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Football Discussion

Danza91 said:
I don't know what is worse, half & half scarves or grown adults wearing football shirts with their name/nickname on the back.


Well done to Newcastle but they should have been winning the Championship by a margin. Brighton totally bottled it but I don't blame them for being on the beach, mentally. I can't say I ever remember who got promoted as champions, only the 3 teams who actually came up.
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Trust me. Newcastle fans won't remember it, either in a few years. It's merely a nice cherry on the cake.

The Championship is a very hard league and our home form this season has not been as good as it should have been.
 
I'm happy that United are in the final of the Europa League. Of course, it's not where anyone thought United would be at the beginning of the season however the reality is that they've had a difficult one. If they can guarantee Champions League football next season by winning in Stockholm, 2 trophies and into the Champions League as a result suddenly doesn't sound bad at all.

Seen a lot of videos going around of Mourinho slating the Europa League in an interview in 2013. There's a big difference between the prize for winning it in 2013 than there is now.
 
Finally, United's trophy cabinet is complete. If anything, winning the Europa League tonight was about more than just football. After the tragic events of Monday night, I think this win is not just for the club. It's for the city of Manchester as a whole.
 
I'm still unsure as to how Paul Pogba was given man of the match by various media outlets, I forgot he was even playing in the second half!

A great win though, United were by far the stronger and more experienced side.

:)
 
I feel more relieved than anything after last night's result. Man United's season, unfortunately, rested on that. I wouldn't say it was a great final, but it was an experienced and controlled performance from United. Fair play to Jose, he had the Niagaras to put all of his eggs in the Europa League basket after the draw against Swansea and it's actually paid off as United go straight into the group stage, unlike Liverpool who finished fourth, and it's likely United will be in pot 2. Next season United need to mount a title challenge and hopefully do well in the Champions League. It's time to start delivering.

After the FA Cup final I'll do an overly long season review of each club, I'm waiting for Saturday to see if Arsenal's season is a total embarrassment.
 
But they have of course played in (and won it 3 times) the old first division!

:)
 
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So, the season is done and dusted and we wave goodbye to three dreadful teams in Sunderland, Middlesbrough and Hull and welcome three new ones in Newcastle, Brighton and Huddersfield. I'm seeing Adele at Wembley Stadium in about a month, let's hope the stench has gone after Reading and Huddersfield stunk the place out yesterday. Dreadful.

Here's my season review team by team (in brackets are my predictions before the season kicked off).

1st (2nd) Chelsea - 8/10 - Can't fault them too much to be honest. I'm struggling to find ways to be bitter about how Conte took a decent squad and made them title winners. Changing the formation early on was obviously the turning point, and the fact that Hazard decided to start playing again. A terrific league campaign. Points lost for bottling the FA Cup final and John Terry's disgraceful goodbye. Be interesting to see how they fare with Champions League football. Conte's UCL record isn't that great to date.
2nd (6th) Spurs - 6/10 - Got this one wrong but I must be the only person who hasn't been that impressed by Spurs. Sure, 2nd is great when you consider a lot were expecting it to be Pep vs Jose, but what exactly have they achieved? They were never actually in the title race; they were always at least 3 points behind the leaders after 10 games in when the table started to take shape. Always playing catch up, never troubled the league leaders but just did well at remaining fairly consistent. They also disgraced us in Europe. There's huge potential there, but at Wembley next season they will most likely struggle, especially if they lose any of Alli, Kane, Dier and Alderwiereld.
3rd (3rd) Man City - 6/10 - 3rd as predicted. I actually sympathise with Pep a little bit as the squad he inherited is old and not right to play his way. He did underestimate the Premier League and made some howlers early on (Bravo) but did get it right towards the end. I expect them to be a lot better next season.
4th (4th) Liverpool - 5/10 - Really poor. You could argue top four was what they were aiming for but compare them to Chelsea and their season has been really disappointing. I think Klopp has got off easy which I'll come to later. Another trophy-less season in one where they really should have gone for it. Need to invest a lot this summer.
5th (5th) Arsenal - 4/10 - Dull. I've spoken about how bored of Arsenal I am before so won't go into detail. FA Cup doesn't excuse how much of a joke this club has become. Glad they're not going to be wasting one of our Champions League spots. Hilarious that they're keeping Wenger!
6th (1st) Man United - 7/10 - Got this totally wrong. Mourinho made mistakes. Injuries hasn't helped. Some players just simply aren't good enough. A really disappointing league campaign. Silly points dropped in numerous games where we led including Everton, Stoke, Arsenal and Swansea. However, away from the league Jose won 2 trophies and got us into the Champions League group stage so it's far from a disaster. I can excuse the poor league campaign and setting up at Anfield & City for a draw this season, but next season the league campaign needs to be a lot better, with more goals scored.
7th (7th) Everton - 6/10 - Koeman has made them a proper team again, they were a joke under Martinez. Still a big gap between them and 6th so need to build on this season. I'm not Lukaku's biggest fan but they need to keep him. Really poor away from home, must improve. Should bin Barkley, how much longer do we need to wait for him to fulfil his potential? No trophies, again.
8th (11th) Southampton - 6/10 - I'm being harsh here because I think the quality of football from Southampton really dropped. I didn't like the way they set up in numerous games. Might have got them a point but just not what I expect from Southampton. Their behaviour in the Liverpool away game was really poor. That said, a respectable season in a transition year.
9th (16th) Bournemouth - 6/10 - I can't really remember their campaign being particularly memorable. I think their league position flatters them as they only finished on 46 points, 4 points more than last season. However, mid-table in their second season is a very good result. No longer can they be called 'little Bournemouth' though. If they pay Defoe £130k pw then it must stop.
10th (15th) West Brom - 5/10 - Similar to Bournemouth, league position flatters them a little. Only accrued 2 more points than last season. Potentially harsh rating for being in their flip-flops since March. Should be fined.
11th (9th) West Ham - 5/10 - Thought they'd struggle in their new stadium but managed to get it together a bit more as the season went on. Stadium is awful though. Poor season for them really. Payet issues didn't help but they made bad signings. 18 points less than last season, not good.
12th (8th) Leicester 6/10 - I was disappointed with Leicester. They were still celebrating their league win in January. Ranieri sacking was arguably harsh but if he hadn't have, in classic fashion, tinkered so much they'd have been alright. Losing Kante of course was a big loss and Mahrez looked disinterested the whole season, backed up by the fact he's asked to leave. Champions League campaign they redeemed themselves (hence 6/10) but elsewhere poor. Shakespeare did well coming in but I think they'll be disappointed to be finishing in the bottom half.
13th (10th) Stoke 5/10 - Standard mid-table finish as predicted. Must be so dull supporting them.
14th (13th) Crystal Palace 4/10 - Underwhelming. Not sure Pardew would have done any worse or better than Allardyce. Club needs a change, it's not going anywhere.
15th (12th) Swansea 3/10 - What on Earth were they doing bringing in Bob Bradley? Swansea have been a joke and are only staying up because there are more useless clubs below them. Sigurdsson needs to leave, he's way too good for them.
16th (20th) Burnley 7/10 - I, like many, had them going down so for them to stay up is a great season by their standards. High rating for defying the odds.
17th (19th) Watford 3/10 - They should be going down, they've been dreadful all season. Under Marco Silva next season they should improve and they badly need to.
18th (18th) Hull 4/10 - Going to give Hull a little bit of credit for giving it a proper go in the second half of the season despite selling their best players. Marco Silva almost saved them but it was too little too late. Were he there from earlier on they'd have been safe.
19th (17th) Middlesbrough 3/10 - Similar to Watford. Utterly useless. There is actually nothing positive I can say about them, except maybe I'm amazed they weren't mathematically down until fairly late on into the season. Good riddance.
20th (14th) Sunderland 1/10 - Well this is embarrassing. I had them 14th! Thought Moyes would redeem himself a bit working at a club with a tight budget. Nope, he was so negative all season. He said they were in a relegation battle after two games! What a joke. Even Defoe was useless for the second half of the season. This club is in an utter mess and I genuinely think they could keep falling and falling like Pompey and Blackpool.

Best player - Kante
Best signing - (unbiased me) Kante (biased me) Bailly
Worst players/signings - (too many!) Bravo, Janssen, Xhaka, Sissoko, Özil, Ibe
Worst manager - Moyes
Most disappointing manager - Klopp - He's had two transfer windows, he's had time to settle in and he's still not sorted out their defence. Matip is a decent player, but for god's sake where's the coaching? Didn't have mid-week games to worry about like City, Spurs, Arsenal and United yet only just scraped into the top four and were poor in the cups. I think Liverpool have underachieved this season. I had them finishing 4th so you could argue 'how could they have been disappointing?', but when you look at how poor the teams around them were, I'd be disappointed if I were a Liverpool fan.
Goal of the season - Carroll
 
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Pardew wouldn't have done any worse in laughable, he was taking the club down in the most miserable fashion, it's no surprise it took Allardyce a while for his methods to kick in (and it took the Sunderland embarrassment to get that in)...

Shows how little was known of the actual problems to anyone outside the club...
 
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Had Pardew stayed, we probably would have gone down. Absolute fraud, I hope I never see him again at Selhurst.
 
Benzin said:
Pardew wouldn't have done any worse in laughable, he was taking the club down in the most miserable fashion, it's no surprise it took Allardyce a while for his methods to kick in (and it took the Sunderland embarrassment to get that in)...

Shows how little was known of the actual problems to anyone outside the club...
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I won't argue with someone who knows the club better. We'll never know but I think Pardew, who is a patchy manager, would have just about done enough.
 
Nah, there was no fitness, no spirit, and his own tactical ineptitude (why oh why do you bring a striker on against Man Utd when a draw is acceptable?) were key factors of his tenure over 2016... Palace were the worst team in England, which is actual fact!

He should've gone after the 5-4 against Swansea, as for any team to fall apart like that, is nothing short of awful management...
 
And United's first summer signing has been announced - Victor Lindelof is joining from Benfica for about £31m, subject to personal terms and a medical. Not a bad price tbh. Should be a decent signing.
 
Not seen or heard a great deal about him to be honest, and recent years have taught me not to get excited about signings after some of the flops United have had. However United need a centre back to partner with Bailly, who looked quality last season, as Smalling and Jones are not good enough and I hope it works out.
 
Bailly was probably José's surprise signing last season. I was concerned as to how he'd adapt to the Premier League, but he's done very well indeed. He just needs a good partner in defence - I don't think Smalling, Jones or Rojo are good enough, sadly.
 
Tbf all of joses signings last year made a big impact and all was decent
Pogba only appeared to have a bad season because of his huge price tag


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Same thing has happened with Chelsea this year as it does most years recently

Big talk of big names all season then Transfer window opens and we go quiet
 
To be fair to City for a second, they did have a rather elderly defensive line for quite a while, so I can see why Pep has splashed out a lot of money for reinforcements. I will agree that they've spent a truly ridiculous amount of money, though.
 
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