This is art from Moises Caicedo. Two of Chelsea's best chances resulted from his line-breaking pass. Pair that with his tackling ability. Love him, my favorite 6.
Everyone clowning on Unai Emery on the TL after Aston Villa's 4th loss of the season is a tad crazy, I can't lie. They are joint top in goals with Man City (40) and 4th in goals against (25).
No Kamara
No Cash
No Buendia
No Mings
No Pau Torres
No Tielemans
Just watched back the extended highlights of the match vs Aston Villa the day before Graham Potter was sacked. He had Chelsea playing better football than whatever this is supposed to be today.
They left plenty of spaces, we just didn't have the courage or vision to play the ball into the space. City chose to be more pragmatic than Arsenal. Can't score without taking risks, would have needed a massive mistake.
"I've never seen a team make it so difficult for Manchester City in the final third!"
Gary Neville and Micah Richards praise Arsenal's defence for keeping Manchester City out ⛔
@ASN9320
I don't see how he could have positioned himself better. There was no through balls. He was there on the back post for the corner but missed. That was the only poor bit but it's football, it happens.
Manchester United have never finished a season with less than 0 goal difference. They are currently on -3. If they concede 3 more goals they will have conceded the most amount of goals in a season in their history. Via
@Stathead
@fbref
I think I watch a lot of football, but I don't understand how people know everything about everyone the minute news comes out about a manager or player moving to another club.
The Champions League final is June 1st, Euro 2024 starts June 14th and will run till July 14th. The first preseason matches normally begin towards the end of July. Player's hamstrings will be stretched like handmade candy.
Why are people surprised Aston Villa are performing poorly without Pau Torres and Ezri Konsa? Their entire team relies on the coordination of their back-line with the offside trap, and distribution to get it back to front in one pass.
Pushing player's bodies beyond the limit is not entertaining. Football has become an endurance race. Even the best athletes won't survive. A byproduct of this is the creatives who were never the top athletes will be further pushed out of the sport.
John Stones on Stefan Ortega: “Incredible keeper. Not easy at all to come in at this stage and how he played, the saves he pulled off, intelligent saves."
Most intelligent save for me. Hand underneath the ball to palm it high. If he directs it low/wide, it's a tap-in rebound.
Phil Foden will outlast the entire crop of England talent because his minutes were correctly managed by Manchester City. It's not sustainable to play 90 minutes with 2-3 days rest for multiple weeks.
It's not squad depth, it's trusting your bench. If Pep gave limited minutes to Nunes, Bobb, Doku, Lewis, and Gomez we wouldn't have depth. They'd be as off as Nketiah, Zinchenko, Smith Rowe, Vieira, and Partey. You need everyone.
Pep is obviously a genius, but great squad depth is a significant factor as to why sides like City and Madrid finish the season extremely strongly, especially the former.
When you’ve got the luxury of 50m+ players essentially everywhere, the quality eventually prevails.
If English clubs want to compete in Europe they had to scrap replays ✅ and they should scrap the Carabao Cup. There's too many games in the schedule. Real Madrid played one extra and Bayern Munich two extra games in April, while Man City and Arsenal both played three. No rest.
- Hojlund celebrating sending United to the finals
- Antony cupping his hands towards the Coventry players celebrating
- Maguire consoling the Coventry players
- 2/3 of the team embarrassed
That United locker room must be so weird.
@joeladejola
He was either, A, one of the players complaining, or B, (more likely probably) annoyed with those complaining and wanted to shut them up. Either way it's very smart of him to do to take pressure off
@TheSportsman
@wearelutontown
De Zerbi is in S tier. Lost Mac Allister and Caicedo, but still finding a way to stay 7th with large amounts of his squad injured, including the long-term injuries of Enciso and Solly March.
Mauricio Pochettino admits
#Chelsea
were playing for penalties in extra time.
"The team felt maybe the penalties would be good for us."
[via
@BobbyVincentFL
]
We looked infinitely more threatening with Phil Foden in the left half-space rotating with Doku. Bernardo Silva on the edges covering for Walker. It makes so much more sense compared to the first half setup, with Foden on the edges wide right and Bernardo on the left.
What happened with Liverpool yesterday is more serious than many realize. I can't remember a situation like this with one ref awarding a goal and the other disallowing. The integrity of the competition is in question with a mistake this big. I could see the match being replayed.
Watching the United vs Chelsea match. Axel Disasi is a massive liability for Chelsea both in the build-up and defending in the box.
Cucurella LB, Colwill LCB, Badiashille RCB, and James RB
Trevoah Chalobah could provide Liverpool with depth at RCB.
- Premier League proven (important)
- English, homegrown
- 24 years old, room to improve
- Efficient carrier of the ball
- Tall, 190cm
- Accurate enough passer
- Could act as emergency depth in holding midfield
I'm still convinced a good coach could turn Mykhaylo Mudryk into an explosive star. It's rare to be that quick and athletic. The decisions just need tweaking. Raw IQ.
@themagic_tophat
@sportingintel
If you are going to remain anonymous you should at least disclose that you are not a lawyer. Then people can place the correct amount of weight on your conclusions. You lack credibility therefore people can ignore certain statements to avoid being misinformed.
You’ve just become the owner of your favorite club and have these 5 positions to fill but you can only appoint your mutuals, who do you appoint for each one?
Manager:
Sporting Director:
CFO:
Lead scout:
Social media manager:
@Luckycfc123
@Yuli_MUFC
He completed 94% of 68 passes and was dispossessed once. 1 successful dribble. 5 of 6 for long balls. 4 interceptions and 12 recoveries. 11 of 15 ground duels won. 4 of 7 tackles won. Can't ask for much more.
Always been a fan of Trevoh Chalobah. Can cover a lot of space, good timing, great header, tall, great carrier of the ball. Mobile center-backs are a dime a dozen. With some training I think he could play as a holding midfielder. He also a decent shot from outside the box.
@JohyanCruyff
Does it concern you at all, with the price-tag, that Osmihen has only one goal against a team in the top half of Serie A in 2023/24, and two goals in 2021/22?
@JohyanCruyff
There's not a single instance this season where he's received a pass like the ones he received from Cucurella and Maatsen. Watch him at Villarreal. That's how he scores. Main problem is distribution and now confidence.
@JohyanCruyff
If the Chelsea fanbase got their hands on Onana he would be sold to Turkey on a free this summer. His confidence would be so far deep in the gutter. Credit to United's fanbase for standing behind him through all those errors. I didn't think they had it in them after De Gea.
@exploitingspace
I think he offers a bit more right now outside of the box than Isak. He has a smoother transition from dribbling to passing. Better defender, wins a lot of 50/50s. Just needs to get back to Villarreal finishing.
Bayern Munich should contact Ange Postecoglou. You can improve a team but the culture of the club is rough. Never seen anything like that match with the atmosphere.
If I had to build a 6 in a lab, Moises Caicedo would be close to my ideal. Get as close to Fernandinho as you can get.
The difference being, Fernandinho joined Man City when he was 28, Caicedo joined Chelsea at 21. The most exciting 6 for me.
Kane up top. Rashford on the left, Sterling on the right. Foden in the left half-space, Saka in the right half-space. Bellingham down the middle. Trent Alexander-Arnold as a 6. Colwill, Rice, Stones back-three.
De Bruyne deep central on the edges, feeding everyone, and then have someone like Doku central to make runs past Tchouaméni to disrupt Rudiger's control on Haaland.
Only a select few number of goalkeepers maintain world-class form over multiple seasons. That's what makes them interesting and why you can't be to tied to the past when talking about them.
This is a count of all the goalkeepers with more than one season with a PSxG-GA of +2.9.
From GW1-GW19 Brighton were pretty poor defensively, ranked middle of the table, 11th in xG against. I mentioned Roberto De Zerbi figured something out defensively in December. From GW20-GW28, Brighton rank 2nd in xG against. Improvement now shown in the data.
There were two things I liked from Brighton when they played Tottenham: The increased pressure wide from Danny Welbeck and the improved organization of their higher line.