Futbol '23-'24

[roger.haddad.]

"Jordan Henderson played with his SA team in front of a crowd of less than 1000 people. That's why I'm not worried about league, it will never challenge the top leagues. You can buy every top player in the world, you will never get people to watch."

Fair play, hopefully they get to host a WC at some point so they can get bored and move on to the next thing to waste their infinite stores of wealth on.

[surfer]

Catastrophic round of qualifiers for Croatia, losing to both Turkiye and Wales in a span of 4 days, and dropping from 1st with a game in hand, to 3rd. Lot of injuries, and slow fades. Brozovic has had a notable decline in performance since moving to Saudi Arabia, and should probably retire. With Perisic, Petkovic, and Kramaric all out with injuries, an already blunt forward line was even duller. Musa and whomever else they had in there were completely invisible. Pasalic is just not able to affect games. Modric would receive the ball and look around and see nothing. Kovacic gave the ball away with loose passing and over dribbling. Gvardiol was fine, but Vida is another one who needs to retire, so many direct balls over him and he got roasted with pace, reminds me of Dier. Livakovic was primarily responsible for 2 of the 3 goals; he may be a good shot stopper, but he has terrible judgment coming off the line, both finishes were easy lobs with him caught in no man's land. But he is trying to sweeper keep because Vida is so slow.

Bissouma out for today against Fulham, will need Hojbjerg / Sarr / Maddison to really boss the midfield.

[surfer]

Calvin Bassey, my lord, nightmare performance.

Spurs go top, very loose at the back in the 2nd half, gave away a few point blank chances out of sheer boredom it looked. Spurs B team is almost a C team, not many of them are at the needed level. Skipp, Lo Celso look excess to requirements. Veliz and Johnson made no impact.
Kulusevski does some good things, but he's passing up 1 on 1 point blank goal scoring opportunities to make a negative pass into a gaggle of defenders. I'd like to see Gil get a look. Richarlison does some good stuff but sntaches at every scoring chance. I dont know if Richy and Kulusevski are lacking confidence or just deferring to a fault to Maddison and Son. They need to be a little more ruthless. Mixed bag, feels a bit like a house of cards at the moment

[surfer]

Everything I wrote in the above scribbling still applies but tripled. Loose at the back in extra time, house of cards, etc. Bissouma played like a man who knew another yellow would keep him out of the Chelsea match. Sarr has the nous of a baby gazelle. However now the subs made a difference, Emerson Royal, Hojbjerg, and later Johnson gave them more control and a burst of energy. Son is a pressing machine, and a surgeon in front of the net. However lose Mickey V for even one second and watch the cards come falling down.

Arne Slot, Julian Nagelsmann, Ange. Someway we lucked or incompetenced our way into the right choice.
We're 14 points clear of Chelsea.

[roger.haddad.]

Saw a guy at my grocer wearing a Spurs polo and almost said "top of the table" to him but every time I try to talk soccer w/ strangers I leave disappointed and they leave confused so I didn't .

Watching this Liverpool/Forest Game and had no idea Diaz's parents had been kidnapped in Colombia. Fuckin' nuts, I think the mother has been recovered but the father is still missing. Hopefully he's brought home safely soon.

[surfer]

Saw a guy at my grocer wearing a Spurs polo and almost said "top of the table" to him but every time I try to talk soccer w/ strangers I leave disappointed and they leave confused so I didn't .

Watching this Liverpool/Forest Game and had no idea Diaz's parents had been kidnapped in Colombia. Fuckin' nuts, I think the mother has been recovered but the father is still missing. Hopefully he's brought home safely soon.

Disturbing and sad, I hope it is resolved soon. Unfortunately that seems to happen quite often and not just in football. It happened to John Mikel Obi not too long ago. I believe its happened to a bunch of baseball players. Horrible.

If I see another person in Spurs gear, I will usually give them a nod, esp at the gym. Other teams supporters, rarely. Although I did see a Liverpool fan on a hiking trail on the day of the UCL final against Madrid and gave him a "How ya feelin'? But yeah, usually we both have stuff to do.

Ten Hag, circling the drain. He has lost that dressing room surely. Little bit of separation for the top 4, with Villa hanging in there as a spoiler. Newcastle and Brighton not dealing well with the European obligations.

[surfer]

Spurs dont play again until next Monday, by which time they will likely be fourth. I think they are the fourth best team in the league based on current form, although I could see Villa giving them a run.

[roger.haddad.]

The Ten Hag thing, yes, I'll be shocked if he makes it through the season tbh. I liked his hardball approach to tossing Cristiano out and thought maybe he'd be able to bring United up. This obviously made me upset lol. I thought the Casemiro signing was genius also. Whenever United has a bad run and they talk about sacking the manager I'm always of two minds. If they keep him, hopefully they keep the downward trend. If they replace him, the new guy might destabilize the team further. Obviously the worst possible outcome is always preferred lol.

Hopefully they go the Chelsea way and wallow mid table for a while. I know they finished high last season but that seemed to be more related to other teams underachieving than them looking decent.

[roger.haddad.]

Is it weird that I find the thought of Kane not winning a trophy this season REALLY amusing?

[roger.haddad.]

Looks like I missed a wild one with this Spurs/Chelsea game. Jesus.

[Wombatz]

it was strange, when that second goal by son was chalked off something clicked and spurs completely lost it from one instant to the next ...

[surfer]

Strange to watch Luton v Liverpool and see Ross Barkley be MOTM just running the midfield. I daresay a team like Chelsea could use a veteran athletic field general like him!

Spurs were pretty decent up until Udogie's yellow. But maybe as you say Lutz it was Son's chalked off goal. It was around that time when things turned. Hard to say its a mental hoodoo but it is factual that every time we seem to be on a run of positivity, Chelsea derail the train. Romero is just not trustworthy in these types of high stakes matches. He arguably should have been sent off for the Beckham kick out. Its like we're pushing our own self destruct buttons. I dont have much to say about the rest of it: the 9-man high wire offside balancing act, the 3 chances we almost equalized. The only thing that really matters is that Mickey V is out until at least January. Now we'll see how we cope with a combination of Dier/Davies/Royal/Hojbjerg in the back.

I am enjoying Arteta and his club acting like a petulant infant and overbearing parent.

[surfer]

Bayern outscoring the opposition 26-3 over their last 5 games. but Leverkusen keeping pace. There was no reason to think that Harry Kane woudnt become a top scorer in the league, but 17 in 11 games, is quite impressive rate of production. Guirassy from Stuttgart is even more efficient though

Spurs fall in stoppage time. The Dier / Davies Duo was good until it went sour. Losing Mickey V will send us back into the 4th place scrap where we should be, and without Maddison I hope we dont fall even further. We play Villa next, tough test

[roger.haddad.]

Ugh, so glad the international break is over. No offense to those who celebrate of course.

[Wombatz]

well, i quite enjoyed this one ... germany are so funny with nagelsmann apparantly unable to stop himself from overthinking even if that was the caveat attached to his choice from the beginning (as he himself knew very well)

[roger.haddad.]

Wow shoutout to Spurs for stealing 2 points from City. Wasn't able to watch the game but loving the result, and it has nothing to do with where it places my team and City in the table lol.

[roger.haddad.]

Gotta give credit where it's due, Aston Villa besting City and Gunners in the span of 4 days. Absolutely wild. Not a timeline I was expecting. I don't think they'll go the distance since they lack squad depth, but it's incredible to see what Emery has done there since my Captain got dismissed. Wild times.