It Could Get A Bit Messi In Here - The Football Thread.

ngower said:
I think with the new format, it’s actually better for us to be in Europa this year. No CL clubs fall into EL so there’s a pretty good shot at going deep, possibly winning. Even if we just win a ton of group and knockout games we’ll make more than if we qualified for UCL and dropped.
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Thursday Sunday will play havoc with a domestic season if you try to go deep with such a thin squad.
 
Joe Mac said:
Thursday Sunday will play havoc with a domestic season if you try to go deep with such a thin squad.
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We are offloading a ton of folks and have a pretty good academy crop right now to supplement the corps. Even then, our “B” team right now is:

Solomon-Richarlison-Johnson
Lo Celso/his replacement
Bissouma-PEH/his replacement
Davies-Dragusin-new CB-Royal/his replacement

We probably have like 60m+ coming in with player sales and already have plenty of room to mess around with financially. Toss in academy kids rotating in here and there and it’s more than decent enough for certain fixtures.
 
ngower said:
I think with the new format, it’s actually better for us to be in Europa this year. No CL clubs fall into EL so there’s a pretty good shot at going deep, possibly winning. Even if we just win a ton of group and knockout games we’ll make more than if we qualified for UCL and dropped.
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I win that's a big assumption but I admire the positivity!
Joe Mac said:
Thursday Sunday will play havoc with a domestic season if you try to go deep with such a thin squad.
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This is what destroyed us 22/23....Saliba and Jesus went down in Europa and when Saliba went out, the wheels came off, and down we went
 
Jonathan Y said:
I win that's a big assumption but I admire the positivity!

This is what destroyed us 22/23....Saliba and Jesus went down in Europa and when Saliba went out, the wheels came off, and down we went
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At least you still finished 2nd! Spurs aren’t capable of that, especially if they go deep into Tuesday Sunday territory.
 
Joe Mac said:
At least you still finished 2nd!
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I mean to be fair there was no where else for us to finish with that big of a jump....and also no champions should be reliant on one player but when Saliba went out against leg 2 of the Sporting match our title hopes were crushed we just didnt know it yet. April of 2023 was the worst month ever.
 
Jonathan Y said:
I mean to be fair there was no where else for us to finish with that big of a jump....and also no champions should be reliant on one player but when Saliba went out against leg 2 of the Sporting match our title hopes were crushed we just didnt know it yet. April of 2023 was the worst month ever.
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There’s always a drop off when you lose a centre half of that quality. Especially if they’re the leader of the two. It’s a position that exposes even the minutest difference in quality, never mind Rob Holding! Liverpool suffer similarly when van Dijk is missing.
 
Joe Mac said:
I actually kinda respect de Bruyne saying “fuck that’s a lot of money for a man this stage of his career to turn down”. It is, most players come from working class backgrounds and that kind of money transforms their entire families lives, not just their own.

It certainly better that Jordan Henderson going over there to change Saudi’s LGBT atrocities through playing football in an empty stadium on insane money….
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Cool.
 
Joe Mac said:
There’s always a drop off when you lose a centre half of that quality. Especially if they’re the leader of the two. It’s a position that exposes even the minutest difference in quality, never mind Rob Holding! Liverpool suffer similarly when van Dijk is missing.
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There was a time maybe 6 years back when fans thought Holding was going to be the future of the back line....we've come along way
 
Jonathan Y said:
I win that's a big assumption but I admire the positivity!

This is what destroyed us 22/23....Saliba and Jesus went down in Europa and when Saliba went out, the wheels came off, and down we went
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The best teams in the UEL right now are Roma (going through a rebuild), Frankfurt (not what they were a few years ago), Lazio (meh), Porto (probably the biggest threat right now) and whoever falls out of the UCL qualifying (probably someone like Dinamo Zagreb or Lille). The expanded UCL qualifying means the competition in the UEL is a LOT easier for PL sides, and given how Brighton and West Ham went fairly far with squads thiner than ours, I don't think it's entirely out of the question that we make pretty decent progress.
 
ngower said:
The best teams in the UEL right now are Roma (going through a rebuild), Frankfurt (not what they were a few years ago), Lazio (meh), Porto (probably the biggest threat right now) and whoever falls out of the UCL qualifying (probably someone like Dinamo Zagreb or Lille). The expanded UCL qualifying means the competition in the UEL is a LOT easier for PL sides, and given how Brighton and West Ham went fairly far with squads thiner than ours, I don't think it's entirely out of the question that we make pretty decent progress.
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Look at what happened at the end of both of their league seasons. Thats the trade of.

Even the year we won it the toll it took on the squad saw us finish 5th. The day out in Stockholm is one of my favourite memories.
 
Joe Mac said:
Look at what happened at the end of both of their league seasons. Thats the trade of.

Even the year we won it the toll it took on the squad saw us finish 5th. The day out in Stockholm is one of my favourite memories.
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I still think the squad is plenty deep. We went like two months playing a "B" team with injuries and suspensions, before losing some stars to AFCON/AFC and still managed to BARELY miss UCL. There's already rumors of Lo Celso, Hojbjerg, GIl, Spence and Royal getting offers. That's enough to buy a few rotation pieces to take their places. It's already known they want a striker and a CM plus a CB4 without any outgoings. So in all likelihood our dead weight is just turning into players we can have a use for.

If Scarlett, Parrott, Moore, Devine, etc play any role that could also offset some of these pains.
 
ngower said:
I still think the squad is plenty deep. We went like two months playing a "B" team with injuries and suspensions, before losing some stars to AFCON/AFC and still managed to BARELY miss UCL. There's already rumors of Lo Celso, Hojbjerg, GIl, Spence and Royal getting offers. That's enough to buy a few rotation pieces to take their places. It's already known they want a striker and a CM plus a CB4 without any outgoings. So in all likelihood our dead weight is just turning into players we can have a use for.

If Scarlett, Parrott, Moore, Devine, etc play any role that could also offset some of these pains.
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You sure are the optimistic type!
 
Joe Mac said:
Then why does a PL team not walk it every year?

Because Thursday Sunday and the extra games are tough and the PL is by far and away the most physically demanding league.
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Again, the new format this year is going to MASSIVELY benefit premier league teams. That is my point.
 
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