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The 2023-2024 Football Thread
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Those are winnable matches too...PSG have firepower but also a glass jaw and Milan are not the powerhouse they once were. Beat each team at home, draw away, and presto.
Good luck to Dortmund, I always root for them in Europe.
Reading the football pages of the papers one story is very prominent throughout which is Arsenal's manager Mikel Arteta defending his vocal outburst regarding VAR and is asking other managers to do the same. It will be interesting to see how this evolves because the FA have fined managers for speaking out about VAR and the ref's decisions as a result of VAR. How many managers are willing to face a fine for speaking out? and will the threat of a fine stop managers from speaking out against VAR?
Mikel Arteta should grow up; he is behaving in an embarrassing, immature and intemperate manner - and, I think, attempting to hide behind VAR errors to mask (instead of facing) his own poor choices.
Had Raya claimed that ball, instead of flapping feebly at it, Newcastle would never have scored.
And I write this as an Arsenal supporter.
I hope that it doesn't evolve, - players surrounding, shouting at, and bullying referees all the while egged on by managers is a very ugly spectacle, and is not something I want to see.
Now, there are issues with VAR, but an FA wide examination - with intelligent and impartial (i.e. with cool and calm heads, not intemperate rage following a defeat) of how this technology is used (and interpreted) is the way to go, not this constant undermining of referees (and their assistants and those manning the VAR technology) - which is what this sort of conduct will give rise to.
If Arteta is indulged (instead of fined), this will give a licence to every team that has suffered a questionable call, where the weight of their money, power, position and influence may well generate further inequality as they bring their weight to bear when challenging calls that don't go their way.
To my mind, Arteta would be on stronger ground on the subject of dirty play and VAR, and this is something that needs to be addressed: Last week-end, Guimaraes had a disgraceful game - sly fouls, nasty fouls, unpleasant fouls, spiteful fouls, ugly fouls, and both he and Havertz should have walked.
Most Managers have behaved hypocritically regarding VAR. but I have sympathy with them to the extent that their job involves chronic entrapment by the media.
We pull managers aside immediately after a very public, emotional contest on the pitch. They are drained, wound up, haven’t seen every incident from a million angles, haven’t had time to think or cool down.
Then we pepper them with incendiary or baiting questions. If they refuse to take the bait we label them as boring or personality-less or dull. But if they blow off steam and say something controversial or unguarded, it’s a big gotcha moment and press and fans proclaim they’ve ‘lost the plot’ and are out of order. And then the FA or league pile it on with fines and touchline bans.
They are also often the only person at the club personally confronted by the media over off-pitch issues like financial doping and players legal troubles. Which is not really fair at all.
They are marionettes that dance for our entertainment, and, like crashes at an auto race ‘we don’t like to see that sort of thing’ - but secretly most do, and the system is built to provide it.
So yeah, Klopp and Arteta and others do step over the line with their behavior, and are responsible for it…but we also know they are being goaded into it deliberately. For profit. This stuff sells.
We pull managers aside immediately after a very public, emotional contest on the pitch. They are drained, wound up, haven’t seen every incident from a million angles, haven’t had time to think or cool down.
Then we pepper them with incendiary or baiting questions. If they refuse to take the bait we label them as boring or personality-less or dull. But if they blow off steam and say something controversial or unguarded, it’s a big gotcha moment and press and fans proclaim they’ve ‘lost the plot’ and are out of order. And then the FA or league pile it on with fines and touchline bans.
They are also often the only person at the club personally confronted by the media over off-pitch issues like financial doping and players legal troubles. Which is not really fair at all.
They are marionettes that dance for our entertainment, and, like crashes at an auto race ‘we don’t like to see that sort of thing’ - but secretly most do, and the system is built to provide it.
So yeah, Klopp and Arteta and others do step over the line with their behavior, and are responsible for it…but we also know they are being goaded into it deliberately. For profit. This stuff sells.
Agreed, and well said.
However, give me "personality-less" and "dull" - someone who can take a step back and try for a more measured response, over "personality". Personally, I've long thought the quality of charisma over-rated, indulged too readily, and potentially dangerous, for the charismatic can lead one to places one would never venture otherwise, physically, morally, psychologically, with results both good and bad.
Nevertheless, if the media did not give such publicity to such outbursts, the story would die a natural death until the next headline, (or be resurrected - briefly - when reporting on the subsequent fine that was levied for the outburst).
I am more concerned at an environment which seeks to undermine the authority (and question the inetgrity, or competence) of those who referee games, who are individuals who are paid a fraction of the income enjoyed by players, managers, and others with a vested interest in particular outcomes.
Depends on the character. Klopp is pretty much the opposite of someone like Mourinho or Fergie; he's charming, polite respectful and fair-minded. And has no problem admitting when he's wrong. He's a warm, friendly personality who has no problem showing affection for his players and staff. His personality is a big part of whyLiverpool have been so successful since he took over. As for others; Pep seems decent enough. He can have a rant but isn't nasty and hateful like Fergie, and not spiteful like Mourinho. Arteta isn't as outgoing as either Pep or Klopp, but passionate nonetheless. Contrast those with Ten Hag; who would you rather have as manager?
You see? Yes. Personality is important. Give me personality over dull, any day.
Okay: Fair comment. You make some very good points although I remain unconvinced by charisma, at least, not when it is untempered by other qualities (respect, decency, fair-mindedness, lack of ego, and so on).
Nevertheless, I still think that Mikel Arteta's sustained outrage is both excessive and intemperate; it is not as though he had not made contributions to how those circumstances came about, and - for now - I wish that he would just shut up about it.
Now, by and large, I have always liked Jurgen Klopp, an intelligent and decent man and an articulate and excellent manager, and I agree that his attractive personality (and that he can admit to his own mistakes) has been an enormous boon, blessing and benefit for Liverpool ever since he took charge.
And agreed, I share your misgivings about both Jose Mourinho (whom I deeply disliked, a thoroughly nasty piece of work) and Sir Alex Ferguson - whose abilities I cannot deny but whose character at times I deplored.
Pep Guardiola is superb, but he is also equipped with every possible advantage; I do wonder whether he would have been equally as successful with a less generously resourced and supportive environment in which to ply his trade.
Kai Havertz 😭😭😭
What a huge miss? How did he not score there only he can answer that or maybe Mikel Arteta lol.
What a huge miss? How did he not score there only he can answer that or maybe Mikel Arteta lol.
Are you surprised?
Easily.
Perhaps.
However, the short answer is that he is emphatically not a striker.
An inexplicable buy.
Now, I don't mind him not being a striker, - he never pretended to be that - but he doesn't head (as was made abundantly clear just now), dribble, hold up the ball, control and direct play......
Actually, apart from putting in an unwelcome appearance at a time when invisibility would have been far preferable (by which I mean that dreadful intervention last Saturday for which he should have walked - and which was, improbably, the most impact he has had on a match since he joined the club) - I am at something of a loss to see what he brings - or, is supposed to bring - to the team.
Arsenal one nil ahead, now.
What bothers me more than Havertz, (and Mikel Arteta's intemperate outbursts), and the inconsistency of how VAR is interpreted and applied, are cynical fouls.
Tonight, Saka has been hacked down - quite cynically - an unconscionable number of times, and still hasn't received protection from referees, or seen the perpetrator (or perpetrators) punished, or held to account.
What bothers me more than Havertz, (and Mikel Arteta's intemperate outbursts), and the inconsistency of how VAR is interpreted and applied, are cynical fouls.
Tonight, Saka has been hacked down - quite cynically - an unconscionable number of times, and still hasn't received protection from referees, or seen the perpetrator (or perpetrators) punished, or held to account.
Oh dear, oh dear.
A 58 minute first half......
.....after which the teams finally traipsed in to the dressing rooms at two goals a piece, while Marcus Rashford had earlier received a red card.
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44 Pens 😮
'A strange, crazy night' - managers reflect on marathon 44-penalty shootout in BetMcLean Cup
Ballymena United manager Jim Ervin and Coleraine counterpart Oran Kearney had contrasting fortunes of agony and ecstasy in a marathon penalty shootout at the Warden Street Showgrounds on Tuesday.
www.bbc.co.uk
Yes, that looked nasty, - and is worrying, considering how many others are currently out injured, both long and short trm - (and this list includes Jurrien Timber, Nketiah, Partey, Jesus, Odegaard....).
However, although he was fouled non-stop this evening, this particular ankle twist wasn't actually - or, did not appear to be - as a result of a foul.
The media are the biggest problems when it comes to club managers because it is them who push the managers into saying things in error or things they might regret, goading them, baiting them, trying to trip them up because they know it makes for good reading. Then they play the 'source within the club' card to claim what ever they want about the club, it's staff, it's players, it's owners, anything just so they can force a response from the club.
Take the Rashford partying incident on the day United got beaten at Old Trafford by City 0-3. The media came out saying how disrespect Rashford was to be out partying on the day the club suffers a heavy defeat at the hands of their Manchester rivals which resulted in many other media outlets writing about the same thing. The thing that the majority of them left out and on purpose in my opinion is that it was his birthday and he was out celebrating it. The omission of it being his birthday meant many people reading the articles then went onto social media deriding Rashford claiming he was being disrespectful to the club because he was out partying after the team lost to one of their biggest rivals. How many of those people would have reacted differently if the media had posted he was out celebrating his birthday. I am not going to fault the the guy for celebrating his birthday after having been involved in a losing game. What are people expecting? that he stay home and sulk reflecting on the loss instead of celebrating his birthday?. Like I said, the media are the biggest problems here, not the managers.
No.
I beg to differ.
The media are an obvious and all too easy target, not least because football (with the Premiership when it was first started) sold themsleves to the media (in return for endless coverage), thus giving rise to an increasingly symbiotic relationship.
Given the resources many of these clubs have at their disposal, they are businesses with, in some cases bottomless resources - at the top level, some of them can afford to pay their players salaries of five and six figures a week - are you seriously suggesting that managers (and players) cannot take courses in, study, be taught how to address questions, (answer and not answer, stall, deflect, answer succinctly and tersely), deal with the media, employ clued-in staff with a brief on how to deal with social media so that their version of events is published quickly, and so on.