Football Thread 2020/2021

[dr_manhattan^]

That’s what an extra days rest gets you

[feltmonkey]

That was a tough ending for you guys, for sure.  We were lucky. Didn't play well, and won it with a lucky goal. 

[dr_manhattan^]

Just now, feltmonkey said:

That was a tough ending for you guys, for sure.  We were lucky. Didn't play well, and won it with a lucky goal. 

That's how I see it, I called it a week ago, it's just unfair scheduling for the second season running.

 

Hard to accept when Spurs and Liverpool (top six clubs by sheer coincidence) get an extra days rest after playing on the same day as us.

[spork]

I hope you Wolves fans are as vocal about the crap schedule for everyone else as you're being right now 

[bradigor]

1 minute ago, spork said:

I hope you Wolves fans are as vocal about the crap schedule for everyone else as you're being right now 

 

[dr_manhattan^]

Before the games today on Amazon, the visionaries Tim Sherwood, Rob Green, and Robbie Savage took ten minutes to tell us how footballers don't feel tired and it's all a myth, almost as if following a script.

 

At this level the extra 30 hours rest and a home game is going to make a difference.

[Mike1812]

I don't buy the tiredness thing, the players should be fit enough for it not to be a problem, it's not every week you play 2 games in a week, excluding teams in Europe, but I'd expect those teams to have big enough squads to cope. 

[dr_manhattan^]

That’s ok, you don’t have to buy it for it to be a big factor. 

[Guest]

Dr M is right about the schedule being shit for some teams though. Leicester suffered too and ended up having to make a load of changes resulting in only a draw

[Chewylegs]

How about before Christmas when Wolves played on the 15th then didn't play again until 21st? Most other clubs had to play Tuesday (15th) and Saturday (19th) or Wednesday (16th) and Sunday (20th).

 

Swings and roundabouts isn't it.  

[Adrock]

The idea that scheduling doesn't make a difference is ludicrous. The players only have to suffer from the lack of recovery time by a very small margin for it to impact on games. Maybe a minimum period between games should be introduced.

[Mike1812]

Does anyone else think pundits are really fucking lazy these days? Do they even do their research?  Leeds won the last 5 games before the shut down. 

 

 

[Gotters]

With every game being shown live the quality of available pundits is stretched and you do end up with some truly awful idiots spouting claptrap, there are very few decent ones that say anything beyond the prevailing stereotypes.

 

Expect to hear somebody on TV talk about 'Allardyce's great record against Arsenal' when WBA play them next - despite the fact he has a lousy record against Arsenal (P34, W6 D8 L20), all he ever really achieved was kicking lumps out of us and annoying Wenger.

 

No coincidence either is it that Big Sam has taken a massive home pumping from Leeds and is now calling for a COVID break in the schedule - good chance for some training/fitness sessions.

[Plissken]

Erm, regardless of the reason I’m not entirely comfortable with a club directly opening up a female pundit to abuse from its fans.

 

You only have to see how often Alex Scott - who I think is excellent by the way - ends up trending for reasons that are entirely connected with her being female and black to see how it is going to work out.

[Adrock]

That's absolute bullshit, being a woman does not excuse her from being called out for frankly terrible punditry.

[Plissken]

I’m no fan of her punditry to say the least but that is absolutely, totally, a valid point she is making.  You can agree with it or disagree with it, but it’s a valid point.

[wev]

39 minutes ago, Adrock said:

That's absolute bullshit, being a woman does not excuse her from being called out for frankly terrible punditry.

Souness gets away with it every week, I don't see any clubs official channels calling him out

[Gotters]

1 hour ago, Plissken said:

Erm, regardless of the reason I’m not entirely comfortable with a club directly opening up a female pundit to abuse from its fans.

 

You only have to see how often Alex Scott - who I think is excellent by the way - ends up trending for reasons that are entirely connected with her being female and black to see how it is going to work out.

 

totally agree that it's tone deaf from a club with a perceived problem of fans that still think we live in the 70s to do this in the name of 'bantz' - sure it can be argued that if female pundits want equality then if they talk shite its fair game to call it out, but that is not the same thing as the club twitter on a platform renowned for bile and hatred encouraging a pile on (at least they only @ amazon and not her in person).

 

Alex Scott is awful, the beigest of the beige and for my tastes just a female Jamie Redknapp, there as eye candy to spout inanities and be inoffensively banal.

 

 

[feltmonkey]

5 hours ago, Mike1812 said:

Does anyone else think pundits are really fucking lazy these days? Do they even do their research?  Leeds won the last 5 games before the shut down. 

 

 

 

Sure, but if you take history as going back further than five games, it's absolutely a recurring trend that Bielsa teams run out of steam at the end of seasons, due to the style his teams play. It happened to Leeds the season before last, and it has happened at many, many of Bielsa's previous teams as well. It's often cited as the reason he has never won a great deal. 

 

Before the Covid break, we weren't into that period of the season where the Bielsa burnout kicks in yet, but it wouldn't have been a surprise if it had hit again if the season had continued as normal. You may well have got promoted anyway (I think you probably would have done personally) and the specific phrase "promoted because of Covid" is s reductive overstatement, but it's hardly batshit stupid or worthy of releasing the trolls. You get like ten seconds to make your point on TV so she could hardly ramble on like I've done to justify her point. That's why you don't see Garth Crooks doing punditry anymore.

 

I think it is a bit irresponsible of Leeds considering the current state of the world. It's no different to a big celebrity tweeting criticism of someone smaller than them in the full knowledge of the hatestorm of harassment their target will be in for from their followers.

[ryodi]

It's such an obvious point as well. The lockdown helped United and Spurs finish the season well because it gave Harry Kane, Son Heung-min and Marcus Rashford time to recover from serious injuries, a point I'm sure pundits made at the time of Project Restart without the clubs crying about it. 

 

https://www.sportsmole.co.uk/football/man-utd/injury-news/feature/project-restart-which-premier-league-players-have-recovered-from-injury_402529.html

[kensei]

Leeds did not run out of steam the season before last. They choked, and they choked hard. There was zero drop off in the physical stats towards the end of that season. 

 

The premiership is also 8 games shorter than the Championship. 

 

That tweet 100% fits with the club's social media persona and they tagged Amazon Prime and not the pundit in question. Had it have been a random B list male commentator no one would have batted and eyelid. No one should bat an eyelid here. 

[MikeBeaver]

51 minutes ago, ryodi said:

It's such an obvious point as well. The lockdown helped United and Spurs finish the season well because it gave Harry Kane, Son Heung-min and Marcus Rashford time to recover from serious injuries, a point I'm sure pundits made at the time of Project Restart without the clubs crying about it. 

 

https://www.sportsmole.co.uk/football/man-utd/injury-news/feature/project-restart-which-premier-league-players-have-recovered-from-injury_402529.html

United were on a smashing run of form before the break though, yes, it helped get Rashford and Pogba back in the team, but we'd beaten City and smashed LASK 5 - 0, so were hardly having a dry spell, if anything, I think the break did other teams around us more favours, and probably hindered Liverpool's charge, making it tighter for them than otherwise would have been, and... the break fucked us with the lack of pre-season, causing the start of this campaign to be shocking.

[spork]

2 minutes ago, MikeBeaver said:

United were on a smashing run of form before the break though, yes, it helped get Rashford and Pogba back in the team, but we'd beaten City and smashed LASK 5 - 0, so were hardly having a dry spell, if anything, I think the break did other teams around us more favours, and probably hindered Liverpool's charge, making it tighter for them than otherwise would have been, and... the break fucked us with the lack of pre-season, causing the start of this campaign to be shocking.

 

Yeah but Wolves had less time inbetween matches 

[Gabzy]

The amount of male pundits that chat shit every single week yet never get called out directly by clubs is enough to highlight the real intention behind the tweet.

[kensei]

100%

 

https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/sport/leeds-united/leeds-tim-sherwood-tweet-newcastle-19477484.amp

 

Wait no, that's bollocks

[Yobo Ahoy]

Just seems like the Leeds admin is very thin-skinned. The problem with reacting to shit spouted by every pundit who says something you don't like is that it can easily come back to bite you in the arse - Watford's Twitter posted all sorts of smug stuff last year (including stoking their running feud with Gary Lineker every now and again) and we know how that ended.

[spork]

24 minutes ago, Yobo Ahoy said:

Just seems like the Leeds admin is very thin-skinned. 

 

Think that's Leeds fans in general.

[Stoppy2000]

14 hours ago, dr_manhattan^ said:

That's how I see it, I called it a week ago, it's just unfair scheduling for the second season running.

 

Hard to accept when Spurs and Liverpool (top six clubs by sheer coincidence) get an extra days rest after playing on the same day as us.

You do remember the start of the season when spurs had a horrendous fixture schedule I presume? 

[dr_manhattan^]

1 hour ago, Stoppy2000 said:

You do remember the start of the season when spurs had a horrendous fixture schedule I presume? 

I'm not really calling out Spurs, I do remember that as it reminded me of the start to our 19/20 season with the Europa League qualifiers.

 

It's more the lack of consideration for the second year running.  Last season we played City then Liverpool 48 hours appart, this season it was Spurs then United.  All four clubs being top six clubs, all four clubs given an advantage, not their fault, but not really fair either.

 

It was common in the Championship to play three games in eight days, but the difference between two and three days seems to make quite a difference, and it was the same for all teams in that division.

 

You could see the players tire last night in relation to their opponent.  OGS said before the game he was hoping to take advantage of this difference, and to his credit he brought it up afterwards too.

 

I don't really see why our game couldn't have been played today, as Spurs and Liverpool were given that break, and it only seems to be to satisfy the TV company.

 

It wouldn't have bothered me had it not clearly affected the result.

 

Having said that, I'm happy with the direction the team is going, it's a transition season so results are less important so long as we stay up.

[ryodi]

 

Another postponement due to COVID.