2017/18 Soccer Thread

Haaarrrallllddd.....(ask your dad. Or more likely, granddad.)

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Clusks wrote:

Also, I don't agree Barca are "old" and even if they were, I don't think it would have much to do with performance anyway. I'd agree their transfers have been a bit dire, but to blame 2 losses on the fact they have a few guys who are about 29 is bizarre, that's not even old, most of their players have years left still at the top with a load of experience, which is invaluable. I guess they should get rid of Messi now because he's 30 and past it they actually only have 2 players who are 33 (Iniesta and Macherano, who are both still very useful) and the rest are 30 or younger (won't count Vermaelen, who is 31, as he's hardly even featured for them), which is hardly a bunch of crocked oldies. Countless teams have won titles with squads similar if not a lot older than their squad. I just looked up their average age and it is about 28. Chelsea won the league last season with an average age of 27.5...

I think this is exaggerating what I wrote. I didn't say that Barcelona lost because they are old rather that one of three factors in Barcelona's decline is the ages of their core players. I still stand by that.

Their average age might be 28 or so, but check out the ages of these players:
Messi (30), L. Suarez (30), Pique (30), Iniesta (33), Rakitic (29), Mascherano (33), Busquets (29). This is the spine of the club over the past few years. The younger players lowering that average are in most cases not starters/key players.

Although all these players are still strong players and it's not fair to say that all 30-year-olds decline the same, it is safe to say that most if not all of Barcelona's key players are in decline. The The Football Aging Curve is a pretty good analysis of age data and player performance, and it's particularly damning for attacking and midfield players:

"There's a very steep improvement curve through the early 20s up to age 26, then a slightly less steep slope down from 26 to 30, and the cliff hits hard after that."

And...

"If you're counting on a 29-year-old, you should be a little bit worried."

Adding to Barcelona's woes is that they usually make deep Champions' League runs and Copa del Rey runs. The combination of a thin bench and aging players doesn't bode well.

To me, though, they just looked lost from a coaching standpoint. It's only two games, though. Perhaps they get a couple of key transfers and Valverde gets his system running and their fitness regimen keeps them healthy, fresh, and fast. I really enjoying watching Barcelona play, and I root for them over Real Madrid every time, so I hope it turns out well. But the omens don't look good.

Being linked to Costa does not make me terribly happy.

He will certainly score goals, but I hate his attitude and think he'd be dressing-room poison.

Arsenal did not look good at all defensively to me today. I didn't think the back-three solved their issues last season when they went on their percentage-driven run of good form and they've been poor in their first two games this season.

I only got a couple looks at the replay for Stoke's goal but it looked to me like Oxlade-Chamberlain was in a position where he could have got back defensively to help out, but he stayed static a bit up the pitch until it was too late and it was 3 Stoke attackers vs 3 Arsenal defenders and bam, goal. Stoke had way more 3v3 attacking breaks than they should. Maybe it Xhaka or Ramsey were supposed to be the extra man defending or maybe it was supposed to be Bellerin or Ox but but either way they were way too vulnerable up until the goal was scored.

Liverpool-Crystal Palace was a bit of a snoozefest. Palace looked decent defensively though, I still think they'll be decent this year.

I'm a bit astounded by the fact they're talking about £35m for Oxlade-Chamberlain. I know prices are crazy, but that is crazy on top of crazy for a massively mediocre player.

Roke wrote:

Arsenal did not look good at all defensively to me today. I didn't think the back-three solved their issues last season when they went on their percentage-driven run of good form and they've been poor in their first two games this season.

I only got a couple looks at the replay for Stoke's goal but it looked to me like Oxlade-Chamberlain was in a position where he could have got back defensively to help out, but he stayed static a bit up the pitch until it was too late and it was 3 Stoke attackers vs 3 Arsenal defenders and bam, goal. Stoke had way more 3v3 attacking breaks than they should. Maybe it Xhaka or Ramsey were supposed to be the extra man defending or maybe it was supposed to be Bellerin or Ox but but either way they were way too vulnerable up until the goal was scored.

For what it's worth, the post-game analysis on NBC was fairly damning of Xhaka's play on that goal, and fairly critical of what the announcers talked about as a chronic pattern of defensive breakdowns that has plagued Wenger's teams over the past few years.

It's good to see Lukas Podolski has managed to find a new career after retiring from football.

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Clusks wrote:

I'm a bit astounded by the fact they're talking about £35m for Oxlade-Chamberlain. I know prices are crazy, but that is crazy on top of crazy for a massively mediocre player.

Burnley are about to spend 15million on Chris Wood. The bubble has got to burst with these silly prices.

OGs make me giggle.

Marcos Alonso is that signing no one even noticed and now he's an absolute monster for Chelsea.

I typed the above 2 minutes before he scored again.

Missed the Arsenal game. Going to catch the motd highlights.

Edit: Wenger saying Arsenal squad is too large and there's no new signings is infuriating.

There's easily 7-8 players that could of been moved on that haven't. It's still like they can only process 1 deal at a time and they are doing it by carrier pigeon.

Joel Campbell, Debuchy, Jenkinson are all 'on the team'. Wtf.

slazev wrote:

Leave it!

I had no idea that was illegal until reading that thread!

Roke wrote:

Arsenal did not look good at all defensively to me today. I didn't think the back-three solved their issues last season when they went on their percentage-driven run of good form and they've been poor in their first two games this season.

I only got a couple looks at the replay for Stoke's goal but it looked to me like Oxlade-Chamberlain was in a position where he could have got back defensively to help out, but he stayed static a bit up the pitch until it was too late and it was 3 Stoke attackers vs 3 Arsenal defenders and bam, goal. Stoke had way more 3v3 attacking breaks than they should. Maybe it Xhaka or Ramsey were supposed to be the extra man defending or maybe it was supposed to be Bellerin or Ox but but either way they were way too vulnerable up until the goal was scored.

Liverpool-Crystal Palace was a bit of a snoozefest. Palace looked decent defensively though, I still think they'll be decent this year.

Arsenal's attack has been historically useless against "11 men behind the ball that will break your legs" defenses like Stoke. The exception is when you have quick one touch Santi Cazorla/Sanchez/Ozil passing to break it down. Sadly, all we had on Saturday was one of two approaches. The first was Oxlade-Chamberlain dribbling down the line past two players only to cross it into 5 more well positioned red and white striped shirts. The second was the expected monotony and safe approach of passing in a circle 35 yards from goal until we turn it over to a red and white shirt. This also results in never involving Lacazette unless he starts to do the Van Persie drop back into the deep midfield to eventually get the ball which means there's no one to score a goal.

It's beyond frustrating because we've signed on for two more years of this "beautiful game over pragmatic results" BS.

Hahaha. That made me laugh. Much funny.

Really doesn't sound like the ref is having a great game today - listening to the audio commentary from Everton, and they were both resolute that Walker should not have been issued a second yellow there.

And I still have concerns about how he'll hold up over a season, but Wayne Rooney has already offered more a game and a half into the PL season than I was expecting for the entire year.

Happy to be wrong, and long may it continue.

bigred wrote:

Arsenal's attack has been historically useless against "11 men behind the ball that will break your legs" defenses like Stoke. The exception is when you have quick one touch Santi Cazorla/Sanchez/Ozil passing to break it down. Sadly, all we had on Saturday was one of two approaches. The first was Oxlade-Chamberlain dribbling down the line past two players only to cross it into 5 more well positioned red and white striped shirts. The second was the expected monotony and safe approach of passing in a circle 35 yards from goal until we turn it over to a red and white shirt. This also results in never involving Lacazette unless he starts to do the Van Persie drop back into the deep midfield to eventually get the ball which means there's no one to score a goal.

It's beyond frustrating because we've signed on for two more years of this "beautiful game over pragmatic results" BS.

There still is that giant Cazorla-sized hole in midfield, isn't there? Other than Sanchez last year it's hard for me to think of a more important player in the team and Arsenal haven't even tried to replace him. The whole team's dropped off in particular but it's interesting how Coquelin went from On-Loan-At-Charlton-->Savior Detroyer--> Meh. I think No Cazorla's been the big factor there and for the team as a whole.

Even while they were down a player (before Schneiderlin got the make-up red card), City were dangerous.

Felt like they were the team with a player advantage for much of the game - think a point flatters us enormously, but I'll take it.

Dimmerswitch wrote:

Really doesn't sound like the ref is having a great game today - listening to the audio commentary from Everton, and they were both resolute that Walker should not have been issued a second yellow there.

I watched part of the game, including the sending off, and I don't have a problem with the yellow there. He looked behind him to see find the opposing player and then moved to where he would be able to hit him. It absolutely looked intentional to me, and to the announcers. Hard to argue it wasn't dangerous conduct.

Now, if it had only been given as a foul, I would probably been fine with that as well.

Hadn't realized the League Cup (err... Carabao Cup) 2nd round was this week. Who doesn't love a needless competition with little meaningful history few sides take seriously? Of course it makes too much sense to abolish the thing and move back one of the Christmas matchweeks that isn't Boxing Day or New Year's Day back to where the 3rd round is to ease fixture congestion.

Of course Newcastle lost playing a 2nd/3rd choice group of players because the squad's already short in a few areas. Paul Dummett (who should be the backup leftback at-best) gets an injury and it's necessary shunt centrebacks over the leftback because there's no depth there. It's like we were never relegated.

What's Carabao?

Chumps League groups

Wow, that was a bit hectic. Here's the full draw:

Group A: Benfica, Manchester United, Basel, CSKA Moscow

Group B: Bayern Munich, Paris St-Germain, Anderlecht, Celtic

Group C: Chelsea, Atletico Madrid, Roma, Qarabag

Group D: Juventus, Barcelona, Olympiakos, Sporting

Group E: Spartak Moscow, Sevilla, Liverpool, Maribor

Group F: Shakhtar Donetsk, Manchester City, Napoli, Feyenoord

Group G: Monaco, Porto, Besiktas, RB Leipzig

Group H: Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, Tottenham, Apoel

United get their usual walkover draw, Celtic are screwed, Chelsea will struggle (but the Atletico Madrid games will be hilarious), Tottenham are going to struggle.

And Arsenal are going to go out in the last 16 ag....oh wait.

That's also a fairly kind draw for City (especially considering their usual group-stage draws). Would expect you guys to advance, and would be surprised if it wasn't as group winners.

Napoli are a strong outfit, particularly at home, so I'm hoping for a split of points with them and then progression. Feyenoord was a relatively benign fourth pot draw, considering some of the other teams hanging around in there like RB Leipzig.

Man, that Madrid/Dortmund/Tottenham/Apoel group... Two of my favorite European teams to watch are Dortmund and Tottenham, and only one can possibly advance.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love for the evil empire to somehow lose in the group stage, but that's way too much to hope for.

A shame Liverpool got an easy group.

Gylfi did a spectacular thing and it was actually from open play!

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Man, that Madrid/Dortmund/Tottenham/Apoel group... Two of my favorite European teams to watch are Dortmund and Tottenham, and only one can possibly advance.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love for the evil empire to somehow lose in the group stage, but that's way too much to hope for.

Oh, it's just the top two from each group. I was thinking that some of the better third place teams get in as well, but since there are eight groups, the math doesn't work out.

Then yeah, that's a rough draw.

Roke wrote:

A shame Liverpool got an easy group.

Gylfi did a spectacular thing and it was actually from open play!

Do I get bonus points given he's my starting 11, captain, and vice-captain?

No, you got a group in the Netto version of the CL which includes Lyon, Atalanta and Apollon Limassol instead.

I did not realize Messi is in the last year of his contract. And with the state of the squad and the Barca board still a shambles... yikes.

Now being reported that Barcelona have agreed a fee with Borussia Dortmund for Ousmane Dembele of 105m Euros up front with a potential 40m (!!) in addons...which should include things like being the first man to walk on the moon without a spacesuit, given the size of the potential addons.

147m for Dembele. Good lord, now Neymar is looking like good value. Still, our bindipping friends should be breathing a sigh of relief, as that now makes a bid for Coutinho unlikely.

It's also being reported, though much less convincingly, that PSG have agreed an eyewatering 150m Euro fee for Mbappe (or 135 plus a player, not named as yet). If I were them I'd be letting him stay at Monaco but on a pre-contract agreement, as FPP is measured over three years, and signing him and Neymar in the same season is going to be a pretty big spike.

Roke wrote:

I did not realize Messi is in the last year of his contract. And with the state of the squad and the Barca board still a shambles... yikes.

Yes, further indication of the sad state of affairs at Barca. The board at one point announced that Messi had signed his contract extension—a flat out lie. Several times they've stated that both sides have agreed to a deal, they just haven't gotten around to getting it signed.

Right.

Lots of ways to read into this, but I don't buy the board's position. Messi for whatever reason is holding out. Speculation is that he doesn't want to lend any credence to a board and director he doesn't have faith in, especially with potential early elections being forced this fall, and/or that he's having second thoughts on staying with Barca if things continue the way they've gone.

If there is enough member support for a new director election, one candidate is likely to be Joan Laporta, who reportedly has a close relationship with Messi. I think Messi may be not signing to help nudge this sort of outcome along, and if Laporta gets control Messi would stay.

If he doesn't sign, he'll be free to negotiate and sign a pre-contract with anyone in January.