Liverpool and Arsenal failed on Sunday on a brilliant day for Manchester City and also for the Premier League. Jurgen Klopp keeps all the barrels.
Send your emails about those and any topic to theeditor@football365. com
Well, what a weekend it was!
City (finally!) are starting to look menacing in both La Liga and the Champions League, Liverpool continue their desperate quadruple season in. . . backing off and Arsenal going back to their form and watching, dare I say it. . . Spursy?
On Sunday morning I told myself I’d settle for two draws, but don’t be stupid, Lev, that’s not going to happen. Well, I’m right, that didn’t happen! Wow!!
So let me get it right. . . Last Saturday we played at Crystal Palace. . . and we won 4-2. This Sunday, Liverpool lost at home, against Crystal Palace. On April 3rd, we cooked Aston Villa and, this Sunday, Aston Villa went to Arsenal and won. . . What do you say, City is a genuine business and the others are just pale shadows?Even suitors? Okay, okay, if you insist. . .
I hope that letter is accepted because, you know, a City fan who writes. . .
… City fanatic here. I just wanted to write and say what a glorious weekend of football it was.
Good waiter.
Oh, and for “Emptihad” lovers, special attention to the very visual empty seats at Anfield and the Emirates before the start of extra time.
What did we do in Szoboszlai? Mec will be world champion this fall. Did anyone communicate with him during training? No more than that, my friend. You have to constantly start giving the ball away and making stupid decisions, please. I’m not kidding. Okay, boss, about that.
Blow up that damn team.
There are only five veteran players that I think are 100 per cent essential: Trent, Mac Allister, Jota, Robertson, Alisson. The rest, frankly, is up for discussion.
And yes, that includes Van Dijk. The Van Dijk who almost lost that game because of him, guilty in the first (he has no idea where the striker is) and stored only a few millimeters through Andy for a second. This mistake isn’t bad luck either: it does more than just guide the attacker out of the way, and then slows down when it notices it. Finish ass. And all his slow, rolling passes. Very slow. If I hit an ostrich egg, it wouldn’t break.
Above all, we want a world-class striker, but also a beloved one. Maybe two. Like strikers who ruin the bank. We can’t score (although too much will be said when it comes to so much more: it’s the decisions and the quality of the attacks and the chances), most of the chances we missed today were desperate, apart from Nunez’s Typical Rubbish). It doesn’t matter who we sell to, keep Jota.
Salah, as he did last spring, has his eyes set on his own future. In fact, it’s conceivable that we’ve waited too long for him, even though the Saudis are probably stupid enough to give us a lot of cash for him anyway.
We want at least two world-class power plants. Quansah is now our centre-back.
Surprisingly, after what looked like a remarkable midfield rebuild, we desperately need a smart central midfielder. Mac had to play all three positions today, no matter who his wife was. Our midfielder went from dominating to intimidating the park in a month, rarely through opposition.
(Did Curtis Jones ever give a document to anyone?)
And we want a captain. Hyypia was old enough to give it to Stevie, even if she didn’t deserve it. VVD is not a captain. Their nonchalance is contagious. If the skipper doesn’t have to compete, why me?Anyone who thinks captains don’t matter doesn’t know the sport.
Ironically, all of this makes it very difficult to accept Klopp’s departure. It ended up like a dinner party. Unmotivated players, lousy picks, lousy substitutes, no effort to make adjustments to the game, no obvious popularity from the opposition.
What a cave that has been. A fucking trophy. And all year for United’s worst team in living memory, with no answer.
The rest of the team doesn’t get off lightly either, as the number of misplaced passes along with overall poor positional play and poor decision-making are unusual. Fatigue? Pressure?
? Straight to the comments, isn’t it? Come please. . .
Speaking of horses, I have the idea that Darwin Núñez seemed like the wildest of wild horses, destined not for captivity or any form of constant productivity, but for occasional bursts of untamed beauty, deep in all that unpredictability. My wife just said, with admirable brevity, that I was just stupid.
Some time ago, there was a discussion in mailboxes about the most productive and worst TV commentators disappearing too quickly, and I think it’s a clever topic for long-term visits. U. S. policy in today’s game included (and I was) the ever-excellent Stephen Warnock explaining the game. After about 25 minutes, Warnock recounted, talking to Michael Owen, that Darwin would never know the intuition needed to make big decisions because that’s exactly what intuitions are: natural, innate, uninformed, and most unlikely to be informed. In the 66th minute, Darwin made a substitution, Warnock being quick to point out that the Uruguayan was suffering further away without showing Diogo Jota the same respect as always for the exchange.
Twenty years ago, someone in Germany, whether it was Ralf Rangnick, Wolfgang Frank or anyone else, looked at the style of world football popularized by Johan Cruyff and wondered, “What if we took the urgent component of this tactic and at the same time took away all the artistic character?”And technical skill when we have possession, so that our whole game plan is based on creating scoring opportunities by pushing the opponent to make mistakes?
Klopp and Tuchel took that concept and implemented it, with much fanfare and praise. But that doesn’t make it an entertaining football game, does it?No one falls in love with this beautiful game because of a successful counter-pressure maneuver. We love seeing quick movements, artistic talent, and moments of individual genius. However, as the Klopp quote below confirms, Gegenpressing is the antithesis of technical ability and creativity.
“No playmaker in the world can be in such a dire situation”
What a miserable way to look at the game. Thankfully, Klopp and Tuchel’s good luck with the formula has been short-lived at best, while Pep Guardiola and Carlo Ancelotti have continued to surprise us over the years, achieving consistent good luck with groups full of those playmakers Klopp thinks so little about.
… I hope you enjoyed the 32nd season of our old, no-nonsense Barclays and the usual three-team name race in tribute to the 10th anniversary of that race between City, Liverpool and a London club (including redux Crystanbul).
Oh, did I mention that he coached Arteta home and away, without conceding a single goal to Arsenal?In one-on-ones, Arteta completely outplayed tactically, Emery too clever.
It’s strange, because Arsenal enthusiasts have tried to tell us that Emery was dead; of course, as Arsenal enthusiasts occasionally do, they will start revising history and pretend they were “never told anything”. Emery’s ability to take Villa to the CL without receiving £400m surely embarrasses Arteta. I wouldn’t possibly even mention that it only took Klopp 3 full seasons to win a CL, after also taking charge of a mediocre team that wasn’t in the CL. Arteta is not as unexpected as Arsenal enthusiasts claim. ?
Insurance in life:
The tribute to Arsene Wenger that began with this Bayern joke has now reached its natural conclusion, which is that Arsenal have managed to ruin an entire season in a few days.
Wenger’s “losing DNA”, so ingrained in the club’s fans, will continue to be reflected in this team, until genuine criteria are imposed. The true criteria mean that court jesters like Jesus, Havertz, Zinchenko, and Nketiah won’t be anywhere near a serious club. . I’ve said it before I repeat it: Arteta ruined Arsenal’s season the moment he spent £65 million on a west London mule.
Arsenal played a Top 7 team so naturally that Havertz was absolute. He has contributed 0 goals or assists this season against ManYoo, Citeh, Liverpool, Spurs and Villa. £65 million for that?
It never ceases to amaze me that Arsenal enthusiasts end up laughing at Spurs every year. Are they so blind that they can’t see that at the end of the day, Arsenal is a Harrods edition of Spurs: rain or shine, the only thing you can surely be sure of is that they will never win the LP, there will be no chance of CL and that they will drown. In the most fun way when there’s tension.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Arsenal and Arteta did well, but in the end, Arteta will never get Arsenal across the line. He’s proven he can bring them together, but as soon as the tension rises, he and his team implode. All primary tests have failed. Nothing has been removed from last season’s implosion.
Where are all the Arsenal enthusiasts who were quick to boast that they “didn’t want a striker” after the last false win on a flat court?? The best centre-back in Europe “fit”, the centre-back duo in Europe “fit”, the attack in Europe “fit”, the midfielder in Europe “fit”. And yet, “in real life”, Arsenal once back will surely win NOTHING. ?
Remember the enthusiasts who criticised Stewie saying that an ambitious club would surely have done anything to try and attract Xabi?Alonso, to be clear, would possibly not join Arsenal and end up in Madrid, but the fact that Arsenal enthusiasts did so deceived that they have called Alonso quoting the mailbox, “Flavour of the Month” gives you an indication of the out-of-place degrees of arrogance within this fanbase!
This “Flavour of the Month” has just earned a name from the Bundesliga at a gallop, against a club whose wage bill is higher than that of the other 19 Bundesliga groups *combined*! Unbeaten all season, with one foot in the European semi-finals and on the verge of a hat-trick, in his first season. How did Alonso manage to deal with so much managerial adversity in such a short time?I didn’t have any money from Arteta to spend, did I?
? Did Arsenal and Liverpool manage to restrain themselves or will they be able to triumph over failure?Join the discussion here
Arsenal and Liverpool withdrew from the race for the name of the league today. It’s no longer a laugh to lose to Villa. No it’s about bottling it up. It’s a defeat at the elite point that’s coming up. But this reliance of those publications on journalistic rhetoric that groups simply win because the themes of the game are childish.
Have you suppressed all your runs until you end up with a medium-traffic soccer ball built on WordPress?Or is the path to the highest degrees of difference and elite position difficult, long and competitive?
Maybe it’s clickbait now. Infuriating, planned headlines to generate more engagement?Perhaps the sales team has shown a correlation between earnings and those titles and ad earnings?
I think it’s time for you to put into practice what you pontificate about and avoid being the Martin Samuels of the left.
… OK, so in the “Arsenal title suffocation draw”, which took place in mid-April?
A terrible penalty inflicted on my Huddersfield in the 100th minute to deprive them of 3 valuable points in the fight against relegation. It’s getting worse and worse the more you look at it and the referee, at best, guesses, at worst, reacts to the crowd. .
The people have behaved badly enough with such a stupid resolution that it has cost them dearly.
I’ve written before about decisions opposed to Wolves (which my spouse supports, so I look at them a lot) and then asked when a team is going to take legal action against a referee for career-defining decisions. Relegation doesn’t just cost one team money. As a result, other people lose their jobs because prices have to be cut everywhere.
The solution? Any ideas
1) It has already been mentioned that referees regularly climb the ladder from grass routes. For what? When it comes to players, very few of them achieve this and succeed at the highest levels. The most productive players are carefully selected 3/4 and get the most productive training. The same applies to referees.
2) Then the microphone was raised. We are all adults, so we can accept swearing, but decisions will obviously have to be announced, and referees will have to demonstrate their knowledge of the rules while relaying them to players and fans on the field.
3) Have a table of referees with promotion/relegation. At the moment, if the referees make a mistake in the Premier League, they are given a league game. For what? Their terrible decisions literally ruin their careers; The same deserves to happen to them. Make them accountable for their decisions. Points are awarded through an independent panel of former players/referees/coaches. The most productive referees can continue to referee. The handicapped descend. Win/win, as the referees in the lower leagues will play their game to try and reach the next level.
4) Eliminate the terrible and completely inappropriate VAR. Es. See Wolves (too many to mention) and Brentford’s first goal disallowed yesterday.
Although the resolution of the penalty remains in the throat, one of the goals of the championship is that when a goal is scored we celebrate it. Football is meant to be enjoyed and VAR took that euphoria away from a goal.
? Reply to anything in the mailbox by going to comments or sending your mind to theeditor@football365. com.
Read more:Liverpool | Arsenal | Mailboxes