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All purpose football thread 2022/23 Season

Agree with that @Brian ...hopefully Bruno will learn a lesson; I was shouting at the telly for him to be hauled off for 10mins beforehand as he'd obviously lost his composure.
The only hope is if Barca give Man U a tough game in the week before the final*...if you factor in their and our current form; our record against them in big games and our record in Wembley finals it don't look good. Rashford can't stop scoring...

*Just looked and they have three games before the final to our one.
 
Well, that was a super game of football. It was a great result for City against an Arsenal side who were the better team, for large parts of the game. City struggled to compete with Arsenal's pace, intensity and movement, and Arsenal showed that they are going to be a danger for a long time to come. They have youth, skill and a clear philosophy on their side. The 36% possession by City, the lowest in Pep's entire reign, shows how good Arsenal were and also how City, this season, have not been able to match their usual intensity. We have key players on the wrong end of thirty: KDB, Gundogan and Mahrez, and probably need a little injection of youth into the team. The World Cup wasn't a help to anyone, but City had more players there than any team in world football, and it has had an effect. The City goal, excellent though it was, was against the run of play.

In the second half, the tactical switch to a flat back four, with Ake moving to LB, completely took Saka out of the game: Ake has been in excellent form and is now a key player for the team. The shift of Bernardo to RW was effective as Mahrez had a poor game, by his standards, and it gave us more energy to help Walker deal with Arsenal's left. In the second half, CIty were the more dangerous team but the result was always in doubt. It puts us in a better position than we were a few weeks ago but there is a long, long way to go.
 
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Very good game in which Arsenal looked dangerous throughout.

The only enjoyment I get from football is watching other Teams. Huddersfield are in desperate straights, will be in league one next year & will struggle to rise any higher. We never seem to get the fairly tale ending, just disaster after tragedy.
 
Arses 1 - Citeh 3

Arsenal build up and chance creation was superb, but wasteful. Not having a target man like Jesus has cost them goals in situations like this.

City resorted to time wasting and little tricks to unsettle the Arsenal's defence, and made most of their chances with ruthless finishing.

Just goes to show how the best sides are resourceful and they find ways to get a result even if they are below par.
 
Arsenal missed Partee and the foolishness of getting Jorginho was evident as his legs seem to have gone over the last year or so. Man C have the much stronger, deeper squad and will probably go onto win the PL providing the CL doesn't become a major burden.
 
webster said:
Despite a decent performance yet another loss for Chelsea.
All that money spent yet nobody who can put the ball in the back of the net.
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It was at least a decent performance, their goalkeeper was MoM and on another night we’d have scored at least twice. Not sure I agree with the narrative that we need ‘a’ goal scorer, so much as we need to score goals. The number 9 position is the problem, but do we need a player that is going to occupy that position for 90 minutes? If we are playing a false 9 (and we haven’t got a lot of choice at the moment) then when Havertz is not running into that position, someone else has to. Too often that area of the pitch looks vacant and unthreatened. Some sort of rotation or understanding between a 9 and a 10 could work, but we are missing that understanding. We saw glimpses of it last night, but no end result. If, and it is a big if, Felix had scored, we could be hailing the brilliance of Potterball!

 
Potterball takes time to bed in. He had just got there and we were reaping the rewards when he was enticed away by the bright lights of the big city.

OTOH de Zerbiball only took a few games, we are now one of the form teams in the league and scoring goals for fun. He has got our wingers scoring regularly now. It does depend on our central midfielders though, Mac Allister and Caicedo are both terrific this season, you could see the drop off in quality when one or both were missing recently.
 
ks.234 said:
If, and it is a big if, Felix had scored, we could be hailing the brilliance of Potterball!
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Personally I think that's a bit of a stretch.;)
Despite the missed chances last night signing Felix on a permanent deal should be an absolute priority come the end of the season - he looks a class act.
I think we can still go through with away goals not counting double anymore but I suspect we'll need to score 3 times.:eek:
 
ks.234 said:
The number 9 position is the problem, but do we need a player that is going to occupy that position for 90 minutes?
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We should give the lad Fofana half a dozen consecutive matches in the PL - nothing to lose now and his recent 20 minute cameo against Fulham looked very promising indeed - almost (dare I say it) Drogba-esque.:)
 
The Arsenal v City game was a great watch. The difference seems to be that we have KDB and Haaland, and they don't. Nketia should have had two but didn't, and Bernado was lucky to survive the whole match. But he must run more than the rest combined! From left back to right wing, and just when I thought we would miss Cancelo, Pep pulls a stunt like that. I liked the interviews, first with Grealish and then Arteta saying he felt more confident after the mach than before it, as Arsenal showed they could match City. Except we have KDB and Haaland. :cool:
 
It was a good game at Arsenal but a bit surprised that know one has passed comment on Ramsdale, by the very nature of the game any of their mistakes stand out but passing to players already being tightly marked and under pressure contributed to the defeat.
 
I see that Forest are trying to bring back a player who they have excluded from their squad back for the City match as they are short of centre halves......

Good luck to them!
 
seagull said:
Potterball takes time to bed in. He had just got there and we were reaping the rewards when he was enticed away by the bright lights of the big city.
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Yes. More than two seasons really (Arsenal away in ??April 2022 was when it all finally clicked).

Sure that Chelsea will give him this season. But will they give him two whole seasons? I hope they do, as he was great for us. Just a shame that Chelsea then took away half our backroom too, as that soured the memories!
 
I don't know who was on the BT commentary team, last night, but their euphoria at every, single United move was embarrassing. Then, to have a half-time punditry team made entirely of ex-United players just compounded the complete lack of objectivity. When was the last time you saw a commentary and a punditry team made almost entirely of the players for one team only? I have certainly never, ever seen that for any City game.
 
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