Topic: Sportsbet.io's English Premier League Football Pool Discussion Thread - page 247. (Read 140819 times)

man, do not underestimate Elche, they are always dangerous opponent

and regarding Pep, he is obviously a top manager, but winning only EPL on that budget makes him a manager for league, not cup competition, where you need to deploy tactics for every opponent

I beg to disagree because your analogy is still either bias or it is just flawed;

Here are the top 6 teams expenditure since Guardiola arrived at Man City.

Chelsea: €132.80m + €260.50m + €208.80m + €45.00m + €247.20m + €118.00 = Over €1 Billion
Man Utd: €185.00m + €198.40m + €82.70m + €234.80m + €83.80m + €140.00m = €924m
Arsenal: €113.00m + €152.85m + €80.15m + €160.80m + €86.00m + €167.42m = €762
Liverpool: €79.90m + €173.65m + €182.20m + €10.40m + €82.65m + €87.00m = €615m
Tottenham: €83.50m + €123.50m + 0 + €148.50m + €110.50m + €95.90m =  €561.9

NB: Excluding the current transfer window.

Only Arsenal, Liverpool, and Tottenham have spent significantly lower than Guardiola's Man City but all 5 clubs have a combined 12 Major trophies, while Guardiola's City alone can boast of 9 Majors.


Bravo and Ederson aren't outfield players and basically every coach needs a Goalkeeper right ? and How many Goalkeeper has Chelsea gotten since Guardiola joined Man City ? Kepa (€80.00m) Mendy (€24.00m), Liverpool ? Karius and Alisson were significantly cheaper.


Firstly, Guardiola wasn't at City in 2012, while in 20/21 Chelsea finished 4th in the league scoring and conceding 58:36 respectively, while City finished 1st position scoring 83 goals scored and 32 conceded, you could argue Tuchel didn't start the 20/21 season with Chelsea but his first full season at Chelsea, they more attacking minded scoring 76 and conceded just 33 goals.


Of all the listed players above, most people would agree with me that only perhaps John Stones, Dias, Laporte and Nathan Ake were purchased for their defensive capabilities innit ? Walker, Mendy, Danilo, Cancelo were literally just attacking reinforcements and were purchased for their attacking abilities rather than what they can offer defensively.


However, Simeone has spent €426m on Strikers alone since Guardiola's arrival at Man City, why


Spending more on the most vulnerable part of your system is not the same thing as spending more specifically on your defense, Man City and Liverpool have arguably the best attack in the premier league over the last 5 seasons, and still Man City didn't spend a dime on defense last season, but spent over €130m on strikers, and Klopp despite his team's attacking prowess, over the last 3 seasons have spent almost 3 times more strikers than defense.

My point at the end of the day is; if a team plays 0-0 all through a calendar season, the only record they'd have is defensive team of the year, while they'd be at the top 5 bottom of the table, that's if they don't even get relegated, however, if a team wins 5-4 every single game of the season, they'd end up with worse goal conceding record but would have won every trophy.

Logically, to not lose a game you need not to concede any goal, but to stand a chance of winning a game you need to score at least a goal, i.e Outscoring your opponent is what wins you a game and trophies not defense...

Stats source: https://www.transfermarkt.com

@Welsh, I have deliberately sen not to see him play, or even watch the highlights, just want to be surprised the way Salah and Bobby did. Mane I already knew from EPL but seeing Salah and Firmino was a joy the first times, as was Diaz most recently (Jota though also surprised as he seemed to change completely after switching to us).

Trofo never thought of Haaland that way but you could be right. He could be tired of being the sole dependent!

Yeah Simeone knows when to deploy defensive tactics - in every single game

Last year was sort of different but in seasons before that it was pathetic to the level that it was funny. I watched one game, not sure who was the opponent, but some La Liga giant like Elche. Atletico played at home and won 1:0 from only shot at goal towards the end of the match while Elche had over 70% of the ball and all chances. I wouldn't go to Atletcio match even if I got free tickets.

It doesn't change the fact that he has spent over €1 billion on transfers since joining Manchester City, and guess what? More than €556 million has been spent on the defensive department alone than on any other side in Europe. He doesn't know when to switch to a more defensive game, which has been a problem for him since his time at Bayarn. Chelsea won the Champions League in 2012 and 2020 because they were the most defensively compact team. This is Manchester City's defensive business under Pep;

John Stones (€55.6m)Claudio Bravo (€18m) Aymeric Laporte (€65m) Benjamin Mendy (€57.5m) Kyle Walker (€52.7m)Ederson Moraes (€40m) Danilo (€30m)Joao Cancelo (€65m) Rodri (€62.7m)Ruben Dias (€68m) Nathan AKe (€45.3m) = €556m.

The difference between Pep and Simeon is that Simeon understands when to employ more defensive tactics, whereas Pep does not. Simone does not spend money on defense; he creates them by transforming average defenders into beasts and take them to war.

If my analogy is wrong why do you think Pep and Klopp are spending more on the defensive department?

If this analogy is true, then Guardiola should be one of the top managers with the least trophies, while Simeone should have at least 2 Uefa Champions League trophies.

Attacking is more often than not the best way to defend.

If Manchester City's medical staff can keep him healthy, he could surprise everyone this season. There have been several cases where injury-prone players move to a new team and become non-injury prone, such as RVP, who barely played 20 games a season at Arsenal before moving to Manchester United, where he was unstoppable for two good seasons without any serious injury. Hazard is another example; he spent 7 years at Chelsea and was injured only 6 times before moving to Real Madrid and becoming more prone to injury. Environmental and weather conditions also play a vital role.

If Manchester City's medical facilities and staffs are good, Halaand can be properly managed.

Pep will continue to struggle in the Champions League until he realizes that attacks only win games and defenses win trophies. A good manager must know when to attack and when to defend.

He is a top class manager and he knows it. That is why he always has the need to do something even if it would be better to sometimes just let the players play their game. You can't play every game in the league in attacking formation and then try to defend in most important game of the season against team like Real in CL. Your players are not used to that, no matter how much you trained that in last couple days, and it can only add to the panic.

Look, I don't want to get too excited, but I'm pretty sure we have the best player in the world in Nunes. After watching him play yesterday, I've since changed my score predictions of every Liverpool game to at least five goals scored. Obviously, I'm kidding. Nice to see him open his goals count with us though, even if it's just a friendly.
To be fair, they do have unlimited money, and they just pour into the team every season. I think it's only Foden who has actualy been developed. Obviously, they have some of the best facilities around, so you would expect them to have more youth coming through, but Foden is really the only noteworthy one.

I actually find Guardiola quite baffling at times. It seems like he's always tinkering his team, even when he shouldn't be. Putting them in weird positions, and changing the game up when they were beating Real Madrid. I don't know, there's times, and places to change up your tactics, but he just seems to do it whatever the occasion is.

If there's any thing I've learnt from Guardiola teams, it's their ability to always do well even when their supposedly best players isn't available, Guardiola tends to divided the responsibility somewhat evenly between his players so it's hard to get in horrendous form simply because a player sometimes or two isn't playing, there was a time when Yaya Toure seemed to be his best player, then there was talk that the team wouldn't be as good without David Silva, or Fernandinho, but both players also became surplus to requirement without City losing much of its supposed competitiveness in the league, two-three seasons ago all eyes were on Raheem Sterling and, fast forward to last season he was on the bench even in very important games, later on De Bruyne have also become a vital part of the squad, but without him the team still thrives, now Foden seemed to have it all together, so my point is Haaland wouldn't have much problem finding his feet in Guardiola's team it is all just going to be a matter of how he choose best he fits into his plan, and with Guardiola way of rotating his squad, Haaland shouldn't too many injury troubles.

I haven't seen that article or any talk around it, but I did say a few pages back that I expect Haaland to have the impact that Aguero did. Brilliant when he plays, but ultimately out injured a lot of the season. A bit like Sturridge for anyone that's watched his career. Probably one of the most gifted players in the league at his heights, but not only did he have injury problems, he was also accused of not pushing through them. I think Gerrard in his book alluded to that.

It's funny an article like that comes up though, as that was my exact thoughts. I've watched a bit of Haaland play, and he is very injury prone, and doesn't seem to like super aggressive players. Well, in the Premier League with the physicality, but also the schedule he's going to find it very difficult. I actually think City are weaker now, than they were last season. Call me crazy if you want .

That is all to be seen (insert evil Liverpool fan laugh here).I think that chances are high for Manchester City to win the title but the fact that they have such a big number of star players may turn into boomerang to them,from being self complacent the team may lose points to weaker teams,it has happened to even bigger teams than Manchester City so I would not be surprised if it happens.It depends then on the other teams to not screw up the games that they will play against weaker opponents in order to be ready and fight and why not win the title.

it is really great for Pep to have unlimited funds, so he can promise top players that they do not need to play every match
not sure how things are going to turn out in the end, but buying Haaland to keep him on the bench is hilarious

nevertheless, I still think that City will take title this season pretty easy, so probably there will be a lot of room for Haaland to enjoy time at the club, without pressure to actually play

I just read one article that says something on the line that Haaland choose City over Real because Pep promissed him he will never be forced to play when not 100 % ready after injury while he would need to prove himself immediately in Real. He is a player that had a lot of injuries last season and there could be truth in that.

If that is so than I expect Haaland to have his minutes managed a lot and maybe have smaller impact then we thought at first. Almost like he is squad rotation player and not indispensable to the club. Totally opposite of what most players look for when changing the club.

Unless it's bottom tier teams, then I usually go for the 1-0. To many times I've seen us light up the league, to only get a goal against bottom tier or worse yet, lose 1-0. I don't know about you though, I'm quietly confident about our chances again this season. It seems a lot of the rival fans are already writing us off, which is a little weird. Mane wasn't the only player in our team, and it isn't exactly like we haven't replaced him. I do think being that underdog suits us too.

Obviously, City getting Haaland is big, but I don't think it's going to have as big of an impact that a lot of people are expecting.

That's the spirit! You just might end up on top after you come back from expedition like this. If I'd stuck to that more often last season I could have gathered a lot more points too.

And I know we should probably underestimate Spurs as well.

I'm always with a Pool 2+ goal win, but at least I'm no longer doing 3-0 by default. Could I be made to regret that?

@Harko yeah I prefer them to hype United up, but surely you remember the pre-season hype with Ronaldo and Sancho coming in too right? Ten Haag is apparently instilling discipline into the team, so that's bad news for the rest of us. I was really happy United had become a rabble of stars, but now seems they're going to have to at least start turning up to meals and training on time (a given at most other clubs but apparently not under Ole or even Rangnick).

That together with Cristiano which most likely is staying at Manchester United this year although there is time for him to leave if that is what he really wants,are making Manchester look quite different compared to the last season where we saw a lot of inconsistency and even some dramatic lost games against weaker teams with results like 0-3 and even worse sometimes.

If Manchester United or any other team from the Premier League joins the title fight,also Arsenal looking good by winning a couple of games so far in pre-season,it means that the Premier League will be as beautiful as one time where not only two but several teams were fighting for the title.

Going by how their last few preseason games have gone, I'm sure Man United fans would definitely disagree with you, Ten Hag is getting them super hyped up, they're currently 3 wins from 3 preseasons games including one against Liverpool, at least I streamed the highlights of their last one against Crystal Palace and it was quite some interesting stuff from them. All of their goals Guardiola's-teams-esque type of goals, so there might be something to look forward to.

Yeah, I'll be gone for around three weeks. I probably won't be logging in, as I don't like using my account on potentially insecure connections, even with VPN etc. Also, the part of the world I'm going to his incredibly remote, so electric isn't always easy to come by let alone internet. I'll have a sat phone, but other than that I'll be doing a digital detox somewhat.

I'll see how it goes, I've obviously got Liverpool winning every single game in that period by at least two goals, as standard. So, we'll see how it goes . Also got Manchester United losing or drawing every game, so from where I'm standing it looks sound .

Oh for sure, I'm also on the road for about two weeks and then dubious internet for following 2 weeks -- trip delayed from 2020. Expedition always makes me think of long blissfully lonely trips. I haven't been completely alone since 2016, sort of miss it. Enjoy!

Forum's always alright with even poor data, sometimes it's the only thing I can do (typing out a response on phone is a bit of a nightmare but am so used to it don't even think of now).The heat, yes... probably not as bad as the UK but shitty enough I've been in a daze since yesterday.

Might be surprised by what you can score without bias of injury and suspension and form and bookie odds...