Pre-Season Friendlies/Tours 2017/18

[Cicero]

1 minute ago, True Blue said:

Actually Kante and Bakayoko could work, hell even Matić. But Kante and Cesc against tough opposition no way.

No, it won't. Kante+Matic has even proved to be disastrous as well (Spurs away in the league and again in the FA Cup Semi until Cesc came on.)

A midfield two against any top team that likes to control the midfield will always be dominated. 

[True Blue]

Just now, Cicero said:

No, it won't. Kante+Matic has even proved to be disastrous as well (Spurs away in the league and again in the FA Cup Semi until Cesc came on.)

A midfield two against any top team that likes to control the midfield will always be dominated. 

Spurs also play with two men in their midfield, so do most of the teams

[Cicero]

2 minutes ago, True Blue said:

Spurs also play with two men in their midfield, so do most of the teams

Spurs have the most balanced side in the league. They use pace and power to dominate the middle accompanied by a very technical midfield. I can assure you whilst that may be effective domestically, they won't get near the same results in Europe. 

Can't think of any top team that plays with a two man midfield, both domestically and in Europe. 

[True Blue]

2 minutes ago, Cicero said:

Spurs have the most balanced side in the league. They use pace and power to dominate the middle accompanied by a very technical midfield. I can assure you whilst that may be effective domestically, they won't get near the same results in Europe. 

Can't think of any top team that plays with a two man midfield, both domestically and in Europe. 

Well most play 4-2-3-2

[Cicero]

1 minute ago, True Blue said:

City? United? Spurs? Bayern? Real?

The first three aren't even top sides in Europe, but United and City still play with a 3 man midfield. 

Iniesta, Rakitic, Busquets

Kroos, Modric, Casemiro, 

Thiago, Vidal, Alonso

Koke, Saul, Gabi

Pjanic, Dybala, Khedria

Matuidi, Verratti, Motta

[True Blue]

Just now, Cicero said:

The first three aren't even top sides in Europe, but United and City still play with a 3 man midfield. 

Iniesta, Rakitic, Busquets

Kroos, Modric, Casemiro, 

Thiago, Vidal, Alonso

Koke, Saul, Gabi

Pjanic, Dybala, Khedria

Matuidi, Verratti, Motta

I kinda edited 

[Cicero]

3 minutes ago, True Blue said:

I kinda edited 

A midfield three of Bakayoko, Kante, Cesc would be quality. But if one gets injured, we are fucked considering we have no depth apart from Baker. 

[Cicero]

Finishes 2-3.. Will give it a watch on my lunch so I can analyse it more, but I can safely assume what the issues were. 

[True Blue]

Think Bayern just edged it, we were terrible inside the first 30 minutes but were equal for the rest of the game. Think 3-2 was probably a fair score overall.

[Dan+]

We beat Sevilla with a two man midfield.

We've also just beaten Luton Town with one. 0-1 it ended. Three friendlies and I've come out of every single one of them with the same feeling - lose Mahrez and there is a huge lack of creativity. I think our midfielders offer decent all-round games but not enough in the goals or assists department and it puts pressure on the likes of Vardy.

Should've been way more than 1 though.

MK Dons away next.

[Toony]

We beat Bradford 4-0 last night, could have been an awful lot more too. 

Nice to see Jacob Murphy get a couple of goals too, seems to be becoming a fans favourite.

[SirBalon]

Last night's games in the USA

 

Manchester City 4-1 Real Madrid CF

Otamendi, Sterling, Stones and Díaz all scored for Man City with a 90th minute consolation for Madrid by Óscar.  Real Madrid for the second time this week have played woefully...  This particular game and result has actually made headlines, not so much because of the result and scoreline, but because of how Real Madrid played.

 

FC Barcelona 1-0 Manchester United

Neymar gets the winning goal for Barça like he did with the two he got against Juventus the other day.  The team look to be playing well and the players seem to have looked after themselves in their holiday period.

[Stan]

10 hours ago, Dan said:

We beat Sevilla with a two man midfield.

We've also just beaten Luton Town with one. 0-1 it ended. Three friendlies and I've come out of every single one of them with the same feeling - lose Mahrez and there is a huge lack of creativity. I think our midfielders offer decent all-round games but not enough in the goals or assists department and it puts pressure on the likes of Vardy.

Should've been way more than 1 though.

MK Dons away next.

we looked so nervous in front of goal.

Drinkwater couldn't decide whether to square or cross and missed both player and target.

Slimani should have easily slotted his chance away but instead shot right at the keeper.

Countless times we got in good positions where ball was passed in the box and players could have had a pop. Looked afraid to shoot almost.

Really liking Maguire (apart from when he ducked out of a header but that had to be poor communication from keeper or Benny). He looks very composed on the ball and it's clear we wanted to play the ball out of the back and not resort to hoofing it out. Benny still loves an ambitious cross-field ball though  

[Dan+]

7 hours ago, Stan said:

we looked so nervous in front of goal.

Drinkwater couldn't decide whether to square or cross and missed both player and target.

Slimani should have easily slotted his chance away but instead shot right at the keeper.

Countless times we got in good positions where ball was passed in the box and players could have had a pop. Looked afraid to shoot almost.

Really liking Maguire (apart from when he ducked out of a header but that had to be poor communication from keeper or Benny). He looks very composed on the ball and it's clear we wanted to play the ball out of the back and not resort to hoofing it out. Benny still loves an ambitious cross-field ball though  

We just pinned them back really and got through fairly easily. I don't think we were too bad but we were quite rusty.

Maguire's looked very good, although it's easy to look good on the ball as a centre half in a Leicester shirt when you've had Morgan & Huth there for so long  but no really he does look decent. I thought he really grew into the Liverpool game.

I think we need a bit more spark - I'm hopeful we'll get it too if that bid for Sigurdsson was real. If we were really offering that much for him then it must be a priority.

On the subject of Drinkwater I think he could be seriously fighting for his place this season. He really tailed off last year and James has looked a lot sharper than I thought he would. Add in Ndidi and Iborra and I think he could conceivably be 4th choice by the time we kick off.

[True Blue]

11 hours ago, Teso dos Bichos said:

Poor kante, once again he gets exposed/bullied by far better players. Tolisso and sanchez had it too easy against him 

https://giphy.com/gifs/3o72EWnnDx16JluD6M/html5

[Bluewolf]

5 minutes ago, Teso dos Bichos said:

1-0 HT inter dominating chelsea. (Inter playing without Icardi, medel, and murillo) 

Do you get different images shown to you where you are from then?? 

Been mostly Chelsea first half and Inter getting very lucky with a woeful penalty decision that was saved initially... 

We were poor on the follow up to it though and allowed Inter to get to the rebound first.. 

[Bluewolf]

Inter with their second now and came out the better team second half no doubt bouyed by the first half goal.. 

Not seeing anything that would suggest we are going to have anything but an average season.. 

[Bluewolf]

7 minutes ago, Teso dos Bichos said:

Been mostly chelsea? Come on now, inter has been the better team so far. Michy has been piss poor so far and morata playing on the left  

2-0 perisic 

Normally I wouldn't indulge but.. 

Possession 51% / 49% 

Total Shots 12 / 12

Passing 88.9% / 89.1%

Attacking 3rd 80.7% / 81.4%

Just dragged those from the Sky Sports website... Its about as close as it gets... 

At least try and make an effort to give a reasonable report on how the game is going.. 

[Stan]

so basic  

[Cicero]

[Cicero]

You seem to have some major insecurities considering your whole perspective in life revolves around the self serving bias. 

Real Madrid lose every game in pre-season so far - "it's only preseason". 

We lose to Bayern and now losing to Inter "Chelsea losing to a mid table club lawlz, Kante getting owned by better players rofl" 

Some ego you have 

[Cicero]

Will not miss this officiating that's for sure. 

Had a goal ruled offsides that wasn't and a bs penalty. 

But Teso won't bring that up as that would actually go against his agenda 

[Stan]

we've got Wolves today at Molineux with a fairly strong squad as expected after most of the fringe players/second string played yesterday.

Hoping for a better game than last night because that was shit  

[Bluewolf]

Inter getting all the luck today... Officials have made some bad decisions.. 

[SirBalon]

These tours to make money these days where they take big clubs to other continents to play high paying games are as meaningless as when pre-seasons were pre-seasons.  The whole point of a pre-season used to be to get players fit for the new season and in general any games played used to be against lower division sides within Europe's "lesser" leagues.  The Mediterranean football clubs tended to go to cooler climates in summer like Switzerland (Real Madrid used to do that one consistently every year) or Scandinavian countries.  Northern European leagues clubs would go to slightly warmer climates in Europe like English clubs using La Manga in Alicante (Spain) and playing lower division Spanish football clubs or going to Portugal or Italy.

Nobody gave a damn about the results in those friendly pre-season matches and to get one being transmitted live on tv was a miracle.  Even radio stations hardly ever done live coverage.

So now because of these types of money spinning tours, we get big European clubs meeting each other so as to generate tons of revenue with the resulting effect from some "football fans" taking them seriously.  When in actual fact these are situations where a head coach/manager (yes there is still a manager in football called Arsene Wenger which means I still have to use the term "manager") fine tunes his team, TRIES to get them fit even though it's difficult with so many ridiculous games being played and fundamentally knowing what to expect early season with new players and how to adjust things.

Anyone taking all of these things overly serious is out of sync with football in my opinion.  Yes it's true that seeing a team performing with great form is a plus and shows the players have taken care of themselves diet wise and physically, but overall it's not that important.