So I just checked the Bundesliga table and noticed Red Bulls Leipzig is at 3rd, just 2 points behind Bayern. Is it just good form or do they play great football? I have seriously never heard of this team before.
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2016/17 Soccer/Football Thread
- Thread starter Aurious
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The team has only been around with that name for 6 years. They were a 5th division club like 6 years back until red bull took control. I would liken them to what chelsea or man city used to be, in that they spend a lot of money without a giant fanbase. Munich, Dortmund, and Wolfsburg were the only clubs in Bundesliga who spent more in the summer for players.
http://www.worldsoccer.com/news/public-enemy-no-1-rb-leipzig-not-winning-popularity-contests-389188
Ah, now it makes sense. Well, the best they can do is buy potentials then since their revenue will be much less than the big clubs (unless the player chase bigger bucks). I mean, if you're a player, you'd want to join the established clubs to have a better chance of winning trophies.
In other news, Mourinho still tries to criticize us for the boring 0-0 at Anfield when it was his plan to park the bus and hit us with long balls and set-pieces. We were missing two-thirds of our midfield (hence our lackluster first-half) and he plays 6-3-1 which he reverted to 8-1-1 in the second half. The omission of Mata as well as the decision to start Young and Fellaini is an example of this. Well, as long as we don't lose, I don't care too much as he's making a fool of himself.
Yeah, I don't get it either. Perhaps its because of him trying to attack Pep's Man City and got overrun that he adopted a safety-first approach and try to aim at our weakness from long balls. Time-wasting with fouls is of course expected.
Only Jose could make a liverpool-united with Klopp as a coach so effing boring
>Claudio Bravo
So barca and Arsenal dominated. Should have watched something a little closer like napoli bestikas
Meanwhile, AC Milan rose to 2nd in Serie A. Not bad at all.
All the leagues are looking more open this year, which is encouraging for the neutral at least!
Cazorla was badly missed by Arsenal and not only that but Xhaka and Ramsey were missing at the same time. Elneny and Coquelin just don't have the creativity in their passing to make things happen so it all depended on individual brilliance from the front 4 which was missing unfortunately. Imo Sanchez is more of a work horse and honestly just isn't good enough to make something out of nothing consistently, Walcott has become a deadly finisher but isn't good enough otherwise, Iwobi isn't senior enough to assume responsibility yet while Ozil would rather not if he can help it. Which means, as usual with Wenger teams, the sum of the parts has to be greater and that all stems from Cazorla's incisive passing to start moves and pull teams around at an early stage. However I think the only midfield combo that doesn't work at Arsenal is Elneny and Coquelin. I think any other combination can still work very well because Xhaka and Ramsey have shown themselves to be excellent creative passers who can play that role so I'm optimistic.
Guardiola's suffering a bit lately. I think the main problem is City spent huge money but did not fix their defence in the summer. And secondly, despite all the praise of attacking football, he is effectively playing a 6-4-1 formation at City (with the goalkeeper in the 6). He has the goalkeeper and 3 defenders with two defensive mids keeping a high line while the front 5 do their thing. It's actually a very defensive way to play. Football is pretty simple when it comes to organisation. The most efficient way to occupy the space is in a 4-4-2 while a 4-5-1 is a variation that gives you one more in midfield for control. Any other formation is a less efficient use of space for marginal tactical benefits (i.e. nullifying a particular threat). City's first few victories were not convincing and I said at the time that I thought he was making a man management mistake by side-lining Hart and Yaya, both popular figures with the club and fans. Now he's having a subtle go at Aguero for not doing enough pressing. I mean a manager's first job is to identify the talents of the players and find the most efficient solution for the club. The transfer market can be used to plug any gaps. Guardiola (and he's not the first one) has come in and tried to fit everyone into his system (and a non-optimal use of space while he's at it). Imo he currently doesn't have the required players to do what he wants to do and after the honeymoon period is over it's going to unravel quickly if results don't go his way. He hasn't helped himself moving on big characters the way that he has. I'm not saying it's wrong - I appreciate the bravery to stand up to senior figures if it's right for the club, but he probably could have done it in a more clever way. He has left himself in a situation where he will only be popular if he gets good results and that's my concern.
Not even gonna talk about Mourinho coz Mou is Mou. I hope he can get some clean sheets for my fantasy team at least!
Cazorla was badly missed by Arsenal and not only that but Xhaka and Ramsey were missing at the same time. Elneny and Coquelin just don't have the creativity in their passing to make things happen so it all depended on individual brilliance from the front 4 which was missing unfortunately. Imo Sanchez is more of a work horse and honestly just isn't good enough to make something out of nothing consistently, Walcott has become a deadly finisher but isn't good enough otherwise, Iwobi isn't senior enough to assume responsibility yet while Ozil would rather not if he can help it. Which means, as usual with Wenger teams, the sum of the parts has to be greater and that all stems from Cazorla's incisive passing to start moves and pull teams around at an early stage. However I think the only midfield combo that doesn't work at Arsenal is Elneny and Coquelin. I think any other combination can still work very well because Xhaka and Ramsey have shown themselves to be excellent creative passers who can play that role so I'm optimistic.
Guardiola's suffering a bit lately. I think the main problem is City spent huge money but did not fix their defence in the summer. And secondly, despite all the praise of attacking football, he is effectively playing a 6-4-1 formation at City (with the goalkeeper in the 6). He has the goalkeeper and 3 defenders with two defensive mids keeping a high line while the front 5 do their thing. It's actually a very defensive way to play. Football is pretty simple when it comes to organisation. The most efficient way to occupy the space is in a 4-4-2 while a 4-5-1 is a variation that gives you one more in midfield for control. Any other formation is a less efficient use of space for marginal tactical benefits (i.e. nullifying a particular threat). City's first few victories were not convincing and I said at the time that I thought he was making a man management mistake by side-lining Hart and Yaya, both popular figures with the club and fans. Now he's having a subtle go at Aguero for not doing enough pressing. I mean a manager's first job is to identify the talents of the players and find the most efficient solution for the club. The transfer market can be used to plug any gaps. Guardiola (and he's not the first one) has come in and tried to fit everyone into his system (and a non-optimal use of space while he's at it). Imo he currently doesn't have the required players to do what he wants to do and after the honeymoon period is over it's going to unravel quickly if results don't go his way. He hasn't helped himself moving on big characters the way that he has. I'm not saying it's wrong - I appreciate the bravery to stand up to senior figures if it's right for the club, but he probably could have done it in a more clever way. He has left himself in a situation where he will only be popular if he gets good results and that's my concern.
Not even gonna talk about Mourinho coz Mou is Mou. I hope he can get some clean sheets for my fantasy team at least!
Plus, his insistence of playing from the back also leads to errors which directly cost them goals. Bravo and Stones have already had a few howlers this season and yet he's too stubborn to change things.
As for Chelsea, well, they showed how much they hated Mourinho by totally dismantling the bus today.
As for Chelsea, well, they showed how much they hated Mourinho by totally dismantling the bus today.
Scrappy 2-1 vs WBA. Finally broke the Pulis jinx so I'm happy with it.
Leicester got a solid result as well, though I really wish our away form could match our home form. However, I feel people have overreacted to our bad league form, yeah we lost to hull, but the other 3 teams we lost to were united, liverpool and chelsea, though the scorelines were a bit worrying. But tbh, if we do well in the champions league, i don't care where we come in the league as long as it's 17th or higher.
I really don't see how United can finish top 4, or even top 5 this year. If I was United manager, i'd be dropping Ibrahimovic, he doesn't exactly contribute much - if he was scoring goals you wouldn't care, but he's not even doing that. Time to give Rashford a turn up top?
Lol because all the other new transfers have worked so well.
The last time reading played arsenal in the cup. Just saying it might be worth checking out
As ridiculous as it sounds at this early in the season and with it being a league cup game but that was a must win game for Utd more than City and it showed in the line ups. Mourinho got the win he needed though and he'll need to follow it up against Burnley so he has taken a bit of a gamble playing his full strength team in mid week. But you really have to feel for Moyes because that was a bit of a must win game for him too and he showed it by playing a strong team as well. Surely he's got the sack coming for him sooner rather than later after that result? How did Sunderland become so so bad lol?
Haven't faced Leeds in a while. Should be a good game.
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