***Official*** English Football Season 2018-19

[Furball]

They bought him as he was on the way down, so this season's serviceable display will surely be as good as it gets. He'll be Arsenal's Matic.

The correlation between how good a signing turns out to be and what age they were when signed is so, so strong lately. Liverpool and City get a lot of deserved credit for their superior scouting but >50% of it is just buying players that are five years younger than those signed by Arsenal or United.

Who would have thought that buying average players who did nothing at Dortmund would prove to be such a poor signing policy?

 

[Magrat Garlick]

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/so...eutralises-philosophies-of-the-past-1.3874358

I’ll be kind of interested to see what happens when some of the current generation of players who have really developed properly under Klopp/Guardiola’s coaching and tactical organisation start to move into punditry and whether it provokes any sort of shift in the yer-da analysis that dominates mainstream punditry still.

was a good read but I'd like it validated by people who watch more PL football than me

 

[Uppercut]

was a good read but I'd like it validated by people who watch more PL football than me

Yeah it’s sort of what I was referring to when I said Solskjær being a decent tactician would be woefully insufficient. Also why I thought Arteta would have been a better choice for Arsenal than Emery. There’s this massive gap between coaches who can teach modern, highly structured football and the vast majority who can’t.

 

[Cabinet96]

Tbf we have no idea whether Arteta can do that other than people assuming he can because he works with Pep.

 

[Uppercut]

Tbf we have no idea whether Arteta can do that other than people assuming he can because he works with Pep.

Yeah I agree, but there's a chance that he could whereas we knew for certain that Emery couldn't.

 

[Cabinet96]

Yeah I was against Arteta but in hindsight I'd have taken him. Arsenal realistically are unlikely to finish below 6th even if things go badly, so we might as well have risked a managerial appointment that might have gone wrong but had a better upside. It feels like there's ample evidence from his career to suggest Emery isn't a guy who is capable of elevating a team to the extent Klopp and Pochettino have done with their clubs.

 

[Uppercut]

Yeah I mean I don't think Arteta was the perfect choice. In general clubs should pro-actively hire top managers as and when they come available instead of waiting for their current guy's failure to become comprehensive. The best-case scenario would have been to ditch Wenger for Klopp in that summer when Liverpool decided to stick with Rodgers for a few more months.

But it seemed to be between Arteta and Emery, and Emery struck me as a sort of managed-decline choice. Maybe they'll go for Arteta this summer.

 

[Cabinet96]

Couldn't have sacked Wenger in 2015. He deserved a chance to try and win the league again after coming out the other side of the austerity years. I'm not even sure I'd do it with the benefit of hindsight, would've been too morally wrong.

 

[sledger]

Arsenal could and should have won the league in the Leicester year.

At the time I never really thought it was an especially realistic prospect, but looking back it was a massive missed opportunity. Like many Arsenal seasons really.

 

[sledger]

Anyway, Arsenal and Emery are both in a similar situation collectively and individually.

Both are desperate to try and make a statement/prove that they are capable of competing at the very top level.

 

[Cabinet96]

A really crazy thing to do is look at the Arsenal and Liverpool lineups from early 15/16. There's maybe one or two Liverpool players that would make the Arsenal team. Now the best any Arsenal player could really hope to be in the Liverpool team is a depth option.

 

[andmark]

Yeah, I get a physical feeling of dejection when I see footage of that Liverpool side. Thank **** that era is over.

 

[Pothas]

Yeah I mean I don't think Arteta was the perfect choice. In general clubs should pro-actively hire top managers as and when they come available instead of waiting for their current guy's failure to become comprehensive. The best-case scenario would have been to ditch Wenger for Klopp in that summer when Liverpool decided to stick with Rodgers for a few more months.

But it seemed to be between Arteta and Emery, and Emery struck me as a sort of managed-decline choice. Maybe they'll go for Arteta this summer.

It did sort of feel that way, maybe not decline but an appointment for a side that expects to stay where it is. Emery has proved he is perfectly capable at the level Arsenal are currently at, managing a club that is towards the top end of the league but is miles away from winning it is exactly what he did at Valencia and Sevilla, and he won Europa League a million times as well of course. A week or so ago though it looked like he was going to get top 4, that and a Europa League would objectively been a great season.

 

[Furball]

Couldn't have sacked Wenger in 2015. He deserved a chance to try and win the league again after coming out the other side of the austerity years. I'm not even sure I'd do it with the benefit of hindsight, would've been too morally wrong.

Arsenal should have gone after Guardiola when he was at Bayern.

 

[Pothas]

Yeah it’s sort of what I was referring to when I said Solskjær being a decent tactician would be woefully insufficient. Also why I thought Arteta would have been a better choice for Arsenal than Emery. There’s this massive gap between coaches who can teach modern, highly structured football and the vast majority who can’t.

I do generally agree but there are always people do think there is a real danger of overemphasis, just having really good players is still very much a thing. Look at someone like Valverde, never gets talked about as an elite coach, would he fit into that criteria? Probably not, but his team is the best in Spain by miles and could easily win the Champions League (obviously they have the best player ever.) It is actually a bit of a theme with Barcelona since Pep left which is kid of interesting in itself.

 

[Cabinet96]

Don't watch Barca enough to have a strong opinion, but reckon Valverde is probably pretty great. His talent level is quite a bit worse then Enrique's Barca was (no Neymar and other core players are older).

 

[Pothas]

He has done a really good job but feels like he never gets talked about. Might be different in Spain of course.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Tough to really gauge how good you are when you have Messi tbh. Plus, the manner of their UCL exit last year did his reputation no favours. His tactics were comical in the second leg at Roma.

 

[Furball]

de Ligt and de Jong get a lot of the plaudits but Van De Beek has been brilliant in every game I've seen him this Champions League.

 

[andmark]

The Donny van de Beek chant is quite catchy.

FWIW, there were people on the BBC seriously suggesting Dennis Bergkamp is the best Ajax product ever. Good player, but better than Cruyff and van Basten?