A couple clumsy, rough tackles but I don’t think they are trying to hurt him.Are the Armenians really trying to injury him? I can’t watch it but that’s what’s being said on Twitter
A couple clumsy, rough tackles but I don’t think they are trying to hurt him.Are the Armenians really trying to injury him? I can’t watch it but that’s what’s being said on Twitter
I understand what you are saying but what you are overlooking is the difficulty we face having to be perfect in the box with basically all our entries being on the ground...with a striker of Haaland's stature you add the element of a legitimate aerial threat...we don't get the type of stoppage time goal Kane got against us by him simply rising over a defender and finishing...we tend to score well crafted goals but not many "sudden" goals resulting from the work of a natural poacher...also earlier in the year pep went away from using inverted wingers, a lefty on the right and a righty on the left and we got on a roll,,,its so much more difficult breaking down low blocks when your outside men have to consistently turn inside into the block of defenders to get on their dominant foot...Mahrez is the only consistent exception which goes to show just how great of a season he has had...Sterling is no longer consistently effective off the left because his pace and space are negated by these deep lying blocks...on the right he can take on the outside defender beat him to the endline and then make a pass into the box or carry along the endline which is so much more difficult to defend against...Its why Foden does so much damage against a low block when he plays on the left...I would hope Pep goes back to using a righty on the right and a lefty on the left against the low blocks, with the exception of Mahrez who seems to be effective regardless...I think the issue of general concern is that it doesn’t matter how many ‘fast’ wingers we might buy to help us counter attack if the opposition just sits deep for 90 minutes completely happy to take 1 point.
You’ve probably noticed that the majority of the teams we play defend deep and we only ever score counter attack goals against them after we’ve already unpicked them and scored to force them to play out.
We unpick them by using skilful players who can work intricately in small spaces - if we put a big lad up front then we’re lacking one of the players we need to unpick their defence in the first place.
And if having the ‘big lad up front’ reduces our ability to work our magic to score against a packed defence then we don’t get the opportunity to utilise that big lad in a counter attacking scenario because they‘ll stay sat deep and they ain’t coming out.
Having said that, I also subscribe to the notion that if we do buy him then it’ll be because Pep has a plan that will make it work . . . Me not being on Pep’s level of footballing genius means that I can’t see it is all.
It's really not. It's because he has told us he has already chosen City.
He's certainly within his rights to fuck us over, but it would be a MASSIVE shock at this stage.
OK, but compared to us right now they are a level or two below...I'm not comparing them to Barca or AM...or Dortmund or AC Milan...I'm saying choosing Real over City at this point in each club's standing would not be the best choice strictly from a sporting project perspective...and I'm telling you that with my two feet planted right here on planet Earth to answer your earlier question...City is better, deeper, plays a better brand, work harder on the pitch...period...that said, he can do whatever he wants...I'm not saying going to Real is a terrible move by any means...I'm saying its comes up 2nd right here, right now in 2022 and going into 2023...They are running away with La Liga and in the CL quarters so please spare me the idea they’re shit.