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The 2025-2026 Football Thread

Palace are the only team in the league I genuinely dislike playing against. Win, lose, or draw, they always make it an ill-tempered grind.

They physically dominated Liverpool for the first half and parts of the second and their low block is really well executed. They are very fast on the break as well. They really should have scored 4 or more, but Alisson made some fabulous saves and some of their finishing was off.

I’m glad we got that over with in September anyway. Palace just have Liverpool’s number.

Guehi looked very good. He’ll look even better in a red shirt come January. 🤣 if you can’t beat ‘em, buy ‘em.
 
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Taxi for Amorim, sad to say.

The United squad still has a lot of problems, but a more pragmatic manager could get a tune out of them. At the end of the day, this is a results business, especially at the biggest clubs in the world.
 
I enjoyed watching the highlights of the Crystal Palace v Liverpool game. It’s a good thing Alisson Becker was on form, otherwise Liverpool may have let through four or five. Crystal Palace surprised me, a very energetic side in the press and dangerous going forward but not very clinical.

Liverpool were more dangerous once Gakpo came on, he had a few moments, but they weren’t making the most of the skills of Salah, Isak and Wirtz. Wirtz had a great chance to score his first Liverpool goal, but it came at him quickly and he ended up shooting at the keeper.

On the whole, if they lose to Crystal Palace, I wonder how they will do against PSG in the UCL this year.
 
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Silencio said:
Taxi for Amorim, sad to say.

The United squad still has a lot of problems, but a more pragmatic manager could get a tune out of them. At the end of the day, this is a results business, especially at the biggest clubs in the world.
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A number of people on United fan channels on social media are all echoing the same thing, Amorim is sacking himself because of the way he is setting up and playing the team. As one of the fan channels said, the club have paid over £200 million on attacking players and they team are not attacking. Sesko is not getting the deliveries he needs and the defence were all over the place.

I personally feel the players want him gone. Amorim has been at the club now for just over a year and he has stuck steadfast with his system of choice, a system that he has drummed into the players for just over a year and yet the players persistently fail him. Players learn a managers system on the training pitch. Apart from the new players brought into the club this year, the rest of the players have had a year on the training pitch learning Amorim's system and they still get it wrong every match. Surely this cannot all be down to the manager? When are the fan's gong to start saying the problem is with the players as much as it is the manager?

Maguire, Shaw, Bruno, Casemiro, Dalot, De ligt, they are all extremely skilled players, they know the game very well and yet we are led to believe they are not experienced enough to learn and understand how to play Amorim's system? utter rubbish. They know how to play it, they just don't want to because we see it game after game after game.
 
A slugfest between both teams.

I don't think the push on Gabriel was valid. He knew he was done so went down
I do think it was a stonewall pen against Pope. And i'm frankly baffled it was overturned

I also think Gabriel was lucky on 2 fronts. The elbow to Woltemade and the handball/pen

But Newcastle didn't really come to play and relied heavily on being physical and using the dark arts.
Livramento's injury looks bad.

Arsenal shaded it and deserved it...albeit rode their luck. 13 pts from those early set of fixtures is not bad and could've been a lot worse
 
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Sal09 said:
Scored well within injury time though not outside unlike Liverpool who are allowed to score a winner and then ref blows the whistle.
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You're aware, that in extra time, you can have 'extra time'? It's to stop the professional time wasting, so often seen. Bring in the time clock, ball goes out of play, play is stopped for a free kick/penalty/var issue, clock is stopped, and restarted.
 
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Madonepro said:
You're aware, that in extra time, you can have 'extra time'? It's to stop the professional time wasting, so often seen. Bring in the time clock, ball goes out of play, play is stopped for a free kick/penalty/var issue, clock is stopped, and restarted.
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Different rules apply to Liverpool and United. Always been like that.
 
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November 11th would mark one year of Ruben Amorim in charge. There is a clause in his contract that he gets a £12M payout if sacked before one year, dropping to £4M after the one year mark. I expect INEOS will hang in there until that time. They play Sunderland, Liverpool, Brighton, Forest, and Spurs in that timeframe. The way United is playing, who are they getting points from? Not Sunderland (!!!) or Liverpool. Maybe Brighton or Forest. Dunno, looks bleak.
 
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Silencio said:
November 11th would mark one year of Ruben Amorim in charge. There is a clause in his contract that he gets a £12M payout if sacked before one year, dropping to £4M after the one year mark. I expect INEOS will hang in there until that time. They play Sunderland, Liverpool, Brighton, Forest, and Spurs in that timeframe. The way United is playing, who are they getting points from? Not Sunderland (!!!) or Liverpool. Maybe Brighton or Forest. Dunno, looks bleak.
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Brighton look pretty solid, I feel like they can take points off of anyone. Forest is probably the 'easiest' match of that group. open-at-the-back Ange-ball vs Amorim's misfiring and now infamous three-at-the-back....

It's always been about that payout though. Amorim seems to have been a dead man walking for some time now. He would be a fool to resign and forfeit that big £12 million payout, but as soon as Man Utd can get rid of him for £4 million I suspect they may. Still, hiring a manager in November presents its own issues, unless they go the interim route again (which could itself be a quite unpopular decision).

I don't blame him for hanging around and forcing the club to sack him. I assume when he applied for the job he was clear in how he planned to set out his team. It hasn't worked, and he has chosen not to pivot to a more pragmatic system, but these are the sorts of discussions that should happen before a manager is hired. That's on the club, unless Amorim deliberately misrepresented himself (and I can't see why anyone would).
 
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Sal09 said:
Different rules apply to Liverpool and United. Always been like that.
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The mind sees what it wants to see.

In all sports I follow, a similar perception is made. Do the top teams get an advantage? Or is it simply, if you oppose those teams, you find bias to support your frustrations.

Fitter, stronger teams, will often be, just that, as the game enters its final minutes. Referees will see the minutes in extra time, far more importantly, than the minutes in regular time. Why; because timewasting, or deliberate fouls, in these precious minutes, have far more impact that in the preceding 90 minutes.
If a player wastes 30 seconds, of 5 minutes of added time, that is 10% of that period.
 
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Just catching up on the games over the week-end.

Excellent win from Arsenal, coming back to claim victory having both initially gone behind, and also, having been denied a penalty, and, moreover, all of that at a ground where success has been in short supply in recent years.
 
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Madonepro said:
Fitter, stronger teams, will often be, just that, as the game enters its final minutes.
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Liverpool certainly didn’t benefit from a last-second winner against Palace - quite the opposite! Palace can run hard for 100 minutes or more. I expect them to get a series of late equalizers/winners this season.
 
Just watched the highlights of yesterday’s Champions League games, I saw Galatasaray v Liverpool, Chelsea v Benfica and Marseille v Ajax. Not spectacular football from a neutral’s point of view, rather tough games.

In the Liverpool match, Wirtz started as the right-sided attacking player instead of Salah, and the difference was noticeable, he was pretty invisible. And Curtis Jones in the midfield. An early penalty made the difference, Liverpool couldn’t force a breakthrough and lost 1-0.

Chelsea again finished with ten men, Joao Pedro got a second yellow near the end of the game. Their fifth red card of the season already. Nevertheless they made a tight 1-0 win.

Ajax got walloped by Marseille to the tune of 4-0, the defending was stunningly naive for a Champions League game. That is what happens when you sell your best players every year. Nice goals by Igor Paixao.
 
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Lord Blackadder said:
Liverpool certainly didn’t benefit from a last-second winner against Palace - quite the opposite! Palace can run hard for 100 minutes or more. I expect them to get a series of late equalizers/winners this season.
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But them Palace haven't played 6 games, in 16 days.
 
For the first time in ages, (by "ages", I mean eight-nine days, as time can be strangely elastic sometimes, and I have just returned from a work-related trip of a little over a week), I have had the time to actually read the Guardian properly (I had just briefly checked the football section - by which I mean the headlines announcing the results on Monday, - and only managed, between meetings, briefings, de-briefings, and presentations, to read the match reports on Tuesday - having been insanely busy on Sunday).

Anyway, @Apple fanboy, Jonathan Liew has an excellent, well-argued, interesting and thought-provoking piece on West Ham in today's edition of the Guardian; well worth a read.
 
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Madonepro said:
But them Palace haven't played 6 games, in 16 days.
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Indeed. Palace are a really tough opponent, but they lack an elite finisher and creative midfielder, and while they have some squad depth, it's not comparable with teams used to competing in four competitions at once. So they'll have to work harder to manage their squad across multiple competitions. They've been getting a lot of plaudits lately for their record, but their manager has been realistic about it. Things can turn quickly at this level, for good or ill.

Speaking of which, there is plenty of talk of a 'mini crisis' at Liverpool, but nothing has changed apart from results. They've been getting narrow wins and now they've been handed two narrow losses against tough opponents. The margin is very small. Wirz is always going to be judged too harshly because of his price - but that's just what players cost these days. I don't care whether he cost 20 million or 120 million, it isn't my money. And anyway, at the moment I am less concerned about the attack than the defense. I think the goals will come over time.
 
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Lord Blackadder said:
Speaking of which, there is plenty of talk of a 'mini crisis' at Liverpool, but nothing has changed apart from results.
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Typical British media, fuelled by 'outraged, entitled fans'. How often do you see the media, one minute praising a side, and then the next, contributing a subtle 'dig'. Knock the Aussies all you like, but they believe their 'team' are winners. and when they lose, it's either 'they' didn't play to their potential (insert excuse) or the other team played 'out of their skin'.
As Brit's, we need to be less self-deprecating, and more positive in our outlooks.
 
A nice, tidy victory from Arsenal over West Ham; two goals scored, and none conceded, - actually, Arsenal have only conceded one goal from play this season, so far - but, unfortunately, Martin Odegaard suffered an injury (his knee, not his shoulder, on this occasion) - as did the excellent Declan Rice - and both had to be replaced.
 
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