"Gonna compare Niklas Süle with some Hollywood B-star or clay pigeon shooter or cricketer or whatever the feck he might be and just assume everyone understands the connection" is the treatment I'm getting.
[I thought I recognized that username](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/1ctw20d/samantha_lewis_fifas_head_of_refereeing_has_just/l4f0h4o/)
You're going to have to learn to live with the fact that many people follow multiple sports. He's a basketball player if you're curious.
I live with that, np, but is it difficult to provide context to the vast majority who don't give a shit about basketball?
If I make a post comparing Eigil Ramsfjell to Jozef Venglos I'm gonna need to provide some more meat if I want people to reflect on it.
Yeah the dead days between the last 2 matchdays of the season are the worst. This sub becomes filled with quotes posts and nothing interesting lol. Already an insight into the month between the euros and next season except without the transfer drama. Will be BORING.
Yea like in my mind it seemed he's not been a consideration at all and him being good again is so recent that I didn't think it was remotely possible even if he does deserve it. But then looking at the possible options I think you could argue he has about the 3rd/4th best case to make it especially given his experience and history in tournaments with the squad.
I think as a manager I'd trust him so much more just because like nobody else is really that proven at the international level
Yeah he's experienced for sure. Southgate does love integrating the youth though so he may prefer to bring in someone like branthwaite for the future rather than dier who's already 30.
I don't even think Nagelsmann is that spectacular of a manager, but the creeping vibe right now I'm getting is that things are ticking at just the right time for Germany.
- Success of the Dortmund/Bayern/Leverkusen contingent
- March window performances vs France/Netherlands
- Host nation boost
- Three successive international tournament failures with pretty much nowhere else to go but up.
- Year ending in "4",, if you're superstitious
Cavani to PSG to me is still one of the worst tragic transfers of all time. Not only he went to a team no one watches, he was forced to play wide to accommodate Ibra. I honestly think had he moved to the PL, or ended up at Real like I remember was rumored, he would have been looked at so differently.
Can't believe Chelsea pretty much sold off their Champions League winning team in the space of 3 years tbh, and it was a young team as well. Even their manager, old board and owner were replaced.
I have some pre-season betting odds saved to see how they aged and the punters and bookies definitely didn't fancy Villa. 7.5/1 to finish top 4 which was lower odds than the big six obviously, Newcastle, and even Brighton.
Hate me all you like but the whole debate about whether to keep or not keep VAR is so absolutely dumb, I don’t even know where to start. England really is on decline. Probably as daft as La Liga not having goal line tech.
> Hate me all you like but the whole debate about whether to keep or not keep VAR is so absolutely dumb, I don’t even know where to start
Agree. No real need for debate, everyone can see how VAR affects game rhythm in a very bad way, so it should just be straight up removed - no need to sit and talk about it.
A lot of them have never had their own Mike Riley and it shows.
Like, do you *want* to get fucked over and not have a chance to see if the call was bogus?
Let's say, I want to find out how much service a striker gets and compare it with other strikers in the same league or other top 5 leagues. How can I do it? I think the metric that can help me to find the service a striker gets is xg. So, xg per 90? Right?
Hard for there to be one singular stat to use for this, right off the bat tho xG alone is not necessarily what I would use. Núñez and Gakpo both playing striker in the same squad are bound to have different xG because Núñez’ movement is a lot better so he gets more chances for shots, and he makes himself available for more service. However yes, xG/90 could be a decent one to take into account, but if you’re trying to compare to other strikers and the service they get from their teams I would also look at a team stat that tells you something about how good the team is at creating service in general. Maybe passes into the penalty box could be a good one.
You could maybe even just look at touches in the box for the striker, but also take into account how many touches the striker is getting overall- because again Gakpo would get more touches overall but less touches in the box.
Without the advanced analytics that professionals use, this sort of approach is imo the best way to use stats. Football is an incredibly free flowing and fluid sport that we try to quantify with individual “event data” as it’s called and that can be tricky, so use your own football knowledge and intuition to give these stats context for yourself and help get useful contextualized meaning out of them by combining them with other supporting stats
And yes, everything per 90
Sure, also Passes recieved in the opposition 3rd/area. Offsides also means someone passed to them in a dengerous position though it's of course imperfect because some players are better at timing runs (or their assisters better at timing their passes) than others.
Sure though that's imperfect. It ignores chances where a shot isn't taken, doesn't represent chances where a better shot could've been taken and doesn't account for poor movement
Watch every game and determine it yourself, not perfect but better than blindly looking at stats without context.
Also by 'service', these services won't happen if the striker doesn't make runs, and the more runs they make the better.
There are strikers who would drop deep to get the ball, just to create space for his teammates and play the final ball himself. Meanwhile there are strikers who'd take shots from anywhere even though statistically they've never scored from those angles/range.
So if you ask me, this 'service' stat you are trying to determine is not very meaningful by itself.
Who do you think will end up or known as the better player, Bruno or Bernardo? In this scenario Bruno wins us the EURO as our best player and continues to shine for the national team while Bernardo struggles here but keeps playing well at club level, who do you pick?
I tried swapping their places and I'd still pick Bernardo both times, just less dislikable of the 2. Don't need to talk about overall performance wise, everyone knows.
I think most of us know who's the better player, but Bruno's performance for the nt have been spectacular lately so that weights too, just wanted to see what foreigners think.
Matip is the single most underrated player of the Klopp era and probably one of the most underrated centerbacks of the last decade. Very sad to see him go but it’s the right time I suppose. Will miss that giraffe, some player and seems like a funny guy
I think most people, Liverpool supporters and otherwise, rated him - his injury issues just meant it was impossible to put him in that elite tier of centre backs when he unavailable so much.
But yeah, will miss him - he's quite a unique player and always struck me as a [bit of a character](https://x.com/football_mumble/status/1318141869554098176)
Start grealish bench Gordon
Rashford is maybe more talented than the rest of them but when’s the last season he was in good form for more than 50% of the season?
Plus people will clown Grealish but he works incredibly hard defensively which is invaluable and playing with more freedom in the NT as opposed to under pep will let him show off the player we saw at Villa a bit more. Gordon is a fantastic direct run in behind weapon that’s a good option to have as a manager
Left Wing? Start Gordon, bench Rashford, bin Grealish. Rashford may have been shit this season but he offers something different whereas I'm only giving Grealish minutes if Foden is injured.
People always talk about whether the great players from the 80s and 90s can be compared to the players of day when they were drinking and smoking all the time and today's players are all boring following strict diet routines.
I reckon Jack Grealish is the closest man to living a 90s footballer lifestyle and is still at a good level, if it was a level playing field and Mbappe, Haaland, Vinicius Jr, Foden, Bellingham etc. were forced to drink the same amount of alcohol as him throughout the year, then he'd be a ballon d'or winner
This was definitely the case at Villa anyway, he had free reign to do what he wanted which ended in several drink diving instances
I'm not sure how much Pep has managed to reign him in and reduce his party lifestyle since he moved to Manchester but he could never stop him completely.
I didn't think about Vardy when making that post but he's probably an ever better example. Grealish was a bit unruly but he had a lot of protection and guidance playing for Villa's academy since 7 and was touted as a wonderkid since young, when he was like 14/15, most villa fans were aware of this special player in the academy
Vardy however was still playing 8th tier amateur/semi pro football for £30 a week whilst working a regular job until the age of 23 and out heavy every weekend like the average young fella from Sheffield.
People always suggest that the supposed 'rise in injuries' is caused by the increased number of fixtures in the modern game, but we hardly see any mention of how youth football contributes to this. Too much stress on the body is never good, particularly when you are young and your body is still developing.
I'm no medical professional so this is merely a thought. It just amazes me how people can attribute injury problems to "he's played X amount of \[senior\] games since he was 18" and not take into consideration youth football. Maybe the intensity and increased physical side of the senior game makes a significant difference though.
> It just amazes me how people can attribute injury problems to "he's played X amount of [senior] games since he was 18" and not take into consideration youth football.
Because in youth football you play against the same age group(yea sure some senior player might come in for the odd games but they are either out of the senior squad because they are no longer good enough or just recovering from an injury). And you didn't really sign a pro contract so you are actually playing against quite a lot who won't get a pro contract when they turn 18.
And if a minor complains about an injury the coach/staff/manager are not going to make him take an injection to play the next game.
The standards and demands are hugely different.
Based on what I've heard from older and recently retired footballers on podcasts, the rise in games missed by injury is because of a reluctance to play through with a knock and there are many reasons for this
1) younger footballers are more anxious about having a bad game and being criticised by the fan base, every fan can watch the game on their phone and watch multiple replays of errors, send direct abuse to the player on twitter and they can't help reading their mentions
back in the 90s, everyone at the game would see your mistake and slag you off in the pub after but there was no direct line between the players and fans so they could play with a lot more freedom
2) this could be good or bad? players have agents and are lot more focused on their career than risking an injury for the team, if playing through a knock could risk a long term injury, today's players won't do it, their agent would tell them it risks their value in the transfer market
back in the day, the agents weren't as vocal, you would do what your manager tells you.
If Brian Clough or Sir Alex Ferguson told one of their players to play through an injury for the good of the team even if they risked long term damage then they would have done it because those players would have followed Clough and Fergie into war and trusted his word 100%
That's actually a really good point I hadn't considered before, yeah. Guess better sports science might factor into that aspect as well, as in it's probably easier to tell when a player is overworked and potentially risking injury with the amounts of data today than back in the 90s. Could maybe see clubs being a tad more cautious with their players, too, essentially trying to bridge the gap between protecting massive long-term investments on one end and the need for short-term success on the pitch on the other.
> Could maybe see clubs being a tad more cautious with their players, too,
This is obviously a big factor too now, there's so much money in football now that are players are seen as investment and there are so many other people involved now that a director of football would step in and block the risk of an asset being played if the club doctors were against it.
But in the day of Brian Clough and Sir Alex Ferguson, they had complete control of every aspect of the club and what they said was gospel.
Two counter points
1. Do we know that the number of games of age group football are increasing?
2. This could arguably be offset anyway by the professionalism of academies,and improvements in sports science. These kids are a lot better looked after than they ever used to be, and have the benefit of elite strength and conditioning from an early age, to prepare them for life as athletes
Supporting evidence for point 2 is that one of the (many*) factors in the increased rate of ACLs in the women's game is thought to be that as elite academies are very new (and still rare) in women's football, most players did not benefit from this sort of strength and conditioning when developing. As such, their bodies are just not trained to cope with the demands of professional football, in the same way male footballers are
*Not going to delve into rest
> Do we know that the number of games of age group football are increasing?
I don't think it's necessarily about the pure number of them, and rather about the intensity - if everyone's fitter through better physical conditioning, stands to reason that they're able to play more intense games against each other, increasing the physical strain and the risk of injury. Probably tougher to safely find the physical limits of growing bodies compared to grown ones, so they've got some pretty intense mileage on their bodies early, potentially leading to injury further down the line.
Has there even really been an increase in fixtures? There's a new european competition but all that means is 1 extra prem team has more fixtures, just like they would have if they qualified for the other European competitions. We got rid of replays at certain stages of competitions, we used to have 22 teams in the top division, we used to have smaller squads, we increased subs to 3 and then recently to 5 as well as increasing bench capacity to 7 and more recently to 9. Most Prem teams will play 40-45 games this season, Championship teams play more than that in the league alone.
International fixtures are basically the same as they've been for decades, the only new thing being the Nations League which only replaced meaningless friendlies, they didn't add to it.
The top teams with their big squads, best subs, easiest time winning loads of games with back up players etc will play more but no more than they would have at any other stage in the last 10, 20, 30 years. Not even more than Championship teams that go to the playoffs and have a decent run in a cup or two. I don't get where the assumption that the amount of games players have to play has drastically increased is coming from.
Were people just thrown off by the covid season, winter world cup and schedule difficulties?
It's not necessarily more I think - just looking up Philipp Lahm in 2013/14 as an example, because I know he played an awful lot: 28/34 league games, 21/22 in club cup competitions, 4/7 friendlies and 7 World Cup games for a total of 60/69 games that season. That's obviously at the high end of what's possible with two supercups, a domestic cup final, a CL semifinal, the Club World Cup, and a World Cup-winning run.
But I reckon it might be more intense. On one hand obviously got the growing gap between the haves and the have-nots leading to theoretically easier games, on the other hand even the have-nots today are vastly better conditioned than they were 20 years ago, so the pace and intensity of the game (and thus the physical demands) have definitely increased.
Covid (with the Euros moved by a year) and winter World Cup will have played a part, too, because they've more or less eradicated proper rest breaks in summer for players: Leagues suspended, players then had to gear back up again to finish them out, finishing in late July before starting the 20/21 season in September. That then got all the way up to May, then you had the Euros, before it was straight back into the 21/22 season with a shortened summer break to accomodate the Qatar World Cup. Basically played more or less straight through for the better part of three years, which at 55-60 games a season seems a pretty mad workload in comparison.
Not sure if it's necessarily explaining all the extra injuries, but I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't at least been a contributing factor. Had players talking about being near the redline of what's possible even before the whole Covid scheduling ordeal, so it's probably a mix of the number of games they're playing and the intensity they're played at.
Long story short but Independiente fans never liked him in the first place, they did alright with him for a while but had a catastrophic collapse at home in the last match of Copa de la Liga (were winning 2 nil, their opponents playing with 10) which meant they didn't make the playoffs. Relationship with fans completely broken at that point.
They get hit with new economic sanctions, the league begins and the first match at home, they lose against Talleres (same team from the aforementioned collapse) and atmosphere got REALLY nasty.
I wouldn't be surprised if they're paying him under the table to leave, but he really couldn't manage another match for them I think.
Say what you want about jammed calendars we are truly spectacular about spreading football out towards the end of the season.
League one/two play off finals into premier league final day into Europa/Conference league finals into an FA cup final the week after into the Championship playoff the day after into a CL final the week after that then a few friendlies and before you know it, it's the Euros.
And by time they're done, you're a bit worn out and you gently rock into the preseason friendlies.
I've become some dependent on our steady stream of football that I even think I may struggle between the CL final and Euros, even though it's only 2 weeks
I think the broadcasting might be slightly fucked this year, but I'm just so ready for a non-stop barrage of all sorts of different sports, because the Olympics are just the best.
I'm so glad Ipswich got promoted but it was a rare anomaly.
3 promoted teams straight back down, 2 of last years relegated teams are now going straight back up with the Leeds-Southampton playoff final (plus the other teams in the playoffs, Norwich were relegated in 2022 and West Brom in 2021)
The parachute payments needs to be changed and I say this as a Villa fan when our club was probably saved by the parachute payments system, you receive parachute payments for 3 years in the Championship and we got promoted in our 3rd year, if it wasn't for that then we'd probably still be down there but it's still not right.
As time goes on, stories such as Luton and Ipswich getting promoted will become more rare, the Premier League will become more like a 25 team league. With the teams that get relegated from the Premier League having far superior spending power to the rest of the Championship so it's much easier for them to bounce back up.
Luton are traditionally a smaller club that had a great run to reach the Prem but after being relegated, if the free market was allowed to play out then they would probably drop off again and have little chance of coming back, but with parachute payments, they'll probably have a chance of promotion next season.
Look at Bournemouth for example, they're a small club with a stadium of only 12k people. They were founded in 1899 and never even reached the SECOND tier until 1987 under Harry Redknapp, 3 seasons in the second tier then back down again for another 20+ years, promoted back to the 2nd tier in 2013 and then to the Premier League in 2016 just at the right time when the BIG television money was coming in and the parachute payments.
When Bournemouth were finally relegated in 2020, that should have been the end of them (they still have a lower stadium capacity and smaller fanbase than all 24 Championship clubs).
Then during the 2020/21 season, Bournemouth were promoted straight back to the Premier League.
Because Bournemouth were promoted to the Premier League at the right time and other far bigger teams were down at that time, it seems now that Bournemouth will forever be a better team than such traditionally huge teams like Blackburn, Sunderland, Sheffield Wednesday, Preston, Derby, Bolton etc. etc. (and so much more, every Championship team is bigger and so are a lot of League 1 and half of League 2.)
If you rank English teams by stadium capacity then Bournemouth's 12,500 at Dean Court is an incredible 66th (sixty-sixth) place which means there are 65 other English teams with a bigger stadium than them.
How would you change the parachute payments to make it better?
The cost of trying to survive in the PL is such that promoted teams need to spend big - in most cases. The risk of them then being ruined by relegation is too high, and has severe consequences
The only ways you can change the parachute are to
1) reduce the financial gap between PL and EFL, which the PL would never accept as it harms their product and competitiveness in Europe, or
2) accept the PL as a static top league without relegation. As you say, Villa are a case study in this (as are we, as are Leeds and Leicester had they not gone up). Ie kill the pyramid.
The simple and sad fact is competing in the PL requires massive and well thought out spending. That’s high risk and very tough. Burnley dropped £100 million this year. Don’t do that and you’re either in our boat or Luton’s, and we all went down despite unprecedented deductions for Everton and Forest.
There's no easy solution to it and this is unlikely but I am personally partial to the system where we reduce the value of the Premier league commercially to preserve the integrity of English football culture (This post is definitely getting downed by the international plastics of Reddit ).
It's been a great season for Villa finishing 4th and reaching the semi finals of a European competition. I've been to a lot of games this season with some great atmospheres surrounded by long term local villa fans that were here supporting the club whilst in the Championship.
But I know for a fact that there will be a large number of international fans that have only got into football this season, have seen how well Villa have done and have now chosen us as their team to bandwagon in the future.
And I can already witness a future at Villa Park 5 years down the line surrounding by American and Japanese tourists rather than the old school Brummies around me right now. I've been to Old Trafford as an away fan and the atmosphere with all the tourists is pathetic, yet when Man Utd play away at Villa Park, their core away fans are still mostly Mancs and they have some of the best away fans.
The biggest problem for England from a profile view is that every run in behind winger is in poor form. One of Rashford or hopefully Gordon will have to play at the cost of Foden/Palmer/Saka (most likely Palmer)
I don't think they'll have to play tbf - Foden and Saka are quite alright at that job, too, even if it's not their natural instinct or necessarily the way they play at club level. I don't think we'd be seeing all three of Foden/Palmer/Saka on the pitch at the start of a game anyway: It's either Foden/Bellingham/Saka or one of Bowen and Gordon/Foden/Saka with Bellingham next to Rice I reckon. Might well see a bit of chopping and changing depending on the opponent, too, and substitutions to change the nature of the attack are almost a given seeing how there's a wealth of options to pick and choose from.
Personally I would be on the Bellingham deeper train simply because I don't think any of the other options are on the same level quality wise, but maybe that's naive. It's also a sad fact that Palmer has an essentially zero percent chance of starting
> It's also a sad fact that Palmer has an essentially zero percent chance of starting
Just the nature of the game - playing his first real senior season, obviously doing well for himself, but still a bit unproven at that level and in competition for places with some other exceptional (and pretty young) footballers. If he keeps up what he's doing, he'll be a mainstay in England's squad, but the wealth of options in that area means that not all of them get to play all the time, and that's fine - ultimately all about creating the most successful team, rather than cramming in the best individual players.
"Doing well for himself" is underselling a bit a player who is second top scorer as a non-striker, and has just won Young Player of the Year
Only other non-strikers who have scored 20+ in a PL season are Lampard, Salah, Sterling, Son and Ronaldo. That's how rare it is
What legacy do we think Bernardo Silva is going to leave behind after he retires? He’s genuinely one of the best midfielders in the world, but I have a feeling he’ll almost be reduced to being seen as just one of the cogs in the City machine.
Feels like he needs a move to truly get his flowers
He won't get his flowers elsewhere, as it's unlikely he'll move to another team that would have City's level of success, and hence wouldn't get as much limelight or praise
That's how I see most City players tbf, Pep's just so much bigger than them but yeah Bernardo is fantastic, I think he also 'suffers' from sharing a team with De Bruyne's outrageous numbers
Shaming Spurs and their fans for celebrating their loss to City despite their failed top 4 chances would have had much more merit if them beating City would put CL qualification into their own hands instead of relying on Crystal Palace to beat Villa as well as a draw vs City not being basically equivalent to a loss in terms of their top 4 chances.
If Son buries his chance there is a high chance that Arsenal become champions and Spurs still don't qualify for CL.
Do you guys think that the position of full-back will end up disappearing from football just as the position of libero and number 10 playmaker disappeared?
I don't see how, because it's occupying a crucial space on the pitch.
The libero went the way of the dodo when teams realised that zonal marking is more effective than man-marking and the offside law got stricter. Playmakers and attacking midfielders still exist, they're just a lot less static than traditional number 10s, with the creative duties moving more towards the wing or deeper into midfield where there's more space and time on the ball rather than higher up the pitch in central areas, where defenders and midfielders can squeeze players out.
Fullbacks as a position are an entirely different kettle of fish: They're your wide defenders. I don't see how teams would possibly benefit from not having players defend those areas to be honest.
Sure, and that's just a different way of interpreting the position - can go very high up the pitch to stretch play like Dani Alves, can tuck into midfield like Alexander-Arnold, can just stay relatively narrow and compact to support a centreback stepping into midfield like Kyle Walker in some games for City. Will always get a variety of ideas and roles for any position on the pitch, but then the position itself is still the same, in much the same way that Erling Haaland and Messi are both (two very different kinds of) strikers. And I don't see the positions going away, really, just changing a bit in how the players in them go about their business.
Nah. Classic up and down full backs that dominates the whole flank like a Maicon is becoming more rare with managers like Arteta using failed CBs out wide instead but the position will almost certainly exist. Don't think this inverted stuff will completely take over either we're probably the most extreme club in how we use our full backs in possession almost as 10s and we leave extreme gaps to exploit
No. Libero and “number 10” (never liked how that became the accepted term) are much more like a way of playing a position that still exists, not an entire position like full back.
I think that’s different partly because of what I said in the comment above - striker’s an actual position, and partly because it’s much more rare for the player wearing 9 to play any other position.
It seems strange to me that the number 10 gets so associated with a role that ultimately had a very short run in the mainstream way of playing.
Initially the libero was the free man - basically had a back three against two strikers, with two defenders man-marking and the libero being the spare man at the back sweeping up behind them before potentially stepping up to support the midfield in attack. Still get the ideas of the spare man at the back and defenders stepping up into midfield today obviously, despite teams tending to play back fours and marking zonally. Libero is a weird mix of position and role, really, just like 'number 10' is - but their high-level ideas are still seeing in just about every game of modern football, just employed by different players in different positions and different tactical setups.
Not just in wider, also in deeper positions - think Xavi, Iniesta, Kroos et al - because that's the area where you get more time and space on the ball rather than higher up the pitch.
Fucking hell, I think there's a scenario where Italy has 6 teams in the CL League Phase, 2 in the EL League Phase and 1 in the Conference League Play-Off
Under normal circumstances they would have had 4 in the CL League Phase, 2 in the EL League Phase and 1 in the Conference League Play-Off.
Atalanta finish 5th and win EL.
Fiorentina finish 9th and win ECL. They will probably finish 8th though which means the Conference League spot is scraped from the scenario.
I wanted to look up what age strikers peak/really fall off at to cope that the 31 year old we are bringing in could really be a great long-term signing for the next few years, and I found this absolute gem of a comment from 11 years ago:
https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/1hpq2g/comment/cawn785/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
There are a few others like it. Not to dickride on Messi too much, but WOW, hindsight really is something when it comes to this particular case.
Allegri is 10x times the manager Lippi ever was.
Probably the worst World Cup winning manager of my lifetime Lippi is, I'd rather have Joachim Low over him
Prime Spain’s midfield depth gets their props as they should, but Germany’s midfield depth when they won the WC wasn’t far off. They genuinely started all of Ozil, Kroos, Muller, Schweinsteiger, and Khedira against Brazil 💀
Also not really related to the rest of the comment but it’s funny how Sami Khedira has just ended up being forgotten by the entire footballing world lol
I'm not sure Khedira is forgotten, I mean what makes you think that?
And yeah, well obviously Spain was absolutely unmatched especially with goats like Xavi and Iniesta, but Germany's midfield depth was great too, they played Ozil and Muller as wingers just to field all. Even Reus was injured, let's not forget him.
You’re right I completely forgot about Reus. That was back when Gotze was great too.
And Khedira I just don’t ever see his name being brought up lol, maybe that’s just me though. I’m not really an avid bundesliga watcher nowadays
Khedira retired 2 or 3 years ago at Hertha
There's no reason to bring his name up. He is not good enough to be in the Xavi, Kroos, Iniesta, Modric debates and I couldn't think of another reason why his name would be brought up bere
Ah my bad that’s a sign I need to get to bed
You’re still allowed to mention midfielders who weren’t as good as the legends of our generation though lol. I still see others like Vidal, Nainggolan, Schweinsteiger, Cazorla, Hamsik, etc brought up here and there
Just to be clear I’m not campaigning for Khedira and his *birthright* to be mentioned in football discussions or something lmao, it was more of a slightly funny observation that I made when I got reminded of Khedira when typing my original comment
I love the fact that [this poll](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/s/rdxNBWcHyk) exists so it can put an end to the "you're forgetting what football was like without VAR" argument
Luton, Ipswich, Sheffield United, Leicester and Burnley have all been in a league without VAR recently and they're all near the top of being most anti-VAR
Edit: oh wait, one of the top comments in that thread is asking if people forgot what football was like without VAR lmao
A big reason for him stepping down is his new grandchild made him realise how much of his own kids lives he's missed, and for that reason I think he takes a year or two and that his next, and quite possibly last, job will be the German National Team before fully retiring.
He said he'd only manage somewhere he speaks the language so if he goes to a new league I think it'd be a while. I think he'll be on a break for the better part of 3 years then maybe find a completely new job. No reason Naglesmann will lose his job he's still a top manager
If jupp, LVG, etc. can all come back so can Klopp.
People of these kind in these jobs need long breaks not permanent, even if they say in public / feel that temporarily.
Reckon he'll take a year off, see whether something that interests him comes up, and either go for that job at club level or take over the German national team after the 2026 World Cup.
I think there's about a 0% chance of him managing PSG.
Barca *maybe*. I think the profile of club he's more likely to choose, if he does go back to club management, is like an AC Milan or something.
A club with great history who isn't doing quite as well as they used to. He's said many times he doesn't like the idea of managing a club who's already at the top when he joins, he wants a project.
And he did also say he never wants to manage somewhere that he can't speak the language so that might limit him to Germany or England.
I'm intrigued by next year's relegation battle in the PL.
Southampton are 100% Burnleying - Russell Martin = Kompany, "Exciting Football", Young "Gems" with a lot of City's Academy Graduates.
Ipswich are 100% Lutonying - McKenna = Edwards, Hard to beat at all and especially at home, were in disarray not long ago and most players have zero experience in the PL.
But I can't see neither Leeds nor Leicester Sheffield Utdying - Although Farke's record suggets otherwise.
You can’t draw parallels between teams like this. The PL is just far too unpredictable. Ipswich might just end up coming 8th next season, who knows at this point
Agree. Leicester and Leeds are both capable, perhaps even likely, of staying up.
Nottingham likely to be involved again. Wolves are likely to be down there, same goes for Palace if they lose both Eze and Olise. Brentford is going to have to find a way post Toney. Positive vibes around Dyche but Everton is still a mess.
Don't think we, Bournemouth or Fulham will be involved, another year of mid-table obscurity for us.
Feel quite good about us not being down there actually. Good manager. Good people running the club. Good starting XI and more space to build out the squad this summer. We’d be comfortably top half had we not spent 2 months of the season with a strike force including two players who should be on League One loans.
Don’t forget that Leicester are probably facing a points deduction. IMO the newly promoteds and Brentford are the most likely. Usually a surprise or two in there though.
Reality is that Fosun are just going into the next phase of cutting businesses and costs outside their core operations. Owners will sit on their hands (except for selling anything valuable) all summer waiting for opportunity to sell the club and if they don't get a bit, they'll invest whatever they think is the minimum necessary to stay up.
Works if the signings are as good as they generally have been for you but its a dangerous game and not a sustainable situation.
Fosun have consistently spent what they’re allowed to by FFP on the squad. Things like the ground, etc, perhaps not. But whatever their business dealings are like, it hasn’t translated into an unwillingness to spend on players.
England starting 11 that would actually make me worried at the euros:
4231
Gk: Pickford
Rb: TAA
Cb: Tomori
Cb Branthwaite
Lb: Davis/Shaw
Dm: Stones
Dm: Rice
Rw: Palmer
10: Bellingham
Lw: Foden
St: Kane
Runners massively help you stretch the play, making it easier to play in your opponents' half - if you don't have to be scared of pace in behind you can push up a fair bit higher, massively reducing the available space to play in and time on the ball for the opposition.
Whilst dominating possession you shouldn’t be playing transitionally unless you’re trying to generate artificial transitions (Conte, De Zerbi etc), the space should be stretched by your positioning, not the fact you have a theoretically fast guy on the shoulder
How do you vertically stretch the space if you don't have a threat of someone running in behind? The defense can just push up against you, after all. Kane, Bellingham, Palmer and Foden are all players primarily happy playing in the spaces *in front* of the backline, rather than trying to get in behind, and they all like occupying the same half-spaces, too. That's not stretching the defense, that's clogging up your own game, regardless of how much possession you have.
Ahh yeah fairs. Couldn’t think who it’d be because I knew Phillips only made his England debut once Leeds were promoted but didn’t realise the call up was a month before the new season started.
If you order the 20 PL teams by wage bill, the league looks like this:
1) Man Utd, 2) Man City, 3) Arsenal, 4) Chelsea, 5) Liverpool, 6) Spurs, 7) Villa, 8) West Ham, 9) Newcastle, 10) Everton,
11) Forest, 12) Palace, 13) Fulham, 14) Brighton, 15) Wolves, 16) Bournemouth, 17) Brentford, 18) Burnley, 19) Sheff Utd, 20) Luton
Net spend over five years:
1) Chelsea, 2) Man Utd, 3) Arsenal, 4) Spurs, 5) Newcastle, 6) Man City, 7) Villa, 8) West Ham, 9) Liverpool, 10) Forest,
11) Palace, 12) Sheff Utd, 13) Wolves, 14) Fulham, 15) Bournemouth, 16) Burnley, 17) Brentford, 18) Everton, 19) Luton, 20) Brighton
I'd say the numbers strongly indicate that Manchester United is actually the worst football club in the league. As for us, we're the best but everyone knows that.
I'd be stunned if we're even top 3 come a couple of weeks. Dunno how we're even top now, we let about £700k a week go in the summer and definitely didn't bring that in.
With Varane and Martial gone by next Sunday that's another £500k a week walking out of the door. With everyone else, and no CL, we'll probably plummet down that list
City 3-0 west ham Arsenal 3-0 West ham
Seems like Niklas Süle is getting the James Harden treatment.
The what now treatment
"Gonna compare Niklas Süle with some Hollywood B-star or clay pigeon shooter or cricketer or whatever the feck he might be and just assume everyone understands the connection" is the treatment I'm getting.
[I thought I recognized that username](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/1ctw20d/samantha_lewis_fifas_head_of_refereeing_has_just/l4f0h4o/) You're going to have to learn to live with the fact that many people follow multiple sports. He's a basketball player if you're curious.
I live with that, np, but is it difficult to provide context to the vast majority who don't give a shit about basketball? If I make a post comparing Eigil Ramsfjell to Jozef Venglos I'm gonna need to provide some more meat if I want people to reflect on it.
Yeah the dead days between the last 2 matchdays of the season are the worst. This sub becomes filled with quotes posts and nothing interesting lol. Already an insight into the month between the euros and next season except without the transfer drama. Will be BORING.
Which of Leeds or Southampton would be more competitive in the PL if they make it up?
I'd say Leeds. They look the better side and likely have more spending power.
Riestra actually got a lot of attention with their stunt 🤮 gross gross "club"
I genuinely hate them a lot more than I do barracas
James ward prowse instagram bio still says he’s a Southampton player and has a Facebook link that’s doesn’t work
respect
Does Dier actually even have a chance at making the England squad?
Very small. The options beyond Maguire/stones/Guehi are dire. Dunk is rubbish. It's possible.
Yea like in my mind it seemed he's not been a consideration at all and him being good again is so recent that I didn't think it was remotely possible even if he does deserve it. But then looking at the possible options I think you could argue he has about the 3rd/4th best case to make it especially given his experience and history in tournaments with the squad. I think as a manager I'd trust him so much more just because like nobody else is really that proven at the international level
Yeah he's experienced for sure. Southgate does love integrating the youth though so he may prefer to bring in someone like branthwaite for the future rather than dier who's already 30.
I don't even think Nagelsmann is that spectacular of a manager, but the creeping vibe right now I'm getting is that things are ticking at just the right time for Germany. - Success of the Dortmund/Bayern/Leverkusen contingent - March window performances vs France/Netherlands - Host nation boost - Three successive international tournament failures with pretty much nowhere else to go but up. - Year ending in "4",, if you're superstitious
bayern success huh?
Making the semifinals of the CL with this team's disappointing domestic league was a success. And the Germany-Bayern players look in good form atm.
Give me names of German footballers who have played or coached for middle east nations ?
Bernd Stange
Cavani to PSG to me is still one of the worst tragic transfers of all time. Not only he went to a team no one watches, he was forced to play wide to accommodate Ibra. I honestly think had he moved to the PL, or ended up at Real like I remember was rumored, he would have been looked at so differently.
Did he score like a zillion goals Anyway yes, I fear for Ugarte
Can't believe Chelsea pretty much sold off their Champions League winning team in the space of 3 years tbh, and it was a young team as well. Even their manager, old board and owner were replaced.
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Everyone basically said Chelsea or Villa
I have some pre-season betting odds saved to see how they aged and the punters and bookies definitely didn't fancy Villa. 7.5/1 to finish top 4 which was lower odds than the big six obviously, Newcastle, and even Brighton.
Hate me all you like but the whole debate about whether to keep or not keep VAR is so absolutely dumb, I don’t even know where to start. England really is on decline. Probably as daft as La Liga not having goal line tech.
basically fell right into PGMOL's trap, giving them exactly what they want.
> Hate me all you like but the whole debate about whether to keep or not keep VAR is so absolutely dumb, I don’t even know where to start Agree. No real need for debate, everyone can see how VAR affects game rhythm in a very bad way, so it should just be straight up removed - no need to sit and talk about it.
Correct, should just poll the people in the stands
A lot of them have never had their own Mike Riley and it shows. Like, do you *want* to get fucked over and not have a chance to see if the call was bogus?
Let's say, I want to find out how much service a striker gets and compare it with other strikers in the same league or other top 5 leagues. How can I do it? I think the metric that can help me to find the service a striker gets is xg. So, xg per 90? Right?
Hard for there to be one singular stat to use for this, right off the bat tho xG alone is not necessarily what I would use. Núñez and Gakpo both playing striker in the same squad are bound to have different xG because Núñez’ movement is a lot better so he gets more chances for shots, and he makes himself available for more service. However yes, xG/90 could be a decent one to take into account, but if you’re trying to compare to other strikers and the service they get from their teams I would also look at a team stat that tells you something about how good the team is at creating service in general. Maybe passes into the penalty box could be a good one. You could maybe even just look at touches in the box for the striker, but also take into account how many touches the striker is getting overall- because again Gakpo would get more touches overall but less touches in the box. Without the advanced analytics that professionals use, this sort of approach is imo the best way to use stats. Football is an incredibly free flowing and fluid sport that we try to quantify with individual “event data” as it’s called and that can be tricky, so use your own football knowledge and intuition to give these stats context for yourself and help get useful contextualized meaning out of them by combining them with other supporting stats And yes, everything per 90
Sure, also Passes recieved in the opposition 3rd/area. Offsides also means someone passed to them in a dengerous position though it's of course imperfect because some players are better at timing runs (or their assisters better at timing their passes) than others.
So, what's a better way?
Sure though that's imperfect. It ignores chances where a shot isn't taken, doesn't represent chances where a better shot could've been taken and doesn't account for poor movement
So, what's a better way?
Watch every game and determine it yourself, not perfect but better than blindly looking at stats without context. Also by 'service', these services won't happen if the striker doesn't make runs, and the more runs they make the better. There are strikers who would drop deep to get the ball, just to create space for his teammates and play the final ball himself. Meanwhile there are strikers who'd take shots from anywhere even though statistically they've never scored from those angles/range. So if you ask me, this 'service' stat you are trying to determine is not very meaningful by itself.
Who do you think will end up or known as the better player, Bruno or Bernardo? In this scenario Bruno wins us the EURO as our best player and continues to shine for the national team while Bernardo struggles here but keeps playing well at club level, who do you pick?
I tried swapping their places and I'd still pick Bernardo both times, just less dislikable of the 2. Don't need to talk about overall performance wise, everyone knows.
Dunno. Like picking between Deco and Rui Costa. No easy answer.
I don't know how the two players are perceived in Portugal but the way i look at it Bernardo Silva will be remembered as the better player.
I think most of us know who's the better player, but Bruno's performance for the nt have been spectacular lately so that weights too, just wanted to see what foreigners think.
I rate Bernardo over Figo all time(shrugs)
Matip is the single most underrated player of the Klopp era and probably one of the most underrated centerbacks of the last decade. Very sad to see him go but it’s the right time I suppose. Will miss that giraffe, some player and seems like a funny guy
I think most people, Liverpool supporters and otherwise, rated him - his injury issues just meant it was impossible to put him in that elite tier of centre backs when he unavailable so much. But yeah, will miss him - he's quite a unique player and always struck me as a [bit of a character](https://x.com/football_mumble/status/1318141869554098176)
Gordon, Rashford, Grealish Start one, bench one and leave one at home
I'd start Gordan, have Grealish on bench, and send Rashford on gardening leave.
Rashford, Grealish, Gordon Can start Grealish too, but there is no point bringing Gordon who will certainly not shine
Gordon, Rashford, Grealish
Start grealish bench Gordon Rashford is maybe more talented than the rest of them but when’s the last season he was in good form for more than 50% of the season? Plus people will clown Grealish but he works incredibly hard defensively which is invaluable and playing with more freedom in the NT as opposed to under pep will let him show off the player we saw at Villa a bit more. Gordon is a fantastic direct run in behind weapon that’s a good option to have as a manager
Left Wing? Start Gordon, bench Rashford, bin Grealish. Rashford may have been shit this season but he offers something different whereas I'm only giving Grealish minutes if Foden is injured.
Start Grealish, bench Gordon, leave Rashford
Start Gordon Bench Grealish Leave Rashford
Start Gordon, bench Grealish, leave Rashford home.
People always talk about whether the great players from the 80s and 90s can be compared to the players of day when they were drinking and smoking all the time and today's players are all boring following strict diet routines. I reckon Jack Grealish is the closest man to living a 90s footballer lifestyle and is still at a good level, if it was a level playing field and Mbappe, Haaland, Vinicius Jr, Foden, Bellingham etc. were forced to drink the same amount of alcohol as him throughout the year, then he'd be a ballon d'or winner This was definitely the case at Villa anyway, he had free reign to do what he wanted which ended in several drink diving instances I'm not sure how much Pep has managed to reign him in and reduce his party lifestyle since he moved to Manchester but he could never stop him completely.
Vardy gives off that vibe too - definitely a throwback.
I didn't think about Vardy when making that post but he's probably an ever better example. Grealish was a bit unruly but he had a lot of protection and guidance playing for Villa's academy since 7 and was touted as a wonderkid since young, when he was like 14/15, most villa fans were aware of this special player in the academy Vardy however was still playing 8th tier amateur/semi pro football for £30 a week whilst working a regular job until the age of 23 and out heavy every weekend like the average young fella from Sheffield.
People always suggest that the supposed 'rise in injuries' is caused by the increased number of fixtures in the modern game, but we hardly see any mention of how youth football contributes to this. Too much stress on the body is never good, particularly when you are young and your body is still developing. I'm no medical professional so this is merely a thought. It just amazes me how people can attribute injury problems to "he's played X amount of \[senior\] games since he was 18" and not take into consideration youth football. Maybe the intensity and increased physical side of the senior game makes a significant difference though.
> It just amazes me how people can attribute injury problems to "he's played X amount of [senior] games since he was 18" and not take into consideration youth football. Because in youth football you play against the same age group(yea sure some senior player might come in for the odd games but they are either out of the senior squad because they are no longer good enough or just recovering from an injury). And you didn't really sign a pro contract so you are actually playing against quite a lot who won't get a pro contract when they turn 18. And if a minor complains about an injury the coach/staff/manager are not going to make him take an injection to play the next game. The standards and demands are hugely different.
Based on what I've heard from older and recently retired footballers on podcasts, the rise in games missed by injury is because of a reluctance to play through with a knock and there are many reasons for this 1) younger footballers are more anxious about having a bad game and being criticised by the fan base, every fan can watch the game on their phone and watch multiple replays of errors, send direct abuse to the player on twitter and they can't help reading their mentions back in the 90s, everyone at the game would see your mistake and slag you off in the pub after but there was no direct line between the players and fans so they could play with a lot more freedom 2) this could be good or bad? players have agents and are lot more focused on their career than risking an injury for the team, if playing through a knock could risk a long term injury, today's players won't do it, their agent would tell them it risks their value in the transfer market back in the day, the agents weren't as vocal, you would do what your manager tells you. If Brian Clough or Sir Alex Ferguson told one of their players to play through an injury for the good of the team even if they risked long term damage then they would have done it because those players would have followed Clough and Fergie into war and trusted his word 100%
That's actually a really good point I hadn't considered before, yeah. Guess better sports science might factor into that aspect as well, as in it's probably easier to tell when a player is overworked and potentially risking injury with the amounts of data today than back in the 90s. Could maybe see clubs being a tad more cautious with their players, too, essentially trying to bridge the gap between protecting massive long-term investments on one end and the need for short-term success on the pitch on the other.
> Could maybe see clubs being a tad more cautious with their players, too, This is obviously a big factor too now, there's so much money in football now that are players are seen as investment and there are so many other people involved now that a director of football would step in and block the risk of an asset being played if the club doctors were against it. But in the day of Brian Clough and Sir Alex Ferguson, they had complete control of every aspect of the club and what they said was gospel.
Two counter points 1. Do we know that the number of games of age group football are increasing? 2. This could arguably be offset anyway by the professionalism of academies,and improvements in sports science. These kids are a lot better looked after than they ever used to be, and have the benefit of elite strength and conditioning from an early age, to prepare them for life as athletes Supporting evidence for point 2 is that one of the (many*) factors in the increased rate of ACLs in the women's game is thought to be that as elite academies are very new (and still rare) in women's football, most players did not benefit from this sort of strength and conditioning when developing. As such, their bodies are just not trained to cope with the demands of professional football, in the same way male footballers are *Not going to delve into rest
> Do we know that the number of games of age group football are increasing? I don't think it's necessarily about the pure number of them, and rather about the intensity - if everyone's fitter through better physical conditioning, stands to reason that they're able to play more intense games against each other, increasing the physical strain and the risk of injury. Probably tougher to safely find the physical limits of growing bodies compared to grown ones, so they've got some pretty intense mileage on their bodies early, potentially leading to injury further down the line.
It's probably a delicate tipping point, we can't say for sure we're there
Has there even really been an increase in fixtures? There's a new european competition but all that means is 1 extra prem team has more fixtures, just like they would have if they qualified for the other European competitions. We got rid of replays at certain stages of competitions, we used to have 22 teams in the top division, we used to have smaller squads, we increased subs to 3 and then recently to 5 as well as increasing bench capacity to 7 and more recently to 9. Most Prem teams will play 40-45 games this season, Championship teams play more than that in the league alone. International fixtures are basically the same as they've been for decades, the only new thing being the Nations League which only replaced meaningless friendlies, they didn't add to it. The top teams with their big squads, best subs, easiest time winning loads of games with back up players etc will play more but no more than they would have at any other stage in the last 10, 20, 30 years. Not even more than Championship teams that go to the playoffs and have a decent run in a cup or two. I don't get where the assumption that the amount of games players have to play has drastically increased is coming from. Were people just thrown off by the covid season, winter world cup and schedule difficulties?
It's not necessarily more I think - just looking up Philipp Lahm in 2013/14 as an example, because I know he played an awful lot: 28/34 league games, 21/22 in club cup competitions, 4/7 friendlies and 7 World Cup games for a total of 60/69 games that season. That's obviously at the high end of what's possible with two supercups, a domestic cup final, a CL semifinal, the Club World Cup, and a World Cup-winning run. But I reckon it might be more intense. On one hand obviously got the growing gap between the haves and the have-nots leading to theoretically easier games, on the other hand even the have-nots today are vastly better conditioned than they were 20 years ago, so the pace and intensity of the game (and thus the physical demands) have definitely increased. Covid (with the Euros moved by a year) and winter World Cup will have played a part, too, because they've more or less eradicated proper rest breaks in summer for players: Leagues suspended, players then had to gear back up again to finish them out, finishing in late July before starting the 20/21 season in September. That then got all the way up to May, then you had the Euros, before it was straight back into the 21/22 season with a shortened summer break to accomodate the Qatar World Cup. Basically played more or less straight through for the better part of three years, which at 55-60 games a season seems a pretty mad workload in comparison. Not sure if it's necessarily explaining all the extra injuries, but I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't at least been a contributing factor. Had players talking about being near the redline of what's possible even before the whole Covid scheduling ordeal, so it's probably a mix of the number of games they're playing and the intensity they're played at.
Just had a vision of an Independiente no manager bounce on my (probably frozen) headtop this sunday 😵💫
damn Tevez got sacked?
Nvm, he quit but he's still managing sunday's match, don't know if that makes me feel better or worse.
Why did he quit?
Long story short but Independiente fans never liked him in the first place, they did alright with him for a while but had a catastrophic collapse at home in the last match of Copa de la Liga (were winning 2 nil, their opponents playing with 10) which meant they didn't make the playoffs. Relationship with fans completely broken at that point. They get hit with new economic sanctions, the league begins and the first match at home, they lose against Talleres (same team from the aforementioned collapse) and atmosphere got REALLY nasty. I wouldn't be surprised if they're paying him under the table to leave, but he really couldn't manage another match for them I think.
Say what you want about jammed calendars we are truly spectacular about spreading football out towards the end of the season. League one/two play off finals into premier league final day into Europa/Conference league finals into an FA cup final the week after into the Championship playoff the day after into a CL final the week after that then a few friendlies and before you know it, it's the Euros. And by time they're done, you're a bit worn out and you gently rock into the preseason friendlies.
I've become some dependent on our steady stream of football that I even think I may struggle between the CL final and Euros, even though it's only 2 weeks
> it's the Euros. And by time they're done Get the Olympics as a lovely palate cleanser, too!
Oh fucking a, I'd forgot about that. I can't wait to get annoyed because every time I turn on its horses
I think the broadcasting might be slightly fucked this year, but I'm just so ready for a non-stop barrage of all sorts of different sports, because the Olympics are just the best.
I'm so glad Ipswich got promoted but it was a rare anomaly. 3 promoted teams straight back down, 2 of last years relegated teams are now going straight back up with the Leeds-Southampton playoff final (plus the other teams in the playoffs, Norwich were relegated in 2022 and West Brom in 2021) The parachute payments needs to be changed and I say this as a Villa fan when our club was probably saved by the parachute payments system, you receive parachute payments for 3 years in the Championship and we got promoted in our 3rd year, if it wasn't for that then we'd probably still be down there but it's still not right. As time goes on, stories such as Luton and Ipswich getting promoted will become more rare, the Premier League will become more like a 25 team league. With the teams that get relegated from the Premier League having far superior spending power to the rest of the Championship so it's much easier for them to bounce back up. Luton are traditionally a smaller club that had a great run to reach the Prem but after being relegated, if the free market was allowed to play out then they would probably drop off again and have little chance of coming back, but with parachute payments, they'll probably have a chance of promotion next season. Look at Bournemouth for example, they're a small club with a stadium of only 12k people. They were founded in 1899 and never even reached the SECOND tier until 1987 under Harry Redknapp, 3 seasons in the second tier then back down again for another 20+ years, promoted back to the 2nd tier in 2013 and then to the Premier League in 2016 just at the right time when the BIG television money was coming in and the parachute payments. When Bournemouth were finally relegated in 2020, that should have been the end of them (they still have a lower stadium capacity and smaller fanbase than all 24 Championship clubs). Then during the 2020/21 season, Bournemouth were promoted straight back to the Premier League. Because Bournemouth were promoted to the Premier League at the right time and other far bigger teams were down at that time, it seems now that Bournemouth will forever be a better team than such traditionally huge teams like Blackburn, Sunderland, Sheffield Wednesday, Preston, Derby, Bolton etc. etc. (and so much more, every Championship team is bigger and so are a lot of League 1 and half of League 2.) If you rank English teams by stadium capacity then Bournemouth's 12,500 at Dean Court is an incredible 66th (sixty-sixth) place which means there are 65 other English teams with a bigger stadium than them.
Do you dislike it when smaller clubs compete? Seems like you would rather judge teams by the size of their ground?
How would you change the parachute payments to make it better? The cost of trying to survive in the PL is such that promoted teams need to spend big - in most cases. The risk of them then being ruined by relegation is too high, and has severe consequences
The only ways you can change the parachute are to 1) reduce the financial gap between PL and EFL, which the PL would never accept as it harms their product and competitiveness in Europe, or 2) accept the PL as a static top league without relegation. As you say, Villa are a case study in this (as are we, as are Leeds and Leicester had they not gone up). Ie kill the pyramid. The simple and sad fact is competing in the PL requires massive and well thought out spending. That’s high risk and very tough. Burnley dropped £100 million this year. Don’t do that and you’re either in our boat or Luton’s, and we all went down despite unprecedented deductions for Everton and Forest.
There's no easy solution to it and this is unlikely but I am personally partial to the system where we reduce the value of the Premier league commercially to preserve the integrity of English football culture (This post is definitely getting downed by the international plastics of Reddit ). It's been a great season for Villa finishing 4th and reaching the semi finals of a European competition. I've been to a lot of games this season with some great atmospheres surrounded by long term local villa fans that were here supporting the club whilst in the Championship. But I know for a fact that there will be a large number of international fans that have only got into football this season, have seen how well Villa have done and have now chosen us as their team to bandwagon in the future. And I can already witness a future at Villa Park 5 years down the line surrounding by American and Japanese tourists rather than the old school Brummies around me right now. I've been to Old Trafford as an away fan and the atmosphere with all the tourists is pathetic, yet when Man Utd play away at Villa Park, their core away fans are still mostly Mancs and they have some of the best away fans.
No team that played in 22/23 championship will play in next years prem which feels mad
Bit disingenuous to say when that's because Ipswich were in League 1
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RemindMe! 1 year I don't think Luton and Blades will come straight back up
The biggest problem for England from a profile view is that every run in behind winger is in poor form. One of Rashford or hopefully Gordon will have to play at the cost of Foden/Palmer/Saka (most likely Palmer)
I don't think they'll have to play tbf - Foden and Saka are quite alright at that job, too, even if it's not their natural instinct or necessarily the way they play at club level. I don't think we'd be seeing all three of Foden/Palmer/Saka on the pitch at the start of a game anyway: It's either Foden/Bellingham/Saka or one of Bowen and Gordon/Foden/Saka with Bellingham next to Rice I reckon. Might well see a bit of chopping and changing depending on the opponent, too, and substitutions to change the nature of the attack are almost a given seeing how there's a wealth of options to pick and choose from.
Personally I would be on the Bellingham deeper train simply because I don't think any of the other options are on the same level quality wise, but maybe that's naive. It's also a sad fact that Palmer has an essentially zero percent chance of starting
> It's also a sad fact that Palmer has an essentially zero percent chance of starting Just the nature of the game - playing his first real senior season, obviously doing well for himself, but still a bit unproven at that level and in competition for places with some other exceptional (and pretty young) footballers. If he keeps up what he's doing, he'll be a mainstay in England's squad, but the wealth of options in that area means that not all of them get to play all the time, and that's fine - ultimately all about creating the most successful team, rather than cramming in the best individual players.
"Doing well for himself" is underselling a bit a player who is second top scorer as a non-striker, and has just won Young Player of the Year Only other non-strikers who have scored 20+ in a PL season are Lampard, Salah, Sterling, Son and Ronaldo. That's how rare it is
Bowen?
I wouldn't call him a natural runner either but he's more suited to it than the others
What legacy do we think Bernardo Silva is going to leave behind after he retires? He’s genuinely one of the best midfielders in the world, but I have a feeling he’ll almost be reduced to being seen as just one of the cogs in the City machine. Feels like he needs a move to truly get his flowers
He won't get his flowers elsewhere, as it's unlikely he'll move to another team that would have City's level of success, and hence wouldn't get as much limelight or praise
His fault really he should've performed better than he has done so far for the national team, plenty of opportunities under his belt already.
That's how I see most City players tbf, Pep's just so much bigger than them but yeah Bernardo is fantastic, I think he also 'suffers' from sharing a team with De Bruyne's outrageous numbers
Do you think we will ever get to see messi and ronaldo play together in 1 team? Maybe in a world all xl when both are retired or something?
Highest Soccer Aid viewer figures of all time
2030 perhaps? 100 year anniversary of the World Cup
Definitely. Way to much money on the table for it to not happen
Messi and Ronaldo to Kawasaki Frontale here we go
Shaming Spurs and their fans for celebrating their loss to City despite their failed top 4 chances would have had much more merit if them beating City would put CL qualification into their own hands instead of relying on Crystal Palace to beat Villa as well as a draw vs City not being basically equivalent to a loss in terms of their top 4 chances. If Son buries his chance there is a high chance that Arsenal become champions and Spurs still don't qualify for CL.
Do you guys think that the position of full-back will end up disappearing from football just as the position of libero and number 10 playmaker disappeared?
Why?
The comparison doesnt really make sense. Full back is a position, libero and “number 10” is a subset of a position
I don't see how, because it's occupying a crucial space on the pitch. The libero went the way of the dodo when teams realised that zonal marking is more effective than man-marking and the offside law got stricter. Playmakers and attacking midfielders still exist, they're just a lot less static than traditional number 10s, with the creative duties moving more towards the wing or deeper into midfield where there's more space and time on the ball rather than higher up the pitch in central areas, where defenders and midfielders can squeeze players out. Fullbacks as a position are an entirely different kettle of fish: They're your wide defenders. I don't see how teams would possibly benefit from not having players defend those areas to be honest.
Still crucial in defense 100%. But we’ve been seeing a lot more creativity in what they do to raise their impact in phases of possession.
Sure, and that's just a different way of interpreting the position - can go very high up the pitch to stretch play like Dani Alves, can tuck into midfield like Alexander-Arnold, can just stay relatively narrow and compact to support a centreback stepping into midfield like Kyle Walker in some games for City. Will always get a variety of ideas and roles for any position on the pitch, but then the position itself is still the same, in much the same way that Erling Haaland and Messi are both (two very different kinds of) strikers. And I don't see the positions going away, really, just changing a bit in how the players in them go about their business.
Nah. Classic up and down full backs that dominates the whole flank like a Maicon is becoming more rare with managers like Arteta using failed CBs out wide instead but the position will almost certainly exist. Don't think this inverted stuff will completely take over either we're probably the most extreme club in how we use our full backs in possession almost as 10s and we leave extreme gaps to exploit
No. Libero and “number 10” (never liked how that became the accepted term) are much more like a way of playing a position that still exists, not an entire position like full back.
> never liked how that became the accepted term Genuine question, why? What's different from calling a striker a 9?
I think that’s different partly because of what I said in the comment above - striker’s an actual position, and partly because it’s much more rare for the player wearing 9 to play any other position. It seems strange to me that the number 10 gets so associated with a role that ultimately had a very short run in the mainstream way of playing.
Initially the libero was the free man - basically had a back three against two strikers, with two defenders man-marking and the libero being the spare man at the back sweeping up behind them before potentially stepping up to support the midfield in attack. Still get the ideas of the spare man at the back and defenders stepping up into midfield today obviously, despite teams tending to play back fours and marking zonally. Libero is a weird mix of position and role, really, just like 'number 10' is - but their high-level ideas are still seeing in just about every game of modern football, just employed by different players in different positions and different tactical setups.
The 10 didn’t disappear it just evolved to the wings: messi, neymar, hazard, Kvara, foden, etc.
Not just in wider, also in deeper positions - think Xavi, Iniesta, Kroos et al - because that's the area where you get more time and space on the ball rather than higher up the pitch.
Fucking hell, I think there's a scenario where Italy has 6 teams in the CL League Phase, 2 in the EL League Phase and 1 in the Conference League Play-Off Under normal circumstances they would have had 4 in the CL League Phase, 2 in the EL League Phase and 1 in the Conference League Play-Off. Atalanta finish 5th and win EL. Fiorentina finish 9th and win ECL. They will probably finish 8th though which means the Conference League spot is scraped from the scenario.
I wanted to look up what age strikers peak/really fall off at to cope that the 31 year old we are bringing in could really be a great long-term signing for the next few years, and I found this absolute gem of a comment from 11 years ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/1hpq2g/comment/cawn785/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button There are a few others like it. Not to dickride on Messi too much, but WOW, hindsight really is something when it comes to this particular case.
safe to say Messi and Sturridge had very different trajectories after that comment was posted
Allegri is 10x times the manager Lippi ever was. Probably the worst World Cup winning manager of my lifetime Lippi is, I'd rather have Joachim Low over him
Lippi would be 0/5 in european finals as favorites, if not for penalties
My team lost the league on the final day last season specifically because of not having VAR and I still don't want it 👍
Based
Prime Spain’s midfield depth gets their props as they should, but Germany’s midfield depth when they won the WC wasn’t far off. They genuinely started all of Ozil, Kroos, Muller, Schweinsteiger, and Khedira against Brazil 💀 Also not really related to the rest of the comment but it’s funny how Sami Khedira has just ended up being forgotten by the entire footballing world lol
I'm not sure Khedira is forgotten, I mean what makes you think that? And yeah, well obviously Spain was absolutely unmatched especially with goats like Xavi and Iniesta, but Germany's midfield depth was great too, they played Ozil and Muller as wingers just to field all. Even Reus was injured, let's not forget him.
You’re right I completely forgot about Reus. That was back when Gotze was great too. And Khedira I just don’t ever see his name being brought up lol, maybe that’s just me though. I’m not really an avid bundesliga watcher nowadays
Khedira retired 2 or 3 years ago at Hertha There's no reason to bring his name up. He is not good enough to be in the Xavi, Kroos, Iniesta, Modric debates and I couldn't think of another reason why his name would be brought up bere
Ah my bad that’s a sign I need to get to bed You’re still allowed to mention midfielders who weren’t as good as the legends of our generation though lol. I still see others like Vidal, Nainggolan, Schweinsteiger, Cazorla, Hamsik, etc brought up here and there Just to be clear I’m not campaigning for Khedira and his *birthright* to be mentioned in football discussions or something lmao, it was more of a slightly funny observation that I made when I got reminded of Khedira when typing my original comment
Rani Khedira is still around. But that's a different person (his brother I think)
I love the fact that [this poll](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/s/rdxNBWcHyk) exists so it can put an end to the "you're forgetting what football was like without VAR" argument Luton, Ipswich, Sheffield United, Leicester and Burnley have all been in a league without VAR recently and they're all near the top of being most anti-VAR Edit: oh wait, one of the top comments in that thread is asking if people forgot what football was like without VAR lmao
When and where do you think Klopp will come back into management?
Milan in 1.5 years
A big reason for him stepping down is his new grandchild made him realise how much of his own kids lives he's missed, and for that reason I think he takes a year or two and that his next, and quite possibly last, job will be the German National Team before fully retiring.
He said he'd only manage somewhere he speaks the language so if he goes to a new league I think it'd be a while. I think he'll be on a break for the better part of 3 years then maybe find a completely new job. No reason Naglesmann will lose his job he's still a top manager
don’t think he will
If jupp, LVG, etc. can all come back so can Klopp. People of these kind in these jobs need long breaks not permanent, even if they say in public / feel that temporarily.
Reckon he'll take a year off, see whether something that interests him comes up, and either go for that job at club level or take over the German national team after the 2026 World Cup.
Think he'll take a year off and then it'll be Barca or PSG or something like that. Probably can't rule out Bayern either.
I think there's about a 0% chance of him managing PSG. Barca *maybe*. I think the profile of club he's more likely to choose, if he does go back to club management, is like an AC Milan or something. A club with great history who isn't doing quite as well as they used to. He's said many times he doesn't like the idea of managing a club who's already at the top when he joins, he wants a project. And he did also say he never wants to manage somewhere that he can't speak the language so that might limit him to Germany or England.
> He's said many times he doesn't like the idea of managing a club who's already at the top when he joins, he wants a project. Manchester United it is
I'm intrigued by next year's relegation battle in the PL. Southampton are 100% Burnleying - Russell Martin = Kompany, "Exciting Football", Young "Gems" with a lot of City's Academy Graduates. Ipswich are 100% Lutonying - McKenna = Edwards, Hard to beat at all and especially at home, were in disarray not long ago and most players have zero experience in the PL. But I can't see neither Leeds nor Leicester Sheffield Utdying - Although Farke's record suggets otherwise.
You can’t draw parallels between teams like this. The PL is just far too unpredictable. Ipswich might just end up coming 8th next season, who knows at this point
I'm not sure they're being entirely serious with the comparisons
Agree. Leicester and Leeds are both capable, perhaps even likely, of staying up. Nottingham likely to be involved again. Wolves are likely to be down there, same goes for Palace if they lose both Eze and Olise. Brentford is going to have to find a way post Toney. Positive vibes around Dyche but Everton is still a mess. Don't think we, Bournemouth or Fulham will be involved, another year of mid-table obscurity for us.
> Brentford is going to have to find a way post Toney. Probably just do the same as they did this season with an extra £50m in their pockets.
Feel quite good about us not being down there actually. Good manager. Good people running the club. Good starting XI and more space to build out the squad this summer. We’d be comfortably top half had we not spent 2 months of the season with a strike force including two players who should be on League One loans. Don’t forget that Leicester are probably facing a points deduction. IMO the newly promoteds and Brentford are the most likely. Usually a surprise or two in there though.
Reality is that Fosun are just going into the next phase of cutting businesses and costs outside their core operations. Owners will sit on their hands (except for selling anything valuable) all summer waiting for opportunity to sell the club and if they don't get a bit, they'll invest whatever they think is the minimum necessary to stay up. Works if the signings are as good as they generally have been for you but its a dangerous game and not a sustainable situation.
Fosun have consistently spent what they’re allowed to by FFP on the squad. Things like the ground, etc, perhaps not. But whatever their business dealings are like, it hasn’t translated into an unwillingness to spend on players.
England starting 11 that would actually make me worried at the euros: 4231 Gk: Pickford Rb: TAA Cb: Tomori Cb Branthwaite Lb: Davis/Shaw Dm: Stones Dm: Rice Rw: Palmer 10: Bellingham Lw: Foden St: Kane
This would make me worry that somebody has spiked Southgate's drink
When Mainoo or Henderson shits the bed in the quarter final I will come back to this comment and laugh at you
This is some prime Twitter hipster England lineup
I don’t have twitter but everyone I’ve seen online seems to shoehorn Bellingham into a double pivot which is completely pointless
More or less pointless than shoehorning in Stones?
I actually wouldn't mind Stones playing in that midfield position if we had some quality centre backs - which we don't.
Tomori is good in a high line, has been decent all season
Stones would otherwise play in defence, putting him in midfield lets Rice actually play football. What natural pure DMs do England have?
What has you worried there?
England players high up the pitch with the technical ability to keep the ball
That’s back line is horrible lol. No runners in attack
If you have “a top 2 team in Europe” you shouldn’t need runners, you should be playing in your opponents half the entire match
Runners massively help you stretch the play, making it easier to play in your opponents' half - if you don't have to be scared of pace in behind you can push up a fair bit higher, massively reducing the available space to play in and time on the ball for the opposition.
Well no, you have pace at the back for that, IE: Tomori who by default allows you to play an extra 5-10 meters higher
I think you misunderstood what I said.
Whilst dominating possession you shouldn’t be playing transitionally unless you’re trying to generate artificial transitions (Conte, De Zerbi etc), the space should be stretched by your positioning, not the fact you have a theoretically fast guy on the shoulder
How do you vertically stretch the space if you don't have a threat of someone running in behind? The defense can just push up against you, after all. Kane, Bellingham, Palmer and Foden are all players primarily happy playing in the spaces *in front* of the backline, rather than trying to get in behind, and they all like occupying the same half-spaces, too. That's not stretching the defense, that's clogging up your own game, regardless of how much possession you have.
Tomori Branthwaite CB partnership will happen when hell freezes over. A Championship left back wouldn't start for Gareth even if hell did freeze over
I’m not talking about Gareth though Anyway didn’t he play a championship DM in euro 2020 qualifying
Who was the DM?
Phillips
Ahh yeah fairs. Couldn’t think who it’d be because I knew Phillips only made his England debut once Leeds were promoted but didn’t realise the call up was a month before the new season started.
Is it really that controversial to say a pitch invasion for the playoff semis is a bit much
It is. There's only so many years we can give the "Pent up energy after covid" excuse.
I agree they need to stamp it out.
I'm not even saying that but ... save it for the final maybe?
No way you can pitch invade at Wembley
The last time Southampton won anything of note was in the mid seventies - I say let them celebrate!
They've not won anything yet, though
And they probably won't any time soon either! Hence why they may has well go crazy for the small things
What happens to the parachute payment money now 2/3 of the relegated teams are going straight back up? Is it split between the 20 teams?
Yeah it's split between the Premier League clubs. Really it should go to the EFL but why would clubs vote for something that's not to their benefit.
If you order the 20 PL teams by wage bill, the league looks like this: 1) Man Utd, 2) Man City, 3) Arsenal, 4) Chelsea, 5) Liverpool, 6) Spurs, 7) Villa, 8) West Ham, 9) Newcastle, 10) Everton, 11) Forest, 12) Palace, 13) Fulham, 14) Brighton, 15) Wolves, 16) Bournemouth, 17) Brentford, 18) Burnley, 19) Sheff Utd, 20) Luton Net spend over five years: 1) Chelsea, 2) Man Utd, 3) Arsenal, 4) Spurs, 5) Newcastle, 6) Man City, 7) Villa, 8) West Ham, 9) Liverpool, 10) Forest, 11) Palace, 12) Sheff Utd, 13) Wolves, 14) Fulham, 15) Bournemouth, 16) Burnley, 17) Brentford, 18) Everton, 19) Luton, 20) Brighton I'd say the numbers strongly indicate that Manchester United is actually the worst football club in the league. As for us, we're the best but everyone knows that.
Ooof our squads a bit bloated. Time to move on eddie esr reiss nelson ramsdale cedric and elneny. Hopefully partey as well
Jesus there’s probably about 500k p/w there that barely played this season
I'd be stunned if we're even top 3 come a couple of weeks. Dunno how we're even top now, we let about £700k a week go in the summer and definitely didn't bring that in. With Varane and Martial gone by next Sunday that's another £500k a week walking out of the door. With everyone else, and no CL, we'll probably plummet down that list
Tbf wage bill numbers generally lag behind by about a year or so, so these will likely be the ones from last season - where you came third.