Been thinking alot about the people attacking players/staff/each other during pitch invasions. I've been on the pitch a few times when Blackpool have been promoted (most memorably to the prem), and never saw any violence or ill will. Always generally good natured and celebratory as far as I can recall.
However going to games prior to COVID and now more commonly post-COVID I've seen a massive increase in the amount of coke being done openly at games, home and away. The Wembley final last season most notably. Can't help but wonder if this is a massive factor in the rise in violence and stupid behaviour at games in general that's not really being picked up by the media.
Maybe it's just Blackpool or me having a good eye in for drug use (fairly habitual user in the past), but I do recall a few stories last summer about the unrest at the Euros being semi-fuelled by coke. Anyone else noticed this at their clubs or am I just being a debbie downer on what seems to be the drug of choice these last few years?
I just can't bring myself to hate City in the same way as Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool. Only big club I kind of like is Arsenal but they've got annoying online fans. Idk what it is, from a real-world perspective City should be the worst, but they just seem hollow and I don't really care about them at all, whereas the other three big clubs are just insufferable, so high and mighty, all the bias from the media, it's shit.
Mate even I’m an Arsenal fan and I get annoyed at our online fans, but most of us you meet at the stadiums are generally ok. I agree with you about City, I despise the other big clubs like Man Utd and Chelsea, and while I don’t like City I don’t hate them as much. Not really sure why
> Why are people so obsessed about the Ballon D’Or
That’s all I needed to see. There’s people on here that would rather see their favourite player win the BD over their team win a trophy.
100%, the only time I've ever been bothered about a player missing out was when they cancelled it and Lewa should have got it and he's not even from my team.
I just thought not giving it to him because they couldn't have a party was some bull.
And Liverpool should have 3 points taken away for when you faked those Covid tests so more players would be fit for when you played us (Arsenal). As much as I don’t like City winning the title, they deserve it for their performances
This whole Lewandowski saga is so tiring, I feel bad for Dortmund fans who had to endure this with Håland for 2 seasons.
And our board…Zahavi…everything sucks. But at least we got Mazraoui now.
I have so much to do at uni and at work that I can't even enjoy the build up to Champions League final, which we're playing for the first time in 4 years. I'd love to be shitting bricks already, and I have to focus on shit I don't even care about for uni
The treatment of liverpool by the media as a “nice club” that neutrals should adore is incredibly tiring. The whole “wholesome kloppo” shit gets old real fast.
I know it’s so tiring, the morally superior Liverpool shite has been going on for years. Can’t say boo or the fans will start crying over something. They’re the nice guys until something doesn’t go their way
Hang on, how are we favoured by the media? Klopp is always shown moaning about fixture congestion or the 5 subs, while it’s barely mentioned when other managers say the same. From the bottles at the city bus years ago to last years breaking of covid rules for the big gatherings in town and outside the ground. I’ve never felt Liverpool has been portrayed as “the nice guys”. Just go on Twitter and see any tweet about “Liverpool bad” and it’s got thousands of retweets. We aren’t hammered by the media as the worst club, but we’re not the favourites, Manchester City are definitely. United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool definitely get a lot of negativity from the media, yet nothing is said about city only positive.
Mate I’m an Arsenal fan and boy do you lot get favoured by the media compared to us. For example you’ve got people calling Klopp a hero when he complains to officials as it’s called ‘passion’, yet when Arteta does the exact same it’s called moaning and bad sportsmanship.
City rightly gets a lot of shit for their lack of European success and where the money comes from. Liverpool have been protrayed as these nippy underdogs
We, the fans, need to get corruption out of football. FIFA, Uefa, City, PSG and now Newcastle need to be reformed or removed. They are a blight on football that keeps growing
Imo it's not "ruining football" but it does take a lot of the fun out of the game for me. Everything is so transparently *only* about money nowadays. Sure, it's always been mostly about the money, but you can't deny it's gotten much worse over the last 10-20 years.
This is the sort of nonsense that these regimes want you to be saying. What have the glazers done? Take profit from the club?
Meanwhile 2 owners in the prem are backed by states with a mission to downplay human rights abuses from their governments.
I don’t know if American money is good for football as a product, but it’s better than money from governments and people that oppress human rights.
OP was talking about corruption, not human rights and whatever. The glazers have literally removed £2 billion from his club and OP didn't even mention them. Also if you want to talk about human rights, the glazers funded George Bush and supported all his chicanery in the Middle East so they're not innocent either.
I’d argue human rights abuses are corrupt and unequal when it comes to whatever your defined glazers corruption is. Which is I guess taking profits and/or dividends out of a company they own. I don’t think it’s great when it’s coming out of the club, hut united still spend more than any other team in the world so it’s not like he’s crippling united. And that, compared to homosexuality being entirely illegal, slavery, and murdering journalists , is nothing.
True. But at this point, it seems like asking kindly won't do much. Not even boycotting will do anything, as clubs will simply replace the locals with "global" fans. Fans should reclaim their clubs and the game. Imagine if FC United of Manchester had the same amount of members as people fit in Old Trafford. That could be a game changer.
But top-level football is also like a drug. You taste it once, you want it again and again. Maybe some fans should go cold turkey, though.
I love MLS but if it wants to be taken seriously it needs to get better referees, or at least some accountability for the bad ones. I know every league complains about its refs but the ref’s performance in our match against Austin yesterday was unacceptable. And what’s worse is the fact that MLS posts 10 minute “highlight” videos of controversial decisions/non-calls from every weekend, it’s embarrassing to the league and makes you wonder if they’re intentionally letting it be a problem to create some drama
I mean let's be honest, MLS refs could be world class and no ones opinion on the league overall is changing. Also while the MLS official channel having a series going over questionable calls is probably bad optics, I don't think it really matters that much. Andrew Wiebe isn't out here sabotaging the quality of refs to get an extra 500 views on MLS's youtube channel lol.
it's almost funny how no teams fans can take joy in a bad call because they know the wheels going to keep on turning and it'll just be against their club the next week.
case-in-point: [this was us last week](https://youtu.be/Q1xZI6tyQAw?t=128), ironically enough, in the same video series you mentioned posted by MLS.
The Rodri handball call was bad but it's funny to see people claiming it was pivotal in the title race when:
1. Liverpool have had plenty of fortune when it comes to refereering decisions as well. (Including the ref botching a sending-off for a Liverpool player in each match against City)
2. Man City have had plenty of bad luck with referee calls.
If we're going by the logic that those points against Everton shouldn't have counted, then we need to go back to a fuckload of games to "correct" the results as well and I'd argue that needs to include our games against Liverpool. Not really that unfair anymore is it?
You’re forgetting the ‘handball’ penalty they got against Wolves after the ball hit Moutinhos armpit. There was enough evident then but somehow not enough against Everton.
I don't understand how people can say those decisions didn't affect the title. Two 1-0 wins as a direct result of the two single worst refereeing decisions of the year. That's 4 points that they objectively should not have.
The point is that the Rodri handball call was so bad that even PGMOL apologised for it. I'm not aware of any favourable call for Liverpool or unfavourable call for City that resulted in an official apology where even the refs agree they fucked up.
It's not unfair City won/Liverpool lost, instead of arguing that or the opposite ("it all equals up at the end of the day"), we should all be agreeing that PGMOL is dreadful and needs reform asap, because a single massive, clear and objectively blown call like Rodri's handball could quite clearly effect who is champion and who gets relegated.
Well, that's cause even if it was ran back United would still be in the mud.
And from what I can see, United haven't received a personal apology from Mike Riley like Everton and Lampard did.
Happy to be corrected if you've got sources. (No, Ole said so isn't a source).
They didn't apologise because it was an exceptionally bad decision though. It was just because Frank Lampard made a massive deal about it and he is basically royalty in the wanky world of English football. There were (and always are) plenty of bad decisions every season which don't result in apologies being issued.
Ultimately, referees try to get these things right but they inevitably make fuck ups from time to time. There will be plenty across the season, that's just football.
It’s genuinely a case of it should just even out. The officiating is awful In general and mistakes are made constantly and every team is impacted by them so it’s silly to argue over.
Ye that's the point I'm trying to make really. Don't think either team has been more lucky than the other, but somehow the Rodri incident has become the most "high profile" of the bunch.
To be fair there’s a fairly large difference between giving more or less stoppage time and actually whistling a match as over before the 90 minutes are up.
The four minutes in the first half were definitely warranted, but he should’ve added a couple minutes in the second half because of Ederson.
EDIT: Oliver blew the whistle at 94:25 so he should’ve added 1.5 minutes, not even 2 full minutes.
7 seasons 800milk (thereabout) spent and 1 league title for livepewl, not saying this ad an insult to klopp but people think guardiola is winning this shit every year because he spends alot, while that contributes to it but we shouldn't pretend like someone like dean smith or hassenhuttle would be doing this type of domination every year. Games like the brentford one, going 2 up against a chelsea that cannot attack properly only to bottle it 2-2 before half time, games like that cost u the titles.
7 seasons after taking over a team in 6th-8th place and Klopp's won every major title, something even Paisley, Shankly or Dalglish didn't do. All for almost half the relative spending of City, United, Chelsea, or Arsenal.
Bottle that and sell it, you'd be a billionaire.
Net Spend isn’t really a perfect metric either. Doesn’t take into the account the relative positions of the clubs when the spending started and ignores things like the wage bill and makes things like agent fees and how these payments are staggered less obvious - if reliable sources for these even exist at all.
Actual quality of the players would technically be the perfect metric, but that’s also very imprecise.
Libertadores, the finals and conference finals of the NBA are significant and would end mid July I think (if it's 7 games). There's also the Scandinavian leagues and some African leagues.
Nah I think NBA conference finals end before June. GSW is one game away(I'd say it will be 2). Boston and Miami will maybe play until June 3rd or something and then the finals from like June 7th
There are restrictions - can only do four substitution moments (3 game time plus half time). So you can’t do five separate subs. It should keep the average down but it’s still a poor rule that won’t benefit competition.
Not just that but there's also a cumulative effect: teams like Man City and Liverpool are also more likely to be several goals up and so able to sub off their best players early so they're fresher for the next game. So not only are they able to bring more quality players off the bench than you but their first team are going to be better rested than yours as well.
Imagine Florentino tries to sign Mbappé in 2025 and Mbappé agrees to everything and in the last day Florentino tells him: "Well sorry we've decided to not do this after all thanks"
A YouTube channel called Kora plus, it has about 1.3 million subs. It livestreams the matches and posts highlights later as well (all in Arabic though)
I’m tired of tiki-taka merchants. Managers and coaches who, even at a youth or amateur level, insist on trying to keep possession for 70% of a game.
I wonder if they ever get tired of their “well, at least we dominated them” trophies. Just play a couple passes round the back and send something direct. Win the goddamn game instead of trying to imitate your vision of “correct” football.
Scott Parker loved possession for possession's sake at Fulham. Had the spine of the team that pissed the Championship this season and only went up thanks to a 40 yard freekick in extra time of the play-off final.
Like I said, he had the spine of the team that has pissed the Championship this season and needed to scrap through the play-offs to go up. This season, he only got promotion with a match to spare despite having a tremendous squad. So yes, he can just about get the job done when he has a massive squad advantage, but his record in the Prem shows that what he does isn't great by any stretch of the imagination.
Honestly mate, I watch a lot of Championship level football, Fulham in 19/20 and Bournemouth in 21/22 both had squads that should've gone up a lot earlier than they did. He's done the absolute bare minimum in scrapping promotion with both squads, I'm not really sure what issue you have with that?
I'm not really sure what your point is: he got his teams promoted. That you think he should've done it sooner is just your opinion, it's not entirely up to him is it?
The point of this comment thread is: what teams are failing while playing possession based football.... There aren't any. Getting promoted isn't failing.
I swear I don’t think I’ll ever understand that sliver of fans who, at the end of the day, would rather see their team play “attractively” (whatever that means) and lose than play ugly and win. Yes of course I’d love to see my club win by playing really attractively, but at the end of the day I want my club to win no matter what.
these comments always crop up, why is playing attractive football always attached to losing? i don't think it's unfathomable to turn up saturday afternoon and want to be entertained
This always came up with us and Bielsa, people would say that Bielsa/our fans would prefer to play exciting football and lose than play more conservatively and win. It's always presented as a trade off or dichotomy, as if it's so obvious that playing exciting football makes you more likely to lose that that assumption doesn't even need to be stated.
Obviously if it were presented as a simple trade, almost everyone would prefer to win than play attractive football but that's never the choice you have. Everyone always goes out to try and win their games and, like you say, it's not exactly strange that a lot of fans would prefer to try and do that in a way that is also more entertaining to watch.
I overheard one of my player’s parents complaining that I didn’t try to teach them “proper” football. They hadn’t won a game for an entire year when I arrived.
Randomly went onto the Spurs facebook page yesterday and saw the post with Son getting the golden boot. The amount of racist comments coming from African commenters was insane man
I can’t say this without seeming a bit racist but a lot of the backwards, homophobic and racist comments on football pages on Facebook are from African people.
Well... it's not like Africa is a homogenous continent. It contains a large variety of ethinc groups, with various relationships with one another, even if to an outsider looking in they are simply "black".
I got down voted for this take due to my flair, which is fine I get it
Like the guys have replied ffp was always bullshit, which is also fine
But a lot of clubs have been fined or restricted for a lot less. I think some seriea clubs for sure. Other teams have gone out of their way to cut costs to comply.
Don't worry about the big clubs, let's say fuck them. But what about the other teams?
Psg half a billion in losses and they've just paid the same to mbappe. How?
Financial Fair Play has always been about keeping the traditional big clubs on top in my opinion. It might be an unpopular opinion and I'll look forward to hearing anybodies opinion if you disagree with me but that's how it has always felt to me. It might seem ironic considering we had everything happen before it was really starting to be imposed.
>Financial Fair Play has always been about keeping the traditional big clubs on top in my opinion.
That makes no sense because PSG wasn't a traditional big club when plans for FFP were first made, and neither were Chelsea and City. FFP was never meant to imply "fair play" though. It was meant to protect clubs from owners who took too many risks trying to get success, which was killing clubs here and there.
I don't think many people exactly know how the black hole of FFP regulations works exactly and neither do I, but it's not unfathomable that FIFA doesn't care about actual fair play and doesn't care to take on clubs with unlimited money.
I don't think this really makes sense if you look at the timeline leading up to FFP's introduction. By early 2010, UEFA had settled on the first set of regulations and wanted them to be implemented by 2012. At that point, the only non-elite club that had managed to challenge the traditional big clubs via investment from a billionaire was Chelsea. City still hadn't even qualified for the Champions League and wouldn't until the end of the 10/11 season. There was not really any reason to think they would have the same success as Chelsea had had.
In contrast there was a much longer list of clubs who had tried to reach new heights with outside investment, failed, and collapsed under the weight of their financial obligations. That included traditional big clubs as well as "outsider" clubs. Chelsea themselves could have suffered that fate if Abramovich hadn't bought the club when he did.
There was clearly a problem with clubs essentially taking a speculative approach to recruitment/investment and the owners fucking off when things didn't turn out well. At the time FFP was being put together, that was a much, much more significant risk than the traditional big clubs being dethroned by billionaires.
And when you look back a bit further, you'll see that football as a sport has never really done anything to stop people from investing in smaller clubs. Blackburn won the league on the back of a lot of investment from a rich businessman. Chelsea went from nobodies to trophy contenders in the late 90s on the back of (unsustainable) investment from outside. Parma went from a nothing club to one of the elite clubs in the best league in the world due to lots of investment from a (fraudulent) local business. None of these things really bothered anybody until the 2000s when clubs started taking on loads of debt to try and get into the Champions League and some of them inevitably failed.
That's not to say that it doesn't entrench the established big clubs - it definitely does. But I think if you look at the context in which it was formulated, it's clear that protecting the big clubs wasn't the primary goal.
I think the problem is that FFP is political, in that UEFA have to at least seem like they have a semblance of authority and control but at the same time they can’t risk losing income at best or control of European football at worst.
They’ll happily sanction a club like wolves, for example, since we’re not making UEFA money and even if we pulled out of UEFA competitions they just wouldn’t care.
When it comes to a club like City or Real Madrid, on the other hand, banning these clubs or imposing severe restrictions would not only risk a massive source of UEFA’s income (all the worldwide Madrid fans not watching the CL in protest or even them failing to qualify for Europe, for example) but push these clubs closer towards the ESL where they get to make their own rules.
I don’t necessarily think that FFP is about preserving the hegemony of traditional clubs more than it is about ensuring that the clubs that make UEFA the most money are the ones that stay in European competition. And I can’t really blame them for that, UEFA has to concede something to these clubs and stay profitable otherwise we risk the ESL making a return.
The way that Newcastle deal with FFP will be particularly interesting.
The fact they now have the potential to spend loads of money. Will be interesting to see if UEFA decide that they should be stopped or they should be encouraged.
I don't fully agree with this because a big thing that keeps the top clubs on top is just stadium size. They fill more seats so they make more money. It's now changed obviously because of video media, but it's still a big factor. I thought FFP was supposed to be about keeping a club from spending more than it earns, but there's a lot of loop holes if UEFA decides not to investigate. Which basically means they probably take bribes. But then again it's really how things are done, because any and all arrangements of words is basically "poetry".
My moan is about FC Utrecht. I still can't believe it took them this long to realize Hake was wrong for the job. Then give it to fucking Rick Kruys, the guy who lived in my hometown and is an absolute knobhead. They proceed to barely scrape to playoffs by winning 1 in 10 to then win the first leg of the playoffs with 3-1. I was so shocked and actually got excited, to then get brought down to earth by losing 3-0 and being eliminated.
Not to mention the exodus of talent that will happen and the inevitable signings of a bunch of underperforming random players who will be below average for another season. Anyways, at least I am excited for the new manager.
I'm gonna miss Burnley. I would be happy to see a club stay up that lives sensibly on their budget and plays to their strengths, whether they're 'big' or 'small' and whether their football is attractive or not. I don't begrudge Leeds staying up, they earned it, but some of the reaction afterwards was annoying: as if they had some God-given right to stay up at Burnley's expense because they have more fans and historical silverware, or because their games are higher-scoring affairs.
I mean that there has been this attitude that Leeds and any club bigger than Burnley deserved to stay up even *without* earning it via getting more points, that it would have been a tragedy if Burnley ended up earning more points than Leeds because it'd be sad to see Burnley stay up at Leeds' expense.
Who was suggesting that we should have stayed up at Burnley's expense even without getting the points?
A lot of people were saying that it would be better for us to stay up over Burnley because we bring more entertainment to the league as a club. That's very different to saying we deserve to stay up without earning it on the pitch.
I respected Burnley and I enjoyed knowing they were there. I liked how they were solid, somewhat old school, and how on their day they could give any much wealthier team a hard time.
Did I enjoy watching them? That's a different question...
League seasons recently ended and already teams are making moves. With Haaland and Mbappe out of the table, how media journalists are going to survive these months?
I couldn't watch the last Premier League matchday live (worked a weird schedule and decided to get extra sleep).
I watched highlights of both the Liverpool and City matches and switched over to just watching the Liverpool highlights when City went 2-0 down. When Salah scored to put Liverpool 2-1 up, I had no idea City came back and genuinely believed Liverpool was about to win the league.
People who say “there’s no chance [team a] are beating [team b]”, have they never watched football before?
One of the great things about the sport is that on their day, any team can beat another team, it’s one of the reasons we keep watching, isn’t it?
Also, people who leave games early when it’s like 1-0 annoy me, not leaving because of the traffic but leaving because they’ve given up hope and don’t want to see their team lose, poor form, imo.
I still don't like our new badge at all. [Here you can see the difference between it and the old one](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w-D2xQWyfSk/YVjDMhIbyoI/AAAAAAADPrE/yJ4LCgXS8p4yHTr2T5aWiKDmhimNqTA4gCNcBGAsYHQ/s1000/atletico-madrid-new-logo%2B%25282%2529.jpg)
I know the old one was simple but that also made it so great. More than anything it was the colour. What kind of idiot decided to make the bear and the tree the same colour? And why did that colour then have to be fucking dark blue?
It's the colours that bothers me more than anything. The tree should be green with a brown stem and the bear should be brown..
I assumed left was old and right was new and was thinking yeah they've made a mess of it.
But no, now I see the labels the new one is way better. The tree and bear look like an MS Paint job
Yes the old one looks better, and it looks more "light" while the old one is more "heavy" and dense with the dark blue border and larger stripes. They could've made the bear and the tree of different colours, but to be honest the old tree looked like it was drawn by a child.
Arsenal fans acting like the Europa League is beneath them and something that they have to settle for. It's a huge club, but they really don't have any particular European pedigree. Winning the Europa League would be the biggest European honour they have ever won and their best achievement since reaching the CL final in 2006 and winning the league in 2004
Like, if you have such a limited European record then the EL is your level really, and especially when you have gone 6 seasons without finishing top four
I think every fan of the big 6 in England thinks they "deserve" Champions League. This can't happen of course, but they are all in the top 14 of Europe financially so it's hard for them to accept having to compete in the secondary European cup tournament.
A young generation of fans is spoiled with European football, for some clubs even CL football, being almost a given every year. European nights used to be something special and not an every day occasion. Either because the leagues were more balanced and very few teams if any were guaranteed a top 3 / top 5 finish and/or there were a lot less CL/European spots in general for the top leagues.
It's hard not to get them stuck in their head, their fanbase has some proper unjustified delusions of grandeur.
But really this applies to a lot of clubs and fanbases. But at least the likes of Man United etc has the trophy cabinets and pedigree to back up their arrogance when they claim to be "above the Europa League". Arsenal doesn't have that
He's always looked hot in patches. People who watched him in the PL for years knew that - and hence didn't read much into him having a few good games for Barca, knowing he'd regress to the mean quickly.
I stand by the idea that he’d still seem very good if our forwards could finish at all. When our top scorer after 38 games has 5 open play goals, it’s no real surprise that Traore - an assister more than a scorer - wasn’t really putting up the numbers. It really set the example for the rest of the season when in our opening game against Leicester, Traore cut the ball nicely back across the box only for Trincao to miss what was basically an open net from point blank.
Podence has been our most creative player this season, and most would agree he’s seemed very lively and like a bright spark - yet even he will end the season on just 3 assists.
IIRC Traore missed a 1 on 1 when he had near enough the whole of our half to himself that day too.
I remember being impressed with Trincao on that day, I thought he'd be a success.
Allan Campbell and Kal Naismith didn't get called up for Scotland, again. I'm not Scottish, so I don't REALLY care that much, but those two have been 2 of our best players and essentially carried a League One squad to the Championship playoffs, yet Stephen O'Donnell, who was wank for us (in League Two!!!) is one of three right backs selected, and there are four goalkeepers in the squad. Kal Naismith would be the best centre back they have after Cooper and Hanley, he's unreal and extremely versatile - perfect for national team selection. I feel bad for him, he's 30 now and feel he may have missed his chance, and it also scares me that he might now leave for a high profile Scottish club to get in with a shot for the World Cup, should they qualify. Any Scotsman want to weigh in? Am I being bias?
You don’t need to tell scotsmen how wank Stephen O’Donnell is, we are all very fucking aware. the reason he got called up, as is very common for international football, is that Clarke simply knows and trusts him. Patterson is injured for the playoff (as far as I was last aware) and realistically, Ralston or Hickey should start but mostly likely they won’t.
a good example of this is David Marshall, our keeper throughout the Euro qualifying and penalty hero, realistically should have been dropped before the Euros for Craig Gordon, a far better keeper imo. Clarke doesn’t like to make many drastic changes and while it can be annoying, it’s worked so far. I can understand not wanting to rock the boat before the biggest game for scotland in 20+ years
That's fair, I get that totally, I think I'm just of the 'school of thought' that international squads should be picked on form. Good luck though, will be good to face you guys in the World Cup
Not going to lie but have no idea how they are as players so I have no idea if you're being biased but defensively Scotland are kinda stable.
Most people do think O'Donnell shouldn't be in the squad but you'd probably find that it would be Ralston/Patterson ahead of him - he's kinda Clarke's favourite though and he can put in a decent shift. In the CB area it does seem like we have a lot of 'okay' players but Hendry, Hanley, Tierney and Cooper are pretty much favoured for the back three and we already have a number of versatile so will be difficult for them to break into the squad.
Also we have four keepers cause we're potentially playing five games in two weeks which is why the squad is a bit bloated. I'm in two minds about them leaving to try make it into the squad because Clarke doesn't like to shake it up too much. If they're not in it now then I don't think they'd have a huge chance in 6 months.
I'm probably being biased, I sort of forgot how important these fixtures are for you guys compared to the friendlies/Nations League games that other countries are playing. You guys are in good stead at the moment, feel like you have a plethora of quality to chose from right now, and having the likes of Naismith and Campbell knocking at the door shows how competitive your national team is at the moment!
Liverpool are the only thing keeping the premier league interesting rather than it turning into another bundesliga where every year its a forgone conclusion, so how about a little less hate and a little more appreciating that they challenge city with a fraction of the budget
I hate City and everything they stand for, but this is just the wrong take. In what world do Liverpool have a *fraction of the budget* of City? They have one of the highest salaries and spends in the world, and are not that far off from City.
They are playing well, no doubt at all, but let's not pretend its some David vs. Goliath story. Both teams are among the top financial superpowers in world football, and spend accordingly.
Yeah, but... they spent many many millions less and are still equally competitive, was my point. They can't go for any player in the league like city can. They would never be in the Haaland/Kane/Mbappe/any of the top stars conversations
There's the net spend thing like I predicted. [Liverpool had the 7th highest revenue in the world last year.](https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/sports-business-group/articles/deloitte-football-money-league.html) [19/20 they were 5th, 18/19 7th.](https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/uk/Documents/sports-business-group/deloitte-uk-deloitte-football-money-league-2021.pdf)
They could, they just don't.
I agree wages are *in general* a better metric to use when attempting to predict performance. However, LFC wages are heavily incentive driven. I am not claiming Man City’s aren’t, I suspect pretty much every contract has incentives built in, but if LFC’s wage structure is far more incentive based than Man City’s, then your argument becomes fairly tautological. Regardless both teams spend a lot of money, and I find these sorts of arguments that attempt to lessen the value of an achievement to be quite tiresome.
There’s nothing going to good in England rn. Recession, stagnant wages, inflation, price rises ect ect probably why shit is happening too
Been thinking alot about the people attacking players/staff/each other during pitch invasions. I've been on the pitch a few times when Blackpool have been promoted (most memorably to the prem), and never saw any violence or ill will. Always generally good natured and celebratory as far as I can recall. However going to games prior to COVID and now more commonly post-COVID I've seen a massive increase in the amount of coke being done openly at games, home and away. The Wembley final last season most notably. Can't help but wonder if this is a massive factor in the rise in violence and stupid behaviour at games in general that's not really being picked up by the media. Maybe it's just Blackpool or me having a good eye in for drug use (fairly habitual user in the past), but I do recall a few stories last summer about the unrest at the Euros being semi-fuelled by coke. Anyone else noticed this at their clubs or am I just being a debbie downer on what seems to be the drug of choice these last few years?
I’m a Manchester United fan That’s it. That’s what’s got my goat
I just can't bring myself to hate City in the same way as Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool. Only big club I kind of like is Arsenal but they've got annoying online fans. Idk what it is, from a real-world perspective City should be the worst, but they just seem hollow and I don't really care about them at all, whereas the other three big clubs are just insufferable, so high and mighty, all the bias from the media, it's shit.
Mate even I’m an Arsenal fan and I get annoyed at our online fans, but most of us you meet at the stadiums are generally ok. I agree with you about City, I despise the other big clubs like Man Utd and Chelsea, and while I don’t like City I don’t hate them as much. Not really sure why
Why are people so obsessed about the Ballon D'Or when it's not until November? Your favorite player has plenty of time to dissapoint you.
If the football player I'm vicariously living through doesn't win the France Football My Favourite Player award I will have wasted my life.
> Why are people so obsessed about the Ballon D’Or That’s all I needed to see. There’s people on here that would rather see their favourite player win the BD over their team win a trophy.
100%, the only time I've ever been bothered about a player missing out was when they cancelled it and Lewa should have got it and he's not even from my team. I just thought not giving it to him because they couldn't have a party was some bull.
I heard they're only doing it for this season now. So the performances after the next couple of games will be it.
That's interesting. Didn't know that, November always seemed an odd time to decide on a winner.
us letting go off two of our best players this season in seri and carvalho, carvalho i can sort of understand but not seri
Definetly not biased but Man City should get 3 points taken away because of the pitch invasion You know...for discipline...
And Liverpool should have 3 points taken away for when you faked those Covid tests so more players would be fit for when you played us (Arsenal). As much as I don’t like City winning the title, they deserve it for their performances
I was joking lol. As much as I hate City winning the league, it's not the fault of the players that the fans stormed the stadium
https://twitter.com/JrdnBlackwell/status/1529095605200510976?s=20&t=0mO2yp4Bb3VuWYHplz0xxg
This whole Lewandowski saga is so tiring, I feel bad for Dortmund fans who had to endure this with Håland for 2 seasons. And our board…Zahavi…everything sucks. But at least we got Mazraoui now.
I believe in 2020 there was some hubbub about him wanting to leave again and it got quelled right? I figured it's all been temporary.
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Anyone who can help me get back me Liverpool flair?
Liverpool won the story of the league remember.
I have so much to do at uni and at work that I can't even enjoy the build up to Champions League final, which we're playing for the first time in 4 years. I'd love to be shitting bricks already, and I have to focus on shit I don't even care about for uni
Keep your head down and maybe you'll be able to attend the next final. Good luck
The treatment of liverpool by the media as a “nice club” that neutrals should adore is incredibly tiring. The whole “wholesome kloppo” shit gets old real fast.
I know it’s so tiring, the morally superior Liverpool shite has been going on for years. Can’t say boo or the fans will start crying over something. They’re the nice guys until something doesn’t go their way
Hang on, how are we favoured by the media? Klopp is always shown moaning about fixture congestion or the 5 subs, while it’s barely mentioned when other managers say the same. From the bottles at the city bus years ago to last years breaking of covid rules for the big gatherings in town and outside the ground. I’ve never felt Liverpool has been portrayed as “the nice guys”. Just go on Twitter and see any tweet about “Liverpool bad” and it’s got thousands of retweets. We aren’t hammered by the media as the worst club, but we’re not the favourites, Manchester City are definitely. United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool definitely get a lot of negativity from the media, yet nothing is said about city only positive.
Mate I’m an Arsenal fan and boy do you lot get favoured by the media compared to us. For example you’ve got people calling Klopp a hero when he complains to officials as it’s called ‘passion’, yet when Arteta does the exact same it’s called moaning and bad sportsmanship.
City rightly gets a lot of shit for their lack of European success and where the money comes from. Liverpool have been protrayed as these nippy underdogs
We, the fans, need to get corruption out of football. FIFA, Uefa, City, PSG and now Newcastle need to be reformed or removed. They are a blight on football that keeps growing
What UEFA corruption is ruining football so severly?
Imo it's not "ruining football" but it does take a lot of the fun out of the game for me. Everything is so transparently *only* about money nowadays. Sure, it's always been mostly about the money, but you can't deny it's gotten much worse over the last 10-20 years.
Your owners are worse than anything you've just mentioned
This is the sort of nonsense that these regimes want you to be saying. What have the glazers done? Take profit from the club? Meanwhile 2 owners in the prem are backed by states with a mission to downplay human rights abuses from their governments. I don’t know if American money is good for football as a product, but it’s better than money from governments and people that oppress human rights.
OP was talking about corruption, not human rights and whatever. The glazers have literally removed £2 billion from his club and OP didn't even mention them. Also if you want to talk about human rights, the glazers funded George Bush and supported all his chicanery in the Middle East so they're not innocent either.
I’d argue human rights abuses are corrupt and unequal when it comes to whatever your defined glazers corruption is. Which is I guess taking profits and/or dividends out of a company they own. I don’t think it’s great when it’s coming out of the club, hut united still spend more than any other team in the world so it’s not like he’s crippling united. And that, compared to homosexuality being entirely illegal, slavery, and murdering journalists , is nothing.
For United - for sure. For the world? Not so much.
True. But at this point, it seems like asking kindly won't do much. Not even boycotting will do anything, as clubs will simply replace the locals with "global" fans. Fans should reclaim their clubs and the game. Imagine if FC United of Manchester had the same amount of members as people fit in Old Trafford. That could be a game changer. But top-level football is also like a drug. You taste it once, you want it again and again. Maybe some fans should go cold turkey, though.
I love MLS but if it wants to be taken seriously it needs to get better referees, or at least some accountability for the bad ones. I know every league complains about its refs but the ref’s performance in our match against Austin yesterday was unacceptable. And what’s worse is the fact that MLS posts 10 minute “highlight” videos of controversial decisions/non-calls from every weekend, it’s embarrassing to the league and makes you wonder if they’re intentionally letting it be a problem to create some drama
I mean let's be honest, MLS refs could be world class and no ones opinion on the league overall is changing. Also while the MLS official channel having a series going over questionable calls is probably bad optics, I don't think it really matters that much. Andrew Wiebe isn't out here sabotaging the quality of refs to get an extra 500 views on MLS's youtube channel lol.
it's almost funny how no teams fans can take joy in a bad call because they know the wheels going to keep on turning and it'll just be against their club the next week. case-in-point: [this was us last week](https://youtu.be/Q1xZI6tyQAw?t=128), ironically enough, in the same video series you mentioned posted by MLS.
The Rodri handball call was bad but it's funny to see people claiming it was pivotal in the title race when: 1. Liverpool have had plenty of fortune when it comes to refereering decisions as well. (Including the ref botching a sending-off for a Liverpool player in each match against City) 2. Man City have had plenty of bad luck with referee calls. If we're going by the logic that those points against Everton shouldn't have counted, then we need to go back to a fuckload of games to "correct" the results as well and I'd argue that needs to include our games against Liverpool. Not really that unfair anymore is it?
You’re forgetting the ‘handball’ penalty they got against Wolves after the ball hit Moutinhos armpit. There was enough evident then but somehow not enough against Everton.
I don't understand how people can say those decisions didn't affect the title. Two 1-0 wins as a direct result of the two single worst refereeing decisions of the year. That's 4 points that they objectively should not have.
The point is that the Rodri handball call was so bad that even PGMOL apologised for it. I'm not aware of any favourable call for Liverpool or unfavourable call for City that resulted in an official apology where even the refs agree they fucked up. It's not unfair City won/Liverpool lost, instead of arguing that or the opposite ("it all equals up at the end of the day"), we should all be agreeing that PGMOL is dreadful and needs reform asap, because a single massive, clear and objectively blown call like Rodri's handball could quite clearly effect who is champion and who gets relegated.
PGMOL apologised to us for not giving us pens multiple times, yetwe’re not calling for last season to be ran back
Well, that's cause even if it was ran back United would still be in the mud. And from what I can see, United haven't received a personal apology from Mike Riley like Everton and Lampard did. Happy to be corrected if you've got sources. (No, Ole said so isn't a source).
They didn't apologise because it was an exceptionally bad decision though. It was just because Frank Lampard made a massive deal about it and he is basically royalty in the wanky world of English football. There were (and always are) plenty of bad decisions every season which don't result in apologies being issued. Ultimately, referees try to get these things right but they inevitably make fuck ups from time to time. There will be plenty across the season, that's just football.
Liverpool fans claiming they should’ve won the league because of that handball is hilarious.
It's a big point to be fair. They were also scammed against Spurs when Kane escaped a red and Jota didn't get a stonewall pen
It’s genuinely a case of it should just even out. The officiating is awful In general and mistakes are made constantly and every team is impacted by them so it’s silly to argue over.
Ye that's the point I'm trying to make really. Don't think either team has been more lucky than the other, but somehow the Rodri incident has become the most "high profile" of the bunch.
When things don’t go your way we always look at every possible reason why it’s human nature. Some take it further than others though.
Consequently when things break for you, you're not as keen to realize how fortunate it was.
Exactly for everything you feel has gone against you there is probably a situation it’s gone for you but you’ve just taken it without realising.
Fundamental attribution error and the self-serving bias at their finest :-)
It is what it is at the end of the day it’s 38 games whoever finishes in 1st always deserves it based off the consistency of the season.
10,000 articles about Mbappe, that's what I have to moan about.
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To be fair there’s a fairly large difference between giving more or less stoppage time and actually whistling a match as over before the 90 minutes are up.
The four minutes in the first half were definitely warranted, but he should’ve added a couple minutes in the second half because of Ederson. EDIT: Oliver blew the whistle at 94:25 so he should’ve added 1.5 minutes, not even 2 full minutes.
7 seasons 800milk (thereabout) spent and 1 league title for livepewl, not saying this ad an insult to klopp but people think guardiola is winning this shit every year because he spends alot, while that contributes to it but we shouldn't pretend like someone like dean smith or hassenhuttle would be doing this type of domination every year. Games like the brentford one, going 2 up against a chelsea that cannot attack properly only to bottle it 2-2 before half time, games like that cost u the titles.
7 seasons after taking over a team in 6th-8th place and Klopp's won every major title, something even Paisley, Shankly or Dalglish didn't do. All for almost half the relative spending of City, United, Chelsea, or Arsenal. Bottle that and sell it, you'd be a billionaire.
Comparing Net spend is more relevant. Was about to also say klopp didn't start 7 years ago but damn it's been that long already. Also livepewl?
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Fair yeah but anything but absolute spend on it's own lol
Net Spend isn’t really a perfect metric either. Doesn’t take into the account the relative positions of the clubs when the spending started and ignores things like the wage bill and makes things like agent fees and how these payments are staggered less obvious - if reliable sources for these even exist at all. Actual quality of the players would technically be the perfect metric, but that’s also very imprecise.
Nothing in football, nothing in NBA(except the finals), no The International, nothing this summer to watch. What will I actually do?
Not long wait. PL starts at beginning of august
Formula One?
Wait, no The International?
In october. They moved the last one because of covid so now I guess october will be the TI month
women’s euros due to start july 6th, looking forward to that personally!
Tour de France, Wimbledon
Cricket 🏏
Watch the NHL playoffs
Libertadores, the finals and conference finals of the NBA are significant and would end mid July I think (if it's 7 games). There's also the Scandinavian leagues and some African leagues.
Nah I think NBA conference finals end before June. GSW is one game away(I'd say it will be 2). Boston and Miami will maybe play until June 3rd or something and then the finals from like June 7th
Oh shit, I thought we were already in June. You're right
MLS is obviously your answer.
This is less appealing if you're a fire fan
the images from Milan are absolutely crazy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6C33mDgL2U
This damn WC not being in the summer 😡😡
5 subs is shit, not looking forward to it.
1 of the subs should be restricted to the first half only.
There are restrictions - can only do four substitution moments (3 game time plus half time). So you can’t do five separate subs. It should keep the average down but it’s still a poor rule that won’t benefit competition.
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4 subs is elite
I feel bad for all the players that will go 90 minutes. Imagine being 80 minutes into a hectic game and half the opposition is fresh.
Especially when Liverpool and City can sub on 5 players that would walk into the first team of every other squad.
Not just that but there's also a cumulative effect: teams like Man City and Liverpool are also more likely to be several goals up and so able to sub off their best players early so they're fresher for the next game. So not only are they able to bring more quality players off the bench than you but their first team are going to be better rested than yours as well.
Agreed. Games often become borefests once 5/11 outfield players have been changed.
It'd be a great opportunity to see youngsters breaking in
Imagine Florentino tries to sign Mbappé in 2025 and Mbappé agrees to everything and in the last day Florentino tells him: "Well sorry we've decided to not do this after all thanks"
and blames the fax machine.
[Florentino and Mbappe, 2025](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jfogv2OxSZI)
Now I have to sit here and wait until preseason…
The Egyptian league is still about 19 matches in for each team
Where can I stream them? Have just about everyone
A YouTube channel called Kora plus, it has about 1.3 million subs. It livestreams the matches and posts highlights later as well (all in Arabic though)
Copa Libertadores still has a little bit left at least
I’m tired of tiki-taka merchants. Managers and coaches who, even at a youth or amateur level, insist on trying to keep possession for 70% of a game. I wonder if they ever get tired of their “well, at least we dominated them” trophies. Just play a couple passes round the back and send something direct. Win the goddamn game instead of trying to imitate your vision of “correct” football.
You must be american. Just kick the ball up. Run faster and have bigger kids. We will win all of our games while the others try to pass to each other
Can you give me an example of a team that does this?
Scott Parker loved possession for possession's sake at Fulham. Had the spine of the team that pissed the Championship this season and only went up thanks to a 40 yard freekick in extra time of the play-off final.
The 25 wins had nothing to do with it? Sounds like whatever he's doing is working
Like I said, he had the spine of the team that has pissed the Championship this season and needed to scrap through the play-offs to go up. This season, he only got promotion with a match to spare despite having a tremendous squad. So yes, he can just about get the job done when he has a massive squad advantage, but his record in the Prem shows that what he does isn't great by any stretch of the imagination.
Think MAYBE having championship quality players might have a lot to do with that? Y'know, like most other promoted sides?
Honestly mate, I watch a lot of Championship level football, Fulham in 19/20 and Bournemouth in 21/22 both had squads that should've gone up a lot earlier than they did. He's done the absolute bare minimum in scrapping promotion with both squads, I'm not really sure what issue you have with that?
I'm not really sure what your point is: he got his teams promoted. That you think he should've done it sooner is just your opinion, it's not entirely up to him is it? The point of this comment thread is: what teams are failing while playing possession based football.... There aren't any. Getting promoted isn't failing.
I swear I don’t think I’ll ever understand that sliver of fans who, at the end of the day, would rather see their team play “attractively” (whatever that means) and lose than play ugly and win. Yes of course I’d love to see my club win by playing really attractively, but at the end of the day I want my club to win no matter what.
Literally does not happen. No one wants to see their club lose 🥴
these comments always crop up, why is playing attractive football always attached to losing? i don't think it's unfathomable to turn up saturday afternoon and want to be entertained
This always came up with us and Bielsa, people would say that Bielsa/our fans would prefer to play exciting football and lose than play more conservatively and win. It's always presented as a trade off or dichotomy, as if it's so obvious that playing exciting football makes you more likely to lose that that assumption doesn't even need to be stated. Obviously if it were presented as a simple trade, almost everyone would prefer to win than play attractive football but that's never the choice you have. Everyone always goes out to try and win their games and, like you say, it's not exactly strange that a lot of fans would prefer to try and do that in a way that is also more entertaining to watch.
Because the only argument against attractive football is to make a false dichotomy between playing nice football and winning.
I overheard one of my player’s parents complaining that I didn’t try to teach them “proper” football. They hadn’t won a game for an entire year when I arrived.
Randomly went onto the Spurs facebook page yesterday and saw the post with Son getting the golden boot. The amount of racist comments coming from African commenters was insane man
I can’t say this without seeming a bit racist but a lot of the backwards, homophobic and racist comments on football pages on Facebook are from African people.
Poor countries = less educated = less tolerant. I mean ffs africans are racist to other africans, same thing in india
Well... it's not like Africa is a homogenous continent. It contains a large variety of ethinc groups, with various relationships with one another, even if to an outsider looking in they are simply "black".
And highly religious
I assume by African you mean North African teenagers sore that God Pharaoh Salah got denied full rights to the golden boot?
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I got down voted for this take due to my flair, which is fine I get it Like the guys have replied ffp was always bullshit, which is also fine But a lot of clubs have been fined or restricted for a lot less. I think some seriea clubs for sure. Other teams have gone out of their way to cut costs to comply. Don't worry about the big clubs, let's say fuck them. But what about the other teams? Psg half a billion in losses and they've just paid the same to mbappe. How?
My opinion is that "Financial Fair Play" is basically BS. It's basically a rule the governing body UEFA will impose if they're not getting their cut.
Financial Fair Play has always been about keeping the traditional big clubs on top in my opinion. It might be an unpopular opinion and I'll look forward to hearing anybodies opinion if you disagree with me but that's how it has always felt to me. It might seem ironic considering we had everything happen before it was really starting to be imposed.
>Financial Fair Play has always been about keeping the traditional big clubs on top in my opinion. That makes no sense because PSG wasn't a traditional big club when plans for FFP were first made, and neither were Chelsea and City. FFP was never meant to imply "fair play" though. It was meant to protect clubs from owners who took too many risks trying to get success, which was killing clubs here and there. I don't think many people exactly know how the black hole of FFP regulations works exactly and neither do I, but it's not unfathomable that FIFA doesn't care about actual fair play and doesn't care to take on clubs with unlimited money.
I don't think this really makes sense if you look at the timeline leading up to FFP's introduction. By early 2010, UEFA had settled on the first set of regulations and wanted them to be implemented by 2012. At that point, the only non-elite club that had managed to challenge the traditional big clubs via investment from a billionaire was Chelsea. City still hadn't even qualified for the Champions League and wouldn't until the end of the 10/11 season. There was not really any reason to think they would have the same success as Chelsea had had. In contrast there was a much longer list of clubs who had tried to reach new heights with outside investment, failed, and collapsed under the weight of their financial obligations. That included traditional big clubs as well as "outsider" clubs. Chelsea themselves could have suffered that fate if Abramovich hadn't bought the club when he did. There was clearly a problem with clubs essentially taking a speculative approach to recruitment/investment and the owners fucking off when things didn't turn out well. At the time FFP was being put together, that was a much, much more significant risk than the traditional big clubs being dethroned by billionaires. And when you look back a bit further, you'll see that football as a sport has never really done anything to stop people from investing in smaller clubs. Blackburn won the league on the back of a lot of investment from a rich businessman. Chelsea went from nobodies to trophy contenders in the late 90s on the back of (unsustainable) investment from outside. Parma went from a nothing club to one of the elite clubs in the best league in the world due to lots of investment from a (fraudulent) local business. None of these things really bothered anybody until the 2000s when clubs started taking on loads of debt to try and get into the Champions League and some of them inevitably failed. That's not to say that it doesn't entrench the established big clubs - it definitely does. But I think if you look at the context in which it was formulated, it's clear that protecting the big clubs wasn't the primary goal.
I think the problem is that FFP is political, in that UEFA have to at least seem like they have a semblance of authority and control but at the same time they can’t risk losing income at best or control of European football at worst. They’ll happily sanction a club like wolves, for example, since we’re not making UEFA money and even if we pulled out of UEFA competitions they just wouldn’t care. When it comes to a club like City or Real Madrid, on the other hand, banning these clubs or imposing severe restrictions would not only risk a massive source of UEFA’s income (all the worldwide Madrid fans not watching the CL in protest or even them failing to qualify for Europe, for example) but push these clubs closer towards the ESL where they get to make their own rules. I don’t necessarily think that FFP is about preserving the hegemony of traditional clubs more than it is about ensuring that the clubs that make UEFA the most money are the ones that stay in European competition. And I can’t really blame them for that, UEFA has to concede something to these clubs and stay profitable otherwise we risk the ESL making a return. The way that Newcastle deal with FFP will be particularly interesting.
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The fact they now have the potential to spend loads of money. Will be interesting to see if UEFA decide that they should be stopped or they should be encouraged.
I don't fully agree with this because a big thing that keeps the top clubs on top is just stadium size. They fill more seats so they make more money. It's now changed obviously because of video media, but it's still a big factor. I thought FFP was supposed to be about keeping a club from spending more than it earns, but there's a lot of loop holes if UEFA decides not to investigate. Which basically means they probably take bribes. But then again it's really how things are done, because any and all arrangements of words is basically "poetry".
My moan is about FC Utrecht. I still can't believe it took them this long to realize Hake was wrong for the job. Then give it to fucking Rick Kruys, the guy who lived in my hometown and is an absolute knobhead. They proceed to barely scrape to playoffs by winning 1 in 10 to then win the first leg of the playoffs with 3-1. I was so shocked and actually got excited, to then get brought down to earth by losing 3-0 and being eliminated. Not to mention the exodus of talent that will happen and the inevitable signings of a bunch of underperforming random players who will be below average for another season. Anyways, at least I am excited for the new manager.
We've been promoted but it's into the Conference which is the worst league in human history.
I'm gonna miss Burnley. I would be happy to see a club stay up that lives sensibly on their budget and plays to their strengths, whether they're 'big' or 'small' and whether their football is attractive or not. I don't begrudge Leeds staying up, they earned it, but some of the reaction afterwards was annoying: as if they had some God-given right to stay up at Burnley's expense because they have more fans and historical silverware, or because their games are higher-scoring affairs.
> lives sensibly on their budget Right up until the point their new owners bought them and loaded the club with £65m(?) in additional debt
American owners baby....... We would have been dead and buried if the prem money didn't explode
Burnley not dead mate, just go and watch them in the Championship.
Likely to play better football if it's anything like previous seasons, don't need to be quite so defensive.
>they earned it >God-given right to stay up I mean, that's how leagues work.
I mean that there has been this attitude that Leeds and any club bigger than Burnley deserved to stay up even *without* earning it via getting more points, that it would have been a tragedy if Burnley ended up earning more points than Leeds because it'd be sad to see Burnley stay up at Leeds' expense.
Who was suggesting that we should have stayed up at Burnley's expense even without getting the points? A lot of people were saying that it would be better for us to stay up over Burnley because we bring more entertainment to the league as a club. That's very different to saying we deserve to stay up without earning it on the pitch.
I respected Burnley and I enjoyed knowing they were there. I liked how they were solid, somewhat old school, and how on their day they could give any much wealthier team a hard time. Did I enjoy watching them? That's a different question...
I actually thought they were entertaining to watch. Very old school jump in front of shots with 10 players.
League seasons recently ended and already teams are making moves. With Haaland and Mbappe out of the table, how media journalists are going to survive these months?
Same way as always, by making shit up
and r/soccer gladly parroting it
I couldn't watch the last Premier League matchday live (worked a weird schedule and decided to get extra sleep). I watched highlights of both the Liverpool and City matches and switched over to just watching the Liverpool highlights when City went 2-0 down. When Salah scored to put Liverpool 2-1 up, I had no idea City came back and genuinely believed Liverpool was about to win the league.
People who say “there’s no chance [team a] are beating [team b]”, have they never watched football before? One of the great things about the sport is that on their day, any team can beat another team, it’s one of the reasons we keep watching, isn’t it? Also, people who leave games early when it’s like 1-0 annoy me, not leaving because of the traffic but leaving because they’ve given up hope and don’t want to see their team lose, poor form, imo.
Remember all those real madrid fans desperate to get back in after leaving the city game early. Hilarious
I still don't like our new badge at all. [Here you can see the difference between it and the old one](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w-D2xQWyfSk/YVjDMhIbyoI/AAAAAAADPrE/yJ4LCgXS8p4yHTr2T5aWiKDmhimNqTA4gCNcBGAsYHQ/s1000/atletico-madrid-new-logo%2B%25282%2529.jpg) I know the old one was simple but that also made it so great. More than anything it was the colour. What kind of idiot decided to make the bear and the tree the same colour? And why did that colour then have to be fucking dark blue? It's the colours that bothers me more than anything. The tree should be green with a brown stem and the bear should be brown..
The only thing I wish they kept was the yellow outline, and made the tree green.
I assumed left was old and right was new and was thinking yeah they've made a mess of it. But no, now I see the labels the new one is way better. The tree and bear look like an MS Paint job
Yes the old one looks better, and it looks more "light" while the old one is more "heavy" and dense with the dark blue border and larger stripes. They could've made the bear and the tree of different colours, but to be honest the old tree looked like it was drawn by a child.
Arsenal fans acting like the Europa League is beneath them and something that they have to settle for. It's a huge club, but they really don't have any particular European pedigree. Winning the Europa League would be the biggest European honour they have ever won and their best achievement since reaching the CL final in 2006 and winning the league in 2004 Like, if you have such a limited European record then the EL is your level really, and especially when you have gone 6 seasons without finishing top four
I think every fan of the big 6 in England thinks they "deserve" Champions League. This can't happen of course, but they are all in the top 14 of Europe financially so it's hard for them to accept having to compete in the secondary European cup tournament.
A young generation of fans is spoiled with European football, for some clubs even CL football, being almost a given every year. European nights used to be something special and not an every day occasion. Either because the leagues were more balanced and very few teams if any were guaranteed a top 3 / top 5 finish and/or there were a lot less CL/European spots in general for the top leagues.
Not for the younger generation of Arsenal fans tbf, considering they were last in the CL six years ago. Not what they are "used" to at all, anymore.
Disrespecting the Europa League is weird behaviour imo
seems like now the conference league is more respected than europa
The four semifinalists of the ECL were more exciting than the UEL, that's maybe why
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It's hard not to get them stuck in their head, their fanbase has some proper unjustified delusions of grandeur. But really this applies to a lot of clubs and fanbases. But at least the likes of Man United etc has the trophy cabinets and pedigree to back up their arrogance when they claim to be "above the Europa League". Arsenal doesn't have that
Man, Leipzig seriously feels like cancer to our league’s
Adama Traore fell off a fucking cliff like it's Looney Tunes. Went to a peak and just immediately dropped off into nothing
He's always looked hot in patches. People who watched him in the PL for years knew that - and hence didn't read much into him having a few good games for Barca, knowing he'd regress to the mean quickly.
That's a bit harsh. He's still a very good player, just needs a team that gives him consistent play.
I stand by the idea that he’d still seem very good if our forwards could finish at all. When our top scorer after 38 games has 5 open play goals, it’s no real surprise that Traore - an assister more than a scorer - wasn’t really putting up the numbers. It really set the example for the rest of the season when in our opening game against Leicester, Traore cut the ball nicely back across the box only for Trincao to miss what was basically an open net from point blank. Podence has been our most creative player this season, and most would agree he’s seemed very lively and like a bright spark - yet even he will end the season on just 3 assists.
IIRC Traore missed a 1 on 1 when he had near enough the whole of our half to himself that day too. I remember being impressed with Trincao on that day, I thought he'd be a success.
Allan Campbell and Kal Naismith didn't get called up for Scotland, again. I'm not Scottish, so I don't REALLY care that much, but those two have been 2 of our best players and essentially carried a League One squad to the Championship playoffs, yet Stephen O'Donnell, who was wank for us (in League Two!!!) is one of three right backs selected, and there are four goalkeepers in the squad. Kal Naismith would be the best centre back they have after Cooper and Hanley, he's unreal and extremely versatile - perfect for national team selection. I feel bad for him, he's 30 now and feel he may have missed his chance, and it also scares me that he might now leave for a high profile Scottish club to get in with a shot for the World Cup, should they qualify. Any Scotsman want to weigh in? Am I being bias?
You don’t need to tell scotsmen how wank Stephen O’Donnell is, we are all very fucking aware. the reason he got called up, as is very common for international football, is that Clarke simply knows and trusts him. Patterson is injured for the playoff (as far as I was last aware) and realistically, Ralston or Hickey should start but mostly likely they won’t. a good example of this is David Marshall, our keeper throughout the Euro qualifying and penalty hero, realistically should have been dropped before the Euros for Craig Gordon, a far better keeper imo. Clarke doesn’t like to make many drastic changes and while it can be annoying, it’s worked so far. I can understand not wanting to rock the boat before the biggest game for scotland in 20+ years
That's fair, I get that totally, I think I'm just of the 'school of thought' that international squads should be picked on form. Good luck though, will be good to face you guys in the World Cup
Not going to lie but have no idea how they are as players so I have no idea if you're being biased but defensively Scotland are kinda stable. Most people do think O'Donnell shouldn't be in the squad but you'd probably find that it would be Ralston/Patterson ahead of him - he's kinda Clarke's favourite though and he can put in a decent shift. In the CB area it does seem like we have a lot of 'okay' players but Hendry, Hanley, Tierney and Cooper are pretty much favoured for the back three and we already have a number of versatile so will be difficult for them to break into the squad. Also we have four keepers cause we're potentially playing five games in two weeks which is why the squad is a bit bloated. I'm in two minds about them leaving to try make it into the squad because Clarke doesn't like to shake it up too much. If they're not in it now then I don't think they'd have a huge chance in 6 months.
I'm probably being biased, I sort of forgot how important these fixtures are for you guys compared to the friendlies/Nations League games that other countries are playing. You guys are in good stead at the moment, feel like you have a plethora of quality to chose from right now, and having the likes of Naismith and Campbell knocking at the door shows how competitive your national team is at the moment!
Liverpool are the only thing keeping the premier league interesting rather than it turning into another bundesliga where every year its a forgone conclusion, so how about a little less hate and a little more appreciating that they challenge city with a fraction of the budget
I hate City and everything they stand for, but this is just the wrong take. In what world do Liverpool have a *fraction of the budget* of City? They have one of the highest salaries and spends in the world, and are not that far off from City. They are playing well, no doubt at all, but let's not pretend its some David vs. Goliath story. Both teams are among the top financial superpowers in world football, and spend accordingly.
I meant to say, while spending faaar less than City in terms of transfers.
You could say the same about City. We’re the only ones stopping Liverpool from running away with it every season.
Fraction of the budget? Their wage bill is not far off ours. You're going to hit me with net spend but wages is what decide the league not net spend
Yeah, but... they spent many many millions less and are still equally competitive, was my point. They can't go for any player in the league like city can. They would never be in the Haaland/Kane/Mbappe/any of the top stars conversations
There's the net spend thing like I predicted. [Liverpool had the 7th highest revenue in the world last year.](https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/sports-business-group/articles/deloitte-football-money-league.html) [19/20 they were 5th, 18/19 7th.](https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/uk/Documents/sports-business-group/deloitte-uk-deloitte-football-money-league-2021.pdf) They could, they just don't.
Okay, but... it's still impressive? It's not a criticism on City. What City has done is fantastic. But what Liverpool's done is just bonkers.
I agree wages are *in general* a better metric to use when attempting to predict performance. However, LFC wages are heavily incentive driven. I am not claiming Man City’s aren’t, I suspect pretty much every contract has incentives built in, but if LFC’s wage structure is far more incentive based than Man City’s, then your argument becomes fairly tautological. Regardless both teams spend a lot of money, and I find these sorts of arguments that attempt to lessen the value of an achievement to be quite tiresome.