Z]

Man Utd have only been slightly worse this season than last, it's just that this season they weren't handed penalties every week. They basically need to replace the entire squad so even if they do immediately offload most of the dead wood/bad influences I don't see them rebuilding quickly enough to challenge for a couple of seasons at least.

[Utter Shit]

Regarding Man Utd making a comeback, they finished second in the league last season under Ole. Plus Arsenal didn't play in Europe at all this season and Spurs barely did, and you have to think that worked in their favour in terms of league placings. Let's see how they do with a more punishing schedule next season. It wouldn't surprise me to see Man Utd get top four again, they should, in theory, have a better infrastructure in place to cope with the amount of games than those two clubs.

United's problem is fairly simple IMO, the football side of the club has been extremely badly run recently. Obviously it being a simple diagnosis isn't the same as being a simple fix, but everything else is in place for them to be an elite club again - huge income, big (but apparently knackered?) stadium, huge name value around the world, excellent training facilities - they just need someone to take all those vast resources and stop spunking it on the wrong players and the wrong personalities.

Ralf Rangnick got slaughtered because of the results on the pitch, but as far as I can tell he's done exactly the job he was asked to do - get into the club, find and expose all the dickheads and blaggers, then move upstairs and continue laying the foundations in more subtle ways while the manager gets a clean slate. I think he's done a good job of that. Whether it's a new start or not is another queston, it felt to me like Ten Hag was a good appointment until about 6pm yesterday when him and his security staff evaded fairly mundane media questions like a suspected nonce trying to escape the courthouse into a waiting car.

As @Captain Z said above, it's pretty clear what the problem is - they only have a handful of good players, and of those good players they do have a lot of them are either questionable personalities (Pogba, Fernandes), not suited to the setup (Ronaldo) or just injured too often to be any use (Varane, Bailly). Personally I think De Gea and Sancho are the only two who are unqestionably good enough for where United want to be, and then I'd keep Rashford because he seems obviously a very good player who has had his confidence killed, and McTominay is exactly the sort of character they need even if he's probably only good enough to be a squad player if they get to where they want to be.

[Kankurette]

The Manchester Derby is now the Bald Derby.

[Kankurette]

I personally back England to get to the final. I would absolutely love for them to fuck it up on penalties again. That summer when they lost the Euros was one of the greatest of my life.

Not in the World Cup we won't, too many South Americans.

[checkoutgirl]

they just need someone to take all those vast resources and stop spunking it on the wrong players and the wrong personalities.

Their recruitment structure is apparently a mess. Hanging onto shite but expensive players just so they don't devalue as assets and leave the club for free, Joel Glazer whoosits getting a big say in the new signings, missing out on decent players etc.

I still think Fergie sowed the seeds of destruction when he refused to spend years ago, the famous "no value in the market" quote. Players are always a rip off, never stopped you before.

As long as a million Chinese lads are buying United jersies all these problems are solvable. Hopefully they won't be for a good few years though, heh heh.

[checkoutgirl]

Ralf Rangnick got slaughtered because of the results on the pitch, but as far as I can tell he's done exactly the job he was asked to do

I agree generally except for the chat about him taking a national team manager job on the side which sounds fucking nuts. He's making hay but it's an indication of not giving full attention to the current job.

[pigamus]

big (but apparently knackered?) stadium,

Not a big football expert but I enjoy seeing Old Trafford because it all looks like it was built in 1981 - the brickwork and bright red chunky railings and so on - you keep expecting to see Sheena Easton or the kids from Fame or something

[The Culture Bunker]

Whether it's a new start or not is another queston, it felt to me like Ten Hag was a good appointment until about 6pm yesterday when him and his security staff evaded fairly mundane media questions like a suspected nonce trying to escape the courthouse into a waiting car.

I dunno - I approved of that, really. The hack was pretty much getting right in ten Hag's face so was fair game to get bundled aside by the hired goon. Mind, I'm biased by my general dislike of football media.

I'm far from convinced much will change at United. Players have been getting their "side" of the story out to their tame hacks for a little while now, trying to pin everything on anyone but themselves. I can easily see it being a frustrating Summer of us not getting the right new faces in and the horrendous form over the last ten games carrying over into next season. The manager's best hope is to bin off the entire first team squad - as they're the ones most likely to sulk over being asked to adapt to a new system.

Giving Fernandes an extension on his deal sums up how United is run: "we've got a player in the worst form we've seen him in, the team is a mess and we've not sorted out the next manager. Why not extend his contract?" I still expect Pogba to be stinking the place out next year due to Glazer meddling.

[Utter Shit]

I dunno - I approved of that, really. The hack was pretty much getting right in ten Hag's face so was fair game to get bundled aside by the hired goon. Mind, I'm biased by my general dislike of football media.

But it's such a wilfully stupid political move. It doesn't make him look tough and uncompromising, it makes him look like a weirdo. He's only just got there, so none of the questions are going to reflect badly on him, he literally just has to say "happy to be here and can't wait to get started". Being that aggressively defensive before he's even started the job is, if you'll allow me to sound like a cunt for a moment, bad optics.

[Utter Shit]

Their recruitment structure is apparently a mess. Hanging onto shite but expensive players just so they don't devalue as assets and leave the club for free, Joel Glazer whoosits getting a big say in the new signings, missing out on decent players etc.

I still think Fergie sowed the seeds of destruction when he refused to spend years ago, the famous "no value in the market" quote. Players are always a rip off, never stopped you before.

Ferguson shithoused the club a bit in that last season by signing players purely to win the league for him in his last season with no eye on the future. I'd say he had probably earned that, to be fair, and you can't really slaughter someone for creating a team that can immediately win the league, but it was a bit of a hospital pass for the next boss. Especially as his final parting gift was to basically tell the fanbase that their best player and captain was a shitebag.