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The Official 2018/19 Premier League Thread

paxtonwolf said:
??? Am I missing something?

"Emery will be the only other manager, other than Wenger, to win a league match v Chelsea at The Emirates???"

Eh, how many other managers have Arsenal had since they moved to the Emirates?
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Sounds like you're missing Feltch's lack of braincells and flair for inanities. How do you expect to get a job working for BT like that? Did you at least play for Liverpool once?
 
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Denmark Spur said:
Lets play "Find an englishman..."

Arsenal: Leno, Bellerin, Papastathopoulos, Koscielny, Kolasinac, Torreira, Xhaka, Guendouzi, Ramsey, Lacazette, Aubameyang.

Chelsea: Arrizabalaga, Azpilicueta, Rudiger, Luiz, Alonso, Kante, Jorginho, Kovacic, Pedro, Hazard, Willian.
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The closest is the one Welshman there. And even he’s a Juventus player!
 
Jon said:
The closest is the one Welshman there. And even he’s a Juventus player!
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You must not write things like this, it's totally unacceptable to want British players to play in this country, the more average foreign players the better, hopefully we will be able the scrap the home nation teams in a few years and stop all these young kids playing football as it's cheaper to buy imports.
 
I find it quite interesting that Sarri has gone in hard on the Chelsea players. Interesting because I think there is something to be said for this idea of motivation being more than one man hyping up the squad, and actually it’s about building a culture of hard work where it is more intrinsic and comes from within each individual player.

Chelsea’s players have all been highly motivated at points before, but I think they haven’t taken steps to create the ‘team’ in the same way Poch has, and that is why we are still relatively successful. No signings, but every player knowing their role, knowing they have an opportunity to contribute, every player knowing the standard that is expected of them and from most senior to most junior, every player expected to give anyone else a rollocking if they don’t uphold the very clearly defined standards.

I’m sure Sarri has defined the standards he expects and I’m sure Chelsea’s players have been professional and are professional, but they are lacking a real team spirit and it is stopping the whole being greater than the sum of their parts. And I think it comes down to things like signing Kovacic and keeping RLC at the club and in the stands. He had just had a great World Cup and is now almost certainly going to be doing the bare minimum to show that he is turning up and ‘working hard’ but not reaching his absolute maximum. Hudson-Odoi getting chances in the cups but clearly a back up to Pedro, even though Pedro is on the wane, isn’t doing much and Bayern Munich are clearly offering him an escape route. Hazard clearly on the way out, another winger signed way ahead of time when Hudson-Odoi isn’t even in the team, players like Emerson the left back never being seen, players like Barkley and Christiansen getting on the pitch if they are lucky...there’s no opportunity for spirit there. It’s a bunch of players that won’t believe that club is the best place for them and therefore won’t take it as a personal affront if one of their team mates is slacking off in training or in the game.

Poch’s genius has been creating the feeling that everyone is adding value, and once he’s done that, motivation is actually pretty easy. Foyth has been trusted in big games, KWP started in the Nou Camp, Gazzaniga has been promoted, Rose was fully reintegrated after his Sun interview. If the players are here, they are made to work to prove they can uphold the standards, but they then get their shot. Doesn’t happen at Chelsea.

So I don’t blame Sarri for his comments, but I do wonder if he thinks the squad he has been left with is the reason it is difficult to motivate. The Kovacic signing was not needed - even though you had a load of people saying ‘lol of course he is better than RLC’, that isn’t really the point. Particularly if your owner is pulling back investment and you can no longer throw money around, you need to make the most of your younger players and create a spirit that helps you compete with United and City. That’s why we are better than Chelsea right now.

I mean...where is Drinkwater? Another guy moping around the place, collecting a paycheque. Poch would never let that happen. And as such he doesn’t typically struggle to motivate.
 
BrainOfLevy said:
I find it quite interesting that Sarri has gone in hard on the Chelsea players. Interesting because I think there is something to be said for this idea of motivation being more than one man hyping up the squad, and actually it’s about building a culture of hard work where it is more intrinsic and comes from within each individual player.

Chelsea’s players have all been highly motivated at points before, but I think they haven’t taken steps to create the ‘team’ in the same way Poch has, and that is why we are still relatively successful. No signings, but every player knowing their role, knowing they have an opportunity to contribute, every player knowing the standard that is expected of them and from most senior to most junior, every player expected to give anyone else a rollocking if they don’t uphold the very clearly defined standards.

I’m sure Sarri has defined the standards he expects and I’m sure Chelsea’s players have been professional and are professional, but they are lacking a real team spirit and it is stopping the whole being greater than the sum of their parts. And I think it comes down to things like signing Kovacic and keeping RLC at the club and in the stands. He had just had a great World Cup and is now almost certainly going to be doing the bare minimum to show that he is turning up and ‘working hard’ but not reaching his absolute maximum. Hudson-Odoi getting chances in the cups but clearly a back up to Pedro, even though Pedro is on the wane, isn’t doing much and Bayern Munich are clearly offering him an escape route. Hazard clearly on the way out, another winger signed way ahead of time when Hudson-Odoi isn’t even in the team, players like Emerson the left back never being seen, players like Barkley and Christiansen getting on the pitch if they are lucky...there’s no opportunity for spirit there. It’s a bunch of players that won’t believe that club is the best place for them and therefore won’t take it as a personal affront if one of their team mates is slacking off in training or in the game.

Poch’s genius has been creating the feeling that everyone is adding value, and once he’s done that, motivation is actually pretty easy. Foyth has been trusted in big games, KWP started in the Nou Camp, Gazzaniga has been promoted, Rose was fully reintegrated after his Sun interview. If the players are here, they are made to work to prove they can uphold the standards, but they then get their shot. Doesn’t happen at Chelsea.

So I don’t blame Sarri for his comments, but I do wonder if he thinks the squad he has been left with is the reason it is difficult to motivate. The Kovacic signing was not needed - even though you had a load of people saying ‘lol of course he is better than RLC’, that isn’t really the point. Particularly if your owner is pulling back investment and you can no longer throw money around, you need to make the most of your younger players and create a spirit that helps you compete with United and City. That’s why we are better than Chelsea right now.

I mean...where is Drinkwater? Another guy moping around the place, collecting a paycheque. Poch would never let that happen. And as such he doesn’t typically struggle to motivate.
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Perfect summary.

It strikes me that since Mourinho left first time around the squad only operates in short cycles, new manager
comes in, players knuckle down to impress, usually culminating in a trophy, then manager demands more, players resist, trophy challenge and top 4 incentive drops so they dial it in until manager gets replaced and cycle repeats. In terms of success it's not been a bad model but it is a boom or bust approach, especially now top 4 isn't a protected consolation prize any more.

I think even Poch would struggle to swing that culture around when a trophy is expected every second season.

I'm not sure what drinkwater and Barkley expected though and RLC needs to get himself a permanent move to somewhere like Palace if he's serious about a career rather than cash.

Hopefully Sarri's outburst will have a detrimental effect on the squad and both he and Hazard leave after a trophyless season and the youngsters make permanent moves that aid their development. Chelski would not sell to us but if palace or a European club could hold him for a year a la Fryers I think poch could work wonders work him.
 
MKSpur said:
Perfect summary.

It strikes me that since Mourinho left first time around the squad only operates in short cycles, new manager
comes in, players knuckle down to impress, usually culminating in a trophy, then manager demands more, players resist, trophy challenge and top 4 incentive drops so they dial it in until manager gets replaced and cycle repeats. In terms of success it's not been a bad model but it is a boom or bust approach, especially now top 4 isn't a protected consolation prize any more.

I think even Poch would struggle to swing that culture around when a trophy is expected every second season.

I'm not sure what drinkwater and Barkley expected though and RLC needs to get himself a permanent move to somewhere like Palace if he's serious about a career rather than cash.

Hopefully Sarri's outburst will have a detrimental effect on the squad and both he and Hazard leave after a trophyless season and the youngsters make permanent moves that aid their development. Chelski would not sell to us but if palace or a European club could hold him for a year a la Fryers I think poch could work wonders work him.
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Jonathan Wilson saying much the same today: https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...actics-transfer-policy?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

I think they’ll eventually figure it out, because they have to, it’s just we had an easier time of it starting from a lower base that it was easy to reduce the expectations when Poch came in to saying ‘we aren’t going to demand the top 4, just put the right building blocks in place’. And would you know it, having a proper strategy and a club pulling in the same direction meant we got relative success sooner than we expected it.

It’s going to be harder for Chelsea to shift. There’s big egos they need to move out. There’s expectations that may need to be reduced before having a proper strategy in place. They need a coach to believe Roman will give them enough time to do all of that without getting impatient. They do have a lot of good youth they could actually start using, but I am surprised that Roman has clearly pulled back investment over the last couple of years and they still haven’t kicked into gear a strategy of exploiting their good young players.

In the same way United will struggle to shift because they have too many commercial considerations to think about alongside the football side, I’m not sure it’s easy for Chelsea to easily get to some level of consistency. And hopefully with our head start and new stadium, we can really lock in some of our strategic advantages.
 
Terrible from the officials again, Marriner missed an absolute stone waller in the first half too
How is taco still a ref
 
StephenH said:
I'm amazed so many watched Huddersfield v city
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Feel sorry for Huddersfield fans, they usually get picked for televised games against sides who are going to hammer them, I know there aren't many games they might win, but it's tough being whacked in front of the armchair experts every game.
 
It’s worse than that, I’ve checked their fixture list, they have been scheduled to play 38 games in which the opposition should hammer them, it’s a conspiracy.
 
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