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The 2017-2018 Football Thread
- Thread starter Lord Blackadder
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Brighton fully deserved their win, and could have scored a few more but for the excellence (and he was about the only United player who excelled) of the reflexes of David de Gea.
This makes a little more worried about Liverpool's last league fixture against Brighton; they might need to win that match to make the top four. Hopefully Brighton are on the beach (see what I did there) by the time Liverpool face them.
Hilariously bad performance from Man Utd though - they seem to be playing down to the level of their oppositon at times. And a strange quote from Mourinho after the match:
"My players will tell you that before the match I knew what was going to happen and I told them. At half-time I knew what was going to happen. I knew it and I told them.”
So - he told them he expected them to lose????
Serious credit to Brighton though - their final three matches were against Man Utd, Man City and Liverpool, but they came out and took the fight to their opponent, and now they are safe.
Hilariously bad performance from Man Utd though - they seem to be playing down to the level of their oppositon at times. And a strange quote from Mourinho after the match:
"My players will tell you that before the match I knew what was going to happen and I told them. At half-time I knew what was going to happen. I knew it and I told them.”
So - he told them he expected them to lose????
Serious credit to Brighton though - their final three matches were against Man Utd, Man City and Liverpool, but they came out and took the fight to their opponent, and now they are safe.
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If we can hold on to the win for the last 10 minutes, we won't be mathematically safe, but it would be hard to see all those teams below putting back to back wins together. Especially when you see who some of their opponents are!
[doublepost=1525535780][/doublepost]West Brom beat Spurs! They still have a (very) slim chance of staying up.
[doublepost=1525535834][/doublepost]But most importantly we get the win. I can sleep a little easier tonight now!
[doublepost=1525535780][/doublepost]West Brom beat Spurs! They still have a (very) slim chance of staying up.
[doublepost=1525535834][/doublepost]But most importantly we get the win. I can sleep a little easier tonight now!
To me, unless I missed something, Everton should not have had time to score, yesterday. Extra time was 4 minutes, they scored in the 96th minute. Ugh...
Mark Clattenburg explained on NBCSN, that due to a late injury, the maximum extra, extra time, should have been 1 minute 40 seconds.
Very sad news; and he had looked sprightly and composed and comfortable only a short week ago when honouring Arsène Wenger at Old Trafford.
He’s spent decades in a stressful job though, and his famously florid complexion is not exactly a ‘healthy glow’...
Here’s hoping for a speedy recovery.
That is true; and he is known to have loved his wine.
But, driven characters such as Ferguson are often lost without the thrill of the adrenaline that gave rise to the permanent stress of the jobs they held; it may be stressful but it was exciting, it was a challenge and it gave their lives definition, direction and meaning.
Well, Chelsea beat Liverpool 1-0, and Arsenal have one of those strange games where they were on fire, destroying Burnley by 5-0. Admittedly, it was Mr Wenger's last home game in charge, but it would have been nice if this focus nd conviction and passion had appeared a bit more often over the course of the past season.
I think I just watched a WWE match not a el clasico. I guess maybe we got payback today with two absolutely garbage calls that would have completely changed the game. Oh well, I will take the draw seeing as Ronaldo didn’t even play in the 2nd half
The thing is all this guard of honour nonsense and chanting his name, are from the same people who have been demanding his head.
It's not like when Sir Alex decided to step down. He's been pushed out the door after a bad year.
Not the club (or fans) finest hour.
Oh, good Heaven's, yes, I couldn't agree more.
As you know, I have been an admirer of Mr Wenger's (while not blind to his flaws - not least defensively) for years; a dignified, impressive man with integrity, decency and intelligence who was once an amazing pioneer as a manager, but was over-taken by events and his own stubborn character in recent years.
Some of the Arsenal fans have really let themselves down - in my view - over the past two years/seasons. I don't care how much they felt they suffered, their behaviour was despicable and graceless, and weirdly entitled.
I don't doubt that some of the fans saluted him wth genuine gratitude, but others, yes, of course there was an element of hypocrisy.
And irrespective of who succeeds Mr Wenger, I expect (as with Manchester United) that there will be an uncomfortable period of teething problems when nostalgia will cause a glow to be cast on Mr Wenger's period at the helm, for - and those who criticised him relentlessly will eventually come to see this - he was by far the best manager Arsenal have ever had, better even than the impressive Herbert Chapman in the 1930s, the only other time when Arsenal enjoyed a period of sustained success. (I seem to remember reading that one England team of that era featured seven Arsenal players).
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Seven English players in any Premier league squad would be nice!
Yes I'm not sure what is to follow, but I do predict a period of unsettled management. I wonder if some people will shy away from being the next manager, instead wanting to be the one after.
Well, whoever it is will have rather large shoes to fill, and those greedy and entitled fans might have to wait a little longer for the success that they is is owed to them.
Swansea v Southampton. The most expensive game of the season? The winner will possibly condemn two teams to the championship.
A draw could throw a potential lifeline to West Brom.
Interesting game.
A draw could throw a potential lifeline to West Brom.
Interesting game.
Southampton pulled out a precious win there, and that's it for West Brom's Premier League status. Swansea are in deep trouble now.
Southampton have sold too many of their best players (as a Liverpool supporter, I should know
) without adequately replacing them. This is always a dilemma for any team outside the 5 or 6 richest in the world, but Southampton's transfer dealings have left the club vulnerable. It looks like they will survive this season, but with a points total that would usually get them relegated.With their current squad and old Sparky as manager, their prospects for next season in the Premier League are not exactly glowing. They'll need to make some shrewd buys this summer.
True.
West Brom left it too late to make an attempt at recovery; it is a damning indictment that over a third of their total points for the entire season have come form the last five games - now, their last five games have been extraordinarily impressive, but, if they had only produced fraction of that form earlier, they would not have been relegated yesterday.
Southampton pulled out a precious win there, and that's it for West Brom's Premier League status. Swansea are in deep trouble now.
Southampton have sold too many of their best players (as a Liverpool supporter, I should know
With their current squad and old Sparky as manager, their prospects for next season in the Premier League are not exactly glowing. They'll need to make some shrewd buys this summer.
Agreed; but that is the dilemma for clubs in that position; Southampton used to be a reasonably stable, predictable, well-run middle of the table club that had to sell good players when large clubs came sniffing around, but was usually able to recognise and nurture sufficient numbers of young talented players to be able to make good such deficiencies and replace the players who had been sold.
These days, the Premiership has become compressed into a top six, (themselves quite stretched out), and a large number of clubs flirting with relegation, whereas what used to be the stable middle ranks of the table have been seriously squashed and barely contain three or four clubs, as opposed to the ten found lurking there over a decade ago.
The gap between top and bottom (Leicester's literally miraculous league title run notwithstanding) has definitely widened, even though the vogue right now among many top teams (apart from anything associated with Mourinho) is a risky attacking style that produces a bunch of outlier results.
I think it is important for many clubs to plan for some yo-yo-ing between the divisions and not stake everything on survival. Relegation is not the end of the world, and given the financial inequalities of the football pyramid owners and boards (and fans) need to have realistic goals. A club can go down and remain a healthy club.
Due to a dislike of Sparky I'd hopped they'd have gone. I'd have rather West Brom had stayed up.Southampton pulled out a precious win there, and that's it for West Brom's Premier League status. Swansea are in deep trouble now.
Southampton have sold too many of their best players (as a Liverpool supporter, I should know
With their current squad and old Sparky as manager, their prospects for next season in the Premier League are not exactly glowing. They'll need to make some shrewd buys this summer.
Hope their manager gets a crack at the championship.
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