The Football Thread 2019/20: Barcelona will have 2-8 till next season to avenge this embarrassment

[Cuttooth]

Willock not passing at the end.

[Preezy]

Italians in not being racist again

An Italian television station says it will not use one of its pundits again after he made a racist comment about Inter Milan striker Romelu Lukaku.

Speaking on TopCalcio24, Luciano Passirani said: "If you go one-on-one with him he will murder you.

"The only way to come up against him is maybe give him 10 bananas to eat..."

This is the best part

Programme director Fabio Ravezzani said, despite Passirani's "immediate apologies" that "he could no longer participate in our broadcasts".

"Mr Passirani is 80 years old and to compliment Lukaku he used a metaphor that turned out to be racist," added Ravezzani.

Christ

[Preezy]

Also seems like De Gea has finally signed a new contract. Probably cottoned on to the fact that fewer clubs are sniffing around him since his form took a nose dive so might as well rinse United for another 5 years.

[Cuttooth]

twitter.com/SimpsonsArsenal/status/1173840762200580096

[The Watching Artist]

Was about to post that

[Preezy]

John Stones out for 5 weeks with a muscle injury, really makes you wonder why City didn't move to replace Kompany when they could have snapped up Alderweireld for just £25m. In fact I don't know why any elite club wasn't sniffing around him, he'd be a starter for the majority of clubs in the world.

[Preezy]

Seeing as no-one else is bothering I'll bring some Champions League hype to the thread, what with it kicking off tonight (feel free to add this to the OP, Dowbocop, if you want):

2019/20 Champions League - The Road to Istanbul

THE GROUPS

Group A: Club Brugge, Galatasaray, PSG, Real Madrid
Group B: Bayern Munich, Crvena zvezda, Olympiacos, SPURS
Group C: Atalanta, Dinamo Zagreb, MAN CITY, Shakhtar Donetsk
Group D: Atletico Madrid, Bayer Leverkusen, Juventus, Lokomotiv Moscow
Group E: Genk, LIVERPOOL, Napoli, RB Salzburg
Group F: Barcelona, Borussia Dortmund, Inter Milan, Slavia Praha
Group G: Benfica, Lyon, RB Leipzig, Zenit St. Petersburg
Group H: Ajax, CHELSEA, Lille, Valencia


MATCHDAY 1

Inter Milan vs Slavia Praha
Lyon vs Zenit
CHELSEA vs Valencia
RB Salzburg vs Genk
Napoli vs LIVERPOOL
Ajax vs Lille
Benfica vs RB Leipzig
Dortmund vs Barcelona
Club Brugge vs Galatasaray
Olympiacos vs SPURS
Bayer Leverkusen vs Lokomotiv Moscow
PSG vs Real Madrid
Bayern Munich vs Crvena zvezda
Atletico Madrid vs Juventus
Shakhtar vs MAN CITY
Dinamo Zagreb vs Atalanta

Die Meister, Die Besten, Les grandes équipes, THE CHAMPIIIIONNSSSSS!!!!

[jawafour]

I watched the Watford versus Arsenal match on Sunday and I wanted to let some time pass before commenting. I just watched Sunday's Match of the Day 2 programme to help firm up my thoughts.

Bloomin' atrocious! Genuinely some of the worst "defending" that I've seen from a professional team. "We" (Arsenal) were pretty fortunate to head into the the half-time break with a 2-0 lead, having escaped punishment from a couple of silly goal kicks mistakes.

Throughout the second half we were so, so poor. Weak, careless, awful decision-making... and Watford's first goal was just a ridiculous calamity of the kind one might see at an under-7s match. MotD2 were actually quite kind to Arsenal with the highlights; the need for brevity meant that Watford's superiority was perhaps underplayed as they dominated throughout. I can accept that mistakes are made and that things sometimes don't go your way, but in these instances you need players to encourage and direct other players and yet the "team" felt like a group of individuals. As good as Watford played in the second half, Arsenal contributed to their improved drive and belief. The Arsenal players just looked tired.

Awful! It's concerning that we could put up a display of that level. it really wasn't good enough.

(Breathe in... and out. Relax.)

[darksideby182]

Have to agree Jawa why they need to play out like this, it seems they are only doing because you can now. Emery really needs to sort this quick otherwise fans will turn very quickly (some probably have already).

[Corazon de Leon]

Inter are absolute dogshite.

[Corazon de Leon]

I take that back, Inter are crap. Genk are absolute dogshite.

[Winckle]

What is the strawberry floating point of VAR. Everyone knows that wasn't a foul, and it gets given anyway.

[Photek]

VAR is kinda weird. Wasn’t a pen but given cos Ref thought it was, negating the VAR...

[Photek]

Van Dijk is Human.

Poor from Liverpool but Napoli no great shakes either.

[Corazon de Leon]

Liverpool can feel a bit hard done by for Napoli’s first but the second was a complete horror show.

[Curls]

Shame really. One of them games where Liverpool haven’t had the rub of the green, but they’ve had that so much the past few years you can’t complain too much. They’ll probably still be fine through group, and if not, well they can focus on chuffing league

[SMPL]

I thought Liverpool Napoli was a pretty good game, both sides play nice football. Koulibaly was great. Bit unfortunate with the penalty but the ref was within his rights to call it...

Reckon Chelsea will struggle to get out of the groups. Might not even make Europa League

[pjbetman]

VAR is kinda weird. Wasn’t a pen but given cos Ref thought it was, negating the VAR...

Yeah, it's mind-blowingly stupid. I think they're just trying to protect the referee, initially.

[Dowbocop]

Beta testers were reporting a really weird bug in FIFA 20 that there was no contact whenever Dele Alli won a free kick, but it turns out they've just got the collision detection spot on.

[Preezy]

Watching the PSG vs Real game and Hazard has been absolutely anonymous, this team got some stink on it for sure.