Football 2021/2022 Season Football Thread

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caLLous

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Aoami said:
Did Poch really overachieve? Take out that dream CL run (which is still cup football where anything can happen), Spurs were shit in the league that year IIRC, and then shit again the next year which resulted in him being sacked.

I absolutely have a personal vendetta against him if you can't tell :D
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In the seasons before he took over we finished in mostly 5th and 6th with the occasional 4th. I think I read that his brief was to turn us into a regular CL team in 5 years. He did it in his 2nd season, then again in his 3rd, 4th and 5th seasons. The CL run masked an absolute dogshit 6 months in the league which carried over into the season he was sacked but he did better than anyone was expecting in the league up until about Christmas 2018.

There's all sorts of debates about who was to blame for the downfall - Levy for not spending money, Poch for having a very specific list of players that he wouldn't accept alternatives to, etc - but it happened and Levy has reacted poorly since. Poch said the squad needed a "painful rebuild" but Levy didn't believe him and thought that bringing in a winner like Mourinho would push the same group of players over the line. Then sacking Mourinho a few days before a cup final, then hiring Nuno. One good thing though is distancing himself from the football side by bringing Paratici in - he's done great work so far, both in terms of bringing talent in and getting aging, high-earning players off of the books (and he got money for Joe Hart - who we signed on a free - which makes him a magician in my book). Everybody fucked up by bringing Nuno in, it's impossible to see how anybody thought it could work.

All said and done though I'd take Levy and ENIC a million times over whatever the fuck owns Newcastle (for example). At the end of the day ENIC are an investment company but Levy has grown the club unrecognisably since getting rid of Sugar, all within its means.

I'll always have a soft spot for Poch but I just think those few seasons were unrepeatable and coming back wouldn't work out the way Spurs fans hope it would.
 
Gray

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caLLous said:
Aren't you missing Mina and Digne? I don't know who else you have back there apart from Godfrey and Keane but Godfrey was covering at full back so it seemed more like Holgate was playing out of necessity than anything.
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Mina at the back seems to be the biggest loss, he seemed a bit of a calamity but he has become reliable. When he plays with Keane, Keane is a bit more assured and confident... Not so much with Godfrey or Holgate.

Digne doesn't seem to have much of a spark recently. Coleman is getting too old now.

The loss of Doucoure as well will be a big one. He was box to box and never stopping.
 
Aoami

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All teams have got their morons. I remember years ago walking to St Marys, we were playing Sunderland at home (might have even been the 8-0), just after Adam Johnson had been put away. A chant of "Fuck off Adam Johnson, going down for noncing" starts up. One Sunderland fan walking to the ground turns around, looking like he was about to burst into tears, and screamed "HE ONLY FINGERED HER".

Every time I go to Stamford Bridge I still hear liberal use of the gamer word to be fair.
 
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caLLous

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I remember when Southampton played Cardiff after the Sala "transfer" and a couple of the Saints fans were making aeroplane gestures. Every fan base has their dickheads, but it just always feels like West Ham have more than their fair share.
 
Scouse

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Aoami said:
"Fuck off Adam Johnson, going down for noncing" starts up. One Sunderland fan walking to the ground turns around, looking like he was about to burst into tears, and screamed "HE ONLY FINGERED HER".

Every time I go to Stamford Bridge I still hear liberal use of the gamer word to be fair.
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Apart from being very very funny, nice example of someone feeling shamed by banter because of his support of a nonce.

Maybe he looks back on it now and goes "you know what, I won't support nonces any more" :)
 
Aoami

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Great - you're following people round the forum to make your point now. What a fun place to chat this is these days.
 
Raven

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Wasn't sure if Ole would even come out for the second half.
 
Gray

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Holgate again showing what a disaster he is, we gave a good fight in that but as soon as he come on we came close to falling flat on our face with his 2-3 mistakes in <5 minutes..

Didn't get to watch most of the match due to working, only caught the last 30 minutes or so. We did look decent but again no end product (*Not through lack of trying at least).
 
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Gray said:
Holgate again showing what a disaster he is, we gave a good fight in that but as soon as he come on we came close to falling flat on our face with his 2-3 mistakes in <5 minutes..

Didn't get to watch most of the match due to working, only caught the last 30 minutes or so. We did look decent but again no end product (*Not through lack of trying at least).
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I reckon Holgate would've survived the red if he hadn't kept his leg straight in the follow-through, it did look nasty but he was obviously just clearing the ball.

And it felt pretty much the same for us - we looked better going forward than we ever did under Nuno but just failed 9 times out of 10 with the final ball. At least Conte acknowledged it rather than repeatedly insisting creativity wasn't a problem like Nuno.
 
Hawkwind

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Aoami said:
Why? They've spent a shit load and have looked absolute crap. 5 losses on the bounce I think?
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They got rid of the player they built an entire team around. I think he deserved more time to rebuild personally.
 
Raven

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It would be like UTD losing Ronaldo. 1 man team, suddenly loses it's 1 man.*


*slight jokes, obvs
 
Aoami

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Hawkwind said:
They got rid of the player they built an entire team around. I think he deserved more time to rebuild personally.
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They're the 4th highest spending team (net) in the country over the last 5 years. They shouldn't have been such a one man team with that spend. Some of his tactical decisions have been baffling as well. He buys Danny Ings to play with Ollie Watkins up front. Watkins has never played in a front two and looks completely lost. He buys Buendia then plays him as a number 10 where he has never been anywhere near as effective as he has out wide. 5 losses in a row is bad enough, but they've been fucking awful in those games, so it's even worse than it looks on the surface. Even the last game they won, against United, United absolutely battered them but Villa nicked a lucky goal and Martinez had a blinder. Same as Ole, looks out of his depth at this level.
 
Raven

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Howe appointed by the scum, shame, I quite liked him.
 
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Stevie G done to Villa. It'll be interesting to see how he does in the prem, he has a good reputation already in Scotland.

 
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