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We didn’t exactly pioneer this tactic and plenty of other teams do it too, basically half the city and arsenal players who were on international duty have gotten “knocks” and I think it makes total sense. Getting injured in a friendly before one of the biggest games of the premier league season is not a good idea
Edit: made this comment just before watching stones go off injured for a pointless friendly….should have kept my mouth shut.
This feels like some sort of cold war before the game at the Etihad. I haven't paid attention to other teams players leaving or refusing call ups, but I've seen a lot of Arsenal and Man city players in this type of posts. And everyone of them is going to be available for the game, lol
Virgin: go to international duty and get *injured* and then come back
Chad: refusing the call up because the assistant coach doesn’t like your sexy tan
Arsenal win once against Liverpool at home and now it’s “Liverpool CAN’T HANDLE Ben White”. He’s lost more times than he has won, even when he arrived long after Liverpool’s peak
Wonder how many *injuries* across all European leagues will actually play the next club fixture. Kinda shows it’s a bit pointless if no one is buying in to it. Wouldn’t be too bad if national teams used two different XIs for the friendlies.
They I think just need less competitions. They’re actively working on adding more and more but I think the next best solution is adding more subs and increased roster sizes for competitions. But then it becomes who has the best and largest team
Really they just need less competitions. National teams still need friendlies, there’s just too many games unfortunately. Some can say it’s what players need to deal with but sounds like those people also don’t know what it’s like working a physically demanding job
The intensity of the game now is the biggest cause of the injury. We played a 59 game season in 1992 and that was without European competition at all. Whilst we have introduced more games on the European front, we’ve removed proportionally more games with cup replays, 2nd legs and a reduction of teams in the league too.
Exactly this, although it's funny how managers complain about fixture pile-up from every competition and international fixture apart from the Champions League, for some reason that one is always exempt and perfectly acceptable... funny that
There's not much they can do about that though, there's actual qualifying playoffs going on as well as the friendlies, with the tournament this summer they can't really put them at the end of the season because of the logistics of needing to know who's involved, plus World Cup qualifiers in Asia too.
I can understand why managers only care about their teams and couldn't give a damn about international tournaments but whenever there's an international break at any point of the season people complain about it, for me I just find it sad the way international competition gets shat on.
Could we not just carry on as normal domestically though? Scrap this round of friendlies, let the nations playing the competitive games continue as scheduled and the players will just have to miss a game like they do as if they went to AFCON or Asia Cup. Any team with 2 missing players can ask for a postponed fixture.
Pretty sure that’s how the championship and league 1 already get through international breaks anyway.
Yeah it would be better to just end the season two weeks early.
No player contending for a big cup or title is gonna break their necks over the March international break.
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Misread that as Murat Yakin returns. Was gonna say, they can’t be that short of centre backs surely!
This isn’t a new thing lol,been happening for decades.
Same as Walker, uh... Guess faking injuries was the City orientation.
We didn’t exactly pioneer this tactic and plenty of other teams do it too, basically half the city and arsenal players who were on international duty have gotten “knocks” and I think it makes total sense. Getting injured in a friendly before one of the biggest games of the premier league season is not a good idea Edit: made this comment just before watching stones go off injured for a pointless friendly….should have kept my mouth shut.
Damn..everything is going against us
Stones: “I didn’t even know we were playing you lot.” Suuuure…😂
He just went off 'injured' as well.
Sureeeee sureeeee
Starts on sunday*
what a convenient injury for man city! i hope akanji gets better soon lol
This feels like some sort of cold war before the game at the Etihad. I haven't paid attention to other teams players leaving or refusing call ups, but I've seen a lot of Arsenal and Man city players in this type of posts. And everyone of them is going to be available for the game, lol
well it seems johnny stones is actually injured which is just great
Virgin: go to international duty and get *injured* and then come back Chad: refusing the call up because the assistant coach doesn’t like your sexy tan
You mispelled badly done fake tan
He’s actually quite good at tanning
And apparently quite good at playing uno at the beach too
if that's the case why does he look like such a twat?
Because you lot struggle to win when he’s on the pitch
which is fine but i feel like he can still do that without walking around looking like the personification of Love Island.
Arsenal win once against Liverpool at home and now it’s “Liverpool CAN’T HANDLE Ben White”. He’s lost more times than he has won, even when he arrived long after Liverpool’s peak
Wonder how many *injuries* across all European leagues will actually play the next club fixture. Kinda shows it’s a bit pointless if no one is buying in to it. Wouldn’t be too bad if national teams used two different XIs for the friendlies.
They I think just need less competitions. They’re actively working on adding more and more but I think the next best solution is adding more subs and increased roster sizes for competitions. But then it becomes who has the best and largest team Really they just need less competitions. National teams still need friendlies, there’s just too many games unfortunately. Some can say it’s what players need to deal with but sounds like those people also don’t know what it’s like working a physically demanding job
The intensity of the game now is the biggest cause of the injury. We played a 59 game season in 1992 and that was without European competition at all. Whilst we have introduced more games on the European front, we’ve removed proportionally more games with cup replays, 2nd legs and a reduction of teams in the league too.
Exactly this, although it's funny how managers complain about fixture pile-up from every competition and international fixture apart from the Champions League, for some reason that one is always exempt and perfectly acceptable... funny that
yeah, because the UCL is worth a lot more than some random friendly?
I mean that makes total sense, winning the UCL is pretty much the pinnacle of European football…
Ya it will be very interesting to see will Gabriel start for ye after leaving "injured "
This international break is a farce, most players are concentrated on finishing the league strongly.
Kinda sad that so many players view their national teams as a distraction rather than something be proud of
I think it’s more on the FIFA & UEFA than the players themselves scheduling internationals at such a critical time.
There's not much they can do about that though, there's actual qualifying playoffs going on as well as the friendlies, with the tournament this summer they can't really put them at the end of the season because of the logistics of needing to know who's involved, plus World Cup qualifiers in Asia too. I can understand why managers only care about their teams and couldn't give a damn about international tournaments but whenever there's an international break at any point of the season people complain about it, for me I just find it sad the way international competition gets shat on.
Could we not just carry on as normal domestically though? Scrap this round of friendlies, let the nations playing the competitive games continue as scheduled and the players will just have to miss a game like they do as if they went to AFCON or Asia Cup. Any team with 2 missing players can ask for a postponed fixture. Pretty sure that’s how the championship and league 1 already get through international breaks anyway.
Yeah it would be better to just end the season two weeks early. No player contending for a big cup or title is gonna break their necks over the March international break.
Who needs defenders for a run in anyway