#21

I think a lot depends on whether Arteta can show that he’s learned from the many, many mistakes he’s made this season. He needs to get rid of that stubborn streak he’s displayed because a manager that can’t adapt effectively is a complete waste of time and could have massive consequences on our future.

I think you have to accept that young managers will learn on the job to some extent but overall he’s fallen way below my expectations. Needs to show huge improvement from the off next season but if the football is as dire as it has been this season then I can’t see that happening.

I just find him very hard to like.

#22

Remember all that toffee-upping we did? And there they are, in eighth place!

7 Likes
#23

Turns out no football happened at all during the pandemic. I’ll let everyone know when the situation changes and football returns.

1 Like
#24

What do you think of El Ghazi? He certainly enjoys shooting and seems pretty good at it! I also thought Targett was excellent this season. Watkins was a weird one as he has so much energy but misses so many chances.

It is the opposite for me - I’ve been frustrated with many of his decisions this season too, but I’ve always liked him (even before we signed him from Everton). I know it is a big if, but if we end up finishing above that lot and potentially as high as 6th, and reach a European semi-final, is that really way below expectations? Maybe our expectations are not very realistic.

#25

Liverpool fan - We have no right to have one foot in the Champion’s League, Leicester are far more deserving this season. It’s been a disaster of a season all round to be honest and not just because some nasty Everton man broke our star centre back. There have been plenty of problems of our own doing. Playing Jota in a nothing game and getting him injured, not reverting quickly enough to two proper CBs and losing Fabinho’s quality in midfield for too long, regardless of how good he was at the back, Mane’s form nosediving, the list goes on.

Hopefully things are better next year but I’m starting to think Wijnaldum leaving and hopefully shifting Keita and his body made of quavers might force a bit of a freshening up of the midfield. Klopp has been miserable all season long and his moaning is really starting to annoy me, hope he comes back more positive next time round.

Reading this back sounds very negative too, and I would consider myself a more positive LFC fan, god knows how all the rabid twitter mob have reacted to the season.

#26

Depor - a huge disaster. we had the biggest budget in the third division by about 3 or 4 times or something silly, but failed to do anything with it. sacked one very popular manager in January this year after he had us second in the division and qualifying for the promotion playoffs (Segunda B in Spain is a nightmare where you have to play two divisional rounds and then a playoff for promotion due to there being 102 clubs in the division), and replaced with another manager who dropped us down to fourth and thus fighting to stay out of relegation.

ABANCA - a dodgy regional bank (who incidentally, I bank with) became the club’s largest shareholder, and brought their own guys in to run the club. massively surprisingly, these guys don’t seem to know much about running football clubs, and we’re on the verge of sacking the current manager in a ‘you can’t quit, you’re fired’ move as he had talks with Las Palmas, which were sanctioned by the club in the first place.

Our players are all shit, so won’t bother with any analysis there. Our club captain who has overseen multiple relegations is still there when I doubt he’s good enough to play Sunday league and hasn’t for about 10 years. We’ve just sold our only decent youngster to Genk. The others aren’t good enough even for third division imo, and that’s been the biggest failure of the team over the past decade.

On the pitch, we had probably the most embarrassing defeat in the club’s history this season - a 2-1 loss at home to Celta’s B team. We played lots of games on astroturf this year, on pitches with markings for hockey games etc, and it was obvious few of our players that we retained from Segunda A were prepared for it. Didn’t score any goals, but this is nothing new for the club.

So yeah, a huge disaster. Say this every year, but I think now might be the time to really worry about Depor not existing in a couple of seasons time. We’re in too much debt, and we can’t service that playing in non-professional football.

#27

One of my teams were abject and relegated. The other were abject and barely stayed up, and have now lost almost all of their first team players.

But we beat Southend and they’re down. 10/10

#28

Palace - mid table, 44 points with one game to go. Since promotion we’ve ranged between 41 and 49 points, so pretty spot on on previous years. But boy has it been boring this season.

We started the season really well including an opening day win against Southampton, and winning 3-1 at Old Trafford and I really thought we’ve have an exciting season, then we just became really boring. although our bad injury crisis really didn’t help

Maybe for me it’s not having the match going experience, going to the pub etc before the game, meeting friends that I used to have. But this year really has been a slog (i haven’t watched many Palace games on TV recently as it’s been so boring), but we aren’t really any worse off that previous years, we’ve ranged between 10th and 15th.

Good - Mitchell and Eze, though Eze is out for 8 months now which is a bit of a disaster.
We played some really nice football against Villa last week and had a good second half against Arsenal yesterday (bar injury time).
Benteke is really in form and up for it (new contact time?)
We’ve finally got a lot of high wage earners out of contact who we can move on, get of the wage bill and rebuild. Perfect timing for a new manager to mold his squad.
We also have a lot of really good youngsters who hopefully will get a chance next season. Watch out the the names Jesurun Rak-Sayki, David Omilbu especially.

Next year will most likley be a struggle without Hodgson, but if we attempt to play nice football and attack a bit more, so be it.

1 Like
#29

Yeah El Ghazi is good. It’s odd as he looked abject at the start of the season to the extent that he had to delete social media cause he was getting grief but he’s got a lot more assured and confident as time has gone by so fair play to him for that. Seems to be improving each game too, same with Targett.

Watkins does miss a few but he’s still got 14 league goals and some games he seems so isolated but he has settled really well. Wouldnt be surprised if Wesley is shipped out cause of him

#30

That Burnley game really sticks out as a bad one.

True, I’d expect Engels to be off in search of first team football as well and it certainly seems to fit that there was a falling out as his performances weren’t that bad when first in the team. Fair, it was probably more seeing names like Neil Taylor in the list, shocking he is still at the club and we’ve been lucky that Targett has stayed fit and also been great all season. One benefit of the Luiz drop off is no fear at all of the buy back clause being triggered…

If Traore could find some consistency then he’d be quite the player, some great moments this season and is what we’ve needed. Expect that will still be one of the areas they look to strengthen .

1 Like
#31

If we make the Champos it’ll rescue a dire season full of injuries & shortages of asthma medication

Don’t think you can brush off loosing VVD so easily though your points about Klopp sticking Fabinho at CB and it being a net negative are spot on

What did us was that run of abysmal home form. 6 defeats at Anfield this season after a 68 match unbeaten streak. Perplexing. If we’d won those 6 home matches we’d be 2 points ahead of City going into this last GW, the away form has been pretty great

Elsewhere though, both Mané & Firmino’s drops in form are concerning, other injuries haven’t helped, Keita seems poor. Jota looks a good signing though & Thiago seems to be finding his bearings a bit better over the last few weeks, as does TAA

Get VVD back, a fully fit Ox, devolp Nat Philips, keep our front 3/4 fit, Thiago fully bed in, Robertson & TAA … that’s a pretty decent prospect for our first XI/XII next season

We need much more squad depth though if we’re gonna compete with Chelsea, Utd & City

1 Like
#32

United

started poorly after another poor transfer window following champions league qualification which has happened several times now.
Some absolutely abject performances with world class moments thrown in allowing us to win games where we shouldn’t have.
Losses/draws against absolute dross has killed us, huge shout out to the sheff utd at home loss and the Basaksehir loss.
The champions league group performances summed us up, smashed leipzig and Basaksehir at home and were awful in the away games. Beat PSG away and then schooled at home. So inconsistent.
Signings- Cavani, love him, waiting till the end of the window to get him in was a disaster after him being out so long, we’ve only seen what he’s capable of recently.
Beek, don’t see how he gets a game for us at all unless we sign a beast of a holding mid and go 4141
Telles, europa league is his level
Amad& Pellestri, literal children. Amad looks alright.

Goalkeeper situation is a mess, whatever choice we make in the summer will be the wrong one.
Back 4 is still a problem, shaws comeback has been a miracle, maguire is maguire, all the other centre backs are made of glass and regularly make mistakes and Wan B gets caught by the deep cross every other week.
Holding mids- Playing 2 kills us creatively but they’re all shit playing one means we get swamped and the defence isn’t good enough to hold out.
Bruno, without him we’d be 9th at best.
Pogba, been good when further forward and a complete liability defensively. Do think he can still play deep for us if we get a decent CDM as he will show in the euros with Kante next to him.
Rashfords done some decent numbers despite running the country, constantly playing injured and running into fullbacks. Only position he can play is wide left though
Martial has seen a better striker than him and collapsed for the 2nd time, needs to go.
Was hugely worried about Mason at the start of the season, dropped right off was having off the pitch problems but he seems to have put that behind him and i hope he kicks on next season and gets games up top as well as from the right.

Still an unbalanced squad that is a couple of injuries away from dropping out of the champions league places again. A DCM, RW, CB and RB challenger for Wan B would make us certs for at least 3rd again and a decent run in europe. Starting next season with 34 year old cavani as our only actual striker will bite us on the arse too.

There’s still no real plan with the squad and i think 2nd and the Europa final is overperforming still.
Another absolutely huge summer but i think it’ll be a mess again.

#33

Timo_warner_miss.gif
Drogba_var.jpg

3 Likes
#34

I remember Engels and Mings having a good partnership and people had high hopes but now he’s even behind Hause, didn’t make the bench yesterday when Konsa was at RB either

#35

Think his name was Marx

4 Likes
#36

mods!

#37

They were economic theorists not scooter riding hoodlums

1 Like
#38

@TKC what’s your verdict on Watkins now that the season’s nearly done?

oh ignore me, you already covered it and I can’t read

#39

I was really scratching my head watching Utd in the first half of the season, just seemed to have a knack of picking up points whilst playing abysmally. That (first) Brighton win was ridiculous.

I also can’t decide if Wan-Bissaka is the best in the league in his position or a bit of a liability. Maybe both.

But yeah, essentially Solsjkaer has Bruno to call on, whilst Arteta has either Willian, Odegaard or Smith Rowe.

#40

Seinfeld.gif