New Thread to continue discussion for General Premier League. Old thread closed.
How Do You Solve A Problem Like Cunha?
Its 3 from 4 now, but in reality 2 from 3, as the relegation battle enters the last months. Wolves, are surely "too good to go down", but their "hero to zero" merchant Mattheus Cunha is trying to make a competition of it. Luckily for the Old Gold, Ipswich somehow conspired to lose at home to Southampton, otherwise the gap would be a mere 2 points.
Ironically, Southampton are one of the three games that Cunha is guaranteed to miss, with that game sandwiched between ties against Everton and West Ham United. It will be interesting to see if the ban gets extended or not, and I wonder will it matter that they are talking about the Millwall keeper getting his ban extended to 5 games at the same time? Dunno if the FA would compare the two incidents and see the Cunha one as a "lesser" offence?
Were the ban extended then the next game is away to Ipswich!
Long term I don't know what Wolves do - clearly sell, but how many clubs would be prepared to buy into the full "package"?
Aston Villa are 10th and are able to sign a player who has won multiple CLs and have nearly 300 Real Madrid appearances to their name, and not when their washed up either.
Brighton Brentford Fulham Crystal Palace etc are full of Internationals, and have some of the best recruitment around.
Wolves are 17th and will have 2 if not 3 players in the Brazil squad for the next International break.
Teams like Man Utd & Spurs are low in the table for a reason. 11 of the 'other 14' have increased their standards massively.
Milan Ultras boycotted the first 15 mins of tonights game against Lazio. Arsenal, United, Spurs and Chelsea fans ought to do the same and hold their teams accountable for poor performances. Standards have never been lower in the PL.
That straight red card for violent conduct is a three match ban, so as it stands he'll miss the league game away to West Ham (March 10th), the Carabao Cup Final (March 16th) and the following league game against Brentford (April 2nd). In effect he gets a month off because the next game he'll be available for is Leicester on April 7th.
England used to have a policy that while a player was serving a domestic suspension they wouldn't receive a call up for the national team. It will be interesting to see if Tuchel takes that approach.
Newcastle could decide to appeal, in which case Gordon would be available until the independent panel reviews the referee's report and the video footage. If they deem the appeal to have been frivolous, i.e. the ban is upheld and there was no valid reason for the appeal other than to have the player available for additional games before the suspension, then an addition game would be added to the ban.
Judging by Sky, Yes.
Does that red for Gordon rule him out of the league cup final
Thing about Gyökeres is that he played in England for a lot longer than he's been in Portugal. So it's not like there's not already a sample size, albeit his appearances were mostly just in the Championship.
He's definitely a very good player but personally I'd say Oshimen and even Jonathan David are a safer bet. I've heard Arsenal fans say Sesko is too unproven and has potential but Arsenal needs proven quality right now. I'm not sure how proven Gyökeres really is. Would Sesko not hit 25 goals playing in Portugal?
Definitely a worry alright… though he is on another level to pretty much all of them. They're all pretty much 1-in-2 strikers over there careers in Portugal, with the odd hot streak, while Gyökeres is nearly at a goal a game. Nunez is the exception - still close to 1 in 2, but that was with one brilliant season and one poor one so skews it a bit. Gyökeres consistency is pretty remarkable. Will always be doubt until he does it at a higher level, but he seems a safer choice than any of the others.
It’s beginning to get annoying the way injuries are getting dismissed as a reasons for a team under performing by the likes of Roy Keane when discussing arsenal this season.
Pep lamented city’s injuries this season when giving his thoughts in the defeat to liverpool so it’s not just teams that have a questionable psychological makeup that moan about injuries.
Injuries are an extremely big factor in a teams performance so dismissing them is kinda dumb.
Hope it's not too off topic but does anyone else feel Gyökeres will prove to be a disappointment for whoever pays 85+ million for him. Scoring in the Portuguese league is one thing but a top league is very different. Darwin Nunez hit 26 goals in 28 games for Benfica and as a Liverpool fan he's been very disappointing. In fact go back and look at the previous top scorers in Portugal, nobody really outstanding on the list.
Mehdi Taremi won it twice and he's done nothing at Inter Milan this season, Goncalves won it and would anyone say he's world class. Other recent winners like Seferovic, Carlos Vinicus and Pizzi. I think he's a big risk personality, I really don't think he's a great bet for 25 goals in the Premier League or La Liga etc
I don't think any Liverpool fan actually claims that Liverpool were the best or even amongst the best 4 or 5 teams in Europe in 2005, but, they managed to beat 2 of the favourites along the way- Juve and Milan. It's not called the miracle of Istanbul for nothing! Massive underdogs in the final against an outstanding Milan team that went 3 goals up, Liverpool were on the verge of humiiliation, but, somehow managed to turn it around. Milan were the better team on the night, yet lost. Ironically in 2007, Liverpool were a much better team, probaly the better team on the night, Milan not as strong, yet Milan won.
Even though Madrid have dominated the champions league in the last decade, were they really the best team in Europe each time they won it, I wouldn't necessarily agree, were they better than City last season or even in 2022? It's a cup competition, so the best team doesn't necessarily win it each year.
Well yeah that was my point. Any winner any season can struggle to claim to claim be the best in Europe, yeah they'll normally be there or thereabouts. But that was one of the seasons where I wouldn't class the winners amongst the best in Europe as they were way off domestically. Any team can overachieve in a cup comp, prime example being Wigan in 2013 (domestic cups obviously not with weighting of CL as there are domestic leagues, otherwise I'd claim Plymouth are better than Liverpool).
It's not that the winners aren't deserving either, have to play who you're drawn against, just I dislike the misnomer of CL winners = best team in Europe
But nobody ever plays every top tier team in a season
Liverpool have definitely won the European Cup with an easier run than they had that season. AC Milan, with Ancelotti, were stacked as a squad. So were Juventus who "won" Serie A that season by 8 points ahead of Milan but couldn't lay a glove on that Liverpool side in the quarter final. Mourinho's Chelsea were hugely dominant too, not yet at their peak but not far off either and was during their 80-something home undefeated phase.
Even that Leverkusen squad was dangerous with Berbatov, they had beaten Bayern 5-1 and Real Madrid 3-0 that season yet again they never really looked like knocking Liverpool out and conceded 6 to them over the 2 legs.
I agree that they weren't the best team in Europe that season just because of winning the big one, but they didn't accidentally end up in the final by beating nobody's
You can talk about luck when it comes to losing at half time and needing to score 3 goals in the 2nd half to avoid going out without conceding....but people forget that Liverpool did that TWICE in the CL campaign, it wasn't a one off
I'll always use that year to prove why the CL winners aren't the best team in Europe. It's a cup competition, you don't play every top tier team so how can you claim to be the best? Can use it for every year too and normally would at least be thereabouts, but then you get years where it can't be debated
Not sure i trust refs to be able to count to 8, consistently. Better if a buzzer automatically went off on their watch like the goal line tech, to take the subjectivity out of it. I can imagine there’ll be some keepers getting done after 6 or 7 secs, and others getting away with 10 or 11.
I think a lot of refs dont apply the rule as it is too harsh. I predict that you will see this rule enforced a lot more than the current one.
Lengthy ban coming for Cunha after losing his sh1t in the Cup game.
Second time he's really lost his head in recent months.
This.... Apply the rule that's there already.
True. I wish they just enforced that.
There is already a rule that they do not apply
Most will just drop it to their feet instead.
And then they didn't even get in! Everton
It was foolish to not have automatic qualification for the winners. The old style European cup always had it. Silly when you think.of a competition called the champions league, not potentially having them, while a 4th place team who won nothing was getting in.
There's an interesting change to the rules that will be enforced from next season.
If a goalkeeper holds the ball for longer than eight seconds (with the referee using a visual five-second countdown), the referee will award a corner kick to the opposing team (rather than the current indirect free kick for more than six seconds).
That was the fix they made in their rules after what happened in 2005/2006. In 2005/6 there was no provision in the EPL to dump 4th place out and replace them with the winner — they could've forced it, but it would've meant going against the stated rewards for finishing positions. They amended the rules then, so in 2012 it was already set in stone that a CL winner who didn't finish in the top 4 in the EPL would result in 4th place getting shunted down.
And to make it worse, Everton didn't even win their qualification round after sneaking in the back door!
They didn’t make the same exception for Spurs in 2012.
Pepe Reina in goal too?
I mean… the timing of this apology "present" is probably not the best thought out….
"Garnacho 'will buy Man Utd team dinner' for sub reaction"
(i.e. Rich player buys other rich players food!!)
While the General staff are still on Fruit Rations 🍏🍇🍋🍒😋
(Yes its exaggerated tongue in cheek…Please don't take too much offence)
