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*Official* English Football Season 2012-13

sledger

sledger

Spanish_Vicente
Arsenal just beaten by a much better team this evening. Gulf in quality between the two sides was so obvious.

Still annoying though, because despite the difference in quality between the two sides, the goals Arsenal conceded were again all terrible and preventable. Though Kroos' finish on the first was excellent.

Thought Wilshere was excellent though. The only player who looked remotely threatening.

Also, Mertesacker has to go. I even think he's improved quite a lot, but so many goals seem to be leaked because of his totally static defending. Just no excuse for a pro footballer to be caught just standing around as much as he is.
 
Cevno

Cevno

Hall of Fame Member
I see some fans taking out their frustrations. lol.

Would be quite cool to see something like this next round -

Bayern
PSG
Juventus
Barcelona
United
Porto
Shakthar
Galatasaray.

Different 8 teams from different countries and all favorites to win their respective leagues.
 
P

Pothas

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Juventus deserve a mention as well, know their league form has not quite matched last years but they look really strong, got a chance I reckon.
 
flibbertyjibber

flibbertyjibber

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Surprising people have written off Manure as a possible top 2 in europe. Normally quick to hype up an English side and the current United one have some serious firepower up front.
 
T

Tom Halsey

International Coach
flibbertyjibber said:
Surprising people have written off Manure as a possible top 2 in europe. Normally quick to hype up an English side and the current United one have some serious firepower up front.
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People are normally quick to hype up an English side, often wrongly though. United do have some firepower up front, but not much anywhere else.

Whilst United have been very impressive in terms of points, they've not actually won many games that convincingly this season, and the English league is seriously poor at the moment, just miles behind the Spanish and German leagues. Still probably the third best in terms of overall strength, but there are odd other sides from other leagues I'd rate above any English side, Juventus being one of them, Porto being another.

Realistically IMO United are probably a top 8 European side at best, City maybe top 12 or so IMO.
 
Cevno

Cevno

Hall of Fame Member
Tom Halsey said:
People are normally quick to hype up an English side, often wrongly though. United do have some firepower up front, but not much anywhere else.

Whilst United have been very impressive in terms of points, they've not actually won many games that convincingly this season, and the English league is seriously poor at the moment, just miles behind the Spanish and German leagues. Still probably the third best in terms of overall strength, but there are odd other sides from other leagues I'd rate above any English side, Juventus being one of them, Porto being another.

Realistically IMO United are probably a top 8 European side at best, City maybe top 12 or so IMO.
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Hmm.. I'd still back Arsenal to beat to Freiburg and Valencia, tbf even in their current mentally weak state.

Not many seem to rate United in Europe for a while now, which is odd as we've been the second most successful team after Barca in the last 5 seasons. 3 finals in 5 years is pretty good going.
 
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Uppercut

Uppercut

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Tom Halsey said:
I'd be wary of judging who is the better side out of a sample size of two games.
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Well you're always either going to be either judging from a tiny sample size or using matches from long enough ago to be irrelevant. It's not like there's much in their respective league form or other CL games to suggest that Madrid are better anyway, unless you go back to November 2011.

I don't know, I wouldn't exactly be rushing to back Dortmund if they drew each other in the next round. But it's close.
 
sledger

sledger

Spanish_Vicente
Cevno said:
Hmm.. I'd still back Arsenal to beat to Freiburg and Valencia, tbf even in their current mentally weak state.

Not many seem to rate United in Europe for a while now, which is odd as we've been the second most successful team after Barca in the last 5 seasons. 3 finals in 5 years is pretty good going.
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What a dumb thing to say.
 
Uppercut

Uppercut

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Cevno said:
Hmm.. I'd still back Arsenal to beat to Freiburg and Valencia, tbf even in their current mentally weak state.
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Idiot fans here do love beating the "La Liga only has two teams" drum but they have twice as many teams in the CL last sixteen and generally do much, much better in the Europa League.

I've never seen Freiburg play so I can't have an opinion on that but Schalke are 9th in the Bundesliga and what they did to Arsenal most definitely constitutes a "dicking-on".
 
Cevno

Cevno

Hall of Fame Member
Uppercut said:
Idiot fans here do love beating the "La Liga only has two teams" drum but they have twice as many teams in the CL last sixteen and generally do much, much better in the Europa League.

I've never seen Freiburg play so I can't have an opinion on that but Schalke are 9th in the Bundesliga and what they did to Arsenal most definitely constitutes a "dicking-on".
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They do much better in the Europa League because their teams take it more seriously than PL teams. Chelsea have drawn United in the FA cup next round, and are likely to rest their players in the Europa league 3 days before that game, if they go ahead in both. Hell, even Newcastle/Liverpool have been resting players for that. Btw, Atletico got beaten at home by Rubin Kazan just last week and if they go out it would leave just Levante from their this year.

And in terms of CL City and Chelsea had bad years this time, while Arsenal were being Arsenal but still if you see over the last many years which you are doing for the Europa league then English teams have better records than their La Liga or Spanish counterparts except Barca.

And that's excluding the fact that a league is not just top 2/3 teams but 20 teams. It's only knee jerk fans who would say 1 season that La Liga and Germany are much better because 2 teams with poor managers went out early 1 season. One of which is the defending champion of the whole freaking competition, which is something they achieved while finishing 5th/6th in the league.
 
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T

Tom Halsey

International Coach
Uppercut said:
Well you're always either going to be either judging from a tiny sample size or using matches from long enough ago to be irrelevant. It's not like there's much in their respective league form or other CL games to suggest that Madrid are better anyway, unless you go back to November 2011.
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True but you can look at how each team from the league fares in Europe, which is a fairly big sample size, to get a fairly good idea of league strength. Then looking at how each team is faring in their league should give a rough idea.

I mean it's obviously not an exact science and highly subjective, but I'd definitely back Real over Dortmund over two legs. I think Real v Bayern is close though.

EDIT: Agree that Real have been noticeably poorer in the league this season compared to last, but I think their decline has been overplayed personally. They've been better in their league than Dortmund have in theirs anyway.
 
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P

Pothas

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Yeah it is really hard to judge the relative quality of leagues anyway, I simply don't see enough German or Italian sides on a regular basis to have any idea on them so can only comment on Premiership and La Liga.

Can be no denying that La Liga has huge huge problems because of the finances of most of the clubs playing in it, I mean really if it was half decently run it would be the best league by an absolute mile. Would still say it is higher in quality, the average Spanish player from a lower half side is just much better than his English equivalent. Think the best indicator is the number of players that have come to England from outside Barcelona and R. Madrid and have been really outstanding in the Premiership and not just the obvious ones like Silva, Mata and Cazorla.
 
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