I think its already confirmed that we have an extra as we cant finish lower than 2nd. It’s the other place that is still open.
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Yeah but Villa and Chelsea make 5 teams when we only need to finish ahead of one of them including Man Utd.
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I did not watch the match, but saw this posted on reddit…Everton crowding the Manc’s goal for the corner. This is pathetic but PL seems to allow it to happen.
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“The School of Science, it’s on the way back…”
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I was thinking the same today, not just about Salah though.
We have a team of highly paid international footballers, title winners, CL winners, WC winners…and yet they can’t pass a football 5 fucking yards to a team-mate or keep possession for more than 2 seconds.
Something is amiss alright.
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When did “knowing the club” become a prerequisite for any manager looking to takeover a relegation threatened side. What would it matter? And also why is knowing the club not an issue if say you are looking to win titles?
It’s just a lazy punditry garbage.
logically speaking i suppose its suggesting they already have a basic understanding of existing coaches and players, the quality of the youth set up and the players skill sets.
surviving relegation with 12 games to go would suggest you have to hit the ground running and every second counts, so ‘knowing the club’ would have its merits.
winning the title is more than a 12 game plan, and for everyone, everywhere apart from maybe Bayern, Madrid and PSG, winning the title from the point of hire is reasonably speaking a 24 month project at least.
so i get it.
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Unfortunately I did watch the match last night, terrible game. Everton’s tactics for corners were probably the worst example I’ve seen of players crowding and intimidating the goalkeeper. The player at the centre of the pantomime on each occasion was Tarkowski, who revels in playing the tough guy in front of the Everton home crowd. Credit to the Utd goalkeeper, he dealt with it all very well.
So much time was wasted on every Everton corner because the referee had to stop the game to plead with the players to stop the holding and pushing. It’s about time something was done to eradicate these tactics because it’s not football nor is it entertaining.
On the positive side, we now know exactly what we’ll be up against in the forthcoming derby game in April. Just make sure we don’t concede any corners.
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Good plan Woolman!
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Push the keeper: free kick to keeper. I don’t think you even need a rule change for it.
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I’m hedging my bets! We’re so poor this season that we have to rely on as many of our rivals failing as possible. Man United won’t be one of them, though, so that leaves Chelsea and maybe even Aston Villa if they revert to mean.
Agree - United have a clear run in the PL to the end of the season - no Europe, out of all cup comps. Chelsea and Ourselves are in Europe and the FA Cup. Villa also in Europe.
Things will chop and change yet.
Villa have to play us and Chelsea at Villa Park, and Man United away (and City away last game of their season)
Man United face us and Villa at Old Trafford, need to travel to Stamford Bridge. They do have Newcastle away, which is probably their other tough fixture
Chelsea go to Arsenal on Saturday, and still need to face Newcastle (H), Man City (H), Man U (H), and us (at Anfield)
Our run isn’t too bad from now until May, when our last four PL fixtures are Man U (A), Chelsea (H), Villa (A) before finishing against Brentford (H).
And the above is all before you consider the fact that this is a season during which there have been all sorts of funny results and anyone can beat anyone on their day.
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I have posted similar in the Random Football debate thread. Awful shite to watch.
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But they are usually someone whose only familiarity if the stands and coaching facilities. If Rodgers walked back today he’d only know Ingelthorpe and Edwards.
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We will see, games are played on the pitch not on paper.
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Agree and don’t think i suggested otherwise 
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???
Sudden dopoff? Happens a lot. Especially after a big contract, age, or both.
I can think of Aubameyang, Diego Costa, Berbatov… just off the top of my head. James Rodriguez? Alexis Sanchez.
i can think of lots of sudden drop offs as well. most of them you could see coming, or have explained off after a certain event
but here we have a settled player, in good condition, no outside noise and quite a settled lifestyle by all accounts
i know the tragedy from pre season would have hit hard, but apart from that, Mos in a fairly good moment…
I do actually believe there is also a case of the “push” last season really burning years off some of our player’s careers (the minimal rotation definitely having an impact).
Thinking back to the 2021-2022 season when Fabinho, Henderson and Firmino were fantastic during our fizzled attempt at the quadruple… only to really rapidly decline the season after.
Salah is not able to do what he could do last season. There is definitely a large physical element.
I’d say Dele Alli has got to be up there when we talk about this.
Now we know part of the story or reasons behind it though.
I was always curious how he’d fare once he goes back from #10 or basically the shadow striker role he played, intechanging with Kane to being a proper midfielder where you have to be involved in absolutely everything. That’s what Bellingham will have to prove, by the way.
I remember Alli’s numbers progressively dropped, but when we talk about the age when it all happened, he went very quickly from being a key player for a very competitive side close to the biggest prizes to looking like he’s struggling to even be a professional footballer.
Before we found out a little bit more how he lived his life and the issues he had, that was probably the most serious drop a footballer has had in recent years.
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