Was it really necessary to say that? Like, idk why you think that, but he hasn't ever come out as gay...
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2014/15 Association Football (Soccer) thread
- Thread starter SuperScizor
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I'm not even gonna rant about Arsenal and Wenger cos I've said it all before. 2 CBs with no cover is just unbelievable... Ox though is absolutely electric, I'm looking forward to seeing him in an England shirt.
It seems all the leagues are so boring this year. It's just one team dominating and the rest failing spectacularly.
It seems all the leagues are so boring this year. It's just one team dominating and the rest failing spectacularly.
destinyunknown
Banned deucer.
Watch La Liga! It's been fairly interesting this year (last time it was so entertaining was 2007-08 imo), there are 3 solid title contenders plus a myriad of teams who play well and will be pushing for a UCL/EL spot. Celta, Villarreal, Sevilla, Malaga, Athletic and Valencia are all very good sides this season and while saying that Valencia can put up a title challenge is a stretch (they can't this season, maybe in a year or two), they definitely add spice to the competition.
It might look like Real Madrid is going to sweep all the opposition easily but honestly they still have issues despite their great form and it will end up showing against quality sides.
So yeah I'm usually not that excited about La Liga because some years there's just no competition but this time it looks really good
MoxieInfinite
Banned deucer.
Martin Ødegaard is on FM15 now. yay.
It would be a big sensation if an active player says that hes gay
Yea, and that's the sad part. Again, no one should give a shit about it. Why does it NEED to be a big deal? One day, gay athletes are just going to be viewed as the "norm".
Just thinking about Arsenal as usual, and I realised I have no idea how we'll line up when everyone is fit.
Szczesny;
Debuchy, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Gibbs;
Flamini, Ramsey;
Walcott, Ozil, Sanchez
Giroud
is a conservative guess... But I'd like to see:
Wilshere, Flamini, Ramsey;
Ozil, Sanchez, Oxlade-Chamberlain.
I don't see why Sanchez can't be a striker, he's like an upgraded Welbeck in every way. Ox is one of our best players and so is Ozil so they can't be dropped. I'd like to see Wilshere, Flamini and Ramsey in midfield. Wilshere and Ramsey together is very strong but it's harsh on Walcott, Welbeck, Giroud, Podolski, Cazorla, Arteta and all the rest of them. How is Campbell, Gnabry, Sanogo and all gonna get a game. And I'm not even thinking about Diaby and Rosicky...
Szczesny;
Debuchy, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Gibbs;
Flamini, Ramsey;
Walcott, Ozil, Sanchez
Giroud
is a conservative guess... But I'd like to see:
Wilshere, Flamini, Ramsey;
Ozil, Sanchez, Oxlade-Chamberlain.
I don't see why Sanchez can't be a striker, he's like an upgraded Welbeck in every way. Ox is one of our best players and so is Ozil so they can't be dropped. I'd like to see Wilshere, Flamini and Ramsey in midfield. Wilshere and Ramsey together is very strong but it's harsh on Walcott, Welbeck, Giroud, Podolski, Cazorla, Arteta and all the rest of them. How is Campbell, Gnabry, Sanogo and all gonna get a game. And I'm not even thinking about Diaby and Rosicky...
And you still haven't got any sub defenders.
I don't think Flamini should start in a full strength Arsenal side, he isn't good enough tbh.
I also think that if you were gonna line up as suggested 2nd time round, swap Walcott w/ Flamini, have Wilshere sit, and then move Ox back into a more central midfield position
HBK
Subtlety is my middle name
Because Wenger is the only manager who hasn't given up on English talent to focus on bringing in foreign players in order to win trophies. Look where that's gotten him. We do have some great talent at Cobham but most of them probably won't make the first team. Maybe Rodgers might offer him some competition in that respect.
I think it's more down to the fact they're all not injured at the same time for the first time ever.
But yeah root cause is probably down to when Wenger sold Fabregas, Nasri, Clichy, Song and Van Persie and bought Walcott, Ramsey and Ox young and promoted Gibbs and Wilshere from the academy. Cheapo tactics! Also buying Welbeck and Chambers this summer boosted the numbers too.
But yeah root cause is probably down to when Wenger sold Fabregas, Nasri, Clichy, Song and Van Persie and bought Walcott, Ramsey and Ox young and promoted Gibbs and Wilshere from the academy. Cheapo tactics! Also buying Welbeck and Chambers this summer boosted the numbers too.
The Premier League has become purely about winning, rather than bringing up young players. And although that makes for great viewing, it's why England have fallen behind on the international scene. Wenger, despite his attempts at bringing youngsters into the PL, has lead to Arsenal falling behind quite significantly compared to Chelsea/Man City. And honestly, i'd say Southampton are the one team trying to bring youngish English players into the league. Look at Clyne, Shaw, Chambers, Forster, Ward-Prowse, Cork, Rodriguez, Lallana...
In which other league exactly are teams not trying to win? The problem england has is its simply not producing enough young talents who can do that, largely I think due to worse academies. Who are the only teams with young english players? Southampton and Arsenal have two of the best academies in the league, but their academies aren't on par with the big european academies, and thats why england is falling behind internationally.
HBK
Subtlety is my middle name
The teams in the German and Spanish leagues want to win too, it just so happens that depending on players of domestic nationality actually helps them to achieve this objective. And that is down to the superiority of their academies and the support given to them.
I'm not saying that that other leagues don't want to win, but if you look at the lesser teams in the leagues, 50% of their players will be of the nationality of their league. The bigger teams can then loan their younger players to these clubs and they still get a competitive experience. That works in the UK, but not to a good enough extent, and that's where we lose out
bundesliga is da shit and you know it.
yah i agree, england doesn't have enough investment at all levels, the blame cannot be placed only on crappy loan policies. In germany, plenty of teams that don't always find themselves in the top league still have youth academies that produce talent, which then gets bought up as it develops (talent moving from a lower league team's academy to a low to mid-table Bundesliga team to Bayern/Dortmund/Schalke seems common. Off the top of my head: Ozil, Gotze, Kroos, Kirchhoff, Reus, Gundogan) but in England there is really just Southampton, Arsenal's academy is just a little bit better than Liverpool and Man U tbh, and even that is kind of debatable. Spain and Portugal also produce tons of talent, but it gets spread around a bit more where as Germany is more like England, with just a few of the national team players leaving their home country, and only to go to Madrid tbh.
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destinyunknown
Banned deucer.
The point is that Bundesliga teams heavily invested on academies and youth development ~15 years ago, and that has lead to rejuvenating the league and the national side which had been getting worse at the end of the century. If English teams did the same a big improvement would be seen but they seem to prefer buying foreign talent. Oh and German players might not spread as much as Spanish or Portuguese (though they still do), but I think that has more to do with the fact that German teams have a better economy than those from Spain and Portugal. The Bundesliga is probably the second best league at the moment so there is no need to leave really.
So today there's England-Slovenia and Spain-Belarus. Slovenia is a decent side so the match could be somewhat interesting. Spain-Belarus looks boring though, Del Bosque will lineup the same players as in the World Cup, will get a somewhat convincing 3-0 scoreline and tomorrow all the newspapers will say the national team is good again and etc, while ignoring the obvious problems the team has. Meh.
Also there's Austria-Russia which looks like the most interesting affair.
Still I hate international breaks -.-
So today there's England-Slovenia and Spain-Belarus. Slovenia is a decent side so the match could be somewhat interesting. Spain-Belarus looks boring though, Del Bosque will lineup the same players as in the World Cup, will get a somewhat convincing 3-0 scoreline and tomorrow all the newspapers will say the national team is good again and etc, while ignoring the obvious problems the team has. Meh.
Also there's Austria-Russia which looks like the most interesting affair.
Still I hate international breaks -.-
IMO the English league was doing fine providing an interesting well balanced league, which was really heavily focused on local talent. And success was also found in the famed periods in those very talents. (Best- MU, Kenny-Liverpool are some that immediately come to mind)
But the coming of Oil and Russian money, short-circuited this entire cycle of talent development as they just preferred to splurge obscene amounts of money to immediately get results for impatient richfag owners, rather than go for this culture of cultivation and long term sustenance. It also tipped the competition by massively pressuring the power structure of the league by creating a hierarchy of super clubs, and rest being forced to play catch up, by either being organ donors for the said clubs ( a sad trend we see even today) and themselves getting into the system. So in essence the competition only really becomes about these 4-6 clubs (not really, even that the EPL is almost always a quadrilateral of CH/MU/MC/LIV with Arsenal throwing in the cap now and then. And yes I always laugh when someone posts about EPL being an 'open' league) with the rest of the clubs just fighting for survival, which is not really an ideal state of affairs.
By no means is the english league the only league afflicted but it is certainly most pronounced over here. The Spanish League despite buckling under the same trend in a 4-way league contention still has excellent academies like La Masia and Athletico Academy, and it is the same case in the Bundesliga with Bayern, Dortmund and Stuttgard etc. Etc. Etc. for some other European Countries.
But still I hear great news from Liverpool's and Arsenal's Youth Academy once in a while, along with a lot of other lower placed Clubs' academies which aren't in the immediate cross-sights of the organ donation market (leading to a freak discovery like Bale once in every few seasons).
Hope is there. Provided clubs actually start thinking with long term perspectives.
But the coming of Oil and Russian money, short-circuited this entire cycle of talent development as they just preferred to splurge obscene amounts of money to immediately get results for impatient richfag owners, rather than go for this culture of cultivation and long term sustenance. It also tipped the competition by massively pressuring the power structure of the league by creating a hierarchy of super clubs, and rest being forced to play catch up, by either being organ donors for the said clubs ( a sad trend we see even today) and themselves getting into the system. So in essence the competition only really becomes about these 4-6 clubs (not really, even that the EPL is almost always a quadrilateral of CH/MU/MC/LIV with Arsenal throwing in the cap now and then. And yes I always laugh when someone posts about EPL being an 'open' league) with the rest of the clubs just fighting for survival, which is not really an ideal state of affairs.
By no means is the english league the only league afflicted but it is certainly most pronounced over here. The Spanish League despite buckling under the same trend in a 4-way league contention still has excellent academies like La Masia and Athletico Academy, and it is the same case in the Bundesliga with Bayern, Dortmund and Stuttgard etc. Etc. Etc. for some other European Countries.
But still I hear great news from Liverpool's and Arsenal's Youth Academy once in a while, along with a lot of other lower placed Clubs' academies which aren't in the immediate cross-sights of the organ donation market (leading to a freak discovery like Bale once in every few seasons).
Hope is there. Provided clubs actually start thinking with long term perspectives.
Where's everyone thinking Manchester United could reach on the table by the end?
As a born and raised United fan I know with the form that we've been on this year and last year its highly unlikely that we reach top 3.
I can see Manchester United hopefully 4th or 5th, and that's with a push of better performance hopefully in the near future.
As a born and raised United fan I know with the form that we've been on this year and last year its highly unlikely that we reach top 3.
I can see Manchester United hopefully 4th or 5th, and that's with a push of better performance hopefully in the near future.
I remember growing up we used to pride ourselves on the number of Geordies we had in our team at any given point. The likes of Beardsley, Shearer, Gazza, Sir Bobby, and more recently Carroll. As fans we loved that shit. Our owner in the 90's, Sir John Hall, once expressed a vision of having a team of 11 Geordies...can you imagine?! Nowadays we're happy to see an English player in our line-up, never mind a Geordie. That said; Sammy, Colback, Dummet and (kinda) S.Taylor are all Geordies on the verge of the starting XI so maybe we'll get there yet? Only problem is that, other than Taylor, none of them are particularly good...
Joltik: my advice? Now might be a good time to become a born and raised Chelsea fan...
Joltik: my advice? Now might be a good time to become a born and raised Chelsea fan...
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