Why were Brighton in their away strip yesterday?
Solidarity with Ukraine.
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Unfortunately we were the Red Army putting them to the sword 
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I think Mane is experience the Bobby syndrome, just because he doesnāt score a hatful (and misses a few glaring ones) his other aspects of the game is completely ignored.
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He is playing better but I think that he has lost a step compared to a couple of years ago. Everything seems to come more difficult. He was electric and would score with greater regularity and ease. Not the case anymore.
I think heās definitely lost a bit of pace.
Haha I did think that half way through the second half, I then tried to temper that by telling myself the Russian flag has more Brighton colours on it than us.
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He looked really off a few months back, wonder if itās the fact Diaz now has that pace but the attack does look more threatening again and Mane is playing his part in that, before the AFCON he looked well off to be fair.
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He appears to be scoring as regularly as he has done before. He is on 12 league goals so far. In 18/19 and 19/20 he scored 22 and 18 with the next highest being his first season with us where he got 13. His assists were much higher in the latter though.
In CL 2017/18 is the standout year with 10 goals in 13. In other years he gets 2-4 goals probably dependendent on the number of games he plays in the tournament.
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Maneās still getting judged based off last season for me. A lot of people were willing to write him off before this season started and now heās not quite getting the plaudits his performances deserve.
Conservatively speaking, heās still in the top 10 or 15 forwards in world football. The level heās playing at currently, even if not as good as 2 years ago, is still extremely high. Heās joint 2nd top scorer in the premier league and has just won the AFCON whilst winning player of the tournament. Hardly ready for the scrap heap.
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He looks sharper since he came back even if the stats say he was scoring anyhow. That goal against Westham was typical of that. He has had a few marginals where he is always on Iāve noticed.
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I love me some npxGs. Now put it on a chart I cannot interpret.
Unrelated to Sadio, but I find it relevant there has been a complete lack of coverage over the failure to send off the Brighton keeper. It is this lack of response that tells me the decision was not so much a fuck up, but a reflection of what I call the collective blind spot over player safety within the game when it comes to what keepers are allowed to do when challenging for a ball.
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Fixed that for you.
It really reminded me of the Schumacher one from the eighties.
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I googled and looked up a list of the Mike Dean penalty/sending off contentious decisionsā¦
There are literally lots and lots and lots in the last 18monthsā¦ So much so that there is even a petition doing the rounds by football supporters at the moment to have him sacked because most of these decisions are unbelievably bad ā¦ so maybe, just maybe, Mike Dean was protecting Mike Dean by basically waving play-onā¦ nothing to see hereā¦
He is a referee that is obviously letting past events effect proper and correct judgementā¦!
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xG - the stupidest footy stat everā¦ even the format of the abbreviation annoys me (EG?, no?).
Anyway, if I walk into the bookies and put Ā£10 on a 16/1 shot, how far would I get if I went out for nice meal and offered to pay my bill in xĀ£ ?
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Didnāt know about the petition but the rest did cross my mind.
He gets loads of shit (mostly justified) and has a reputation for making himself the centre of attentionā¦ usually to the detriment of the game he is officiating
In which case, job well done Mike !
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We all accept that as a club we can be below par and still win games. Itās the same for players. They can be below their usual standard but still be scoring.
Not long ago people were talking about Mane being better than Salah. Earlier in the season Salah was arguably in the best form of his life. Thatās the bar they have set themselves.
I am not seeing that same spark from Mane. Things are not coming off quite the same. For me even though he is scoring he does not look nearly as dangerous. Still far better than most pl strikers but quite some way from his best.
Salah looked a bit jaded for me as well. Too many games. Perhaps contract talks. Itās all speculative. But trying to force things a bit.
It could be that without Firmino they donāt look quite as good ??
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