Premier League

[roversfan99]

4 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

Any team would leak goals when you are missing your best 2 defenders and defensive midfielder. 

Yes we get it, he don't rate him and he is knobhead cos of his attitude. 

He is doing his best with what he got available. 

On Rogers, he moved to Boro 18 months ago then 12 months ago joined Villa. So City should have seen his potential. Perro would be first choice right back at City. Another one who shouldn't have been allow to leave. 

Palmer pushed for a move cos he wasn't player. He should have been playing more. 

"He is doing his best with what he has available" is a cop out. His tactics continuously are leading to Spurs conceding far too many goals and hes too stubborn to change it regardless of player availability and as a result they are doing poorly. 

I think with Palmer there is more blame to be attached although even then it was at a time when De Bruyne was still fit and firing and Foden was the player of the season in the Premier League. Rogers wouldnt be doing what he is now had he stayed at City. Porro likewise although he isnt THAT good anyway.

[chaddyrovers]

Just now, roversfan99 said:

"He is doing his best with what he has available" is a cop out. His tactics continuously are leading to Spurs conceding far too many goals and hes too stubborn to change it regardless of player availability and as a result they are doing poorly. 

No its fact. Not a cop out. 

So if they did change style and still lost cos they aren't winning games and the attacking players are getting into good attacking areas. 

Get back those 3 players soon and they will be top 6 by end of the season 

Just now, roversfan99 said:

I think with Palmer there is more blame to be attached although even then it was at a time when De Bruyne was still fit and firing and Foden was the player of the season in the Premier League. Rogers wouldnt be doing what he is now had he stayed at City. Porro likewise although he isnt THAT good anyway.

You can't say with any degree of certain Rogers wouldn't be doing what he is now. 

Porro is quality. 

Pep should have seen these talents and develop them. Him and City havent

[roversfan99]

21 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

No its fact. Not a cop out. 

So if they did change style and still lost cos they aren't winning games and the attacking players are getting into good attacking areas. 

Get back those 3 players soon and they will be top 6 by end of the season 

You can't say with any degree of certain Rogers wouldn't be doing what he is now. 

Porro is quality. 

Pep should have seen these talents and develop them. Him and City havent

He is playing stupidly risky football exposing his defenders and they are leaking goals. He as a result deserves blame for their below par League position.

If you think Rogers would have potentially enjoyed the same amount of game time at City where he would have been battling with Foden/De Bruyne/Silva for his position over the last few years as opposed to his actual career trajectory to be able to progress how he has then you are crazy.

[chaddyrovers]

10 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

He is playing stupidly risky football exposing his defenders and they are leaking goals. He as a result deserves blame for their below par League position.

If you think Rogers would have potentially enjoyed the same amount of game time at City where he would have been battling with Foden/De Bruyne/Silva for his position over the last few years as opposed to his actual career trajectory to be able to progress how he has then you are crazy.

He left 18 months ago for Boro and within 6 months Villa signed him. Villa are top 4 team. Villa seen his potential and signed him to their successful. City didn't see it. Shame on them

[Wheelton Blue]

9 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

He left 18 months ago for Boro and within 6 months Villa signed him. Villa are top 4 team. Villa seen his potential and signed him to their successful. City didn't see it. Shame on them

Why should they be shameful for merely letting a player go who they presumably didn't rate at the time?

Players get released all the time and many forge successful careers at other clubs.

That's just football.

[sharpysharps86]

After this latest round of results it feels like it may well end up being the 3 promoted teams all going straight back down for the 2nd season running. The gap is getting bigger and bigger.

[Blow-in]

16 hours ago, joey_big_nose said:

Ange I think has to be the most offensive manager in prem history, puts Keegan in the shade.

Cant be long till he gets sacked, shame as Ill miss his kamikaze games. Always entertaining.

I found Steve Keane more offensive personally 😉

[chaddyrovers]

18 minutes ago, Wheelton Blue said:

Why should they be shameful for merely letting a player go who they presumably didn't rate at the time?

Players get released all the time and many forge successful careers at other clubs.

That's just football.

True. It's just a shame they didn't keep him but as you rightly pointed out players leave big clubs and forge good successful careers at other clubs. Just think City should have kept hold of players like Rogers, Palmer and Porro cos they would be better squad and it would be younger squad right now which is what they need

[oneandycrawford]

Good takedown (in my view) of Spurs / Ange. My wife, a dedicated non-football fan, happened to see the Liverpool game last night and said "if football was always like this I'd watch it more often...but you wouldn't want to support Spurs as it must be so exhausting"! 

Ange Postecoglou’s unserious Spurs exposed by serious Liverpool | Tottenham Hotspur | The Guardian

[speeeeeeedie]

Liverpool scored 6 and missed a good few more. If they'd have finished with 8 or 9 I wouldn't have been surprised. As a non-Spurs fan keep Ange in the job. They are always worth watching. Spurs being "underachievers" is not true. They have been the same team in all my years of watching football. One any given day they can beat anyone, yet on any given day they can get beat off anyone. 

Man U are the gift that keeps on giving. They are woeful, and their current ownership face is a billionaire asset stripper who is spinning a yarn that he rode in on his white horse to return his hometown team to glory. A pal of mine told me an unsubstantiated claim that rather than Ratcliffe wanting to buy the club outright the Glazers let him in to do what made him his money; namely making the operation as lean as possible so they can get maximum value when they sell in a couple of years.

Even if Amorim turns out to be a Klopp/Guardiola amalgamation he'll need years and a complete squad clean out to be successful. 

Grealish was an almost ever present in City's triple winning season. Guardiola seemingly decides on a whim who he likes and doesn't, and if a player is not on his list there is nothing they can do to get back in favour. Grealish is currently there. I do agree that his game has been stifled by Guardiola. Although he now has the trophies and bank balance that he wouldn't have had if he'd have stayed at Villa.

[Claytons Left Boot]

That Tottenham v Liverpool game was a joy to watch. Had me thinking back to Boxing Day 1963 when top flight goal scoring went through the roof. Liverpool seemed like they could score at will and, I think if they had kept their concentration levels up, they could well have won by a margin of five or six goals.

Throughout his managerial career to date Ange has played the same way. Simply attack and with a high intensity. Fly at the opposition and make substitutions approaching the halfway point in the second half. 

At Celtic, he approached every game that way, home and away and in a 4-3-3 formation. Didn’t matter who the opposition was although, I appreciate, it didn’t really matter too much in Scotland with only really Rangers providing any challenge of any sorts. 

At Celtic, he was also key in quickly transforming the squad, identifying key players, including ones from the Japanese market where he had previously worked. It didn’t always work out but in Maeda, Kyogo and Hatate, Celtic still have three first team players who have been a Huge success.

Fast forward to Spurs. They have a technical director who is responsible for recruitment  for both the first team and their academy. Ange may well have some input but, in essence, the players will be chosen for him, rather than the other way round.

True to form, Ange has continued with a 4-3-3 formation, home and away, both Premier League and in Europe. From August this season until the beginning of this month, he has only changed his formation twice, to 4-2-3-1. I think, however, that the penny has finally dropped, in that he has to set up more defensively, especially in the PL where there are some quality teams. The last four games he has played 4-2-3-1 but against Liverpool, you wouldn’t have really noticed.

I have no love whatsoever for Spurs but, because of my Celtic connections, I do want him to do well. You never know what’s going to happen when Tottenham play, other than there’s usually a few goals. After a promising start with them last season, certainly a perception from their support that they were playing a better brand of football, they now lie in 11th place and some 16 points behind top spot. 

I fear he hasn’t too long left and I may just see what the odds are for his sacking over the next few weeks.
 

 

[philipl]

Looking at City, the difference this season is that they are playing Pep ball too slowly. 

Passes are not zipped around in the way which made them so potent. Fractions of time simply give opponents to be in position anticipating Pep stylled attacks. And whether he is a luxury or not, Haaland is now well enough known that he is being neutralised by opponents.

Then their great players have aged together. Walker, de Bruyne, Bernardo, Gundogan have all gone sharly past their best.

[joey_big_nose]

1 hour ago, philipl said:

Looking at City, the difference this season is that they are playing Pep ball too slowly. 

Passes are not zipped around in the way which made them so potent. Fractions of time simply give opponents to be in position anticipating Pep stylled attacks. And whether he is a luxury or not, Haaland is now well enough known that he is being neutralised by opponents.

Then their great players have aged together. Walker, de Bruyne, Bernardo, Gundogan have all gone sharly past their best.

City is such a bizarre one... An all conquering team going on this sort of run when they were the champions and clear favourites at the start of the season has never even remotely happened before.

I LOVE it! And I hope it is sign of things to come. The Premier League had become way too predictable, but now Utd, City, Spurs, and Chelsea last season have all had really poor runs recently. Just hope some other clubs can really start muscling in on the CL places and put a cat among the pigeons. What the league needs.

Godspeed Bournemouth and Forrest, would be hilarious if one of them made CL, and give us all hope.

Edited Tuesday at 00:08 by joey_big_nose

[Mattyblue]

Too much loyalty to players that have peaked by Pep. Ferguson would have had the likes of Walker sold in the summer, he certainly wouldn’t have brought Gundongan back.

[ChrisyG]

 

[RoverDom]

Pep has always been called a cheque book manager so I was surprised I'd not seen this before but 'Guardiola' translated from Catalan (where he is from) to English means 'piggybank'

[Upside Down]

6 hours ago, RoverDom said:

Pep has always been called a cheque book manager so I was surprised I'd not seen this before but 'Guardiola' translated from Catalan (where he is from) to English means 'piggybank'

Sums him up pretty much.

He's certainly a good manager, you can't say he isn't, but he's never been at a club where he hasn't had unlimited financial resources alongside paying off referees.

 

[Norbert Rassragr]

Man City were the first team he had that wasn't the tip top team, or 2nd at worst. Before him, Mancini had success and won a league or two, but weren't the juggernauts Barca and Bayern Munich are domestically.