whens the last time we’ve been up 5-0 in the first half in a non friendly? Honestly can’t remember it happening in the last 10-15 years but could be missing something obvious

CL calls everything a handball, PL is already too strict with it and CL takes it even further

Vitinha has looked pretty tidy since coming on, I remember a few days when we were linked with him

how is he with crossing? more than an overlapping fb, I think we need somebody who can deliver balls from the half space, especially on the right. Doesn’t seem like Odegaard is that guy, so might need it from fullback. Although I’m not sure many fullbacks can do it effectively enough that its worth having that as a consistent strategy, or if that’ more just Trent. Would need more of a trent than a cedric.

I guess the idea with an overlapper is that saka could sort of occupy that space more, and he’s quite good there, but I do think there’s opportunity in the RHS with all the attention that saka gets.

yea we’d need a lot of luck. 7th in xG and 5th in xPts, those aren’t underlying stats of a title team (although I know Leicester won it from 4th in xPoints. Definitely not still mad about that). The good news is that we have seen a very similar team last year produce a lot of goals, so I think there is definitely room for improvement.

am i missing something with the “many music styles”? like in addition to it being bigoted, also just seems like random and super not clever? like it really underlines how much they really just want to bring up this issue in an non relevant context, by bringing up something that is also not relevant in this context. something like there are many positions or many playing styles or something like that. Whatever, hopefully a player will speak out about it.

Does Neves really make sense though either? Why would Saudi let him go?

I do kinda agree in terms of Luiz, I think that ship probably sailed (I wasn’t a huge fan of the deal at the time last summer, seems I was wrong there)

U-21, but a great assist from Nelson

https://x.com/HaleEndProds/status/1724522611365879938?s=20

tempte to just do the $3 line but probably would do Rice, Ramsey, Cesc. I’m not Ramsey’s biggest fan since I found him pretty inconsistent, but he was quality and Cesc was just so good. Rice and Ramsey is such a mobile partnership as well.

Ramsdale should be fuming at his dad, I get wanting to back your son and feeling really frustrated to see him replaced and see him very upset, but jeez you have to show better judgement than that. Awful look.

agreed to an extent, I think he’s actually really good when there’s not a big moment going on but not a fan of the poetic stuff.

the classic Wenger 4-2-1-3-1

Saka I’d say. I’ve bee more negative than most on Gabi over the years but I think when healthy he’s looked pretty good this year as well.

its nuts how united just stack dislikeable players, no team does it like them.

that build up to the haaland attempt right there and the 2nd goal are great examples of why its so hard to defend guardiola teams, they stretch the field so much in possession which is extremely difficult to defend. Even when his teams can be a bit boring to watch, I am almost always wowed by how well his teams are spaced. Requires a lot of technical ability though, along with being able to shrink the field (or stop the play) when you lose possession.

there were rumors of him going to inter this summer, i don’t think hes content with little playing time

its kinda fun to say ironically

i saw him in person a few weeks ago in the game he had to come off against celta vigo, I thought he was brilliant in a half where the rest of barca was dreadful

yea they didn’t really linger on it (james hadnt even seen those strange posts) so i wasn’t so much annoyed at them and not even individually annoyed at the person that asked the question, its just that that sort of dialogue is so common that I find tiring. It just doesn’t seem so negative in other sports. And I do find myself giving into some of that negative thinking too, like I can much easier watch teams I don’t like do well in other sports, or admit that a player I don’t like it was quite good moreso than I can with football, and I think I’m usually a pretty objective person. I wonder if another factor is the lack of playoffs (I’m American so all of the other sports I watch have that), so every game is so meaningful, which causes people to be rooting so hard against rivals, whereas other sports, you can watch a regular season game of a rival that doesnt really matter to your team as much, so you can be a little more objective.

this is whiny and not really a novel opinion but I find a lot of the online (and I guess on-air) discourse about the league and about clubs so tiring/annoying. I was listening to arsecast and someone asked a question something like “did you see the flak eddie was getting for not smiling when he got his cap, are we too emotional or not emotional enough?”. I found two things about this quite annoying. First is the obvious, I was unfortunate enough to see some of that eddie discussion and it is weird that people were talking about that and making it a thing. But the second annoying thing is the question and being so caught up in who’s saying what and having to feel slighted. Leaving aside that Nevile’s emotional comments (while moronic) were talking about us in game and people were talking about eddie off the pitch, who cares? Rival fans aren’t going to be consistent with their criticism, and while the constant need to slight other teams is part of whats so annoying about online discourse, taking offense and trying to catch them in backwards logic is pointless and (like me) a bit whiny.

The other super annoying thing is twitter, my algo suggests a lot of football stuff because of some of the people I follow and the content I click on, but it seems the content is either one of two things: 1st is the most annoying where its like a chelsea fan saying like "ibr i just deeped that mudyrk is better than ‘starboy’ " Of course they’re engagement farming but this was the case even before the monetization (if thats even still going on).

The 2nd type of account is some account tweeting like “click for a thread on the 2nd phase build up against a mid block that de zerbi deployed in the middle 30 minutes against dynamo zagreb.” Now I don’t really have a problem with these accounts (I probly get them because I follow Billy), but they seem to be essentially the only football related accounts I see that aren’t complete nonsense, and tbh its kinda way over detailed and not that enjoyable. Not much of a middle ground of people talking sensibly but not 30 tweet threads about pressing tactics.

I guess there’s a 3rd group that is essentially the nonewthing group (I have learned to enjoy his tweets, he’s half unintentionally funny) that think they’re geniuses because they use the newest terms that they’ve come up with to make basic concepts seem more complex, but they’re not much better than the 1st group.

Idk this is probably just as whiny and annoying as some of those accounts but I just find a lot of the online discourse around the sport quite annoying, moreso than other sports that I follow. Perhaps its just because I know less people irl that follow the sport so I miss out on more normal discussion, but even the discussion of irl people seems more tribal.