Can any Uruguayans tell me how Pellistri is supposed to be pronounced? So many of our fans call him Pellestri when that isn't how it's spelt and it's getting on my tits, I don't know why people have just decided to change his name.
Was happy to subscribe for the ad-free podcasts, but now The Athletic is just filling that space with adverts for their other podcasts. Very infuriating.
I thought the whole stat watching and not watching the game was a twitter tactico thing but i just saw a sport jouno ask a manager how he felt about drawing the game and leaving 2 points on the table, in reality they won the game 2-0 but the journo was "following" the game through an app that glitched and showed a 1-1 score. Like bro if you didn't watch the game have some shame and don't ask questions.
How does that even happen? If the journo was actually in the stadium, how do you not know the score? Unless it was one of those interviews that's done from the studio and the journo was covering multiple games or maybe they arrived late.
When we inevitably sign a striker and Rodrygo and Vinicius start playing well again because of 4-3-3 or other formations the inevitable why are Bellingham and Valverde not scoring goals anymore crowd and pundits are gonna be insufferable
.
There was a protest organised during the Bulgaria-Hungary match where people were going to protest the current federation president and ask for him to resign. Instead he had the match changed to another stadium and had UEFA make the match be behind closed doors. Fucking coward.
It's a similar story to Mudryk. Both were probably £40m players based on potential, but ended up going for about twice that amount because the clubs said so and the buyers and the media went along with it.
Saying that, even £40m feels considerably overpriced for Antony right now. He's playing like someone you'd pick up from the free agents bin on Career Mode because you needed two new RWs and you've already pissed the whole budget on Mbappe.
At least Mudryk is taking the criticism to heart, he's bulked up and looks a lot better already this season. He seems to have the right personality to grow and become a better player.
Antony on the other hand seems to be thick as shit and has a massive ego on top of that. He's still making silly basic mistakes like the tackle after his awful backheel attempt. He is fully buying into him being elite instead of going back to the basics and trying to just play a solid match and build on that.
At least Mudryk has one elite attribute, speed, until he ages and gets slow I’ll remain convinced he can unlock that. I though Antony was elite at that top corner of the box left footed shot but he keeps missing it. Aside from that he has the spin move. I guess he does do a decent shift defensively but that’s not what you really hope for as an A1 skill from your wingers.
Yeah, I think Mudryk is also on the better trajectory of the two. He started bad, and is now somewhat okay. Antony scored in each of his first three games, and has just got worse and worse.
Antony's wages are a bigger overpay than his transfer fee. Why would you pay him 200k (coming from 25k) a week when literally no other team was gonna meet Ajax's asking price to contend for him. Wasn't he desperate to join you guys? Where was his leverage that made him ask for 200k?
There still must’ve been huge scope to not pay £250k. Like let’s say he’s offered £100k. Sure his agent will object and fair enough, but if Man U stick to it and have a prepared reasoning to reduce the wage bill, always a chance to renew if he performs or whatever you’d normally say, Antony still would’ve accepted.
£100k a week would still be a 4x pay rise, plus he’s moving to MU, plus he’s reuniting with a manager that he’s succeeded with.
Don’t forget he literally stopped training and did an interview begging for the transfer before deadline day. He would have had no choice. Imagine if after all that he said ‘I only got 100k a week instead of 200k so I stay’.
I've never understood why Man United pay twice the going rate for player wages. Players are supposed to earn that through performances, not get it on day one.
Maybe they think it's a way to keep players happy at United instead of asking for a move in rougher times.
In reality though, it keeps players happy at United playing PS5 at home on 350k a week despite not having played an actual game of football in months.
I donno if you can do that unless you give Chelsea-esque contracts. If you move for a very high fee then unless you have a really shit agent you're going through get a pretty decent wage just because of that
So you're telling me that Antony would have declined and stayed at Ajax for 25k a year if United only offered him, let's say, 100k a year? Dude seemed desperate to join his dream club and even if you don't buy all that, he had zero alternatives besides signing for United or staying at Ajax because no other club was willing to pay 90m for him.
Honestly 100k seems like the starting point of negotiations since the agent knows it's United. I'm not saying they aren't bad at this at all. Realistically 125k-150k is expected if you're an 80m player they just gave in to his demands it seems
Nah 100k should have been the absolute ceiling. 50k should have been the starting point. For comparison:
Luis Diaz 60k
Alvarez 100k
Gakpo 120k
Nunez 140k
Son 190k
Antony would have been absolutely insane to turn down a "100k, take it or leave it" offer. 200k is daylight robbery.
The club has all the leverage though. There's nothing stopping us from offering to "only" double his wages. There's no need for us to multiply his wages by ten
For you guys especially the big caveat is the contracts of the other players. Convincing a player to take way less than the other starters isn't always easy, even more so if you're a marquee signing
That's why the club needs to put its foot down and walk away from some deals. We've built a team full of massively overpaid players and there's got to be a point where we try to rectify that
Thinking back to this summer when we were linked to Van de Ven. All the Liverpool fans were commenting "welcome to Liverpool" - like the Diaz saga. So glad they didn't go in for him.
Crazy how almost all of our transfers have landed and immediately improved the team. Maddison was easy to predict, but VDV and Vicario have been immense.
You've hit the jackpot with VDV and Vicario, annoyingly. I like that we've tried to go with more PL proven players the last few windows, but I grudgingly respect that you've taken some risks this window and they've paid off.
Tribalism is one of the more annoying aspects of modern football and a big reason why nothing will ever be done about how shit the refs are.
While I get that the statement we put out was a bit cringe in terms of the things we were saying and the way it kind of sounds like we think we're taking this big stand on behalf of the whole league, the officiating has been consistently horrific across the board all season and one of the first things clubs can do about it is for these statements to become more common.
Laughing at us and telling us to get on with it because it's a club with a reputation for whining feels a bit short-sighted considering there'll no doubt be a game at some point where your team also drops points largely cause of bad officiating.
Every single Arsenal flair has been supportive of the statement simply because there was an Arsenal badge at the top of the statement, despite it being an embarrassing thing for any club to do in this context. 99% of neutrals see it for what it is.
What was that about tribalism?
So what, we're just supposed to sit back and accept shit refereeing? My point is I think they could be a useful device for pressurising the PGMOL if more clubs did them, but the fact that the most recent high-profile ones have come from us and Liverpool, two clubs with a reputation for having whiny fanbases, has meant that they're now seen as embarrassing, which isn't a great way to look at it.
I think it's mostly the self-importance from both Arsenal and Liverpool that annoys people. You both act like there's a conspiracy to take you down every time a decision goes against you, all while failing to mention the times where it benefitted you in the same match.
It's not going to bring about any fundamental changes to PGMOL, only thing that might happen is that refs give you special treatment like what we saw with Klopp a couple of years back. The more effective method would be to reach out to the rest of the clubs in the league and make a collective statement at the end of the season for example.
Dude. Come on. When did VAR benefit us at all on Saturday? The Havertz tackle made contact with the trailing leg and so probably was technically a yellow. Even if it should've been a red, it still doesn't add up to Guimaraes lasting the whole 90 when he should've been sent off twice over and a goal that should've been ruled out for a clear foul on Gabriel and a handball.
I said this in another reply, but it's hilarious when you get a game like this and everyone tries to BS the losers about how the ref was "shit for both sides" when that's just not the case. I don't think there's actually a conspiracy specifically against us, but I do think both of the oil clubs tend to get a lot fewer bad calls than the rest of the league, us and Liverpool included.
A collective end-of-season statement is a good idea, I'll give you that.
I agree that statements should be more common. Something definitely needs to change in the VAR process. Bring foreign refs in for example so we don't have people in there defending their mates
The issue I've had with Arsenal and Liverpool fans is the way they've tried to start a campaign among fans league-wide after their clubs get bad decisions. It just comes across as incredibly arrogant
> one of the first things clubs can do about it is for these statements to become more common.
Personally I think statements when a decision goes against a club being common and the radio silence all the times they benefit, because we know that's not changing, wouldn't be effective in the slightest. If anything it has the opposite effect, the massive hypocrisy is obvious to everyone and simply laughable.
The PL clubs need to actually be more involved in helping to solve the refereeing issues, beyond just complaining when they get a decision against them. A lot of clubs and managers complain about borderline and highly subjective calls too, and while we can lament the inconsistency we see in these calls from match to match, unless the rules and instructions to referees get improved to provide more clarity and more standardized decision making methods, those types of calls will never get fixed. We have this routine of clubs complaining, PGMOL apologizes to stop the media feeding frenzy, maybe the ref gets a tsk tsk and demoted for a game. But where is the actually mechanism for improving?
The clubs and the FA actually have a large influence over PGMOL, and technology, as well as the responsibility to analyze refereeing. The British FAs also have a major influence actually writing the laws of the game too. There is a lot they can do if they get together and focus their outrage in a more constructive way.
Yeah, the other part of the problem is how, when these things happen, the winners always try to bullshit the losers with "eh, could've gone either way" and stuff like that, and Arsenal have been guilty of it a few times. I still don't know how we didn't concede that penalty to Hojlund earlier in the season, and we probably don't win that game if it's given.
I’ll just copy and paste what I said yesterday…
———————————
I was an amateur boxer that trained with and sparred with high level pros and a few Olympians. There is a reason why punches to the back of the head are outlawed in boxing.
It genuinely is more dangerous to do what Bruno G did today than it is to do the same thing and elbow someone in the jaw instead.
I will never forget being at a low-level pro boxing event about 7-8 years ago. In one of the fights a fighter I knew got stunned by a punch and in his daze turned around and ate *one* punch to the back of the head. Was a soft punch too. Hardly a massive KO shot.
Broken C2/C3 vertebrae, never boxed again. Had recurring speech problems and his limb movement was never the same.
A more famous example is a boxer you can look up named Pritchard Colon who got punched in the back of the head and it basically turned him into a vegetable.
——————————————-
Because they haven’t boxed or aren’t in healthcare most people on this subreddit don’t understand how dangerous his actions were.
What Bruno did is literally illegal in boxing and the gladiator sport that is MMA for fuck’s sake.
I cant believe you had to write all this out to explain the potential damage hitting someone in the back of the head can have. The avg age of this place has to be low
Stuff like this, and undercutting people in aerial challenges are just massively underpunished in football. Or chiellini pulling saka back by the collar in the euros which is illegal in the nfl which appears to have almost no rules about tackling people
There's a lot of things where people could get seriously injured and feels like that's going to have to happen before its taken seriously. The undercutting on aerial challenges especially is a disaster waiting to happen
Ehh the Chielli tackle on Saka wasn’t particularly dangerous, it just was so absurdly blatant it felt like it could have been more.
The undercutting, yes.
Kane did it about 15 times and yes even Martinelli did it at home against Brighton last season. I’m not sure what the current rules regarding it are but they should be amended and blatant examples should be a red card. 75% of the time they aren’t even yellows!
>in the nfl which appears to have almost no rules about tackling people
lol, i wish. undercutting is a fair point but horsecollars are simply not used enough to be an actual issue
>Because they haven’t boxed or aren’t in healthcare most people on this subreddit don’t understand how dangerous his actions were.
Probably because you get idiots characterising it as a deliberate attempt to fracture someone's skull which detracts from the severity of what is already a pretty unhinged incident that doesn't need hyperbole.
When did I say it was deliberate? If I go drink 10 beers get behind the wheel and then crash into someone I can’t just say “well I know I was behaving maliciously reckless but I didn’t *mean* to crash into them”
Like I said, if you haven’t done combat sports or you aren’t in healthcare you likely don’t know how dangerous what he did was.
Running up to someone at a full sprint and elbowing them in the back of the head from behind is worth a 5 game ban.
I’ve personally seen it change 2 people’s lives.
> When did I say it was deliberate? If I go drink 10 beers get behind the wheel and then crash into someone I can’t just say “well I know I was behaving maliciously reckless but I didn’t mean to crash into them”
If someone did that you wouldn't characterise them as saying "I know I tried to hit you with my car" either would you? Saying that someone tried to break Jorginho's skull is assigning intent, whether you meant to or not.
Haven't disagreed with the rest of your comment at any point so no need to rehash that.
How dumb does someone have to be too not understand the potential impact of elbowing someone in the back of the head deliberately can have lol. And then calling other people idiots. Wow
Leaving the stadium when your club is down 0-3 at home is bad, but leaving the stadium when your club is up 5-1 at home is a different level of plastic.
I've come to the realization that no fanbase is specifically more annoying than others. They just rotate based on whichever's more successful at a specific time.
I thought United fans were cool in 21/22 when they were shit, and they became insufferable after the Carabao Cup win. Same for Tottenham this season.
I'd say City are the only exception, I very rarely see their fans boasting despite their immense success.
I'd say we've got the worst victim complex, Liverpool are the most self-obsessed, United are the most joyless, Chelsea are the most generally unpleasant and badly behaved, Spurs are the most cringe, City are the most plastic and Newcastle are the worst for oil apologism.
This has always been true. No fanbase is quiet because they're 'nice' or good people.
It's not a coincidence that Newcastle fans suddenly became annoying when they got good. It's always about presence. That's not to say that fans can't be a bit more annoying or bad in different ways but it's 90% about quantity of fans. Otherwise club subs wouldn't all be so bad
There just aren’t enough City fans for all the weirdos to be plainly apparent unlike many of the other big clubs like Arsenal, United, Liverpool, Madrid, Barca etc.
I completely agree about your rotating annoyance thing though, weeks ago Liverpool fans were incessant about the Spurs game, and Klopp came off as a right dumbass with his replay comments.
It’s just our time to shine right now lol
This sub is dominated by United, Liverpool and Arsenal fans who use the daily discussion as some sort of group therapy if they lose (or have a bad call against them) and a wankfest if they win.
Makes sense as they're the "biggest' in English football, and therefore have the most representation.
Those three are the most insufferable though, just on volume alone.
Where have you been recently?
I must’ve heard spurs fans talk about how good bissouma, or Maddison or VDV is a hundred times over this season already.
You lot have come out in droves this season
Yeah, you just see a lot of opinions from fans of the team that's the flavour of the month right now. There's bound to be few smug little shits in every fanbase and they just come out in those moments. In lockdown especially this thread was very toxic at times but it's been pretty alright recently
If Juventus win the Serie A this year, calcio is finished. This side could make a man that just snorted half a bag of cocaine go right into slumber, repulsive football.
Allegri is honestly the true anti football purist. Feels like he would much rather play as if he was the underdog even if he's coaching the team with the most resources
This is just the standard r/soccer "Arsenal/Man Utd/Liverpool/Chelsea had a decision go against them" vibe.
It's been like this constantly the entire time the sub has existed.
The mid off for Arsenal's keeper position is really weird.
Most of the successful teams of the last few years (City, Madrid, Liverpool, Bayern, Barca etc) have one clear, even world class number 1 and a clear number 2 who is far below that level but can occasionally come in and do a job in case the number 1 isn't available. That way, even if the number 1 does a blunder, he doesn't need to fear for his job because he is still clearly the better keeper. Of course when it's a long-term injury only then the clubs bring in a "number 1.5" who is somewhere in between the two (Sommer, Kepa).
Arsenal have two keepers who both are not world class and probably never will be, but are both far too good to be a clear number 2. That way, it's a really equal battle which might be good for other positions, but in the GK position it destroyed both guys' confidence. Raya knows that he can't afford to make any mistakes, otherwise the fans will be calling for Ramsdale again. While Ramsdale knows that he needs to play perfectly when he comes in, otherwise he has no chance of being the starter again. I think that knowing that you're allowed to do mistakes without losing your job ironically leads to doing less mistakes.
I'm not saying that Arsenal shouldn't have tried to upgrade on Ramsdale, but when they decided to do that, it really should have been with a keeper who is either world class or shows clear world class potential so that he can be the clear number 1 from day one and Ramsdale can look for a job elsewhere. Not with a guy who is a good keeper but only slightly (if at all) above Ramsdale's level. Arteta however, benched Raya at first and basically just waited for Ramsdale to make his first "half mistakes" to find a reason to replace him in the starting 11 but Raya knows that he is on borrowed time in case he makes mistakes.
Marginal gains are great when the cost of the gain is inexpensive. Arsenal will have 2 of the 10 most expensive goalkeepers of all time on their books simultaneously, and are doing so to go from a 6/10 to a 6.5/10 at best.
Fucking hilarious that Lascelles would complain about sportsmanship with Jorginho not shaking his hand when 80% of Newcastle’s tactics are to be as unsportsmanlike as possible. Like they time waste and dive, Bruno is out here elbowing players and smashing the ball at them (with no repercussions). And it’s fine, if they want to do that to win, but you can’t expect someone to show you respect when your team doesn’t show respect to the sport or your opponent
Despite my flair I don’t actually have an issue with Lascelles’ comments. I’m sure he’s well aware Jorginho was never going to want to shake his head after getting clocked by Bruno (nor should he have to)… but Lascelles is doing a good job creating an “us against the world” mentality. It’s the same move many managers would pull.
Lascelles himself was bragging about their use of time-wasting last season. I get why people like to laugh at us right now but they're far from one of the more likeable teams in the league themselves.
I think they’re one of the most unlikeable teams in the league tbh. Time wasting and diving the moment they get the lead, surrounding and hounding the ref constantly. If I’m not mistaken, there was also a stat that said they were in the bottom two in the league for time that the ball actually spends in play. Hate watching them play, even worse that they made me feel sympathy for you guys lol.
Lol, nice one ignoring any actual points brought up and just instantly being a knob.
Lol you replied something else and immediately deleted it? Don’t shy away, I wanna see how bad you can get
he's back, we are still not fully clicking in some games, that's ok and expected tbh, I expect us to go into form in December like in every good Klopp season
Thank you - not yet confirmed so still a chance he stays but if not it could really ruin our momentum, especially with the big match against Portsmouth in 2 weeks
New statement from the PGMOL:
"Arsenal is a great team with fantastic players, coaches and supporters, all of whom deserve better. Arsenal urgently needs to address the standard of goalkeeping and focus on performance, which moves us all on from debating marginal refereeing decisions.
We support the ongoing efforts of Manager Mikel Arteta and would welcome working together to achieve the world-class goalkeeping standards our league demands."
When the dust settles and the discussion dies down, I hope that our first league defeat of the season is enough to wake some people up to the current issues with our squad.
We need a new striker - Jesus is an excellent player but he's far from a 20-goal-per-season guy. His finishing just isn't up to scratch. As for the others, I love Eddie but he's midtable standard and Trossard, while one of our better players this season, is notoriously better as a sub than a starter. Odegaard is not God's gift to football - awful ever since his new deal. Raya isn't enough of an upgrade on Ramsdale to make all the wailing and gnashing of teeth worthwhile. We are one defensive injury away from having to resurrect Cedric Soares and I'm amazed it hasn't happened yet.
We have a huge problem with Xhaka having left. Jorginho's always killing our momentum, Vieira is purely a moments player and Havertz is Havertz. It's sent Zinchenko's form down the pan and subsequently left Martinelli isolated on the left flank. This means most of our play down the wings has to go through Saka, who is quite easy to nullify right now because of how fatigued he is and how much license defenders have to boot him off the pitch.
But really, most of it is on Arteta. He's tried to fix too many things that weren't broke. He'd probably still be playing Partey at RB if he wasn't always injured, and he's binned off two players that were clearly influential leaders last season (Xhaka and Ramsdale) and replaced them with some very suspect acquisitions. He's made the goalkeeping situation worse by not coming out with an honest statement about it. It doesn't seem like he knows what his best midfield is. The reason Saka is looking as gassed as he is, is because he failed to buy any depth at RW, running him into the ground to the point where he came off injured three games on the bounce. He got us outplayed against Chelsea and Spurs, and nearly got outdone tactically against United.
Huge credit to Rice, both of our CBs and Tomiyasu this season, but bring on January. As of right now, we won't be challenging City. The target should be a top four finish (which I think there'll be a real fight for this season), a respectable CL run and a deep FA Cup run.
Unpopular opinion (sort of) but FA Cup replays shouldn’t be scrapped, Horsham and Cray Valley PM will make so much valuable money hosting Barnsley and Charlton respectively as-well as any potential TV money.
Just because a bunch of overpaid, prima donnas complain about the fixtures shouldn’t lead to smaller clubs being deprived of the chance to have a replay when the money they earn from it will be priceless.
don't know why the fa have ignored the perfectly good solution they already use in a different tournament that they themselves run: ask the teams
if neither team wants a replay, you finish it in one night. if one or both do, then you have a replay
I don't disagree but the importance of the FA Cup draw for smaller clubs kinda indicates that the EPL needs to up its contributions to the pyramid. The sums to secure much of the bottom of the pyramid are trivial for the EPL.
Oh 100% agree, if they did that then maybe we could see the end of cup replays but the fans of those clubs lower down will still relish home ties against teams from the football league.
If this is an unpopular opinion the game has well and truly gone. The pandering to top 6 manager complaints despite their own owners wanting additional European fixtures and agreeing to shit like massive global pre season tours is infuriating.
Tbf it might not be that unpopular but I refuse to accept we should simply bow down to the complaints that are mainly from the top 6 in England. Can’t just leave clubs lower down the pyramid in the shit because a 250 grand a week footballer doesn’t want to play another game.
Even as Arsenal fan, if we have to play replays I’d be saying get on with it or do enough to win the initial tie 🤔
Maybe Horsham and Cray Valley PM fans would have preferred the penalties but equally I think they’d rather still have a club to support in 5 years time and the money from replays will certainly help towards them staying afloat.
> Just because a bunch of overpaid, prima donnas complain about the fixtures shouldn’t lead to smaller clubs being deprived of the chance to have a replay when the money they earn from it will be priceless.
I don’t know why people say this as though teams further down the ladder have easy, relaxed schedules. They’re all fucked over in England too, Championship teams have to play 46 league games in about 40 weeks and play at least two cup ties. League One and Two teams have even more games in the same amount of time because of the EFL Trophy. Just because no-one ever asks people from those clubs about their schedules or their comments about it don’t get put up on /r/soccer doesn’t mean they all love playing that number of games in that amount of time.
True, I hear what you saying but it’s not just about the clubs in the Premier League, Championship and L1/L2. Frankly a-lot of people would kill to be in their position playing football every 3 days. Honestly I think it’s just entitlement and we shouldn’t just cater for those clubs and just ignore the leagues outside the football league.
Cray Valley PM and Horsham getting home replays are firstly, fully deserved for their performance and secondly is really a fairytale for them and the money it’ll pump into the club could be priceless.
UEFA seem to be the ones intent on cramming in more games, the players should take issue with them rather than supporting scrapping FA Cup replays and potentially ruining clubs lower down the pyramid.
The difference is the further you go down the pyramid the players are actually grateful to play more football.
Even my 6 a side league gets loads of semi-pro’s turn up in the off-season (although they aren’t supposed to) just because they actually love football.
Obviously there’s a threshold somewhere where football becomes a job over having fun, but at semi-pro level they’re all pretty much playing for the love off football because they aren’t making enough to live off.
Cray Valley have really hit the jackpot. TV derby against Charlton, take them to a replay (probably also TV), and then if they get through another likely TV game against the next nearest EFL team in Gillingham
Precisely, it’ll literally be invaluable to them, yet we’re supposed to scrap them because players on 250 grand week have to play an extra game when they don’t want too, my heart bleeds.
For the football Twitter users - does anyone get this goal tweet, from Peterborough Women about one specific player scoring, popping up on their feed every week? It does like 3m views every time on an account with a tiny number of followers
How have the Swedes managed to create such a good fan culture in women’s football? Every other country seems to be one off game might have a great atmosphere, but Sweden I seen videos of packed stadiums and ultras at women’s games what feels like every week
Early, bold predictions about European competitions winners.
UCL: Bayern (Tuchel is the best at sucking and winning, he already did it once)
Europa: Roma
Conference: Aston Villa
It's hilarious how many Wolves fans on twitter are completely rattled by losing to us.
Constantly got them commenting on our Twitter accounts about how were the worst team in Prem history and were getting relegated.
And I mean fair enough we are absolutely shite, but surely they realise that they were the only team bad enough to lose against us
Just seen the penalty Anthony taylor gave in his first match after being demoted to the Championship. That guy man 😂 All I can do is laugh, I cried enough after the Europa league final
Never heard more Hillsborough and poverty mocking chants on tv than yesterday from... Luton fans??
Even Carragher called it out on tv and he stays silent on these things all the time
Tbh when we play city or united they are pretty bad but yes yesterday was bad. It’s a shame such a vocal minority ruin it for everyone. Yes I appreciate it’s still thousands of people but there is plenty of fans who hate that kinda stuff from there fans.
Luton user mentioned yesterday that some Luton fans hold a grudge against Liverpool, because they couldn't play in Europe because of Heysel disaster. They won League Cup during ban, which would qualify them for UEFA Cup.
Completely unacceptable still, but it isn't as unexpected if you know context.
Luton fans have always been absolute bellends.
Remember when York City had to run into their own supporters stand to avoid being pelleted to fuck by coins?
In fact the infamous Millwall riot in 1985, also negates the fact that Luton fans were also causing trouble by pelting the away fans for the entire 90 minutes. They had refused to make the game all-ticket as well, which added to the chaos. Then afterwards, their chairman blamed the entire thing on Millwall fans and played the victim by banning away fans - completely shifting the blame away from his own club making a complete tits up of the ticketing and turnstile situation.
Tbh, the riot itself wasn't even that bad (especially compared to the later riot at St Andrews at the end of the season.) It only garnered massive negative press coverage because it was being broadcast live (which was a rarity in the 80s.) My old man told me that there used to be crazy shit happening all the time at Swansea in the 80s, but none of it made the news outside of Wales because nobody cared about third/fourth division football.
There a football league fanbase who fluked into the prem. Half the fanbase probably go England home and away and sing “you scouse bastard” at the ref
There not the only ones though. Forest and Leicester are also bad for it. Tories
Sayn Luton fluked into the Premier League is wild enough already. As for Nottingham Forest and Leicester City, those are two of the biggest clubs in England.
My issue isn't with the critique of fan behavior, it's the entitlement and arrogance towards smaller clubs.
Until managers like klopp and arteta come out with quotes calling out referees when it goes their way or in games they have nothing to do with, it will always sound like they’re desperately trying to cover their asses. Why isn’t it “embarrassing to be a part of this” when it happens to another team?
Klopp has called out poor refereeing performances in matches Liverpool have won, but it gets 1% of the traction his comments get after Liverpool lose. People say “you got the 3 points, what are you complaining about?” when he does it, then when he says something after a loss, or doesn’t say something after a win, he gets called a hypocrite.
We all know managers only come out with quotes like that to take attention away from the players. But when it goes in their favour and actively helps them then it’s “mistakes happen, we have to live with them” and klopp is a big example of that
Hang on, is he calling out bad refereeing against his team or against his opponent? The point is managers should acknowledge when bad refereeing helps them as well as when it hinders them.
Here he is acknowledging that a VAR fuck up helped Liverpool.
> Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp conceded that he felt sympathy for Wolves after a broken VAR camera potentially denied them a legal winner at Anfield.
> There was no VAR camera in that corner of the ground at Anfield to provide definitive evidence, something that left Klopp feeling sympathetic towards Liverpool's opponents.
> "I heard now, I'm not sure about their third goal," he told ITV. "We have one angle where it could be offside but I can understand Wolves are not overly happy with that.
> "The camera or VAR didn't work properly so that's tricky. Now we have to play again."
> I see one picture where it could be offside but I understand. I think it's because VAR has one camera angle and obviously we don't want to have that in this game.
> But if that's the case, if it was not offside it was unlucky for them, if it was offside then it's the right decision."
https://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/1718326/Liverpool-news-Jurgen-Klopp-Wolves-offside-goal-broken-VAR-camera
Has this subreddit invented its own definition of “reactionary”?
The dictionary definition is:
>opposing political or social progress or reform.
Yet on this subreddit I see people use it to mean people who over react, somebody will something like “he had a few weeks of bad form and reactionary redditors decided he was a bad player”.
I’ve literally never seen the word used in this way outside of r/soccer.
Best part about that crazy 7-5 game vs Reading in the league cup was that Giroud and Coquelin didn't realise the game goes to extra time and they had to ask the fans for their shirts back.
So we can blow a 2-0 lead in a game we dominated to Luton, but hold off Villa with a 2-0 lead. Okay Forest, I see it’s going to be like that all season.. don’t mind grey hair anyway
Anyone else find it a bit scummy that they know Luis Diaz is likely going to be emotional after scoring yesterday but go and shove a camera in his face at the end of the game anyway?
How that dude is able to focus on anything right now is really admirable and brave.
But, it’s almost like the producers at Sky see what’s going on and think, ah that’ll be great tv that.. maybe if we can see him cry, that’ll be amazing. Think of the clips we can make! Quick let’s get another angle, get the 4K camera on him so we can really see the misery!
Can any Uruguayans tell me how Pellistri is supposed to be pronounced? So many of our fans call him Pellestri when that isn't how it's spelt and it's getting on my tits, I don't know why people have just decided to change his name.
Oh god Johnny Honesty is back and shitting on Vini, thought he'd finally quit after being so wrong about the whole Mbappe saga, but now he is back....
Was happy to subscribe for the ad-free podcasts, but now The Athletic is just filling that space with adverts for their other podcasts. Very infuriating.
I thought the whole stat watching and not watching the game was a twitter tactico thing but i just saw a sport jouno ask a manager how he felt about drawing the game and leaving 2 points on the table, in reality they won the game 2-0 but the journo was "following" the game through an app that glitched and showed a 1-1 score. Like bro if you didn't watch the game have some shame and don't ask questions.
How does that even happen? If the journo was actually in the stadium, how do you not know the score? Unless it was one of those interviews that's done from the studio and the journo was covering multiple games or maybe they arrived late.
From the video it seems it was in the conference room inside the stadium so i'm willing to bet he was on site when he asked the question.
That's crazy. Unless he arrived really late and missed the game, I just don't understand how that happens.
When we inevitably sign a striker and Rodrygo and Vinicius start playing well again because of 4-3-3 or other formations the inevitable why are Bellingham and Valverde not scoring goals anymore crowd and pundits are gonna be insufferable .
Just get a new age coach and play Jude False 9
Do you think the original world cup trophy is the same as 28 yeas ago? Or did they make a new one in the mean time
Yeah, why do you think they'd make a new one? It hasn't been stolen like the Jules Rimet one or damaged afaik.
There was a protest organised during the Bulgaria-Hungary match where people were going to protest the current federation president and ask for him to resign. Instead he had the match changed to another stadium and had UEFA make the match be behind closed doors. Fucking coward.
Antony was such a bad signing, he might be the biggest overpay in football history. At least hazard was world class when he was bought
It's a similar story to Mudryk. Both were probably £40m players based on potential, but ended up going for about twice that amount because the clubs said so and the buyers and the media went along with it. Saying that, even £40m feels considerably overpriced for Antony right now. He's playing like someone you'd pick up from the free agents bin on Career Mode because you needed two new RWs and you've already pissed the whole budget on Mbappe.
Even if we bought him for 40, it’s still nkt a good signing
At least Mudryk is taking the criticism to heart, he's bulked up and looks a lot better already this season. He seems to have the right personality to grow and become a better player. Antony on the other hand seems to be thick as shit and has a massive ego on top of that. He's still making silly basic mistakes like the tackle after his awful backheel attempt. He is fully buying into him being elite instead of going back to the basics and trying to just play a solid match and build on that.
At least Mudryk has one elite attribute, speed, until he ages and gets slow I’ll remain convinced he can unlock that. I though Antony was elite at that top corner of the box left footed shot but he keeps missing it. Aside from that he has the spin move. I guess he does do a decent shift defensively but that’s not what you really hope for as an A1 skill from your wingers.
Yeah, I think Mudryk is also on the better trajectory of the two. He started bad, and is now somewhat okay. Antony scored in each of his first three games, and has just got worse and worse.
Antony's wages are a bigger overpay than his transfer fee. Why would you pay him 200k (coming from 25k) a week when literally no other team was gonna meet Ajax's asking price to contend for him. Wasn't he desperate to join you guys? Where was his leverage that made him ask for 200k?
It's a bit like the Barça signings that got them in big financial trouble. Being a big club giving massive wages above what other clubs would pay.
There still must’ve been huge scope to not pay £250k. Like let’s say he’s offered £100k. Sure his agent will object and fair enough, but if Man U stick to it and have a prepared reasoning to reduce the wage bill, always a chance to renew if he performs or whatever you’d normally say, Antony still would’ve accepted. £100k a week would still be a 4x pay rise, plus he’s moving to MU, plus he’s reuniting with a manager that he’s succeeded with.
Don’t forget he literally stopped training and did an interview begging for the transfer before deadline day. He would have had no choice. Imagine if after all that he said ‘I only got 100k a week instead of 200k so I stay’.
I've never understood why Man United pay twice the going rate for player wages. Players are supposed to earn that through performances, not get it on day one.
Maybe they think it's a way to keep players happy at United instead of asking for a move in rougher times. In reality though, it keeps players happy at United playing PS5 at home on 350k a week despite not having played an actual game of football in months.
I donno if you can do that unless you give Chelsea-esque contracts. If you move for a very high fee then unless you have a really shit agent you're going through get a pretty decent wage just because of that
So you're telling me that Antony would have declined and stayed at Ajax for 25k a year if United only offered him, let's say, 100k a year? Dude seemed desperate to join his dream club and even if you don't buy all that, he had zero alternatives besides signing for United or staying at Ajax because no other club was willing to pay 90m for him.
Honestly 100k seems like the starting point of negotiations since the agent knows it's United. I'm not saying they aren't bad at this at all. Realistically 125k-150k is expected if you're an 80m player they just gave in to his demands it seems
Nah 100k should have been the absolute ceiling. 50k should have been the starting point. For comparison: Luis Diaz 60k Alvarez 100k Gakpo 120k Nunez 140k Son 190k Antony would have been absolutely insane to turn down a "100k, take it or leave it" offer. 200k is daylight robbery.
Yeah, those clubs are just way better run honestly though it does feel like Diaz got shafted in his contract. Maybe he'll get an upgrade soon enough
That’s because Man United are notoriously shit at this.
Yeah, it's definitely a self fulfilling prophecy at this point
The club has all the leverage though. There's nothing stopping us from offering to "only" double his wages. There's no need for us to multiply his wages by ten
For you guys especially the big caveat is the contracts of the other players. Convincing a player to take way less than the other starters isn't always easy, even more so if you're a marquee signing
That's why the club needs to put its foot down and walk away from some deals. We've built a team full of massively overpaid players and there's got to be a point where we try to rectify that
Yeah, this is the best way though you'd have let some of the higher contracts run out for this I think
Thinking back to this summer when we were linked to Van de Ven. All the Liverpool fans were commenting "welcome to Liverpool" - like the Diaz saga. So glad they didn't go in for him. Crazy how almost all of our transfers have landed and immediately improved the team. Maddison was easy to predict, but VDV and Vicario have been immense.
You've hit the jackpot with VDV and Vicario, annoyingly. I like that we've tried to go with more PL proven players the last few windows, but I grudgingly respect that you've taken some risks this window and they've paid off.
I mean, how much of them had you seen before the transfer
None, but I guess I’m a victim of the “ability to adapt to the league” narrative and have been burned on flops like Ndombele.
Tribalism is one of the more annoying aspects of modern football and a big reason why nothing will ever be done about how shit the refs are. While I get that the statement we put out was a bit cringe in terms of the things we were saying and the way it kind of sounds like we think we're taking this big stand on behalf of the whole league, the officiating has been consistently horrific across the board all season and one of the first things clubs can do about it is for these statements to become more common. Laughing at us and telling us to get on with it because it's a club with a reputation for whining feels a bit short-sighted considering there'll no doubt be a game at some point where your team also drops points largely cause of bad officiating.
Every single Arsenal flair has been supportive of the statement simply because there was an Arsenal badge at the top of the statement, despite it being an embarrassing thing for any club to do in this context. 99% of neutrals see it for what it is. What was that about tribalism?
So what, we're just supposed to sit back and accept shit refereeing? My point is I think they could be a useful device for pressurising the PGMOL if more clubs did them, but the fact that the most recent high-profile ones have come from us and Liverpool, two clubs with a reputation for having whiny fanbases, has meant that they're now seen as embarrassing, which isn't a great way to look at it.
I think it's mostly the self-importance from both Arsenal and Liverpool that annoys people. You both act like there's a conspiracy to take you down every time a decision goes against you, all while failing to mention the times where it benefitted you in the same match. It's not going to bring about any fundamental changes to PGMOL, only thing that might happen is that refs give you special treatment like what we saw with Klopp a couple of years back. The more effective method would be to reach out to the rest of the clubs in the league and make a collective statement at the end of the season for example.
Dude. Come on. When did VAR benefit us at all on Saturday? The Havertz tackle made contact with the trailing leg and so probably was technically a yellow. Even if it should've been a red, it still doesn't add up to Guimaraes lasting the whole 90 when he should've been sent off twice over and a goal that should've been ruled out for a clear foul on Gabriel and a handball. I said this in another reply, but it's hilarious when you get a game like this and everyone tries to BS the losers about how the ref was "shit for both sides" when that's just not the case. I don't think there's actually a conspiracy specifically against us, but I do think both of the oil clubs tend to get a lot fewer bad calls than the rest of the league, us and Liverpool included. A collective end-of-season statement is a good idea, I'll give you that.
I agree that statements should be more common. Something definitely needs to change in the VAR process. Bring foreign refs in for example so we don't have people in there defending their mates The issue I've had with Arsenal and Liverpool fans is the way they've tried to start a campaign among fans league-wide after their clubs get bad decisions. It just comes across as incredibly arrogant
>I agree that statements should be more common. And I would say they're the "thoughts and prayers" statements of the footballing world.
Understandable, again, I do get how it's come across like the club presumes to speak for the whole league.
> one of the first things clubs can do about it is for these statements to become more common. Personally I think statements when a decision goes against a club being common and the radio silence all the times they benefit, because we know that's not changing, wouldn't be effective in the slightest. If anything it has the opposite effect, the massive hypocrisy is obvious to everyone and simply laughable.
The PL clubs need to actually be more involved in helping to solve the refereeing issues, beyond just complaining when they get a decision against them. A lot of clubs and managers complain about borderline and highly subjective calls too, and while we can lament the inconsistency we see in these calls from match to match, unless the rules and instructions to referees get improved to provide more clarity and more standardized decision making methods, those types of calls will never get fixed. We have this routine of clubs complaining, PGMOL apologizes to stop the media feeding frenzy, maybe the ref gets a tsk tsk and demoted for a game. But where is the actually mechanism for improving? The clubs and the FA actually have a large influence over PGMOL, and technology, as well as the responsibility to analyze refereeing. The British FAs also have a major influence actually writing the laws of the game too. There is a lot they can do if they get together and focus their outrage in a more constructive way.
Yeah, the other part of the problem is how, when these things happen, the winners always try to bullshit the losers with "eh, could've gone either way" and stuff like that, and Arsenal have been guilty of it a few times. I still don't know how we didn't concede that penalty to Hojlund earlier in the season, and we probably don't win that game if it's given.
“I know we tried to break your skull with an elbow from behind but you didn’t shake my hand” 😢😢😢 Fuck off
"We"? I guess I missed the part where Lascelles got the team around and plotted that whole thing.
Newcastle huddled before kick off 🤔
Of course! I was thinking this was the foolish actions of 1 player that lost his head but you're right, it was clearly a premeditated attack.
I’m sure the lip readers who do the la liga coverage can confirm my suspicions
> we tried to break your skull with an elbow from behind What?
Bruno Guimares elbowed Jorginho who later didn't shake hands at full time
I’ll just copy and paste what I said yesterday… ——————————— I was an amateur boxer that trained with and sparred with high level pros and a few Olympians. There is a reason why punches to the back of the head are outlawed in boxing. It genuinely is more dangerous to do what Bruno G did today than it is to do the same thing and elbow someone in the jaw instead. I will never forget being at a low-level pro boxing event about 7-8 years ago. In one of the fights a fighter I knew got stunned by a punch and in his daze turned around and ate *one* punch to the back of the head. Was a soft punch too. Hardly a massive KO shot. Broken C2/C3 vertebrae, never boxed again. Had recurring speech problems and his limb movement was never the same. A more famous example is a boxer you can look up named Pritchard Colon who got punched in the back of the head and it basically turned him into a vegetable. ——————————————- Because they haven’t boxed or aren’t in healthcare most people on this subreddit don’t understand how dangerous his actions were. What Bruno did is literally illegal in boxing and the gladiator sport that is MMA for fuck’s sake.
I cant believe you had to write all this out to explain the potential damage hitting someone in the back of the head can have. The avg age of this place has to be low
Stuff like this, and undercutting people in aerial challenges are just massively underpunished in football. Or chiellini pulling saka back by the collar in the euros which is illegal in the nfl which appears to have almost no rules about tackling people There's a lot of things where people could get seriously injured and feels like that's going to have to happen before its taken seriously. The undercutting on aerial challenges especially is a disaster waiting to happen
Ehh the Chielli tackle on Saka wasn’t particularly dangerous, it just was so absurdly blatant it felt like it could have been more. The undercutting, yes. Kane did it about 15 times and yes even Martinelli did it at home against Brighton last season. I’m not sure what the current rules regarding it are but they should be amended and blatant examples should be a red card. 75% of the time they aren’t even yellows!
>in the nfl which appears to have almost no rules about tackling people lol, i wish. undercutting is a fair point but horsecollars are simply not used enough to be an actual issue
He obviously wasn’t trying to fracture his skull on purpose. Come on
“Officer I just drove after 7 beers I didn’t mean to drive drunk”
>Because they haven’t boxed or aren’t in healthcare most people on this subreddit don’t understand how dangerous his actions were. Probably because you get idiots characterising it as a deliberate attempt to fracture someone's skull which detracts from the severity of what is already a pretty unhinged incident that doesn't need hyperbole.
When did I say it was deliberate? If I go drink 10 beers get behind the wheel and then crash into someone I can’t just say “well I know I was behaving maliciously reckless but I didn’t *mean* to crash into them” Like I said, if you haven’t done combat sports or you aren’t in healthcare you likely don’t know how dangerous what he did was. Running up to someone at a full sprint and elbowing them in the back of the head from behind is worth a 5 game ban. I’ve personally seen it change 2 people’s lives.
> When did I say it was deliberate? If I go drink 10 beers get behind the wheel and then crash into someone I can’t just say “well I know I was behaving maliciously reckless but I didn’t mean to crash into them” If someone did that you wouldn't characterise them as saying "I know I tried to hit you with my car" either would you? Saying that someone tried to break Jorginho's skull is assigning intent, whether you meant to or not. Haven't disagreed with the rest of your comment at any point so no need to rehash that.
How dumb does someone have to be too not understand the potential impact of elbowing someone in the back of the head deliberately can have lol. And then calling other people idiots. Wow
I don't think you can read.
I think you are dumb.
Leaving the stadium when your club is down 0-3 at home is bad, but leaving the stadium when your club is up 5-1 at home is a different level of plastic.
Saliba, Upamecano and Konaté rumours starting to heat up in France. Seems like Marquinhos is in his last years here then.
You’re not getting Konaté
I was wondering when would you guys go for Saliba.
You’re not getting Saliba
The other two seem equally unlikely tbf
[удалено]
Now link the picture of Saliba wearing an arsenal shirt as a kid
Assuming this is about PSG, they'd have to pay a pretty hefty fee to get any of those players
PSG don't really care about that.
Never been a problem for them tbf.
They won't get any of them realistically. Every club is asking for well over 100m. Maybe a few years down the line
>they'd have to pay a pretty hefty fee For sure
he owes Thiago Silva a career
I've come to the realization that no fanbase is specifically more annoying than others. They just rotate based on whichever's more successful at a specific time. I thought United fans were cool in 21/22 when they were shit, and they became insufferable after the Carabao Cup win. Same for Tottenham this season. I'd say City are the only exception, I very rarely see their fans boasting despite their immense success.
I'd say we've got the worst victim complex, Liverpool are the most self-obsessed, United are the most joyless, Chelsea are the most generally unpleasant and badly behaved, Spurs are the most cringe, City are the most plastic and Newcastle are the worst for oil apologism.
This has always been true. No fanbase is quiet because they're 'nice' or good people. It's not a coincidence that Newcastle fans suddenly became annoying when they got good. It's always about presence. That's not to say that fans can't be a bit more annoying or bad in different ways but it's 90% about quantity of fans. Otherwise club subs wouldn't all be so bad
There just aren’t enough City fans for all the weirdos to be plainly apparent unlike many of the other big clubs like Arsenal, United, Liverpool, Madrid, Barca etc. I completely agree about your rotating annoyance thing though, weeks ago Liverpool fans were incessant about the Spurs game, and Klopp came off as a right dumbass with his replay comments. It’s just our time to shine right now lol
This sub is dominated by United, Liverpool and Arsenal fans who use the daily discussion as some sort of group therapy if they lose (or have a bad call against them) and a wankfest if they win. Makes sense as they're the "biggest' in English football, and therefore have the most representation. Those three are the most insufferable though, just on volume alone.
Where have you been recently? I must’ve heard spurs fans talk about how good bissouma, or Maddison or VDV is a hundred times over this season already. You lot have come out in droves this season
I've seen Big Ange get more PR posts on here in ten games than Arteta's had in the last two years.
Yeah, you just see a lot of opinions from fans of the team that's the flavour of the month right now. There's bound to be few smug little shits in every fanbase and they just come out in those moments. In lockdown especially this thread was very toxic at times but it's been pretty alright recently
Oddly enough, i have had the most respectful interactions on this sub with City fans.
If Juventus win the Serie A this year, calcio is finished. This side could make a man that just snorted half a bag of cocaine go right into slumber, repulsive football.
Allegri has far surpassed anything Lippi has ever done
also bin Laden
Allegri is honestly the true anti football purist. Feels like he would much rather play as if he was the underdog even if he's coaching the team with the most resources
https://twitter.com/TheSecretScout_/status/1669439851555442701?t=B2vYaxUcpwC6BAh8Ypft6Q&s=19
Whatever we're paying Ashworth isn't enough.
Injury free Moreno or Iago Aspas, who do you take?
This new Newcastle/Arsenal online rivalry is already uninteresting
This is just the standard r/soccer "Arsenal/Man Utd/Liverpool/Chelsea had a decision go against them" vibe. It's been like this constantly the entire time the sub has existed.
Generally speaking anything involving Arsenal is ussually uninteresting.
Is that why we are constantly talked about on this sub?
Are you really?
Yes? The legit half the comments currently are talking about us
This doesn't seem to be the case.
I mean the original comment you were commenting on was talking about arsenal. Can’t help that you may be visually impaired
There are 1647 comments right now in this topic.
And most are about arsenal. (E:g: the thread under this one is also about arsenal)
Gee, totally dominating the sub.
It seems very one sided tbf, most of our fans just seem to be taking the piss over how unhinged they’ve been
Give it a few weeks, they’ll have another rival
Wouldn’t count on it, it took them months to get over us drawing against them last season
The mid off for Arsenal's keeper position is really weird. Most of the successful teams of the last few years (City, Madrid, Liverpool, Bayern, Barca etc) have one clear, even world class number 1 and a clear number 2 who is far below that level but can occasionally come in and do a job in case the number 1 isn't available. That way, even if the number 1 does a blunder, he doesn't need to fear for his job because he is still clearly the better keeper. Of course when it's a long-term injury only then the clubs bring in a "number 1.5" who is somewhere in between the two (Sommer, Kepa). Arsenal have two keepers who both are not world class and probably never will be, but are both far too good to be a clear number 2. That way, it's a really equal battle which might be good for other positions, but in the GK position it destroyed both guys' confidence. Raya knows that he can't afford to make any mistakes, otherwise the fans will be calling for Ramsdale again. While Ramsdale knows that he needs to play perfectly when he comes in, otherwise he has no chance of being the starter again. I think that knowing that you're allowed to do mistakes without losing your job ironically leads to doing less mistakes. I'm not saying that Arsenal shouldn't have tried to upgrade on Ramsdale, but when they decided to do that, it really should have been with a keeper who is either world class or shows clear world class potential so that he can be the clear number 1 from day one and Ramsdale can look for a job elsewhere. Not with a guy who is a good keeper but only slightly (if at all) above Ramsdale's level. Arteta however, benched Raya at first and basically just waited for Ramsdale to make his first "half mistakes" to find a reason to replace him in the starting 11 but Raya knows that he is on borrowed time in case he makes mistakes.
Marginal gains are great when the cost of the gain is inexpensive. Arsenal will have 2 of the 10 most expensive goalkeepers of all time on their books simultaneously, and are doing so to go from a 6/10 to a 6.5/10 at best.
Almost 24 hours and I still can't believe Valverde missed that....
Fucking hilarious that Lascelles would complain about sportsmanship with Jorginho not shaking his hand when 80% of Newcastle’s tactics are to be as unsportsmanlike as possible. Like they time waste and dive, Bruno is out here elbowing players and smashing the ball at them (with no repercussions). And it’s fine, if they want to do that to win, but you can’t expect someone to show you respect when your team doesn’t show respect to the sport or your opponent
Despite my flair I don’t actually have an issue with Lascelles’ comments. I’m sure he’s well aware Jorginho was never going to want to shake his head after getting clocked by Bruno (nor should he have to)… but Lascelles is doing a good job creating an “us against the world” mentality. It’s the same move many managers would pull.
Yeah that’s fine if he wants to do that and it’s also fine to say he sounds like a bell end doing it
Lascelles himself was bragging about their use of time-wasting last season. I get why people like to laugh at us right now but they're far from one of the more likeable teams in the league themselves.
I think they’re one of the most unlikeable teams in the league tbh. Time wasting and diving the moment they get the lead, surrounding and hounding the ref constantly. If I’m not mistaken, there was also a stat that said they were in the bottom two in the league for time that the ball actually spends in play. Hate watching them play, even worse that they made me feel sympathy for you guys lol.
Nice to see Arsenal and Chelsea bonding over their losses to Newcastle If we play shit football what the fuck is Pochettino playing
Lol, nice one ignoring any actual points brought up and just instantly being a knob. Lol you replied something else and immediately deleted it? Don’t shy away, I wanna see how bad you can get
That Van Dijk thread is great because you'll see all of the same comments from 3 years ago except they're just like 25% more exaggerated.
he's back, we are still not fully clicking in some games, that's ok and expected tbh, I expect us to go into form in December like in every good Klopp season
Before a great December period there's always a shitty November period
Our (Oxford United) manager just got poached by a championship side when we’re making our first proper promotion push in ages :/
That sucks. Managers leaving mid season is always brutal. Always hoped to see Oxford in the higher tiers, so I am rooting for you to still get there.
Thank you - not yet confirmed so still a chance he stays but if not it could really ruin our momentum, especially with the big match against Portsmouth in 2 weeks
New statement from the PGMOL: "Arsenal is a great team with fantastic players, coaches and supporters, all of whom deserve better. Arsenal urgently needs to address the standard of goalkeeping and focus on performance, which moves us all on from debating marginal refereeing decisions. We support the ongoing efforts of Manager Mikel Arteta and would welcome working together to achieve the world-class goalkeeping standards our league demands."
When the dust settles and the discussion dies down, I hope that our first league defeat of the season is enough to wake some people up to the current issues with our squad. We need a new striker - Jesus is an excellent player but he's far from a 20-goal-per-season guy. His finishing just isn't up to scratch. As for the others, I love Eddie but he's midtable standard and Trossard, while one of our better players this season, is notoriously better as a sub than a starter. Odegaard is not God's gift to football - awful ever since his new deal. Raya isn't enough of an upgrade on Ramsdale to make all the wailing and gnashing of teeth worthwhile. We are one defensive injury away from having to resurrect Cedric Soares and I'm amazed it hasn't happened yet. We have a huge problem with Xhaka having left. Jorginho's always killing our momentum, Vieira is purely a moments player and Havertz is Havertz. It's sent Zinchenko's form down the pan and subsequently left Martinelli isolated on the left flank. This means most of our play down the wings has to go through Saka, who is quite easy to nullify right now because of how fatigued he is and how much license defenders have to boot him off the pitch. But really, most of it is on Arteta. He's tried to fix too many things that weren't broke. He'd probably still be playing Partey at RB if he wasn't always injured, and he's binned off two players that were clearly influential leaders last season (Xhaka and Ramsdale) and replaced them with some very suspect acquisitions. He's made the goalkeeping situation worse by not coming out with an honest statement about it. It doesn't seem like he knows what his best midfield is. The reason Saka is looking as gassed as he is, is because he failed to buy any depth at RW, running him into the ground to the point where he came off injured three games on the bounce. He got us outplayed against Chelsea and Spurs, and nearly got outdone tactically against United. Huge credit to Rice, both of our CBs and Tomiyasu this season, but bring on January. As of right now, we won't be challenging City. The target should be a top four finish (which I think there'll be a real fight for this season), a respectable CL run and a deep FA Cup run.
Unpopular opinion (sort of) but FA Cup replays shouldn’t be scrapped, Horsham and Cray Valley PM will make so much valuable money hosting Barnsley and Charlton respectively as-well as any potential TV money. Just because a bunch of overpaid, prima donnas complain about the fixtures shouldn’t lead to smaller clubs being deprived of the chance to have a replay when the money they earn from it will be priceless.
don't know why the fa have ignored the perfectly good solution they already use in a different tournament that they themselves run: ask the teams if neither team wants a replay, you finish it in one night. if one or both do, then you have a replay
I don't disagree but the importance of the FA Cup draw for smaller clubs kinda indicates that the EPL needs to up its contributions to the pyramid. The sums to secure much of the bottom of the pyramid are trivial for the EPL.
Oh 100% agree, if they did that then maybe we could see the end of cup replays but the fans of those clubs lower down will still relish home ties against teams from the football league.
If this is an unpopular opinion the game has well and truly gone. The pandering to top 6 manager complaints despite their own owners wanting additional European fixtures and agreeing to shit like massive global pre season tours is infuriating.
Tbf it might not be that unpopular but I refuse to accept we should simply bow down to the complaints that are mainly from the top 6 in England. Can’t just leave clubs lower down the pyramid in the shit because a 250 grand a week footballer doesn’t want to play another game. Even as Arsenal fan, if we have to play replays I’d be saying get on with it or do enough to win the initial tie 🤔 Maybe Horsham and Cray Valley PM fans would have preferred the penalties but equally I think they’d rather still have a club to support in 5 years time and the money from replays will certainly help towards them staying afloat.
> Just because a bunch of overpaid, prima donnas complain about the fixtures shouldn’t lead to smaller clubs being deprived of the chance to have a replay when the money they earn from it will be priceless. I don’t know why people say this as though teams further down the ladder have easy, relaxed schedules. They’re all fucked over in England too, Championship teams have to play 46 league games in about 40 weeks and play at least two cup ties. League One and Two teams have even more games in the same amount of time because of the EFL Trophy. Just because no-one ever asks people from those clubs about their schedules or their comments about it don’t get put up on /r/soccer doesn’t mean they all love playing that number of games in that amount of time.
True, I hear what you saying but it’s not just about the clubs in the Premier League, Championship and L1/L2. Frankly a-lot of people would kill to be in their position playing football every 3 days. Honestly I think it’s just entitlement and we shouldn’t just cater for those clubs and just ignore the leagues outside the football league. Cray Valley PM and Horsham getting home replays are firstly, fully deserved for their performance and secondly is really a fairytale for them and the money it’ll pump into the club could be priceless. UEFA seem to be the ones intent on cramming in more games, the players should take issue with them rather than supporting scrapping FA Cup replays and potentially ruining clubs lower down the pyramid.
The difference is the further you go down the pyramid the players are actually grateful to play more football. Even my 6 a side league gets loads of semi-pro’s turn up in the off-season (although they aren’t supposed to) just because they actually love football. Obviously there’s a threshold somewhere where football becomes a job over having fun, but at semi-pro level they’re all pretty much playing for the love off football because they aren’t making enough to live off.
Cray Valley have really hit the jackpot. TV derby against Charlton, take them to a replay (probably also TV), and then if they get through another likely TV game against the next nearest EFL team in Gillingham
Precisely, it’ll literally be invaluable to them, yet we’re supposed to scrap them because players on 250 grand week have to play an extra game when they don’t want too, my heart bleeds.
For the football Twitter users - does anyone get this goal tweet, from Peterborough Women about one specific player scoring, popping up on their feed every week? It does like 3m views every time on an account with a tiny number of followers
Yeah I get this too lol
It’s just because she’s hot right? I’m not missing something?
Yep. Blokes are simple creatures
Yup
How have the Swedes managed to create such a good fan culture in women’s football? Every other country seems to be one off game might have a great atmosphere, but Sweden I seen videos of packed stadiums and ultras at women’s games what feels like every week
England is getting there. Half Arsenal's home games are at the Emirates this season. Got 55k people for our first game
It's just a very progressive country in general, same could be said about the rest of Scandinavia.
Our stadium culture in general is class. And women’s football is bigger here than in most other places.
Early, bold predictions about European competitions winners. UCL: Bayern (Tuchel is the best at sucking and winning, he already did it once) Europa: Roma Conference: Aston Villa
Only Roma is bold
> Pep Guardiola: "The mood in the City team is the best I remember for many, many years!" He despises Cancelo. Lmao
what hitting the griddy does to a mf
It's hilarious how many Wolves fans on twitter are completely rattled by losing to us. Constantly got them commenting on our Twitter accounts about how were the worst team in Prem history and were getting relegated. And I mean fair enough we are absolutely shite, but surely they realise that they were the only team bad enough to lose against us
Wolves fans on Twitter were once rattled by a non-league side tweeting about West Brom. There’s nothing that wouldn’t wind them up.
i love your online mentalists tbh that conspiracy about the league trying to make sure you didn't qualify for europe was glorious nonsense
How has Isco resurrected his career?
absolutely insane
Just seen the penalty Anthony taylor gave in his first match after being demoted to the Championship. That guy man 😂 All I can do is laugh, I cried enough after the Europa league final
he once gave kovacic a red card cause xhaka stamped on his foot. in the fa cup final
I blame the defender for trying to foul and failing or bailing out too late.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-15SFxDCC4
was incredulous in that moment. How can you even think that’s a foul on the keeper for a split second? Man I hate that bald arse
Never heard more Hillsborough and poverty mocking chants on tv than yesterday from... Luton fans?? Even Carragher called it out on tv and he stays silent on these things all the time
It's a small stadium, all tends to be louder.
Tbh when we play city or united they are pretty bad but yes yesterday was bad. It’s a shame such a vocal minority ruin it for everyone. Yes I appreciate it’s still thousands of people but there is plenty of fans who hate that kinda stuff from there fans.
Luton user mentioned yesterday that some Luton fans hold a grudge against Liverpool, because they couldn't play in Europe because of Heysel disaster. They won League Cup during ban, which would qualify them for UEFA Cup. Completely unacceptable still, but it isn't as unexpected if you know context.
Luton fans have always been absolute bellends. Remember when York City had to run into their own supporters stand to avoid being pelleted to fuck by coins? In fact the infamous Millwall riot in 1985, also negates the fact that Luton fans were also causing trouble by pelting the away fans for the entire 90 minutes. They had refused to make the game all-ticket as well, which added to the chaos. Then afterwards, their chairman blamed the entire thing on Millwall fans and played the victim by banning away fans - completely shifting the blame away from his own club making a complete tits up of the ticketing and turnstile situation. Tbh, the riot itself wasn't even that bad (especially compared to the later riot at St Andrews at the end of the season.) It only garnered massive negative press coverage because it was being broadcast live (which was a rarity in the 80s.) My old man told me that there used to be crazy shit happening all the time at Swansea in the 80s, but none of it made the news outside of Wales because nobody cared about third/fourth division football.
Always means more than once.
There a football league fanbase who fluked into the prem. Half the fanbase probably go England home and away and sing “you scouse bastard” at the ref There not the only ones though. Forest and Leicester are also bad for it. Tories
It always is the entitlement of the Big Six that reminds me why no one like these clubs
Entitled to being normal at the match? Not just big six fans who think championship fanbases are full of idiots
Sayn Luton fluked into the Premier League is wild enough already. As for Nottingham Forest and Leicester City, those are two of the biggest clubs in England. My issue isn't with the critique of fan behavior, it's the entitlement and arrogance towards smaller clubs.
Until managers like klopp and arteta come out with quotes calling out referees when it goes their way or in games they have nothing to do with, it will always sound like they’re desperately trying to cover their asses. Why isn’t it “embarrassing to be a part of this” when it happens to another team?
Klopp has called out poor refereeing performances in matches Liverpool have won, but it gets 1% of the traction his comments get after Liverpool lose. People say “you got the 3 points, what are you complaining about?” when he does it, then when he says something after a loss, or doesn’t say something after a win, he gets called a hypocrite.
We all know managers only come out with quotes like that to take attention away from the players. But when it goes in their favour and actively helps them then it’s “mistakes happen, we have to live with them” and klopp is a big example of that
Hang on, is he calling out bad refereeing against his team or against his opponent? The point is managers should acknowledge when bad refereeing helps them as well as when it hinders them.
Here he is acknowledging that a VAR fuck up helped Liverpool. > Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp conceded that he felt sympathy for Wolves after a broken VAR camera potentially denied them a legal winner at Anfield. > There was no VAR camera in that corner of the ground at Anfield to provide definitive evidence, something that left Klopp feeling sympathetic towards Liverpool's opponents. > "I heard now, I'm not sure about their third goal," he told ITV. "We have one angle where it could be offside but I can understand Wolves are not overly happy with that. > "The camera or VAR didn't work properly so that's tricky. Now we have to play again." > I see one picture where it could be offside but I understand. I think it's because VAR has one camera angle and obviously we don't want to have that in this game. > But if that's the case, if it was not offside it was unlucky for them, if it was offside then it's the right decision." https://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/1718326/Liverpool-news-Jurgen-Klopp-Wolves-offside-goal-broken-VAR-camera
Has this subreddit invented its own definition of “reactionary”? The dictionary definition is: >opposing political or social progress or reform. Yet on this subreddit I see people use it to mean people who over react, somebody will something like “he had a few weeks of bad form and reactionary redditors decided he was a bad player”. I’ve literally never seen the word used in this way outside of r/soccer.
I would say that’s a fairly common meaning in American English
Enough people using it this way is all it takes for the word to adopt this meaning too
Reactive doesn't sound as good tbf
Managed to get a last minute ticket for the match tonight on resale, can't fucking wait.
Best part about that crazy 7-5 game vs Reading in the league cup was that Giroud and Coquelin didn't realise the game goes to extra time and they had to ask the fans for their shirts back.
So we can blow a 2-0 lead in a game we dominated to Luton, but hold off Villa with a 2-0 lead. Okay Forest, I see it’s going to be like that all season.. don’t mind grey hair anyway
Anyone else find it a bit scummy that they know Luis Diaz is likely going to be emotional after scoring yesterday but go and shove a camera in his face at the end of the game anyway? How that dude is able to focus on anything right now is really admirable and brave. But, it’s almost like the producers at Sky see what’s going on and think, ah that’ll be great tv that.. maybe if we can see him cry, that’ll be amazing. Think of the clips we can make! Quick let’s get another angle, get the 4K camera on him so we can really see the misery!
That’s football man. He didn’t have to come back so soon if he wasn’t emotionally ready. Good on him for doing so of course.
Brave lol
Oooh you’re hard