Football Season 2021-2022

[Nerph-]

Varane finally officially confirmed, United up 4-1... just a bugger I have to follow on BBC Sports website and can't watch the frigging match reeeeeeee

[jonnysensible]

Varane finally officially confirmed, United up 4-1... just a bugger I have to follow on BBC Sports website and can't watch the frigging match reeeeeeee

u want a link or?

[Nerph-]

u want a link or?

nah, online "not so legal" streams are wank anyway + its against the rules of the forum. I assume there will be a MOTD tonight showing all the goals?

[molliewoof]

Yeah it's on at 10.20 GMT, you might be able to get IPTV maybe?.

Ready Good game, if mctominay plays like that every time we wouldn't need fred.

Nice to see Sancho get a run out, would have liked to see Donnie also.

Not going to get too excited until we happily beat a few teams that park the bus

[Nerph-]

I have BBC One and Two, so I can watch tonight's MOTD

Seems like a good start to the season none the less, 4 assists for Pogba and a hattrick for Fernandes.

[jonnysensible]

i reckon viera lasts 12 games

[Zantera]

Crystal Palace looked dire but it's the CL champions Chelsea who I would consider favorites for the league this season so not sure how much the game/result really matters. Brentford at home next weekend will be a better indicator I think.

[Northern Goblin]

Good to see us start off the season by doing our civic duty and trying to get Leeds relegated again.

Hopefully everyone else does the same this season instead of being dumb and handing them cheap points.

[Xanjori]

Do we not have the fantasy league up and running?

[Tsarez]

Gerd Müller, the German Bomber, has died today at the age of 75. The GOAT RIP

[Northern Goblin]

Do we not have the fantasy league up and running?

We haven't had someone set one up for a while now.

[DingDongKing]

Good to see us start off the season by doing our civic duty and trying to get Leeds relegated again.

Hopefully everyone else does the same this season instead of being dumb and handing them cheap points.

Leeds will get tonked regularly like they did last year, and then still end up like 10th. It's how Bielsa does football.

Arsenal and Palace looked shit. I don't understand how Arteta is still in the job, he doesn't have a clue what he's doing.

[Zantera]

You gotta be impressed by Arteta from an outside view though. No managerial experience whatsoever. Not really much of an Arsenal 'icon'. For all the talk of "ex legends now managing teams" someone like Ole gets crap for not being a Man Utd legend but in contrast to Arteta he most certainly is. Arteta captained the team for a few years during their dark years and while he wasn't terrible, he was fairly average.

Still he manages to get the Arsenal job because people think highly of him behind the scenes, Pep's talking him up to the extreme making it sound like Pep himself was just putting cones out at City and Arteta did the rest of the tactics. Arteta somehow talks himself into the Arsenal job with the main focus being "trust the process". Does manage to shithouse a FA Cup win giving him seemingly carte blanche as Arsenal manager and the talk about him being Pep's reincarnation reaches maximum peak.

2 years into the job and I don't think Arsenal has ever looked worse during my lifetime. Yeah in the last years of Wenger you could see Arsenal get dismantled by Bayern Munich or Chelsea in the big games but they still created tons of chances and he had a team with players like Bendtner and Denilson challenge for top4. Arsenal today look just as shaky in defense as they did back then, their midfield hasn't looked good since Wenger left and despite that Xhaka is still captain and getting an extension ?!. They also can't create any chances and if you had watched the Brentford game as a football novice neutral, you would have thought Arsenal were the newly promoted Championship team.

So yeah you gotta be slightly impressed by Arteta because even though he's shown nothing in 2 years to indicate that he's taking the team forward, that he is the right man or that the puzzle pieces will one day come together, he's still in the job, there's still a group of people defending him and there's actually the spin of "our squad isn't better" in full motion. I don't think any of us will look at their squad and say "they should be in the top4" but to get smacked by Brentford? That's pretty low.

[Jessicka]

Arteta wouldn't have lasted a full season at a top 6 club.

[Nerph-]

You gotta be impressed by Arteta from an outside view though. No managerial experience whatsoever. Not really much of an Arsenal 'icon'. For all the talk of "ex legends now managing teams" someone like Ole gets crap for not being a Man Utd legend but in contrast to Arteta he most certainly is. Arteta captained the team for a few years during their dark years and while he wasn't terrible, he was fairly average.

Still he manages to get the Arsenal job because people think highly of him behind the scenes, Pep's talking him up to the extreme making it sound like Pep himself was just putting cones out at City and Arteta did the rest of the tactics. Arteta somehow talks himself into the Arsenal job with the main focus being "trust the process". Does manage to shithouse a FA Cup win giving him seemingly carte blanche as Arsenal manager and the talk about him being Pep's reincarnation reaches maximum peak.

2 years into the job and I don't think Arsenal has ever looked worse during my lifetime. Yeah in the last years of Wenger you could see Arsenal get dismantled by Bayern Munich or Chelsea in the big games but they still created tons of chances and he had a team with players like Bendtner and Denilson challenge for top4. Arsenal today look just as shaky in defense as they did back then, their midfield hasn't looked good since Wenger left and despite that Xhaka is still captain and getting an extension ?!. They also can't create any chances and if you had watched the Brentford game as a football novice neutral, you would have thought Arsenal were the newly promoted Championship team.

So yeah you gotta be slightly impressed by Arteta because even though he's shown nothing in 2 years to indicate that he's taking the team forward, that he is the right man or that the puzzle pieces will one day come together, he's still in the job, there's still a group of people defending him and there's actually the spin of "our squad isn't better" in full motion. I don't think any of us will look at their squad and say "they should be in the top4" but to get smacked by Brentford? That's pretty low.

I really wish we could +1 posts on this forum, because this post is insanely good. Very well written.

[Zantera]

I really wish we could +1 posts on this forum, because this post is insanely good. Very well written.

You're making me blush.

[Marleycat]

First time I have seen Spurs play like Spurs for about 2 years, felt so good to see that after Mourinho's time, we'll not always win playing swashbuckling, blood and thunder football but at least it will feel like old times losing while swinging punches. Beat Man City with passion and effort that made us look like the better team for most of the game. Also probably added another 20 million to Kanes value without him even playing.

The other thing this game contained was real tackles and less tolerance of players falling over when they were breathed on. But Grealish going down like a cheap hooker when clean through on goal shows that his natural reaction is to fall over if someone so much as looks at him he may not win as many fouls as last season if the refereeing keeps to these standards. The noise of 65,000 fans

What else? Man Utd Chelsea and Liverpool look good, Pogba in "shop window" form. Leeds look like they could ship 3 goals a game this season. Who are those players in Arsenal?

Fans, just make such a difference. I dont know if its an illusion and maybe it is just the natural reaction of the crowd but to me the football seemed a lot lower quality in empty stadia.

Also thank fuck they stopped with the VAR bullshit, how cool is it to celebrate a goal when it happens and not wait 2 minutes while VAR takes a dump on any excitement? A year ago I think there would have been 3 penalties in the spurs Man city game. Also maybe we can have a physical contact sport where that contact doesn't automatically end in a "bought" foul.

[Nerph-]

You're making me blush.

Gotta give credit where credit is due

Can it be weekend already again please, need more football.

[RobertoCarlos]

"bought fouls".

Yeah k. Everyone hates on refs but fuck that job. They could just use VAR like they do in rugby but nah the prem has to change its rules so refs have to interpret them and get used to new rules each year

[Nerph-]

Kinda agree about the hating on refs, I would not like to do that job at all. I feel players need to have more respect for the ref, like they do in Rugby for example.