Topic: Sportsbet.io's English Premier League Football Pool Discussion Thread - page 224. (Read 140784 times)

maybe it is Ronaldo all along, they are playing with more will without him
not sure why, but maybe players simply did not wanted him on the pitch

nevertheless, win over Leicester would bring back confidence, and they could be easily back into CL fight, having Arsenal over the weekend, which could be a great thriller, bearing in mind Arsenal current form, good old Fergusson/Wenger times

Fair play to Manchester United, they're doing what's required of them, and dare I say it; they look like a team with a bit of passion now. Maybe, it was a manager problem all along, but I'm still unconvinced that's the only problem. Maybe, the newly appointed manager has sort of covered up the cracks temporarily, but I have a feeling they're ready to throw the players, and manager under the bus whenever the team hits a bad run of form.

Although, right now they're looking like a decent team. Leicester hasn't looked great for the last two years now, but there's definitely something about United this season. Eriksen seems to be a good purchase for them too, he's looking good out there.

Probably means more dropped points for me in the group.

Tuchel wanted Halaand, not Lukaku; it was Cech and Marina's stupid idea to bring back Lukaku and force it on the coach. Tuchel made it clear to Lukaku that he would never change his style of play to accommodate a specific player. Tuchel had never been a fan.


Liverpool are interested in Juventus midfielder Arthur, to fill the hole in midfield but does he still have Xavi-like passing vision? I haven't kept up with his game since he left Barcelona. A good buy
? Buwutress

Timo Werner is said to be firing on all cylinder at Leipzig while Chelsea are struggling in front of goal, I think Auba's move is going to be a successful deal for Chelsea, at least until the end of the season or until they find a more suitable alternative, signing Lukaku to begin with was a dumb move imo, he doesn't suit their style of play, I had no idea what Tuchel was thinking, and given that both player and coach have had a successful spell working together at BVB, I think it should make it a bit easier for both parties to get on the same page.

Hahaha We don't need another big striker; the last one we had was rolling more on the ground than on his feet, caused havoc in the locker room, and ran away to Inter Milan. I'd love to see Chelsea bring back a player like Diago Costa. On and off the field, he's a beast.

How about tonight correct score. Leicester 2- 2 manutd. @ 13.84 Odd anyone? 

I just feel like they need a big strong guy, Haaland type (although he's pretty much one of a kind), Ronaldo could have been a good short-term fit IMO considering they have all the fantastic players who can serve that big strong striker at the top. Maybe this will work, short-term, but yeah I'm not really sure who they could try and get, it's a tough market right now haha.

I'm curious who you have in mind for a striker; I checked and there aren't any good strikers on the market, and Aubu is a short-term project who had his best season under Tuchel at Dortmund. I'd say Aubu's arrival would return Sterling, Kai Havertz, and Mount to their default positions.

We don't have a choice right now. We just need someone to call at least one striker.

Lukaku will never wear that blue shirt again! He showed contempt for the club that dragged him out of the Farmers League ten years ago.

So what striker do you have in mind?

I think he is not the striker Chelsea needs but.. We'll see what happens.

Edit; Not sure why Chelsea are struggling so much with finding a striker, at this point might as well bring back Lukaku, lol.

Given how corrupt the EPL refs are, I'd say allowing the ref to act as they please when play is delayed due to intentional and unintentional actions is concerning. If the FA believes the clock should be stopped when there are funny moments, it should be a law rather than one's judgment. I recall another scenario in which the ref approached a Southampton defender who was pretending to be injured against Chelsea in the 88th minute, tap his legs, and told him to stand up because no medical team was coming for him; the player stood up, laughed, and ran away.

In other words, it should be a law not to let these jerks decide shit.

The traditional method of dispensing yellows was more effective; however, extending the time will cause a lot of problems this season.

What are your thoughts on Aubamayan going to Chelsea? Scary hours. 

I heard they got new directives this season to punish delaying the game more than previous season and so far it seems like that's happening.

As for Newcastle, they started delaying after their goal which was a bit shameless 

I literally get your point about those scenarios with Chelsea all I'm saying is that it's up to the referee and it's within his jurisdiction whether or not to allow to continue for while longer if he believes play have been stopped for any other reason beyond the allowed timeframe.

I didn't say he was on the ground for 2 mins, the time Liverpool earned the corner that led to the goal if not lesser than the time Nick Pope spent, would have been just about the same amount of time I'm very sure, If only they had been more professional like you said.

Delaying tactics are part of the game and everyone uses them to their advantage, including the fans and ball boys. I recall Hazard's red card against Swansea in the league cup a few years ago for kicking a ball boy who held onto the ball for more than 2 minutes to delay time, yet Hazard was red carded and the time was never paused, the ref ended the game on the 94th minute.

Leeds fans held onto the ball for more than 5 minutes against Chelsea last season and we still played to the official time, so Nick Pope faking an injury is not an excuse for adding another 3 minutes. Well, Nick didn't stay on the ground for 2 minutes, mate.. 

I believe that if they had been professional enough to stay on their feet for 5 minutes, it would have done them far more good than what they got for trying to play smart.

Every small team does it but Newcastle this year started good so I wonder why they switched tactics,after scoring the goal they completely parked the bus and as I said this strategy needs players of the highest caliber in defense in order to work,sure Mourinho made it work in 2010 with Inter against Barcelona but Inter had world class players back at that time while Newcastle has not the same players,so it was wrong for them and although it seemed that it worked in the end it didn't.

Tonight will be interesting to see Manchester United behavior but I believe they will win against a quite poor Leicester in their performances so far.

Yeah, I agree that's a bit of an habit for almost every team out there, but it rather just become an eyesore when they tend to fake an injury at every opportunity even when it's just a wind that blew past them, Countless amount of times, I've seen team holding on the ball near the opposition corner flag, earn freekicks by holding on to the ball, or give the ball away to furthest unmarked teammate and all these are really commendable tactics and a bit of a joy to watch even when it's your team losing points imo, while they think get chances to set up their defensive lines better, I believe the opponents are also giving to the chances to get more organized and have a bit of time to strategize on their options too, with almost nothing left to lose.

Ah yeah, I mean anyone that did watch that match will know that Newcastle was wasting time every moment they could. There was like 5 players that went down with cramp in the last few minutes. Plus many other antics during the match. It was quite satisfying to see a team time wasting get punished by conceding with one of the last kicks of the game. I took great pleasure in that.

Although, I can't blame them. Time wasting usually works, and isn't a bad tactic at all especially when you're a weaker team, and literally every point counts. Some of those players in Newcastle know the struggle of a relegation battle, and I don't blame them at all. I thought they did very well last week, and remember that's their first loss of the season, drawing with City too. Although, they were up for a long time in that game, and if they time wasted a little bit more, might've been able to pull off the win.

I would say it was an instant Karma that got back at Nick Pope for apparently faking an injury and wasted about 2 minutes, I still find it really dumb that defending players/goalkeepers engage in this petty antics, and as such the referee is obligated is to make up for those minutes buy allowing play continue a bit further beyond the specified minute.


Maybe I'll just summon the same courage to check my position on the leaderboard later after Man United vs Leicester tonight... It still a very fragile table where all it takes is one good or bad round to make a significant impact.

Me too. Not a massive stake, around my usual. However, it was combined with four other matches. One of them being us to beat Everton with a clean sheet, and then Arsenal to win, Wolves to win, and Man City to win with a clean sheet. I also had a few other things sprinkled in like number of cards, and no red cards. Anyway, Wolves are the only team to let me down, and that's simply by not winning. They had a tonne of bloody shots too. Anyway, you win some, and you lose the majority as the saying goes...

I'm hoping I do a little better once I figure out the form of teams. Seems, it's quite a bit different from previous seasons. Also, like I said being a Liverpool fan has destroyed me the last few weeks.

It wasn't the worst round for me, that's for damn sure. Despite the 4 wrong predictions in the very beginning



I moved 9 positions up in the leader-board:



Five more rounds like this and I'm in the top 3!

Let's see how my prediction for today's match



plays out for me.  As I see after locking my prediction, 28 of us in the pool predicted the same result. So many people can't be wrong, right?

I don't want to see mine but I guess I am somewhat below 40th place with only 4 points in total so far from this week I can clearly say this was the worst week for me so far in the predictor.I thought Wolves would not have any problems to win against Bournemouth which for me this year is the worst team of the Premier League based on their games and performance so far,in fact Wolves dominated the game,they just could not score.I also thought Tottenham to win against West Ham but that was not the case either,I got only two close results for Arsenal and Liverpool and the point everyone got from City.

Man, I had a ridiculous amount of money (relative to how I gamble) riding on Liverpool to win, over 8 corners, and score over 1.5 goals... that Carvalho Fergie time goal made me celebrate a bit more than I should have. To be fair to Toons, their time wasting isn't as bad as some teams, but I'm really happy to see this season refs to 2 things in EPL:
- punish teams who time waste more with additional extra time
- not call fouls over niggly touches. Liverpool suffer more from this, Salah especially, but I much prefer flowing football


First thing I was telling my kid last night too, he said we were lucky but pointed at how we ran the game and saw it out with a win with a front midfield of Milner and Elliot. Scored the goal with some blast from Carvalho... yes it's Newcastle, but this is only half a Liverpool team really. And we still did it.

Isak was okay yeah but especially nothing in the second half, he's doing his job as a striker to feed on counter scraps, but nothing special. Elliott's getting better every game, I still feel he's slightly lightweight but definitely improving his balance, turned so many Newcastle players last night, and getting better at his linkup play.

Firmino though, love the guy to bits but he kept giving the ball away heh. More than made amends with goal and several recoveries near our backline, backing him to bag a renewal.


rdbase is rdbase, haha. He is doing what I used to do in past seasons: pick all the upsets. I'm Sojourner in Superbru... which should have been my username here except I made this account supposedly as a throwaway and then decided I liked it (hopefully theymos takes pity and changes it one of these days so I'm Sojourner everywhere).


Strangely, I've never had any issue with plastic fans (sadly I think my son is sort of that type, he's the Ronaldo, twitter-hounding, knows all their lives off pitch, kind of guy, but now he's not even watching them cause they suck... told him I had to watch hours of Liverpool popping the ball to Benteke or Caroll or even hit-man Heskey). I sort of like that they move on quickly. Waiting for Newcastle to open the bank floodgates and get tons of new fans.