EPL Thread

[Oregon Ducks]

21 hours ago, PARROTHEAD said:

Watford sacked their coach today. And theyre 5th, 4pts out of instant promotion.

Arsenal has to make the move. I dont think he makes it. 130million dollar roster. 4th highest paid. Theyre paid to win and get results now. Arsenal cant wait for Arteta to grow as a coach.

Crystal Palace coach needs to go as well. Never seen so much grinning and smiling on the sidelines by a coach getting his teeth kicked in.

Look at this guy. Getting blown out. Here like, "Aww Klopps so happy. Im so proud of him." And thats all he did all game. Stand there like that. Fist bumping his players with smiles after.

Watford are a mess. They should still be in the EPL but their ownership sucks. Crystal Palace has stuck around mid table. What more do you want from them?

Arteta deserves at least the rest of the year.

 

On a different note, such a satisfying win today. We were the better side from start to finish. Shut it Mourinho.

Edited December 21, 2020 by Oregon Ducks

[PARROTHEAD]

7th in both. Biggest spending team outside the B6. CP started Sept with beating ManU and Southampton. Only beating teams fearing relegation since.

From what Ive read. Hodgson wasnt like this, but hes become this elderly happy go lucky guy. Seems like it might be time to bring somebody with fire in them to frontman that squad. I can see the stars with Leicester, Everton, WHU, Wolves, Southampton. But with CP theyve all been looking interchangeable with Fulham players.

Congrats on the win. That was a fun match. Held Tots to 8 shots, Firing 17 of your own. I thought Leicesters defense was going to have their hands full. But handled them with little difficulty.

[PARROTHEAD]

Burnley taking down the Wolves. Out of the relegation zone to right on Arsenals bumper.

WHU Chelsea up next.

[Hunter2_1]

Brutal game for us (WHU) first time we haven't scored since week 1. Can't really work out what went wrong, there wasn't much creativity at all. Bowen did have the ball in the net but a great dive and sell-job from Silva ruled it out....for some reason....but still, out-classed. 

 

Also strange seeing United pump Leeds. Would never have guessed that given Leeds coaching is vastly, vastly superior but it was one of those days. McTom was good. United never miss Pogba 

[amac]

Chelsea jerseys are awful

[Oregon Ducks]

Arsenal is taking it to them! 😮 

On another note, we had a draw against Man U. I didn’t wake up to watch it but from what I’ve heard it was probably a fair result. Bruno had a great game for them. It’s our first draw of the year.

[PARROTHEAD]

1 hour ago, Oregon Ducks said:

Arsenal is taking it to them! 😮 

On another note, we had a draw against Man U. I didn’t wake up to watch it but from what I’ve heard it was probably a fair result. Bruno had a great game for them. It’s our first draw of the year.

I saw from halftime on. ManU came out at the half owning the ball. Full control. LC looked in trouble and I didnt think theyd hold up. But they finally started gelling again and the middle of the half was balanced as could be. Then last 15-20 mins was theirs. They looked real good going down the home stretch.

[Kip Smithers]

Can we just get Lampard out now? Please I beg. 

[PARROTHEAD]

Rumors firing up again for Burnleys coach Sean Dyche to replace Roy Hodgson at Crystal Palace.

Aston Villa dominated using 10 men.

Man City and Villa both jumped Chelsea, Tots and Southampton to move into the 5-6 spots.

[Canadian Saint]

3 hours ago, Kip Smithers said:

Can we just get Lampard out now? Please I beg. 

I don't get his attacking set up. Werner drifting wide, with Pulisic drifting towards center, without fullback support makes little sense to me. It just causes congestion in the middle of the pitch. If you want to play in a two striker system, set up in a two striker system! You spend the GDP of a small country on attacking talent, hopefully you use it correctly.

If I'm Arteta, I continue to play the kids. They showed more intent than the veterans ahead of them.

[Kip Smithers]

12 hours ago, Canadian Saint said:

I don't get his attacking set up. Werner drifting wide, with Pulisic drifting towards center, without fullback support makes little sense to me. It just causes congestion in the middle of the pitch. If you want to play in a two striker system, set up in a two striker system! You spend the GDP of a small country on attacking talent, hopefully you use it correctly.

If I'm Arteta, I continue to play the kids. They showed more intent than the veterans ahead of them.

He doesn’t have an attacking set up. I actually like Pulisic driving into middle areas from wide because that looks like our best option to score. His approach are literally, work the ball out wide and hopelessly cross the ball. The middle isn’t even necessarily congested we have full Backs occupy that area they just don’t do it effectively and are wasteful. Lampard also can’t tell difference between a inside forward and a winger. He needs to go now. I can’t take this anymore.

[Oregon Ducks]

13 hours ago, PARROTHEAD said:

Rumors firing up again for Burnleys coach Sean Dyche to replace Roy Hodgson at Crystal Palace.

Damn. I was hoping Dyche and his style of play were going down to the Championship.

[Dr LBC]

23 hours ago, Canadian Saint said:

If I'm Arteta, I continue to play the kids. They showed more intent than the veterans ahead of them.

To an extent.  I get it, but he still needs to - particularly this time of year- pay mind to the youngsters he has who are coming off long-term injuries and/or have been injury-prone (Smith-Rowe - people who don't follow our U23's on the regular don't know how often he's knicked up on the regular; it's honestly been the biggest thing that's held he and Nelson back).  But veterancy should no longer be given primacy for selection.  If you're going to start Aubameyang or Pepe over Martinelli (and have Martinelli on the bench to come in should he be needed) to safeguard Gaby against being over-used too soon after returning from knee surgery, that's your reason for doing it, not "because they're more senior."  At this point (because the Board and KSE have made it clear that they see this as a long-term project, not just a single-season fix, and Arteta has their confidence), if I'm Arteta, I'm putting focus on getting securely clear of the relegation zone and then spend the spring focusing on cultivating and honing the partnerships that have clear futures as building blocks on this side (Tierney-Martinelli on one flank, Saka-Bellerin on the other).  At this point Pepe may be a sunk/lost cost in terms of not being someone we're going to see an ROI from if moved on, but I don't think he's the sort that some of our other (more deadweight than he) players who simply put the kabbosh on being sold because they're content making the money that they're currently on and living in London (read: Ozil, Sokratis, Mustafi).

Long-term, and if I'm looking at this as a longer-term rebuild (read: 2 years minimum), I'm not getting apprehensive about cutting the umbilical chord on certain homegrown talents that a somewhat redundant if it can return worthwhile fees that can be reinvested into the side (some of that may mean accepting being a feeder to more "monied" clubs in and out of England - preferably out) for a foreseeable future, so long as the reinvestment of the funds made is consistent (for example, I don't see any of your lot bemoaning selling Suarez or Coutinho now that those funds received matriculated into the likes of VVD, Allison, Mane, etc.).  We've evidently fast-tracked the likes of Catalin Cirjan to FT training from Hale End, and are closely monitoring Miguel Azeez with an eye towards doing the same with him, so looking to recoup fees if they're there to be had from players who don't look like they'll be factoring into the long-term plan, like Maitland-Niles, Nketiah, and Willock (though I suspect he could be held onto a bridge/squad player) is an option worth considering, same can be said for Calum Chambers.

What Arsenal need, I'd argue almost more than anything, is an actual captain (leader on the pitch), because (outside of Mertesacker as a de facto bench captain the season he mostly sat out with injury) between some poor choices and, largely, Arsene using the captaincy as a tool to try to get pending free agents from leaving the club, we haven't really had a proper captain since Patrick Vieira.

[Dr LBC]

10 hours ago, Oregon Ducks said:

Damn. I was hoping Dyche and his style of play were going down to the Championship.

Not to mention his incessant complaining and blaming of referee conspiracy.

[Hunter2_1]

On 12/26/2020 at 6:47 PM, Oregon Ducks said:

Arsenal is taking it to them! 😮 

On another note, we had a draw against Man U. I didn’t wake up to watch it but from what I’ve heard it was probably a fair result. Bruno had a great game for them. It’s our first draw of the year.

Can't remember who it was, but one of your players missed an absolute sitter. He was 4 foot from goal and didn't catch it well enough. It was a quick chance but he had to score.