Agreed they aren’t the team they were. Keeping hold of Kane might have seemed like a great idea, but he’s not the player he was last season. I don’t think his heart is in it. Maybe he’ll get that move in January.
Just settled down to MOTD.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
The 2021-2022 Football Thread
- Thread starter Scepticalscribe
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Just settled down to MOTD.
Columbus keep their slim playoff hopes alive with a solid 3-1 away win at DC United. They'll need help from other teams to get in so I suspect their season is over despite there being another match left to play.
Last seasons's champions and this season - with essentially the same team - we don't even make the playoffs.
That's parity....there are no 'Big Six' in MLS.
Last seasons's champions and this season - with essentially the same team - we don't even make the playoffs.
That's parity....there are no 'Big Six' in MLS.
West Ham - currently ahead by four goals to one against Villa - look set to add a further three points to their total tally, leaving them in fourth place, but level on points with Manchester City, currently lying third.
A very good victory from a confident and in-form team.
A very good victory from a confident and in-form team.
I was pretty pleased with the result. Always nice to be level on points with City!
Not surprised. Villa are bad right now, and West Ham are flying. Now what you need to focus on is defeating Man City on November 28th and then Chelsea on December 4th...
You have to ask...what's gone wrong at Villa? Has Dean Smith lost the dressing room? Are they short of talent? Have the players simply given up?
I see Ings is becoming the player we all know he can be...scoring wonder goals in the early part of the season, before succumbing to one injury after another and missing the middle of the season before returning with a lot less impact than before.
But if Ings was a 38 game man, he’d never have ended up at Villa.
So Nuno is gone and now there is talk of Conte coming in at Spurs. Given the resources available and abject morale in the squad, he's got a pretty tough job to do. How will this turn out?
Hint: as long as Levy is in charge Spurs are going nowhere competitively. I doubt they'll get a better shot than they had under Poch again for a long time.
Hint: as long as Levy is in charge Spurs are going nowhere competitively. I doubt they'll get a better shot than they had under Poch again for a long time.
If he was not injury-prone he might still be at Liverpool, which might have pushed Origi out. He's a good player but you just aren't going to ever get quite enough minutes out of him.
Last edited:
Not dissimilar to Carrol before him (in terms of injuries but playing style).
Agree it’s unlikely Spurs will do as well as they did under Poch. Harry Kane might not have left in the summer, but it does often look like he’s departed.
Nuno was always the wrong man for the job at Spurs. That whole initial hiring process was utterly shambolic, but Spurs' competitive window with this squad was already closed regardless of who took on the job. Conte would no doubt improve them, but their talent level outside of Son and Kane isn't all that impressive anymore.
Also glad that this will take Conte off the board for United.
Also glad that this will take Conte off the board for United.
Nuno was certainly the wrong man for the job, but at the same time he is almost blameless in the current situation. This is all on Levy, who chose to hire a man everyone knew was 11th choice, and to give him no resources.
If Conte is given money to spend it makes evaluating his performance compared to that of Nuno an apples-to-oranges situation; if he is NOT given money to spend I don't see how he can accomplish much. And of course this does nothing to alter the hierarchy above Conte, which is the real problem at the club.
Just another Band Aid.
I was reading that Conte came to the table with a demand for a very specific number for Levy (from memory it was a crazy sum like £263m) to spend on some very specific players from Serie A.
I'll see if I can dig out the article, but if he does get this cash, I'd see that as an admission by Levy that he got it wrong all along. Not that he'd ever admit it...he seems an obstinate bugger.
Will be interesting to see how this all works out - if they couldn't do it under Poch, and Levy wouldn't give him any cash to bolster the squad, I don't know what Conte can do, to be honest.
I think under Levy, Tottenham are destined to be upper mid-table at best.
I'll see if I can dig out the article, but if he does get this cash, I'd see that as an admission by Levy that he got it wrong all along. Not that he'd ever admit it...he seems an obstinate bugger.
Will be interesting to see how this all works out - if they couldn't do it under Poch, and Levy wouldn't give him any cash to bolster the squad, I don't know what Conte can do, to be honest.
I think under Levy, Tottenham are destined to be upper mid-table at best.
Nice! Looks like a decent cup run has hurt Sunderland's league season...
I'm pleasantly surprised!
A pretty terrible performance by United in Italy last night. Not a single shot on goal mustered in the second half until Ronaldo's equalizer.
Looks like Eric Bailly is the only fully fit central defender right now — not looking good heading into the derby this weekend.
Liverpool with a very solid outing against Atleti. 2-0 and it probably should have been 4-0. Suarez got booed (and he loves it). But Firmino, always such an important player, did his hamstring; the injuries are starting to mount and we haven't even made it to the holidays yet. A little bit worrying.
It was a dark day the last time Atleti visited Anfield. Less so today.
It was a dark day the last time Atleti visited Anfield. Less so today.
Both Manchester teams are hard to predict at the moment. Man Utd essentially have no plan, but Man City can struggle and get frustrated sometimes when they don't score early. Still, Man City have to be seen as heavy favorites - Man Utd beat a very bad Spurs team and were lucky not to lose to Atalanta. Man City, even on an off-day, will be a much more dangerous opponent.
Meanwhile Emery has turned down Newcastle. Sensible guy. That job is a poisoned chalice right now.
I'd say he seriously considered it, but didn't like the look of a relegation scrap, and really starting the proper team building exercise next season, if they survive.
They are going to have to spend like crazy in January and get those players humming quickly if they want to turn that ship around.
Man City have spent literally billions of pounds to reach the top of the pile in the Premier League (and still haven't won the Champions League). Newcastle will have to be prepared for a similar outlay if they are serious about becoming one of the 'Big' teams in the league. And it could take a decade of sustained spending. For every new ultra-wealthy team that appears, the market inflates that much more and the cost of winning trophies rises further.
These days it costs hundreds of millions of pounds just to win nothing at all but qualify for the Champions League each year...
The other thing to remember about Mr Emery - and he is a decent, dignified man - is that he has already spent some time in England, and it wasn't an altogether happy experience.
When he was with Arsenal - and Arsenal, for all of their many and undoubted faults are still a far better team than Newcastle - there were problems, and one of his problems was communication; his English really wasn't good enough - or precise and sufficiently flexible and fluent - to be able to convey what he wanted with sufficient clarity in the dressing room and on the training ground or football pitch.
If he wished to return to England, I've no doubt that this would be addressed, - nevertheless, learning languages sufficiently well to be able to convey exactly what you want to be able to say and need to be able to say takes time in a foreign language - and, when such linguistic challenges are added to a summons to a relegation battle in the North East, to a club owned by individuals who may well be rather intolerant of failure, Mr Emery may have come to the conclusion that this is a challenge and a task that he can choose to forego for now.
Very good point re the constantly inflating cost and price of success.
Last edited:
Well the Newcastle locals are hard enough for the rest of the English to understand!