Essential The Official Football (Soccer) Thread - We are SO back, the Premier League returns!

[Trajan]

Man City are no different from Bayern… just buying their rival’s talent. Realistically, no one is catching up with them in the league. This season was the closest Liverpool would get again to winning the league.

Mane and Salah are in their 30s now… Jota and Diaz are good but Liverpool don’t have an out and out striker, something that City was missing this season and have now acquired. And they were minutes away from another CL final too.

If Mbappe had gone to Liverpool, I’d say there was a chance but he’s Real Madrid bound.

Goals is not an area we're struggling in. We don't need an out and out striker when the front three have 52 goals between them in the league. I can't really complain about our season for good reason lol.. We lost twice the whole season. City are just relentless. Any other time we would have the shyt sawn up

Issue is Pep's mechanical system + depth + blank check to acquire any missing cogs. Man has two elite squads to rotate from.

But he might leave in 2023 while Klopp has just reupped until 2026

Mane and Salah are iconic players but the transition is in full effect... Smoothly

 

[ThrobbingHood]

Goals is not an area we're struggling in. We don't need an out and out striker when the front three have 52 goals between them in the league

Issue is Pep's mechanical system + depth + blank check to acquire any missing cogs. Man has two elite squads to rotate from.

But he might leave in 2023 while Klopp has just reupped until 2026

Mane and Salah are iconic players but the transition is in full effect... Smoothly

Here’s the things with stats… they can be very misleading. Yes, both Liverpool and City have had no problems scoring goals despite neither having an out and out striker but, if you look at your games against City and Tottenham, a striker could’ve been the difference between being 2nd and 1st.

In those close decisive games, you need a Benzema to pull a goal out of individual brilliance. Take him out, and Real would not have got past the last 16 this season of the CL.

Yes, neither City and Liverpool have struggled for goals this season but Pep knew that it wasn’t sustainable to carry on without a true number 9, in spite of their ridiculous depth. Look how hard they were pushing to get Harry Kane.

Edit: look at Chelsea today. They objectively had the better chances but when you have Lukaku leading the line and an inefficient Pulisic playing along side him, it came back to bite them.

 

[Ukbrotha]

It's fukk Chelsea till the casket drops but I actually wanted them to win this time.

 

[Roberto Firmino]

Goals is not an area we're struggling in. We don't need an out and out striker when the front three have 52 goals between them in the league. I can't really complain about our season for good reason lol.. We lost twice the whole season. City are just relentless. Any other time we would have the shyt sawn up

Issue is Pep's mechanical system + depth + blank check to acquire any missing cogs. Man has two elite squads to rotate from.

But he might leave in 2023 while Klopp has just reupped until 2026

Mane and Salah are iconic players but the transition is in full effect... Smoothly

We ain’t going nowhere

 

[TobiOT]

 

[TobiOT]

It's fukk Chelsea till the casket drops but I actually wanted them to win this time.

Man City probably win their next 2 fixtures.

 

[noodles]

Man City are no different from Bayern… just buying their rival’s talent. Realistically, no one is catching up with them in the league. This season was the closest Liverpool would get again to winning the league.

Mane and Salah are in their 30s now… Jota and Diaz are good but Liverpool don’t have an out and out striker, something that City was missing this season and have now acquired. And they were minutes away from another CL final too.

If Mbappe had gone to Liverpool, I’d say there was a chance but he’s Real Madrid bound.

 

[null]

Sterling- a season after Liverpool came close to winning the league.

Mahrez- Not exactly a rival but a PL league winner and he was “poached”.

Grealish: Not a rival but poached (an over priced) huge talent from a smaller club.

Dias: Bought from Benfica.

Could’ve bought Harry Kane if Levy wasn’t being such a Shylock.

You said "rival" ... and now you keep saying "not a rival".

And then you added "couldda shouldda wouldda" about Levy.

A list with a grand total of 1 :mjlol is nothing like Bayern.

(and even Sterling is questionable as Liverpool let him go)

I don’t even know why this needs explaining.

It needs explaining because you made a BS claim that you cannot substantiate when pressed.

It's not like City are storming in and poaching the best players from Prem rivals like Bayern has been doing in the Bundesliga.

stop with the coli recency #hot-takes

 

[Trajan]

Here’s the things with stats… they can be very misleading. Yes, both Liverpool and City have had no problems scoring goals despite neither having an out and out striker but, if you look at your games against City and Tottenham, a striker could’ve been the difference between being 2nd and 1st.

In those close decisive games, you need a Benzema to pull a goal out of individual brilliance. Take him out, and Real would not have got past the last 16 this season of the CL.

Yes, neither City and Liverpool have struggled for goals this season but Pep knew that it wasn’t sustainable to carry on without a true number 9, in spite of their ridiculous depth. Look how hard they were pushing to get Harry Kane.

Edit: look at Chelsea today. They objectively had the better chances but when you have Lukaku leading the line and an inefficient Pulisic playing along side him, it came back to bite them.

I mean we're talking very fine margins here. Dropping points from winning positions e.g Brentford could also be the difference between 1st and 2nd. We're in the era where drawing a game in September could be costly lol

Benzema's other worldly form snatching victory from the jaws of defeat doesn't mean we need an old school number 9. Our actual number 9 doesn't score many goals lol..our system doesn't need one

RM needed Benzema heroics to have any hope. We also made it to the CL final without him

 

[Hoodoo Child]

I had Milner, Mané and Tsimikas missing.

I hate when they do that stutter step. It's like waving a piece of steak in front of a Lion.

 

[nyknick]

Didn't know this existed.

Easy to make Zlatan into somebody

Man signed Jesse Lingard and ended up dying two years later

 

[Yayo Toure]

Nope. If City win tomorrow, lose their last game but Liverpool win their next two, City as it stands would win on goal difference. And even if you somehow catch up on goal difference, City would win due to scoring more goals.

At this point, the league is Bayern status. No one is getting this close to City in the league for the next 5 years at least. Easy when you have an empty check book.

If the check book was empty then Van Dijk wouldn't be playing for Liverpool.

The money is either here nor there, as there are regulations and certain teams just won't sell players to other teams. But week after week you see funny stuff happen in Liverpool games, today Konate shoving Ziyech denying a clear goal scoring opportunity, Thiago two footed tackle today, Fabinho damn near dislocating Son's jaw last week and nothing happened, 2 penalties denied to Everton and a red card denied. Liverpool havent conceded a penalty all season and no red cards in 3 years.

So you can rant about the check book, match fixing is what you should rant about. When yall thought Rodri handled the ball against Everton there was pages an pages of discourse, when Liverpool played Everton not a peep about all the fukkery from that match. Refs mess up in England on a regular basis, but they consistently show favoritism to Liverpool. This isn't a title race.

 

[TobiOT]

If Burnley and Everton win this afternnon, and Leeds end up losing to Brighton they're outta here. It won't confirmed until Thursday or next Sunday due to an insurmountable negative GD, but still.

Imagine waiting 16 years to get to Premier League, can't go to games because of Covid so you miss your team having a decent first season back and when you finally can, your teams gets spanked most weeks.

But at the same time, I expect Tottenham to walk all over Burnley, Brentford to get something at Everton and Leeds to score a 90th minute winner vs Brighton.

 

[DapMeUp!]

Another soft pen for Spurs

 

[Montez]

LOLOL