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Pre Season Thread

thfcsteff said:
Yup. It's boring innit.
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It's just pre-season, you've got:

People freaking out because the manager's allowing players to actually have a rest rather than playing our absolute best XI for every friendly...And panic about the result if it isn't a 6-0 dominant performance laying down the marker for a title challenge.

"Fans" desperate for players they have grudges against to look awful (or just simply not be absolutely perfect) so they can bitch and moan. One comment here joyously confirming that Richy is no Kane when dropping deep, the board would be lost without such astute analysis!

The eternally fascinating and never tedious discussion about what it actually means to be world class rearing it's ugly head yet again, like not the nine o'clock news debating "Does GHod actually exist", it's high time we picked a concise answer and just stuck with it.

Gutterboy claiming we have 386 players non HG over the age of 21 and the club will go supernova unless we sell everyone immediately

It's a GG pre season bingo full house, people subconsciously choose to get worked up about it, but I'm here actively reading (barely tolerating it) so who is the real mug?
 
metalgear said:
tel looks good and tricky; second half playing line breaking passes early shows even more potential he has
robertson willingness to overlap to the byline shows good partnership with tel - and adds an extra variation in attack

richy looks to have been asked to drop deeper and he's showing that he's no kane. lacks urgency getting back into the box.

bergvall appears very disciplined and quite press resistant and recycles the ball well

kinski is a baller - his long passes are a few levels above what vicario offers

van hecke mistake for the goal - commited too early and beaten by a simple 1-2

thats what i saw but yeah, it looked sunny and hot (shadows were very short) and its kangaroo fc, so make what you want of it
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This is what De Zerbi wants from his number 9 and why Kroupi was the top target.

It’s also why I think we might eventually end up with a slightly less well known number 9 late this window, Amine Gouiri perhaps, he would fit the De Zerbi style of play (and played for him at Marseille). Another alternative might be Fisnik Asllani who I think has a €25m release clause.

Neither are going to get 20 PL goals (they’d probably not get 15) but both would likely chip in around a dozen and be involved in build up and link play much better than Richi IMO.
 
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spurspinter1 said:
It's just pre-season, you've got:

People freaking out because the manager's allowing players to actually have a rest rather than playing our absolute best XI for every friendly...And panic about the result if it isn't a 6-0 dominant performance laying down the marker for a title challenge.

"Fans" desperate for players they have grudges against to look awful (or just simply not be absolutely perfect) so they can bitch and moan. One comment here joyously confirming that Richy is no Kane when dropping deep, the board would be lost without such astute analysis!

The eternally fascinating and never tedious discussion about what it actually means to be world class rearing it's ugly head yet again, like not the nine o'clock news debating "Does GHod actually exist", it's high time we picked a concise answer and just stuck with it.

Gutterboy claiming we have 386 players non HG over the age of 21 and the club will go supernova unless we sell everyone immediately

It's a GG pre season bingo full house, people subconsciously choose to get worked up about it, but I'm here actively reading (barely tolerating it) so who is the real mug?
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Quite.

And there's the best summer since 76 out there to enjoy.
 
Yiddo.1882 said:
Tel has arguably been our best player in pre season and has put in two lovely crosses and a great pass to get Tonali in, I’m questioning now if people are calling him brick based on online narrative or from using their own eyes.
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He's brick because he doesn't beat his defender and smack the ball into the top corner every time he gets the ball.
Seems to be what people expect.
 
Yiddo.1882 said:
Tel has arguably been our best player in pre season and has put in two lovely crosses and a great pass to get Tonali in, I’m questioning now if people are calling him brick based on online narrative or from using their own eyes.
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We can't in one breath say preseason is meaningless while in the next dote on the performances of individuals.

He'll get his chance to prove his doubters wrong - but that will come over the course of the season, not during preseason.
 
billyiddo said:
We can't in one breath say preseason is meaningless while in the next dote on the performances of individuals.

He'll get his chance to prove his doubters wrong - but that will come over the course of the season, not during preseason.
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Fair, but equally being probably our best player in pre season is a positive step. Let's see how it pans out this season but its nice to see someone who seemingly looks to be stepping up
 
MartyFunkhouser said:
Fair, but equally being probably our best player in pre season is a positive step. Let's see how it pans out this season but its nice to see someone who seemingly looks to be stepping up
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I just don't put any weight on these fixtures at all, in any sense - i wish we played them all behind closed doors so i didn't have to read all the hot takes every summer 😂
 
billyiddo said:
We can't in one breath say preseason is meaningless while in the next dote on the performances of individuals.

He'll get his chance to prove his doubters wrong - but that will come over the course of the season, not during preseason.
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I don’t disagree with that but it’s about having a balanced view, I seen enough from him over the past 18 months to see a very good player in him, the thing as well is, for all intents and purposes we have been a completely dysfunctional clusterfudge of a club the entire time he has been here, also I don’t think a bad player suddenly turns good in a pre season game, yesterday in particular it was the quality and pin point accuracy of the crosses and that through ball he put through for Tonali that really stood out.
 
MartyFunkhouser said:
Fair, but equally being probably our best player in pre season is a positive step. Let's see how it pans out this season but its nice to see someone who seemingly looks to be stepping up
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And to be fair it's a continuation from last season where he was growing into his role.

As an aside I don't particularly like the suggestion of him playing as CF, I think he has a great cross and long range shot on him which wouldn't be utilised centrally up front. Keep him out left for the time being I would suggest....
 
I think the most important part of pre-season is De Zerbi getting his tactics bedded in to the entire squad. Roberto came in and did what was needed to stay up. He now gets to set things up how we need them moving forward. I would suggest that is quite a tough process to get through.

When I think back to our time under Ange, he never achieved the ability to rotate players without it having a negative impact. In fact, the first thing he did was make 8 changes for the Fulham cup game and we went out.
 
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