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***Official Soccer Discussion Thread*** (3 Viewers)

Jaysus said:
lol Celtic:

Celtic reinstated to UEFA Champions League, Legia Warsaw kicked out
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Wow

[SIZE=12pt]Celtic were handed a 3-0 win in the second leg, and after losing 4-1 away from home in the first leg, that meant the scores were tied at 4-4 but the Glasgow club went through on away goals. What makes it even worse for Legia is that Ivica Vrdoljak missed two penalty kicks in the first leg. If he had made just one of those, his side was still be through despite fielding an ineligible player.[/SIZE]
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DC United and Sunderland have announced some type of partnership. It's vague enough so that I really don't know what it means, but I wouldn't be surprised to see some youngsters (Lyndon Gooch, maybe) come DCU's way next season. And maybe a winter loan deal coming back the other way for a guy like EJ if SAFC is thin up top.

 
CL Playoff Draw:

League Route
  • Besiktas vs Arsenal
  • Standard Liege vs Zenit
  • FC Copenhagen vs Bayer Leverkusen
  • Lille vs FC Porto
  • Napoli vs Athletic Bilbao
Champions Route
  • NK Maribor vs Celtic
  • Salzburg vs Malmo
  • Aalborg vs APOEL Nicosia
  • Steaua Bucharest vs Ludogorets
  • Slovan Bratislava vs BATE Borisov
 
CONCACAF Champions League started this week.

Only one MLS team played so far and that is Montreal who won 1-0. Montreal and NY are in the same group and only one team advances from the group stage to the quarter finals (8 groups of 3 teams).

 
Discussion at redanwhitekop about Suarez replacement, specifically Bony, but I think it applies to the latest rumored transfer targets as well (Cavani in particular). It's long, but an interesting take IMO:

Just on the idea that Bony didn't score many goals from open play last year. It's not true. It's 12 from 27 starts. If you want to extrapolate that it's just shy of 17 goals over a 38 game season without pens (although we are going to need another good pen taker soon what with Gerrard being 34). The guy's scored 62 goals in 84 games in club football over the last two seasons. It's not like there can be any real doubt over his ability to score goals.

Is his goalscoring rate worse than in the Eredivise? Yes. He was at a goal a game his last season there. Now he's at a goal every two and a quarter games. Suarez's first year and a half in England saw his rate drop to a goal every 2.4 games. Is Bony going to do what Suarez did? Probably not. Suarez is unreal. But if you're going to bring out the tired Eredivise skepticism then at least recognise that Bony's goal record, without pens, is still a marginally better rate than Suarez's when he first came over from there. They're at roughly the same age too. Both came over at 24, Bony about 6 months older.


Is Bony the player I'd target to replace Luis Suarez? Nah. I was hoping we'd use Lambert as the back-up striker and look for someone who can play across the entire front line as part of the Suarez replacement. To be honest, we tried to do that with Sanchez. It failed.

I could sit here and moan about how disappointed I am that we're not going to follow my grand vision for how I want the club to look or some bollocks that I've formulated in my head just from casually watching players and deciding "Oh, he's good, it needs to be him". But why do that? Not going to get any enjoyment out of it and it's not going to change it. Instead I'd rather try and understand why, if we're after Bony, we'd be in for someone like that.

The theory I've got is that Rodgers contingency for Suarez leaving was always looking to be to bring in as many direct goals as possible, and that's probably best done through another, more traditional forward. He's very big on having people "in the areas to score goals". It's got lost in how good Suarez is because when you've got a genius you can dispense with conventional notions and take to building around their gifts instead. Generally though, Rodgers has quite liked number 9s.

But there we are in May. It's reasonably quiet on the Suarez leaving front and we're talking to Southampton and they bring up Lambert. Liverpool know they're going to want to add a forward this summer anyways, think they may be able to hold on to Suarez at this point, so they snap him up. It's good business. An option the squad lacks.

Then Suarez makes it be known that he's off. We're fairly powerless here really. We both went into the new contract knowing we'd get something out of it. A watertight buy-out was his end of the bargain. He's going. It's done as soon as Barca say they'll pay it.

Now we've got the dilemma. First thing we try and do is get Sanchez. He's Suarez-lite. He basically plays the same roles, and you can bring him in and everything looks the same if not quite as sparkly. Can't get it done. Disappointing, but whatever. Now the question rears it's head again:

How do you best replace Suarez?

The original contingency was probably always for the traditional striker type, just because that's what was always likely to get you the most goals. You've bought one already though. You did it when you thought Suarez may stay. Having spent so long talking about liking players with positional flexibility, do you basically want two lads up top who could only ever play for Liverpool as strikers? Probably not, but if you can't get in Sanchez then you're going to have to make a concession somewhere. Do you go Sanchez-lite, if you were only ever going for him because he was Suarez-lite. ... Or do you just go out and buy some goals and do what you probably had in mind were Suarez ever to leave, and acknowledge that the Lambert purchase was just a pleasant bit of impulse buying rather than something the club had a grand plan for before it was brought up.

Once you take out the fanciful suggestions of "let's just go buy Reus!" when the money comes in (yeah, check how many teams have tried that. He's not on the ####### market), do you go back to what I'm going to guess was the original plan - Buy a boss prospect or two with the potential to get to Suarez heights (or Torres at least, I don't think you can bank on someone being one of the top 5 in the world) over the long-term, and a guy who is obviously underwhelming compared to Suarez (they all ####### are), but probably gets you 15 goals+ in the league next season. No, it's not 31 (Suarez wasn't hitting that again next year anyways...), but it's a decent tally all the same.

If we're targeting Bony then I think you can use it as a microcosm of the approach to the window in general. We're doing a pretty even split between players I'd guess we're fairly convinced about what they can do, and players of great potential. This isn't a prem-proven debate, 'cos I think we could sign similar players from anywhere, but I'd think the club is fairly convinced about Lallana, Lovren and, if it happens, Bony's ability to come into this team and be of that standard. I doubt anyone's expecting them to come in and be absolute world beaters, just Joe Allen level players. That's what we as a squad lacked. If we had more players of the right level to be able to come into the team and contribute, and not Aspas' and Moses', we'd have been better off.

The other side of that coin is that Markovic, Can, Moreno if it happens. They all feel like players who could explode into potential superstars, but you're not sure if that's next year or 3 years down the line so you can't buy a whole transfer window worth of them. The way I'd look at it is like this - Ferguson bought Ronaldo in 2003, the next window he buys Louis Saha. You know which signing gets you the most excited, but you need the Saha's too. I'm fairly sure that we think we know what we're getting. Bit uninspiring maybe, but there's a litany of players for them lot that Ferguson signed which we'd find uninspiring if they'd been linked with us, but they did what they were meant to.

Bony as a player? Not entirely sure he's what we need, but with the obvious caveat of GOALS. The biggest thing the way we ended the season wasn't Suarez, or Sturridge. It was the pace we attacked at. That, more than any individual is what was at the core of why we were so devastating. If you acknowledge that football is always getting faster, then no team in the history of English football has ever attacked with the pace that we did last season. We were a whirl wind of quick transitions and amazing fluidity. That to me seems slightly at odds with Wilfried Bony. Suarez was a phantom on the pitch. Impossible to keep track of. Bony's not like that. You can always find Bony. Suarez was guerrilla warfare, Bony's a ####### bouncer. He's right there if you want to step up to him. I'm not saying either way is right or wrong. Drogba was the easiest person for a defender to find on a pitch, you'd never have to look hard for him, but it didn't matter 'cos he was practically impossible to stop. That's not what we were about last season though. Rodgers took to calling his front pair "two 9 and a halves". Bony is a 9. If teams played against our strike force last year then they were reticent to push their fullbacks forward because Suarez or Sturridge were incredibly comfortable at receiving the ball out wide in the empty spaces and trying to encourage the centerbacks to come out wide and engage them. Bony isn't going to do that. He's going to stand within the width of the 18 yard box for most of the game. He does have Suarez's ability to make something out of a fairly nothing ball forward. He can make it stick, but more as a platform for the rest of the team to build from than "####, Suarez has the ball under control in the opposition half, this could be a goal" any time our front two were left with any odds better than 5-2 in the oppositions half of the pitch.

What you do get with Bony is other options though. I guess he's like a luxury Lambert or Giroud. He can let midfielders get ahead of the ball and into the box. What we didn't do well enough compared to City last year was have midfielders who looked like getting double figures from open play. They'll want that from Lallana you'd think, and his relationship with Lambert was always good so it makes sense to have someone similar to that. Rodgers has targeted this attacking midfielder every summer so far, from Dempsey to Mkhitaryan and no he's got Lallana. He's going to want to get the utmost out of that.

I think what you get with Bony as well is that Rodgers has the genuine option of switching between 4-3-3 and a diamond and it not being a case of "look, Luis/Daniel, these are dead good so maybe just stand on their fullback, yeah?" - for me we were able to do this a fair bit last season because most teams we played against had very, very average fullbacks. What we'd do a fair bit of is put Suarez or Sturridge on the side with the fullback we felt was least likely to hurt us with the ball and just gave them free reign to go forward, because more likely than not, their attack will break down and hey, there's one of Suarez or Sturridge in the oceans of space they left behind. Sturridge did this over and over again to Stones, Suarez did it to Monreal (and then Martinez copied that idea and did the same thing with Lukaku a few weeks later). This is great when we're playing against Monreal and John Stones. We can let one fullback go free. After that we started using the diamond more and letting both opposition fullbacks go free. You know why? 'Cos if you think you fullback is more dangerous on the ball in our half of the pitch than Suarez & Sturridge will be in yours, with all that space, if your attack breaks down, you're crazy. We saw a bit of foreshadowing of what better teams could do against it when we played Southampton. We won 3-0 'cos we had the more clinical team, but they controlled much of the game until the 2nd came in because they actually had *two* good fullbacks who could hurt us. Against City in the 2nd half you really started to see it coming apart when they were able to constantly overload down our left hand side and our attackers weren't able to totally expose their two centerbacks 1-vs-1. We were going to change formation in that game even before the Sturridge injury. Closing down the flanks was what Rodgers said, I think.

City to me, would be more representative of going away to a Bayern or a Barcelona with two fullbacks who can hurt you, and playing both up top. It's fine when you're leaving Monreal as the spare man in your half of the field. It's not cool when it's Jordi Alba.

With Bony you'd at least have the issue of knowing he's going to be the #2 striker to Sturridge, so you know if we're playing Bayern away, then we're going Sturridge up top and Sterling and Markovic wide and working their bollocks off. But most games in the league aren't those games. Most games are against dross you just have to swat. With the greatest will in the world, Suarez's season wasn't great 'cos he scored in a lot of huge games. It was great because he scored relentlessly against that dross. So when it comes to a mid-ranking team at home or a way, having that guy you can play and know is a 15+ league guy is good. It also lets you keep Sterling where he was at his most devastating. Towards the end of the year he was the one that was starting to look talismanic for the team. I think around April you were beginning to see the very start of the shift away from a team being built in Suarez's image to one that was going to be built in Sterling's. What happening now is basically pushing that forward whether it's ready or not, when it's probably the latter. Still, you want see as much of Sterling picking that ball up centrally and driving at the backline as much a possible - good striker allows that.


I don't want any of this to sound like I'm pushing to sign Bony, just trying to figure out why we may be interested. I find myself in the weird situation of thinking he's a player good enough for a top 4 team (said he should be Everton's Lukaku replacement, think he should've been #2 or #3 on a list of strikers for Arsenal/Spurs to sign) and that the price of £19m is about right in the current market. I'm just not sure the club is. I get where he fits in to a team who have been playing one up front and like to build off him. That's why Arsenal made total sense. I've got less of a sense of where he fits into a team who spent last year working by having players work across the entire front line. If you take out their respective quality, it kinda feels like Arsenal have the player we should have, and Bony is the player they should have, that upgrade on Giroud. Still, I guess it basically comes down to goals, Bony seems a pretty safe bet to do the goals. Not the Suarez goals, but if you get 15 from him and 10 from Lallana playing well with him then that goes some way towards it. I guess the key question for me is whether he could dovetail well with Sturridge, and whether he's able to play at the pace him and Sterling attack at. They're the key men now. We need to be buying players who can play at that pace. Markovic can, Lallana can. Bony I think there's a question mark over (he's got quicker feet than you'd expect, just about mobility) and it's probably not one you can answer until you see how they'd link up if they ever do. I'm fairly certain he'd score goals, I'm just not sure whether he'd allow everyone else to keep scoring at the same rate.


For 90% of this feel free to replace Bony with Jackson Martinez's name for similar thoughts when that link obviously comes up.
Click to expand...
 
Seems that United are insistent on making a big overpayment on a big name out there before the season starts.

Vidal to United rumors have fired back up again (even though Juventus had a firm deadline of yesterday to make any transfers). But, it appears that United and Vidal have agreed to terms on a contract that will pay him just shy of 200,000 pounds (yea, I can't find that fancy lb symbol) per week.

wtf

And Juve holding firm on a 47m euro transfer cost :loco:

I liked the deal a whole lot more when United could ship Nani and Evra for Vidal straight up.

Obviously United want either DiMaria or Vidal bad and will do whatever it takes to get one. Those type of deals never work out badly :loco:

United should sit firm on their team, get a centre back or two and wait till next year to make a big pitch for Reus. But wtf do I know.

 
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guru_007 said:
Seems that United are insistent on making a big overpayment on a big name out there before the season starts.

Vidal to United rumors have fired back up again (even though Juventus had a firm deadline of yesterday to make any transfers). But, it appears that United and Vidal have agreed to terms on a contract that will pay him just shy of 200,000 pounds (yea, I can't find that fancy lb symbol) per week.

wtf

And Juve holding firm on a 47m euro transfer cost :loco:

I liked the deal a whole lot more when United could ship Nani and Evra for Vidal straight up.

Obviously United want either DiMaria or Vidal bad and will do whatever it takes to get one. Those type of deals never work out badly :loco:

United should sit firm on their team, get a centre back or two and wait till next year to make a big pitch for Reus. But wtf do I know.
Click to expand...
After the debacle of last season, you knew this was going to happen. There's no way Butthead is going to roll into the season without a big name to appease the fans.

 
charvik said:
CL Playoff Draw:

League Route

  • Besiktas vs Arsenal
  • Standard Liege vs Zenit
  • FC Copenhagen vs Bayer Leverkusen
  • Lille vs FC Porto
  • Napoli vs Athletic Bilbao
Champions Route
  • NK Maribor vs Celtic
  • Salzburg vs Malmo
  • Aalborg vs APOEL Nicosia
  • Steaua Bucharest vs Ludogorets
  • Slovan Bratislava vs BATE Borisov
Click to expand...
Napoli vs Athletic Bilbao looks like the best match on the card

 
guru_007 said:
Seems that United are insistent on making a big overpayment on a big name out there before the season starts.

Vidal to United rumors have fired back up again (even though Juventus had a firm deadline of yesterday to make any transfers). But, it appears that United and Vidal have agreed to terms on a contract that will pay him just shy of 200,000 pounds (yea, I can't find that fancy lb symbol) per week.

wtf

And Juve holding firm on a 47m euro transfer cost :loco:

I liked the deal a whole lot more when United could ship Nani and Evra for Vidal straight up.

Obviously United want either DiMaria or Vidal bad and will do whatever it takes to get one. Those type of deals never work out badly :loco:

United should sit firm on their team, get a centre back or two and wait till next year to make a big pitch for Reus. But wtf do I know.
Click to expand...
Daley Blind!

 
SmoovySmoov said:
guru_007 said:
Seems that United are insistent on making a big overpayment on a big name out there before the season starts.

Vidal to United rumors have fired back up again (even though Juventus had a firm deadline of yesterday to make any transfers). But, it appears that United and Vidal have agreed to terms on a contract that will pay him just shy of 200,000 pounds (yea, I can't find that fancy lb symbol) per week.

wtf

And Juve holding firm on a 47m euro transfer cost :loco:

I liked the deal a whole lot more when United could ship Nani and Evra for Vidal straight up.

Obviously United want either DiMaria or Vidal bad and will do whatever it takes to get one. Those type of deals never work out badly :loco:

United should sit firm on their team, get a centre back or two and wait till next year to make a big pitch for Reus. But wtf do I know.
Click to expand...
After the debacle of last season, you knew this was going to happen. There's no way Butthead is going to roll into the season without a big name to appease the fans.
Click to expand...
It's going to be interesting the amount of money they spend this summer. So far they've spent £65M on two players and neither is an impact player, imo.

They have the right idea of "we don't want to be out of the CL long(like Liverpool) so lets spend to get back in", but I don't think they've got the players yet.

Their biggest signing is obviously LVG and they'll be better, but if they spend 100-120M(which so far would be net spend) and miss out again on CL...that's a slippery slope.

 
GoFishTN said:
aj2448 said:
Jaysus said:
lol Celtic:

Celtic reinstated to UEFA Champions League, Legia Warsaw kicked out
Click to expand...
I think a few years back Celtic also was reinstated as we'll but for the Europa League.
Click to expand...
Apparently the ineligible player played three whole minutes. UEFA is almost as corrupt as FIFA.
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I don't think I understand your point.

Yes UEFA is as dirty as FIFA (in some ways more I think) but I don't see why punishing a team for breaking the rules is being corrupt if that is what you were expressing? Who cares if he played 1 second or 90 minutes?

 
NewlyRetired said:
GoFishTN said:
aj2448 said:
Jaysus said:
lol Celtic:

Celtic reinstated to UEFA Champions League, Legia Warsaw kicked out
Click to expand...
I think a few years back Celtic also was reinstated as we'll but for the Europa League.
Click to expand...
Apparently the ineligible player played three whole minutes. UEFA is almost as corrupt as FIFA.
Click to expand...
I don't think I understand your point.

Yes UEFA is as dirty as FIFA (in some ways more I think) but I don't see why punishing a team for breaking the rules is being corrupt if that is what you were expressing? Who cares if he played 1 second or 90 minutes?
Click to expand...
They won 6-1. Being kicked out for three minutes is ridiculous. It was an easy chance to get a popular team in and an unknown out. No way they kick out a big name team over the same thing.
 
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roadkill1292 said:
Pochettino conducted his press conference in English yesterday, said he was too "nervous" about his language capability when he was at Southampton.

Has there been any evidence yet of Spurs picking up on the style he likes to play? I've only seen the one friendly and that didn't tell me much.

Does anybody know of any tv coverage of Championship League matches this weekend? That'd be a nice warmup for next Saturday.
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best signing of the summer. They have not played anyone of significance this preseason. Seattle, Toronto and Chicago where Spurs brought half a team, and Celtic last weekend, where Celtic fielded a youth team. They play schalke tomorrow ahead of a tropical storm, so not sure of the conditions.

But, having seen all the games so far, they are playing his style. We just have not seen how it translates against good competition, or with all of Spurs starters. Fortunately spurs play West Ham to start the season...there are still two starters who are not yet with the team, one should be in this coming week, the other closer to the deadline, so it will be a few more weeks until we see Spurs closer to full strength.

Then there is Yedlin, but he will not be joining up until January.

 
NewlyRetired said:
Ted Lange as your Bartender said:
Please let this happen:

Rihanna to buy Chivas USA?

http://www.thegoatparade.com/2014/8/7/5981195/rumor-rihanna-looking-to-buy-chivas-usa-english-premier-league-team-mls-los-angeles
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best rumor of the summer :)

Like Becks, Drew Carey, Steve Nash etc, she has no where enough money by herself to do this so she would have to hook up with a sugar daddy.
Click to expand...
So you're saying that someone could beat her to the purchase?

 
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