EPL 2021 / 2022
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@dogmeat said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
@KiwiPie You did have that brief glimmer of hope when Sven was named Manager, signed Sol Campbell and kaspar Schmeichel before it all turned out to be a con job.
Look on the bright side one year later and you could have been the first Premier club relegated out of the Football League. As I recall you did pretty well that year until Easter and then it al went tits up? Surely Luton offer an example of how you can come back. They went down from PL with you didn't they? and you also always have the glory of the Juve association
How're County doing this year?
The con job is fascinating - if you want to know more it is covered in 6 parts in a podcast "Sport's Strangest Crimes" and Notts is just a part of it. Sven going to North Korea is a great tale which I hadn't heard about until I listened to it. You wonder how Notts fell for it but the conman did actually own a bank in the middle east so when he gave them a banker's draft to guarantee the funds it was pretty convincing.
Even though it all turned sour, we did have a great team on the back of it (Kasper was fantastic, Sol played 1 game but there were better signings) and it did lead to promotion (the only time since Big Sam did it in the late 90s). A couple of years later we managed to be in the Div 1 play-off spots in November and then relegated (kind of a reverse Forest from this season).
Luton dropped out of the league a few years before us. We did compete with Coventry in a League 2 playoff not so many years ago. controversial pen and they were promoted and look at them now.
This season we are 5th in the national league, looking good to make the play-offs but won't be favoured to win them - 6 teams go into the playoffs with just a single promoted team and whichever of Stockport or Wrexham doesn't get automatic promotion will probably go up via the play-offs.
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@KiwiPie Thanks I have subscribed to that pod. Russell King sure is a strange story.
The other seasons - Allen Stanford and Shergar look interesting too.After all there's only so many pod episodes about Fulham's Championship glory I can listen to (actually that's not true I'm sure I may missed one somewhere)
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@dogmeat said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
@KiwiPie Thanks I have subscribed to that pod. Russell King sure is a strange story.
The other seasons - Allen Stanford and Shergar look interesting too.After all there's only so many pod episodes about Fulham's Championship glory I can listen to (actually that's not true I'm sure I may missed one somewhere)
Listened to Allan Stanford story but not Shergar (yet)
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@mariner4life said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
not sure he's even close to ATG level is he? for all the improvements at the Clubs he has managed, there isn't enough trophies in the cabinet. I just like the fact that Liverpool are a side that compete for lots of things and play pretty good football.
The 2nd paragraph is key there. A manager with a philosophy and an ownership group committed to putting the right resources in place to ensure that philosophy has the best chance at succeeding. Players are developed, gaps are plugged by (mostly) finding the right players. Depth is built every year. It sort of looks sustainable too.
See what happens when/if Salah fucks off to Spain for ludicris money i guess.
Crazy tie this morning. City are through, and then bang bang bang City are out. Football eh? bloody hell.
I think he's close. He's proven at more than one big club, and shown he knows how to manage the big players, he's just a couple of trophies / cups short in the cupboard. If it wasn't for Guardiola and City, he'd have at least one more EPL & has taken Liverpool to CL final a few times.
I think a second CL or a 2nd EPL would put him right up there.
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@KiwiPie said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
@dogmeat said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
My Oh My
the wait goes on for City.
Two goals from Madrid in injury time to level the tie and then the winner in extra time
Real will be full of belief that this is their year
Unbelievable
Liverpool are surely favourites for the final but if any team "has their name on the cup" it must be Real Madrid this season - seemingly down and out in all knockout ties in the second leg but each time coming back. They didn't really look like scoring as full time approached and Grealish almost scored twice - then bang, bang. Incredible.
It's all about the occasion. Real Madrid have big match occasion in spades and will turn up.
Liverpool have shown to be slightly flaky here, although have hugely improved over recent seasons on this front.
I'll be cheering Real all the way as I can't stand Liverpool. But my money is on Jurgen. It almost feels a bit "in the stars" so to speak.
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@MajorRage Couldn't agree less. Real for me epitomise everything wrong with football. The whole Galacticos bullshit, the ongoing pursuit of the ESL concept, the fact that they are effectively bankrupt several times over but still seem to be able to restructure loans at will in order to buy the latest shiny thing.
Liverpool are no saints but Real as a club stinks.
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Just to ram home what Klopp has done at Liverpool, this was the lineup for his first game
Mignolet, Clyne, Skrtel, Sakho, Moreno, Lucas, Can, Coutinho, Lallana, Origi, Milner. On the bench: Bogdan, Toure, Allen, Sinclair, Texiera and Randall.
That, right there, is why Liverpool were a "UEFA Cup spots" team for a fair while.
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@mariner4life Brendan Rogers did pretty good too then - given the cattle he had to work with.
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@dogmeat said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
@mariner4life Brendan Rogers did pretty good too then - given the cattle he had to work with.
he's a good manager that's why. Just not quite good enough.
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@dogmeat said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
@MajorRage Couldn't agree less. Real for me epitomise everything wrong with football. The whole Galacticos bullshit, the ongoing pursuit of the ESL concept, the fact that they are effectively bankrupt several times over but still seem to be able to restructure loans at will in order to buy the latest shiny thing.
Liverpool are no saints but Real as a club stinks.
Good for you. I actually agree with you for the most part so I think you must only be disagreeing with me on supporting Real in the final.
My reasons for not liking Liverpool are well document and I got bored of that fishing trip a while ago. Did dine out on it for a number of years though.
@mariner4life said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
Just to ram home what Klopp has done at Liverpool, this was the lineup for his first game
Mignolet, Clyne, Skrtel, Sakho, Moreno, Lucas, Can, Coutinho, Lallana, Origi, Milner. On the bench: Bogdan, Toure, Allen, Sinclair, Texiera and Randall.
That, right there, is why Liverpool were a "UEFA Cup spots" team for a fair while.
It also underpins exactly what Klopp has done. He's changed almost the entire team.
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well thankfully all the "omagerd quadruple" talk can go as Liverpool draw, and then City smack 5 past Newcastle to take a stranglehold on the league.
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Indeed Pep, indeed ....
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@MajorRage said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
Indeed Pep, indeed ....
I do feel a bit for Pep because he's done amazing things with City but everyone's completely focused on Liverpool's (now moribund) quad, plus United's collapse. It's simply a case of ears and eyeballs for broadcasters, however.
That said, I can't believe for a second that the entire country wants Liverpool to do well - there's a massive contingent of United, Chelsea, Arsenal and other "neutral" fans who can't wait for Liverpool to lose their Cup Finals.
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@junior said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
@MajorRage said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
Indeed Pep, indeed ....
I do feel a bit for Pep because he's done amazing things with City but everyone's completely focused on Liverpool's (now moribund) quad, plus United's collapse. It's simply a case of ears and eyeballs for broadcasters, however.
That said, I can't believe for a second that the entire country wants Liverpool to do well - there's a massive contingent of United, Chelsea, Arsenal and other "neutral" fans who can't wait for Liverpool to lose their Cup Finals.
He obviously doesn't mean literally. There is a pro-Liverpool slant to most reporting though, that is unequivocal. Yes, a fair bit of that has been excitement about the potential for an unprecedented quadruple trophy season (even my Dutch colleagues were talking about it), but even in standard times, Liverpool are quite fondly written of. Half of sky sports punditry are openly very pro Liverpool.
It's part of the reason why Chelsea fans like I, throughly enjoy watching them lose. Something that hasn't happened often of late ...
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@junior said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
That said, I can't believe for a second that the entire country wants Liverpool to do well - there's a massive contingent of United, Chelsea, Arsenal and other "neutral" fans who can't wait for Liverpool to lose their Cup Finals.
Not to mention all of the supporters of lower league teams who want to see ALL of the big clubs doing badly.
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@KiwiPie plus the Blue half of Liverpool.
Man City are arrivistes and are unpopular because (like Chelsea before them) they are a traditionally second tier - as in just below the elite not second Division - who many believe undeservedly bought their success.
So fans of the 'elite' clubs resent them gatecrashing their cozy little club and other clubs with ambitions deride them as Citeh / Chelski while secretly wishing they had a sugar daddy to'buy' them success. The most recent expression of this is the Newcastle fans circumlocutions to avoid having to confront how unsavoury their new owners are. If they are honest all these other little character clubs would do a deal with the devil if it guaranteed then top six security ad infinitum.
then as @Kiwipie points out the majority of the English football pyramid loathes them all.
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City, with the pressure slightly relieved, have crushed another opposition, and now have one hand and 3 fingers on the premier league
if Haaland maintains his standards next year, holy shit you might need 100 points to win the league instead of the probable 96 to win this year
phenomenal team.
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@dogmeat said in EPL 2021 / 2022:
@KiwiPie plus the Blue half of Liverpool.
Man City are arrivistes and are unpopular because (like Chelsea before them) they are a traditionally second tier - as in just below the elite not second Division - who many believe undeservedly bought their success.
So fans of the 'elite' clubs resent them gatecrashing their cozy little club and other clubs with ambitions deride them as Citeh / Chelski while secretly wishing they had a sugar daddy to'buy' them success. The most recent expression of this is the Newcastle fans circumlocutions to avoid having to confront how unsavoury their new owners are. If they are honest all these other little character clubs would do a deal with the devil if it guaranteed then top six security ad infinitum.
then as @Kiwipie points out the majority of the English football pyramid loathes them all.
City are definitely resented for becoming successful due to money injected having not been a traditional powerhouse - same with Chelsea. Liverpool have bought a lot of players in the last few years but don't get the same resentment. Liverpool's transfer business has been great, especially for their forwards Mane, Salah, Jota and Diaz - moderate prices for modern times and they have also moved on Solanke, Brewster etc for decent money. City seem to target particular players and then spend whatever it takes to get them, Liverpool look for value except for the absolute key players like VvD.
Klopp can pretty much rest all his key players for the final 2 EPL games if City win on Sunday given Liverpool have the FA Cup this weekend. If City lose or even draw with West Ham then it is all on for the final day.
