2014/15 Association Football (Soccer) thread

[No Luck Involved]

lol

 

[Imanalt]

^lol

I feel like Spurs have no balance to the team. Chadli, Eriksen and Lamela is a great attacking trio but it needs better quality than Capoue and Mason behind them. It wasn't working and Pochettino decided to drop Lamela for Soldado and it looked even worse. The key is the two holding positions because when you try to play possession football and dominate the whole pitch you don't want the all action type of midfielders that Spurs have (such as Dembele and Paulinho and Sandro and Bentaleb and Mason) but you need two very intelligent, technically gifted and disciplined players with plenty of patience. Capoue is their hardman but he's not disciplined enough, and you really want someone like Gerrard or Alonso or Modric or what Fabregas is doing for Chelsea right now beside him and Spurs don't have anyone like that. They've spent too much getting rampaging box to box mids who look great on highlight reels but aren't suited to dominating matches which is what AVB and Poch were both trying to do. Funnily enough, Sherwood threw that out of the window and played 4-4-2 which suits his players and it worked fine for him!

Some managers might have a great vision and philosophy on how best to play football but I still believe a manager has to work with what he's got and as soon as Spurs weren't getting Schneiderlin Poch should have readjusted his strategy until he can get his own players in. If I was him I'd stick Adebayor and Kane up front like Sherwood did and set up two banks of four and tell them to keep it simple. When he gets Walker back and someone like Schneiderlin in, he can try to shift to the 4-2-3-1 and adjust accordingly. Right now it's a case of square pegs in round holes and the midfield and defence is barely hanging together.

Mason and capoue have been two of our better players overall this season, especially capoue early and mason more recently, whereas the eriksen lamela chadli trio has never felt functional. Whenever chadli is on the field lamela isn't effective. And eriksen's struggled on and off all season.

Also calling what happened for tottenham "working fine" when what really happened was adebayor went crazy scoring from everywhere and anywhere while the team as a whole sucked is a pretty big stretch.

I do agree with your "no balance" bit, and thats what i was getting at with my comments about lamela. He's being asked to provide the balance by doing something that isn't what he does. I think he could be doing what chadli is doing much more effectively, but then we dont have another player to play that more supporting oriented role.

 

[SuperScizor]

lol meant he hasn't been at his best and really has been the worst player out of our bacK five this season so far.

If you could please name that player who plays in midfield better than modric has this year. Yaya? give me a fucking break.

I answered your question by saying that there is no better midfielder than Modric.
Yaya has been bad this season anyway.

 

[Jesus Says]

Kroos,Alonso and Roman Neustädter are playing a better season that modric.
Especially Roman Neustädter is brilliant.

 

[No Luck Involved]

Imanalt: but playing 3 playmakers and Lamela inverted on the wing is fine if you have the right balance behind them. That means 2 mids with the awareness and discipline to cover the flanks and having Walker back to provide width. Right now he's trying to play that way without the right personnel. And Sherwood did do fine, he went back to basics, gave Eriksen a free role, and he was scoring loads along with Adebayor who had Kane as a partner to bounce off. Having players like Mason is fine in that case, I think he used Bentaleb in that role. But that's not a match domination strategy, that's a balanced style of play with more conservative wingers providing more cover than what Poch is doing now. I think Spurs really needed Schneiderlin to come in and Walker not to get injured but neither happened.

Also lol

 

[HBK]

Ignorant nonsense

Mourinho said that the fans weren't being loud enough, it felt like the stadium was empty. Well,

"The problem at the moment is if people stand up and sing, they get told to sit down by stewards and are likely to receive warning letters from the club."
-Tim Trolls, Chairman of Chelsea Supporters Trust

 

[No Luck Involved]

Btw Alexis Sanchez is the new Cesc, I would go gay for him.

 

[Villa]

Btw Alexis Sanchez is the new Cesc, I would go gay for him.

He's no Ron Vlaar, but he's a reasonable footballer

 

[MoxieInfinite]

This is pretty hilarious.

 

[pj]

OMG What happen to liverpool where is Ballotelli ?_?
Liverpool vs Real madrid is gonna be the Gerrard Last Match also Midfielder Jordan Henderson is expected to captain.

 

[SuperScizor]

this could turn ugly

 

[Phadunk]

Hahahahahahahahahaha that fucking lineup.


Resting players in the Champions League to get a better chance at qualifying for the Champions League next season.

Love it.

 

[latinoheat]

Jesus, you'd be lucky if any of those would make Madrid's 2nd string.

 

[X5Dragon]

IMO Liverpool should park the bus, if only to see how good Madrid is at wrecking them.

That was some impressive defending and even counter attacking from Liverpool but alas, Madrid's fire power is fucking overwhelming atm.

 

[Villa]

Most of Liverpool's first team wouldn't make Madrid's 2nd string

 

[Nosferalto]

disappointed we didn't go for it in the end as Madrid were clearly nervous that they were only leading by one goal

 

[Phadunk]

I'm gonna call it a week... bye.

 

[SuperScizor]

Incredible scenes at the Emirates
Anderlechstanbul

 

[phalanx]

Arsenal bottle job already?

 

[latinoheat]

Ahem...

 

[Villa]

That was such an amazing day. I can only imagine what it would have been like to be a Leicester fan

 

[phalanx]

that was a refs goof job

 

[HBK]

No, Chelsea's draw with United was a "refs goof job". This was fucking hysterical.

 

[Sapientia]

lol city

 

[HBK]

One of our worst performances, kudos to Maribor for putting up a good fight. Mourinho really should've started Costa over Drogba; without him or Rémy on the field, we're pretty much the same misfiring team that we were last season. Hazard both created and scuffed two of our best chances tonight and he was still our standout performer so no blame to him. And lol @ City hitting a new low and BATE with the -17 GD.