Topic: Sportsbet.io's English Premier League Football Pool Discussion Thread - page 5. (Read 145766 times)

I actually dislike this narrative. Every team now has a set-piece coach and try to utilize the set pieces they have, this is the exact thing we do just with more success than most. Arsenal does not play for corners, in-fact we only get corners when we are on the front foot in a match and try to score from every set piece as all clubs do. Another team who are very inventive with their set pieces is Villa, I like watching them come up with creative ways to score.

We have always played exciting football with the exact line up. Rice is very good as a central midfielder and ventures forward every time he gets, again, almost every team plays a double pivot, not sure what you mean by 6 defensive players.

Are you referring to Rice and Partey in the midfield as the defensive players? They are not exactly corner targets, any player can replace them in the box. Gabriel, Saliba and White are most times the key factors in our corners. If you are saying Arteta picks out his squad with corner kick in mind, I will say that is quite the reach if I have ever seen one.

- Jay -

^ I only say this with truly biased and unmeasured opinion, as I don't watch every Arsenal game, and certainly not so much this season, but Lacazette/Auba were very exciting in sporadic bursts. Saka is lovely and Martinelli as well, but yeah, seems like lopsided without the requisite central flow to polish things off.

Liverpool have become less speedy, and I was sure it would translate to less exciting -- but Klopp has generally been slowing the team down since 2019 anyway but we're creating so much more now while giving away more possession so I feel like that's also contributed to "excitement".

I still think Arsenal and Spurs have consistently delivered the most exciting football over the past decade. Or at least, attempted to. Heh heh.

P.S. I mentioned before but this season Chelsea are to me the ones showing most improvement in the excitement factor. Also very unbalanced opinion.

I believe it has more to do with the corner tactics that the team has relied solely on this season, as well as the 4 CBs and 2 DMs Arteta has consistently played. You cannot expect to play exciting football with 6 defensive players in the lineup.

The corner tactics thing requires more defensive players inside the opponent's box to work, so I guess he'll keep playing that. The only problem is the corner thing does not work without Saka.

It has been a labored season. We struggle to move the ball into the final third and have not been solid defensively. Sure injuries have played a part, Saka and Ødegaard have not played lots of matches together and they are the source of most of our attacking play.

What hurts most are matches we could have won without being brilliant, but we were not able to hold on to victories, dropping too many points from winning positions while not recovering we when going behind.

- Jay -

True, we have certain deadwoods who continue to receive hefty salaries despite doing nothing, and some who play for other teams (Sterling and others) while still receiving payments from us. Our previous recruitment team, Marina and Cech, left us with some liabilities.

In reality, most Liverpool players deserve to earn more than most of our players, without a doubt, but Liverpool are making 300k/week looks like average salary now which is not really good for the future.

Edit:


I'm not sure whether I'm the only one, but Arsenal no longer play exciting football compared to the previous two seasons.

That will need to be in the summer. We needed to sign a striker and LWF during the last transfer window rather than more defenders

I still think he is the man for the job. He fell short by only a few points in the last 2 seasons. If he can get us into the semi-final of the UCL it will be a good enough season.

- Jay -

You are still in the title race but you need a top striker, a proper goalscorer, not Kai Havertz who is a good player but far from a clinical striker.

I’m starting to think Arteta might have taken Arsenal as tar as he can. Maybe it’s time to change manager in the summer. He has spent £700,000,000 and only won one FA Cup.

We struggle to much as St James' Park for me to have any hope pf making the final. The way I see it, Newcastle have more then a foot in the final already.

It is not just about Saka, we have had maybe 5 or 6 really good matches this season where the team really clicked, created chances from open play and were able to hold out games. In others we were not so good, only able to create chances from set pieces and counter attacks, same as in the Newcastle game.

We look exhausted from the past 2 seasons. Many of our players are not at their top level, Rice, Ødegaard, Gabriel and others too. Might have to focus on top 4 now and going as far as possible in the UCL.

- Jay -

Arsenal were really poor last night, they lack ideas and end product without Saka. I know it’s only the Carabao Cup with Newcastle have one foot in the final after a 2-0 first leg win.

It would be great for Liverpool to win it again so I hope we go strong tonight. We can always rest players in the FA Cup at the weekend.

Again, I don't like to discuss salaries without seeing what those salaries are doing. Forget about xG and what not. You can predict that but you can't guarantee it. That's what bonus payments is for in contracts. If you score goals and win promotion and play 20 games you get bonuses etc.

But we are talking about salary, you give us work, we give you money.

If you have a company, you should be looking to get what you are paying for. If I have 10 staff and spend the most on my salaries compared to my competitors BUT all 10 staff are working 40 hours a week. I will happily raise all their salaries even more.

If I have 15 staff and spend 70% of my rivals but 2 staff don't report for duty and 4 staff only give me 10 hours per week. Then I am throwing money away. I should be firing the underworking staff, and give the salaries to those giving me 40 hours.

I don't know the stats but just by rough look at wages at Transfermarkt Chelsea and Manchester United are paying the most money to players not playing. If you look at this list for any club the first 5 or first 10 should all be 100% starters minus injury. Not Chelsea and not Manchester United. That is inflating the market unnecessarily. Chelsea at least are using a lot of those players in Conference League but that just means their main players are playing even less games than their rivals.

https://www.capology.com/club/manchester-united/salaries/
https://www.capology.com/club/chelsea/salaries/
https://www.capology.com/club/manchester-city/salaries/

I wouldn't mind a three-peat
Looks like I used all my luck for the first 6 games.
Really thought that I could compete for the 20K prize after the first 6 games -_-

I'm not sure what source you're using, but  this shows that Manchester City, Manchester United, and Arsenal are all ahead of Chelsea, while Liverpool is only a few pounds behind Chelsea, and if they can extend VVD, Salah, and Trent on Saudi-like wages, they'll easily climb to the top five.

The good thing concerning Chelsea wages is that none of our player's contract will be extended in the next 6-8 years (Liverpool will be in another heavy contract situation in the next 2-3 years). We still have our highest earners Chilwell and Sterling to cut out this summer.

Congrats to goodpunt for winning the Round 20 Yellow Cap
Back-to-back Yellow Caps 

Rashford is earning the same amount Salah is asking for every week and not even named on bench.

Sanchez was earning 500,000 a week years ago when Salah was earning 100k+.

Reece James and Ben Chilwell both earned more than Salah before, yes he got boosted but people like Reece and Chilwell played something like 5% of Salah's playing time.

Forget contributions on pitch at least if you pay someone they must be playing.

Blame all these assholes earning big bux doing nothing at the rich clubs.


Like I said, anybody can say anything and you can read it however you want

Not anybody but it was Salah himself who said that. I wouldn't bother if that was someone else 😊

Have you considered the amount of Tax they pay from the amount and other expenses. If only tax we deduct then it's £192,765 he keeps. So £350,000 is not the real figure he earns.

He's one of the best fullbacks around, in my opinion he deserves the 300k salary. Gakpo and Diaz will probably never be in that range, and Nunez won't be here next season.
I wonder how you came to the conclusion that he'll be asking for a raise. He's losing game time rapidly and has more yellow cards than goals and assists combined this season.

Regarding the big salaries - Chelsea's weekly salary spend is 30+% higher than Liverpool's. Arsenal is close to Chelsea, with United and City further in front.

If Liverpool renewes with all 3 key players, we'll be close to Chelsea and Arsenal - which we should be doing.

It was an exclusive interview although Salah implied that there isnt any progress with new contract yet so it could means that he wants higher wages but Liverpool wont be giving him the amount that he wants. Kinda understandable for a player of his age,  £350,000 per week is a big on a high end for sure but he still gives so much better results compared to Casemiro and Rashford  

Manchester United paid those two alot as well

Dropped points everywhere! Manchester United must feel so powerful to prevent mighty Liverpool


I forgot he is your academy player too so he was 'free', meaning you only get pure profit for selling. But then again like I said I think LFC never cares about outright price, if they think they lost 25m for not selling him, but gain his playing time plus assist and expected points whatever, I think they consider the gains overall.

There's no replacement for weird players like him tho. Liverpool just has to live with a different strategy. England found that out too with certain players like him, he is like a weird piece too hard to fit into everything.


Interviews are just like social media. Anybody can say anythiing and you can read it however you want lol

The £300k/week was only recently offered - from 180k to 300k+ is a ridiculous amount for a player of his calibre. At this point, Liverpool is trying not to lose him for free and is using a fat cheque as leverage. Gakpo, Diaz, and Nunez will soon demand that amount as well.

Hate the fact that Manutd and Liverpool have started paying Saudi-like wages to keep players- these two oldies are ruining the game

Maguire!!! Lol

Just our luck that United finally decided to play some good football today. TAA's worst game I've seen in a while honestly, but there was bound to be a game like this at some point soon. Just actually really glad to see Konate back, even with a little rust needing some shaking off.

8 goals on a Sunday from two games, though, that's a treat.