The Football Thread 2018-19 - This is the end.

Schalke v Manchester City
Atletico Madrid v Juventus
Manchester United v PSG
Spurs v Borussia Dortmund
Lyon v Barcelona
Roma v Porto
Ajax v Real Madrid
Liverpool v Bayen Munich

Champions League Last-16 draw:

Man United vs PSG :lol:

Spurs vs Dortmund
Schalke vs Man City
Atletico Madrid vs Juventus
Lyon vs Barcelona
Roma vs Porto
Ajax vs Real Madrid
Liverpool vs Bayern Munich

edit: Photek clearly on steroids beating me to the punch

Some lovely looking fixtures in that round!

Shame they aren't until Feb really.

I feel Tottenham and man utd will more than likely go out, Liverpool im not sure, very possible. man city will stroll it

PSG, Dortmund, City, Juve, Lyon, Roma, Ajax, Liverpool to qualify for me

Jose got sacked by Chelsea 3 years ago today. Come on, Woody, pull the trigger and keep up this much loved Christmas tradition!

Preezy wrote:Jose got sacked by Chelsea 3 years ago today. Come on, Woody, pull the trigger and keep up this much loved Christmas tradition!

After he got beat 3-1 by Liverpool also

Bye Bye United.

We have no chance against PSG and I might be little negative, but with our current form we will be very, very lucky to go through to the next round.

shadow202 wrote:
Preezy wrote:Jose got sacked by Chelsea 3 years ago today. Come on, Woody, pull the trigger and keep up this much loved Christmas tradition!
After he got beat 3-1 by Liverpool also

Is that so? :lol:

The more things change, the more things stay the same.

Preezy wrote:
shadow202 wrote:
Preezy wrote:Jose got sacked by Chelsea 3 years ago today. Come on, Woody, pull the trigger and keep up this much loved Christmas tradition!
After he got beat 3-1 by Liverpool also

Is that so?

The more things change, the more things stay the same.

Not really, we did beat them 3-1 at stamford bridge but his last game was when they lost 2-1 v Leicester on MNF.

good Europa draws for Arsenal and Chelsea. we had Bate in the group stages last season and beat then 4-2 and 6-0 so iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii think we will be okay

Eeeeeee? Did you get an electric shock half way through that post?

Ploiper wrote:good Europa draws for Arsenal and Chelsea. we had Bate in the group stages last season and beat then 4-2 and 6-0 so iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii think we will be okay

Only downside is it's quite a long trip, but I like the look of Smith-Rowe, Willock, Nketiah and the rest of the Europa League crew so I'd like to think they could do the same good job they've done thus far.

PES Fan wrote:It’s also down to the lack of planning by the club.

Yeah, we spent a lot of money. But you also have to look at the players we lost and didn’t get any fees for.

Vidic
Ferdinand
Evra
Scholes
Giggs

Then you had Rooney and Van Persie who were past it, so we had to get rid. Fletcher was not the same player after his illness.

Chelsea had a similar situation with Drogba, Lampard, Terry and Cole. But they planned it better. They let them all go one by one rather than all at the same time. I’m not going to criticise Fergie because what worked for him was successful. But it was never going to work for other managers. Fergie wasn’t ruthless in his latter years as he was once. We had too many 30 plus players and we let majority go at the same stage. Fergie also trusted his faith in players like Smalling, Jones, Cleverley and Welbeck. None of them were good enough.

Jose hasn’t helped himself though. The only successful signing he has made was Ibra in his first season. He binned Mkhitaryan after a year and wants to bin his replacement. He wants Pogba gone now. He says Fred can’t play till we sign another defender basically which sure does help the confidence of the current defenders at the club. Wants to get rid of Bailly and Lindelof. Matic has been awful, but plays every game. The same goes for Lukaku who can’t control a ball and loses every aeriel duel.

But it’s not just money. After 3 years the team struggles to string a few passes together. Something Bournemouth can do easily without spending a huge amount of money.

He can keep pointing to the fact not signing Alderweireld cost us. But the fact is if we did sign him he’d be punting long balls to Fellaini. Aldeweireld isn’t going to do something when Ashley Young is sleeping constantly or Jones/Smalling have their usual brain fart. I would never have given Smalling that contract. He can’t get in the England team because he can’t pass yet gets in ours.

Nani is another one we lost and didn't get any real fee for, last decent wide player we had, however inconsistent he may have been.

As you say, Chelsea planned and managed the changeover of key players far better. We let everybody go at once and it wasn't just about losing good players, after all they were largely past their best by then, it was a case of losing players with a winning mentality. We are severely lacking in that right now.

Mourinho's signings have been hugely disappointing and his favouritism towards certain under performers is frustrating, how Matic gets in the team every week is beyond me. Smalling getting a new contract is as you say, another baffling one, he's woefully below the standard required and his contract coming to an end was the best opportunity to get shut of him. Like so many other average players at the club he's on such high wages that we'd struggle to sell him to another club because he isn't worth it! Whether him staying comes down to Mourinho desperately wanting him to stay or the board not wanting to lose him for nothing is another matter.

There are some talented players in the squad but there's far too much mediocrity and retaining players like Smalling (with the likes of Young and Herrera seemingly to follow) shows a lack of ambition from both the board and the manager. It's all the more frustrating in the case of Smalling when we have a wonderful talent like Tuanzebe who will likely have his path to the first team blocked by Smalling, Jones and Rojo. Jose's tactics definitely don't help matters and he clearly has a huge knock on players confidence but equally they need to take more responsibility as professionals, Pogba may well feel victimised by Mourinho but does that excuse him being unable to complete basic passes? Personally I don't think so.

Mourinho going could see a short term up turn in form but there are definitely more factors to us being successful again than just getting rid of him, it's just that getting rid of him is probably the easiest fix. Either way it doesn't look like it's happening, United have been briefing the press today that they have no plans to sack him and his mouthpiece Duncan Castles has been piping up about how much it will cost us to sack him. With PSG in the CL draw I reckon the humiliation of this season is going to carry on for a good while yet, it has echoes of the Moyes season for me. Hopefully Liverpool's title charge goes the same way as it did that season too. :shifty:

4 years to the day until the next World Cup final. What a shower of shite. :dread:

Lotus wrote:4 years to the day until the next World Cup final. What a shower of shite.

#itscominghome

Mourinho's gone apparently.

Woodward to Mourinho today:

Ah boo

Woodward must have misheard Anfield, we said "Don't sack Mourinho"!

The Football Thread 2018-19 - This is the end.

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