lebron

Oh, and Bilbao are exactly the type of team Utd might fall to. Defensively solid and streetwise. Utd are a complete shambles, and if Spurs go through against Bodø, they are a better team than Utd. A couple of ridiculous decisions that went Utd’s way tonight.

I’ll pre-cursor this by saying I am Norwegian, and that I don’t really have a skin in the game. Bodø-Glimt will beat Spurs at home, but will probably lose away. They are EXTREMELY good at home on their artificial turf, and add in some likely low temperatures and heavy wind, and Spurs very likely will come unstuck. Bodø is the closest thing in Norway to perennial CL participants Rosenborg in the 90s/00s in terms of a set playing style and attacking prowess. Their coach has done a tremendous job in getting them this far, losing quite a few of his players over the last couple of seasons, still winning the league here and progressing deep in Europe. I watched their games against Lazio, and they should have won the first by a much bigger scoreline, and only some bone-headed decisions and sub-par play from a couple of their key players kept this tie competitive. As Code has mentioned, they lost a couple of their key midfielders for the 1st leg to suspension tonight, but if they can come away from the 1st leg without losing by more than 2 goals I fancy them to get through. Don’t think they will be able to do much in a final against either the Mancs or Athletic, but the advantage of playing on their own surface can’t be emphasised too much.

A bit more than the 300-350k that usually gets bandied about. Ha-ha. True. As I’ve said numerous times in this thread, the players’ agents would be drumming up interest form other clubs left, right and centre for their clients if we paid the wages we reportedly pay. The “pay him/them what he/they want” shouts were always ridiculous, because they are already on stupendous money. It just came down to whether the club thought the players were worth investing that sort of of money in for 2 or 3 more years. The club clearly wanted 2, the players 3. I actually think a 1-year rolling option would have been the best for Salah, but signing him for 2 at least gives us time to find and bed in a successor. Exactly. Just a stick to beat the owners with and/or to keep being miserable.

That Madrid - Arsenal game was an excruciating watch, and not because Arsenal won it. As well as having this new 8-second rule next season, they really, really need to do something with the time taken by some sides when having set pieces. I would hazard a guess that Arsenal spend longer taking an attacking corner or free kick near goal than most American sports do during a time out. It's completely killing any momentum in the games, and when you add on lengthy VAR reviews, no wonder why many of us are contemplating quitting watching.

I think this is where we probably have differing views. He doesn’t intentionally hide as such, but his lack of pace now means he is not really a viable option when tightly marked by a physically superior fullback. Would have helped if the game was a bit more stretched, but the few times we regained the ball in positive situations, Salah couldn’t get rid of Wan Bissaka. I was actually really surprised West Ham didn’t switch sooner, as no matter how much his powers have diminished, Salah will still destroy a rookie like that. It’s akin to putting a 4th choice rookie corner up against Mahomes/Brady and their top receiver. My main gripe isn’t necessarily with Salah, I just fear for the future a bit. Check out Barcola and Khvaratskelia tonight to see the difference real pace combined with dribbling ability does to middling English full-backs. We NEED more pace in the forward positions next year if we’re to accomplish anything in Europe at least.

Two things can be true, and we need another option to bring the ball more effectively to Mo if/when Trent leaves. My worry is the better fbs will push right up the field as they are no longer worried about Mo’s pace in behind (nor should they be)

Another great write-up, and I agree with most of what you write. I disagree on this though, and was about to write something similar in the podcast thread (where you said the same). “Mo vanished in the second half but I don’t put that on him at all. He was razor sharp in the first half and then he couldn’t get the ball. He didn’t stop playing well, he just wasn’t able to do anything because the team stopped getting him the ball. It was good seeing him back to being himself again, and I have a gut feeling he’s going to bang in a hat-trick next week.” I think Mo as at the stage of his career when he very quickly finds out if he will have any luck with the fullback or not. When he’s up against the Mykolenko’s, Zinchenko’s and Ben Davies’ of the the league, he knows he will get results as he’s as quick (or quicker) than them, with the added bonus of having the ball and knowing what to do with it. Up against good defenders with pace though, he is next to hopeless in terms of doing something 1v1 against them. The list of athletic defenders that have taken his lunch money in 2025 is worryingly long. When he finds no joy, he retreats and doesn’t engage them in the same way, no longer wanting to receive the ball unless there’s a 2v1 happening (Bradley/Szobo over/underlapping). Our players (and staff) know this too, and when Wan-Bissaka switched sides, we were content with letting him and Salah neutralise each other, relying on Diaz instead. This is not Salah’s “fault” as such, but for me it is a real worry now that we’ve decided to keep him for two more years. The way we play (4-3-3 even more than 4-2-3-1) works best with a CF with good touch/awareness and two quick wingers that can both run in behind and take on outside defenders 1v1. Our Mane-Firmino-Salah trio was among top 3 all time in my opinion in that regard. We have relied more on our midfield (as well as Trent’s brilliance on the ball) to provide creativity and options for Mo to pass the ball rather than the speedster he was back in 2017-2021 (?). He has become much, much better at this, but I am unsure if we can afford him to be a deep-lying playmaker from the right hand side if we want to keep winning titles and going further in Europe. I’m rambling now, but my point is that Mo being up against that LB (who threw an all-time stinker) and Wan-Bissaka (who for all his faults with the ball is among the best 1v1 defenders in the league) was much more of a factor than that we couldn’t get Mo the ball. Mo was just not willing (and/or capable) to escape W-B.

I’m sure he would have picked us if we were offering him a consultant fee three times that of his salary being paid by the Sheiks… Then again…

Have you changed your tune regards Mo’s dependence on Trent yet? He’s completely devoid of pace and confidence when up against full backs with pace, it’s just not a fair fight at the moment. The attacking Bermuda Triangle until Bradley and Elliott came on. I don’t think either Chiesa or Elliott are good enough to start for us consistently, but they should be instead of Szobo and Mo at the moment. Szobo at least runs and presses, Mo is just shit at all aspects of the game at the moment. This is unfortunately spot on… Arsène Wenger over here….

Luckily our owners/staff can’t either, and has brought in Mamardashvili for next year..

Quick thoughts on the game itself. Sloppy start. Our defenders were all over the place all afternoon. Salah can go back in his cold chamber and stay there for the season, we are playing with 10 at the moment. Don NOT care if we resign him or not. IF Trent goes there’s no point in keeping him. Completely devoid of pace and confidence, left backs with pace just eat him up. Probably isn’t helped by the absence of Trent and Szobo’s woeful form, but f**n hell he’s been crap the last couple of months. Nunez with possibly the worst sub cameo I have ever seen. Bye! Bradley and Diaz with encouraging cameos. We will need some freshening up and the 1 match a game schedule will hopefully let our centre backs get some rest. Van Dijk has looked as annoyed as he has looked exhausted the last few matches. Very, very happy that we’ve built the lead we have, and nothing will beat winning the league! I am also extremely optimistic for our future, and maybe, just maybe a couple of signings will help us get to an even better level. We MUST have a couple of players lined up with some more pace (LB, RW particularly).

Hate to be pedantic on a day like this, but this is just wrong. Berge has a very effective stride, and is actually a good carrier of the ball as well. He is a bit too passive and plays it safe a bit too often for my liking, but he wouldn’t be the worst back-up players if we wanted to bolster our squad. Good in the air too.

Sigh How come we (or at least Everton) play by a completely different set of rules in these derbies. There is no other game in the top 5 European leagues where what Tarkowski did isn’t a red card. Numerous other times we should have had free kicks as well just blatantly ignored. We need to do better in terms of tempo, decision-making and execution, and if we could get an 11th player on the field in the 2nd half that would help our attacking play. Thanks for the immense contributions to this league title, Salah, but he can honestly sit out the rest of the season now, he’s completely done. Oh, and guessing the joke’s been done already, but van Dijk surely can’t have passed the concussion test either.

I’m a bit disappointed in Trent, but can understand why he wants a new challenge, having been here for so long. I’m not so sure we haven’t seen the best of him already though. There’s a tendency that those breaking through as early as him peak earlier than players used to. The amount of football he has played already has definitely impacted both his pace and agility. He can still swing that right foot of his to tremendous effect, but the time of him being a marauding right back up and down the flank is probably already over. I have been one of his biggest supporters on here because of his creativity and passing, and I think he will do well at Real because of all their pacy outlets to find with long/direct passes. They will probably also dominate matches to an extent where he will be an upgrade on Carvajal in terms of finding solutions to breaking down teams. His main problem with us is that we have been camped high up the pitch, and most of the PL teams are incredibly efficient at breaking with pace. Most of them have very quick, direct skilful right-footed left-wingers (Zaha/Eze, Rashford, Hudson-Odoi, Mitoma, Martinelli, Doku, Gordon, Semenyo, Garnacho, Son etc). Most of them have given Trent problems the last few years. His biggest problem (Vinicius) is now his team-mate, and although he’ll probably struggle against some of the best wingers in La Liga too, I don’t think he will be as isolated as he has been at times with us. Anyway, we look forward, not back. Bye and thanks for the memories.

There's zero chance we keep all of Kelleher, Allison and Mamardashvili, agree on that. I just thought the obvious would be to sell Kelleher and keep Allison on his toes (and it is not like he is never injured). Can't see them selling Kelleher and loaning out Mamardashvili. I omitted a few of those making out our squad now (Endo, Harvey, Chiesa) as I ultimately think we need better players. I fully expect them to be there next year and contribute, but going forward I rate McConnell, Doak and Danns as players with a better chance to make our "1st eleven" than the trio of Endo, Harvey, Chiesa. If they are fine with staying on in their current roles, excellent. You can't really have 22 full internationals that are all good enough to start over a longer period though. Even City have failed at that, despite paying their "bench" players starter money off the books. Players of the quality required will inevitably want to leave no matter how much they (or their parents - Harvey) love the club. See also Robbie Fowler. Ironically you kind of need injuries and suspensions to keep everyone happy, or a manager extremely competent at rotating and keeping all players happy.