The Football Thread.

victorludorum

@TTony any thoughts on the Solanke buy?

I'm getting flashbacks of other overpriced panic buys of the recent past.

Schnozz

Great to see Manchester United lose this afternoon.

Kent747

Oxford winning the Championship this year. 

menamestom

Schnozz said:

Great to see Manchester United lose this afternoon.

Also good to see us play pretty good.  Should have won really based on chances.   Signed De Ligt today as well so could have been a lot worse of a day.

Also a timely reminder we need a decent striker.  Obviously the new boy didn’t play but I still think we need an out and out no 9, hopefully we push on with Toney, he would be perfect.

Dissapointed not to win today but we won the better cup in May….

thecolourbox

menamestom said:

Signed De Ligt today

Is his first name Sunny?

thecolourbox

Very surprised to see West Broms result today, though the highlights suggested we can't defend very well but fortunately qpr's finishing wasn't great. 

We don't normally win our opening fixture so it's unchartered territory for us

guitars4you

thecolourbox said:

Very surprised to see West Broms result today, though the highlights suggested we can't defend very well but fortunately qpr's finishing wasn't great. 

We don't normally win our opening fixture so it's unchartered territory for us

and home next Sat v the lads from Yorkshire

munckee

Pompey fan here. Expected a beating at Leeds today but we nearly smash and grabbed 3 points. 

Just looking to stay in the league this year, certainly don’t want to get promoted!

guitars4you

munckee said:

Pompey fan here. Expected a beating at Leeds today but we nearly smash and grabbed 3 points. 

Just looking to stay in the league this year, certainly don’t want to get promoted!

The stats don’t lie and how we didn’t win I don’t know - Hit the wood work 4 times plus over 29 shots with a potential winner in the dying seconds - But I had a feeling that if you don’t finish of the job it can come back and haunt you and it nearly did 

After that initial onslaught I thought you battled well, showed good character and a great strike at the end of the first 1/2 to make it 1-2

I’m sure you’ll be fine if your intention is to stay up so good luck 

thecolourbox

guitars4you said:

thecolourbox said:

Very surprised to see West Broms result today, though the highlights suggested we can't defend very well but fortunately qpr's finishing wasn't great. 

We don't normally win our opening fixture so it's unchartered territory for us

and home next Sat v the lads from Yorkshire

Yes indeed - I feel your lot will be somewhat of a different proposition than QPR though to be fair (with all due respect to QPR!)

guitars4you

thecolourbox said:

guitars4you said:

thecolourbox said:

Very surprised to see West Broms result today, though the highlights suggested we can't defend very well but fortunately qpr's finishing wasn't great. 

We don't normally win our opening fixture so it's unchartered territory for us

and home next Sat v the lads from Yorkshire

Yes indeed - I feel your lot will be somewhat of a different proposition than QPR though to be fair (with all due respect to QPR!)

They put 4 or 5 past us last year at their pad

mrkb

Are you lot talking about pre-season friendlies? The football doesn’t start until next weekend

guitars4you

munckee said:

Pompey fan here. Expected a beating at Leeds today but we nearly smash and grabbed 3 points. 

Just looking to stay in the league this year, certainly don’t want to get promoted!

Superb set of away fans yesterday at ER and a hell of a long way to travel for an early game

thecolourbox

mrkb said:

Are you lot talking about pre-season friendlies? The football doesn’t start until next weekend

Very little football in West Brom matches, I'll give you that

Lestratcaster

Beat Lyon in a friendly earlier. Again, lacking that clinical striker. Saka looks like he's been rushed back a bit too soon he needs another fortnight off I reckon, overused and still tired from last season I think.

DonnyMac

Lestratcaster said:

Beat Lyon in a friendly earlier. Again, lacking that clinical striker. Saka looks like he's been rushed back a bit too soon he needs another fortnight off I reckon, overused and still tired from last season I think.

Saka will be perfectly fine, what we saw was a player a couple of weeks from being totally match sharp, not one that needs more time off.

Placidcasual79

RaymondLin said:

Chelsea isn’t developing anyone, there simply not enough spots to play all the players for them to develop bar the odd stand out like Palmer.  Most of them will suffer and rot on the bench for the next 5 years earning a fortune whilst watching their career stalling.

Are you a Chelsea fan @RaymondLin? I agree with your statement - that is whats actually happening - but that cant be there actual strategy can it? It seems almost inevitable that it'll fail on the football front - but I cant see it working on a business front either? surely the players value wont grow if they dont develop/play?

RaymondLin

Placidcasual79 said:

RaymondLin said:

Chelsea isn’t developing anyone, there simply not enough spots to play all the players for them to develop bar the odd stand out like Palmer.  Most of them will suffer and rot on the bench for the next 5 years earning a fortune whilst watching their career stalling.

Are you a Chelsea fan @RaymondLin? I agree with your statement - that is whats actually happening - but that cant be there actual strategy can it? It seems almost inevitable that it'll fail on the football front - but I cant see it working on a business front either? surely the players value wont grow if they dont develop/play?

Nope, I’m a United fan.

i know Chelsea was bought by an investment group so I tried to see it as some kind of investment.  Buy them young, then sell them for profit.

The problem is while they are buying them young, they are paying OTT prices for them. And buying far too many of them so none of them will get the minutes needed to develop.

when a player is like 18 or 22, teams pay extra for that “potential”, but if Chelsea pays £50mil, £100mil for a 22 year old, for one thing, there isn’t much for his price to go and not many clubs on the planet can pay that kind of money.  Second, if he doesn’t play enough then the potential will turned into “potential unfulfilled” and then no teams are going to pay anything near £100mil.

not to mention they put them on really long contracts, they can’t even let it run out after 5 years and let them go.  A lot of them signed last year are on 8 years with 7 to go.

As for football reasons…it makes no sense either.  It’s one thing to sign players to challenge for spots, but 8 wingers or something is just bonkers.  I’m not even sure there is enough hours in the day to train that many players to get the pattens of play and familiar with everyone of each other.

makes no sense, even in Football Manager I don’t have that many players.  

guitars4you

115 reasons to follow the news, come Sept

mrkb

Good to have the footy season restarting today. Come on Fulham, ESR do your stuff!