A Beautiful Thread for the Beautiful Game

The results, for what they're worth, suggest that Spanish teams know how to beat Guardiola's teams as long as it's even slightly less effective than peak Barcelona; but, since there have not even been 10 of these games so far, I'd compare making that sort of conclusion to calling the Premier League in November. You'll get it right sometimes but sometimes your pick may barely make top-4.

If Guardiola wins each of the next 10 games he plays against Spanish teams no one will be all that surprised - he'll have been the favourite in probably something like half of those games, anyway.

It's just a head-to-head record against a specific set of teams in a tournament where the strongest participants play 13 games, tops—maybe 15, if they have to enter the qualifying round before the Group Stage. It's not too important, but anyone can read a little into it, if they'd want to.

Looking at Pep's record in the Champions League as a whole, though, certainly does tell a much different story, and, to date, he's made it to the semi-finals or further in every year he's managed since he first took charge of Barcelona.

edited 20th Oct '16 9:28:38 AM by SeanMurrayI

Osmanlispor 2 - 2 Villarreal

Celta Vigo 1 - 2 Ajax

Both ongoing.

Manchester United will play soon.

Some noteworthy results so far:

Osmanlispor 2-2 Villareal

Celta Vigo 2-2 Ajax

Standard Liège 2-2 Panathinaikos

Qarabag 2-0 PAOK

Red Bull Salzburg 0-1 Nice

Konyaspor 1-1 Braga

Shakhtar Donetsk demolishing Gent 5-0.

Inter 1-0 Southampton (goal by Candreva) - Inter's first win in the group so far.

edited 20th Oct '16 12:20:33 PM by Quag15

Harry Redknapp is in the news again.

What for? EDIT: Nvm, I checked it.

Some more noteworthy results:

Manchester United 4-1 Fenerbahçe. Van Persie scored a homecomer. But the big highlight is this goal by Pogba.

Young Boys 3-1 APOEL

Mainz 1-1 Anderlecht

Dundalk 1-2 Zenit. Dundalk did scored first, but Zenit recovered from the 70' mark onwards. Still, Dundalk are in second place, with 4 points after 3 games.

AZ 1-2 Maccabi Tel-Aviv. Big win for the Israeli team.

Roma 3-3 Austria Wien. Roma was winning 3-1, but, in the space of 3 minutes, choked hard. Classic Roma, at this point. Goals here.

Genk 2-0 Athletic Bilbao

Rapid Wien 1-1 Sassuolo.

edited 20th Oct '16 2:12:40 PM by Quag15

Arsenal 0 - 0 Middlesbrough at half time.

This feels extremely similar to the Burnley game, in that Arsenal have well over 70% of possession but they're not creating chances. Middlesbrough have managed to create the best 4 or 5 goalscoring chances of the game so far, and if Arsenal didn't have Cech they'd be behind by a goal or two by now.

Arsenal's build-up play is not penetrative enough. There aren't enough through balls or one-twos to get behind defenders, and dribbles tend to end with 2 to 4 defenders swarming over the player with the ball.

Xhaka is suspended for this game, and Cazorla was injured in the Ludogorets game. That lack of two midfielders with excellent passing really shows. In this game Arsenal look the same as they did for most of last season, when they were extremely poor because they lacked Cazorla's passing. I think this really shows that, even with Cech and Özil and Alexis, Cazorla might actually be the most valuable player in Arsenal's squad. Of course, if Xhaka or Ramsey were available Arsenal might be able to get that contribution from them, but Elneny and Coquelin simply aren't that type of player.

I hope Arsenal come to the second half with much higher intensity. Maybe a change relatively early - one of the holding midfielders or Iwobi off and Oxlade-Chamberlain or Lucas on - would improve Arsenal's ability to create spaces for forwards. Right now they're simply not getting the ball in the box at all, and of the few players who can take long shots really well only Elneny tends to be in the sort of area where you might get a chance to do it.

UPDATE: Still 0-0 at almost 85 minutes. Arsenal have made two changes, with both Lucas and Oxlade-Chamberlain on (for Iwobi and Elneny, respectively). Arsenal keep pushing, with a lot of chances created by now. Victor Valdes has won so much in his career, and you can tell that he's still got it. He would walk into almost any Premier League team, possibly including Arsenal. He's that good. He's saved so many shots and interrupted so many crosses by now, I'll actually feel very sorry for him if he concedes. (Obviously, I still do want Arsenal to get a goal and win this.)

FULL TIME: 0-0. Arsenal came close to scoring about 20 times in the second half, but Valdes was able to block everything, with 11 men within a couple of metres of the penalty area for probably about 80 minutes of the game. (The other 10 minutes were the moments they at least had the forward closer to the middle of the pitch, plus the few times they managed to attack.)

This was by far the hardest game for Arsenal all season, including the loss against Liverpool. No one's played anywhere near this well against them. Arsenal weren't at their best, either - obviously they were missing Ramsey, Xhaka, Giroud, and Cazorla, and tired from the Champions League game - but even then, Middlesbrough made fewer mistakes than any opponent Arsenal have faced in a very long time. I don't like it when a team parks the bus but I've got to credit Middlesbrough's discipline and effort. They looked much better than, say, Portugal in the Euros. I can't believe they're facing relegation at the moment - on this performance you'd think they'd be above Arsenal in the league table.

edited 22nd Oct '16 8:58:28 AM by BestOf

Mourinho's worst Premier League defeat ever (goals here).

I'd have expected N'Golo Kante to bag the odd goal at Chelsea, but I never figured on him doing this.

The way he moved on the ball reminded me a lot of Ramires.

Manchester City played a 1-1 draw at home against Southampton. They're top of the league again, on goal difference (1 above Arsenal). Liverpool are also at 20 points, and 1 goal (difference) behind Arsenal. Chelsea rise above Tottenham to #4, a point behind the top-3 and +1 goal difference above Tottenham. (Chelsea and Tottenham both have 19 points.)

This is a very interesting top of a league table, to be sure.

Huracán are trailing, again, after conceding a penalty. The rest of their season is not going to go well for them at all. I can feel it.

In the meantime, watch Kevin-Prince Boateng on loop.

Estoril 0-2 Vitória Guimarães (Highlights here)

We dominated throughout most of the match. The goals were both great (scored by Tiquinho Soares and Raphinha), and we could have scored a couple more.

The one downside was the unprofessional attitude of Marega (current topscorer, tied with Porto's André Silva) when he was replaced (not shown on the video, but I watched a stream).

Next week: Rio Ave, also an away match.

What a better birthday gift for me than seeing people realize that neither Guardiola nor Mourinho are invincible?

Also, River suffered a lot to win 1-0 this past weekend. They seem to have a difficult time once again.

I knew things were going to go wrong for the Special One on his return trip to Stamford Bridge when his team lost a goal within the first forty seconds of the match, though I didn't expect it to go THAT wrong. Mind you, it made the third game I've listened to on Radio Five Live in the past seven days that actually had goals scored, and only the second game that had a club actually winning, so there's that, I suppose.

Okay, so when a defender gets an ankle-breaker by Messi, or Hazard, or Neymar, well, it's almost to be expected, there is no shame in that.

But really Smalling, by Kanté? This one probably stings a lot more.

Fortunately for Smalling, after already committing errors that led to the three previous goals, he was probably numb to all physical and emotional sensation.

Carlos Alberto Torres, Brazil's 1970 FIFA World Cup-winning captain (and one of the best full-backs of all time) passed away at the age of 72.. May his memory be eternal.

edited 25th Oct '16 9:42:00 AM by Quag15

Carlos Alberto joined the New York Cosmos at the same time as Beckenbauer. The day he landed at JFK Airport to sign with the club, he found himself in the middle of The New York City Blackout of 1977—a story he retold a few years ago to promote a limited edition line of all-black Cosmos clothing (including a snazzy throwback◊ to their late-70's jerseys◊) commemorating his experience.

Arsenal 0 - 0 Reading so far. Whenever I think of Reading I remember that game 4 years ago, when Reading went 4-0 up before Walcott got Arsenal's only goal in the first half. After the break Arsenal needed 3 goals to take it to extra time - which they managed when 5 minutes of injury time had been played. Both sides scored in extra time - Arsenal first. When the game was 5-5 it looked like penalties were coming, but Arsenal got two goals very late in the game and won 7-5.

Some of the players from that day are playing today. Garath MacCleary seems to be the only one of theirs involved today, but for Arsenal there are Walcott, Gibbs, Martinez (who had a horrible day then), and - to my great delight - Carl Jenkinson, fit again. Giroud started from the bench then, as he will probably do today.

Arsenal's line up:

Martinez
Jenkinson Habriel Holding Gibbs
Maitland-Niles Elneny
Oxlade-Chamberlain Reine-Adelaide Iwobi
Lucas

Reading have a player I haven't seen in a while: Ali Al-Habsi. He used to be very good when he was at Wigan, and he's not conceded so far today. I hope Arsenal can get a couple of goals past him, but it won't be easy.

HALF-TIME: 1-0. Oxlade-Chamberlain scored Arsenal's only one so far. Reading have managed a couple of close calls from long shots and set pieces, mostly because the ball seems to take all sorts of deflections whenever Reading try to take a shot.

Arsenal should improve in the second half, as players settle into the game and Reading start to run out of steam (assuming they don't manage an equaliser). Arsenal also have more quality on the bench, so I expect this will be something like 3-0 or 3-1 for Arsenal. They're not at their best but they're certainly better than Reading so far, and unlucky not to have more than one goal.

FULL TIME: 2-0. The other goal was also by Oxlade-Chamberlain. Giroud did come on for about 20 minutes, which is good for him. He seemed to be on his game, too, building up chances for his teammates and finding space that he could have scored from, himself, if the final pass, by that point, wasn't coming from youth team players who were only there to get minutes with the first-team. (Willock looked far from the level he'll have to be if he expects to start challenging for the first-team. Same with Reine-Adelaide and Ainsley Maitland-Niles.)

A good, if easy, win, with some useful first-team football for an entire squad's worth of players who needed it. Gibbs was good, Oxlade-Chamberlain was very good, Lucas was good, Holding and Gabriel were OK, Jenkinson was mostly alright, even Martinez looked decent. Good enough.

edited 25th Oct '16 1:46:35 PM by BestOf

I'll have to check that video in detail (somehow, the blackout itself is something that doesn't surprise me, considering how weirdly chaotic was the city in that period in the 70's).

For the first time ever, the Portuguese national women's team has qualified for a major tournament (the Euros, to be more precise - the drawing pots are in this link)! A 1-1 on aggregate in the playoff against Romania, with both goals having been scored in Cluj, Romania. Here's the Portuguese goal.

The investment and increasing professionalization are paying off.

Since the tournament has expanded to 16 teams, there are 5 first-timers: Switzerland, Scotland, Belgium, Austria and Portugal.

edited 25th Oct '16 1:50:22 PM by Quag15

Wasn't able to watch the game but Liverpool beat Spurs 2-1 last night, a double by Sturridge, and a penalty given away during the 75th minute gave spurs a goal.

So far in the London derby match between West Ham United and Chelsea, the Stamford Bridge side are currently two goals down. Thanks in part to another in a long line of fuck ups by John Terry. Five Live commentary team are saying that the West Ham fans are indulging in some crowd trouble, so that makes a total of two things happening that are nothing new in the English game.

In the Reading game there was an incident where a Reading player who had just come on from the bench stepped on Lucas' heel. The replays showed he had absolutely no chance of getting the ball, and in fact when he stepped on Lucas it looked like he deliberately jumped to get his full weight on Lucas' foot. The result is predictable: the injury that Lucas received from that tackle will keep him out for 6 weeks.

(The player who committed the foul didn't get even a yellow card, presumably because he had only been in the game for about a minute or so. The commentator in the broadcast I was watching said he was very lucky not to get at least a yellow, and that often that sort of challenge would be a red card.)

Arsenal did get a free kick from it, so the referee certainly thought it was a foul. Unfortunately, that decision removes the possibility of a video review that would almost certainly have resulted in at least 3 games' suspension for the player.

Giroud is returning to full fitness, while Alexis was rested in the League Cup. That means Arsenal should be fine without Lucas, but they do look a bit light now in that position. Walcott has done well on the flank and I hope he won't have to play at centre-forward now. Welbeck won't be back until January, and Akpom is projected to be out for several months after that. That's three centre-forwards injured at the same time, which is worrying. There can't be any more injuries in that position, or the injury crisis at Arsenal will ruin the season again.

At least Ramsey is set to return any day now. Saturday Arsenal will play away at Sunderland. It will be a tough game but one that Arsenal, with several key players rested, should be able to manage. Xhaka is still suspended, though, and Cazorla will probably still be out. That means Arsenal need some more creativity behind Özil in central midfield. Elneny and Coquelin don't deliver that, so one of them, hopefully, will be replaced by Ramsey.

Borussia Monchengladbach are embracing a bit of light banter, courtesy of a Glaswegian pub before their last Champions League match, to such an extent that their online merch store is now selling scarves featuring their newly adopted moniker.

This season has been very tough for Sunderland, and in their home game against Arsenal the referee is giving them a lot of slack to make up for it. They've got 3 yellow cards so far, including one for Pienaar, who should have had at least one before it. They've been trying to get Arsenal players injured, with constant kicks at Alexis and the central midfielders. Mostly they result in free kicks, but at least there have been those three yellow cards.

It's almost half-time; Sunderland 0 - 1 Arsenal. Alexis scored with a wonderful header from an assist by Oxlade-Chamberlain.

Arsenal are dealing with a large number of injuries, and that's resulted in some players missing this game. Mertesacker is still out, Xhaka is suspended, Cazorla is injured, Giroud is still not deemed fit to start (or maybe he's on the bench for tactical reasons), Monreal is out, Lucas, Akpom, and Welbeck are out long-term, and Walcott is injured. Still, there's a lot of quality and depth in Arsenal's squad at the moment, and if Walcott and Monreal's injuries are not too serious Arsenal should be able to manage.

Cech
Bellerin Mustafi Koscielny Gibbs
Coquelin Elneny
Oxlade-Chamberlain Özil Iwobi
Alexis.

The weak link on the bench is Ainsley Maitland-Niles, who, IMO, shouldn't be there. The rest of the bench is: Ospina, Jenkinson, Gabriel, Holding, Ramsey, and Giroud.

Debuchy is still not in the squad. Whether he's injured or just left out because he's going to leave in January, I don't know. If he is leaving it makes sense to give these games to Jenkinson.

Arsenal have wasted lots of chances in this game but Sunderland haven't really threatened at all. The second half will probably see some substitutions from Sunderland to avoid a second yellow card for the more risk-taking players, but they've already had to use one substitution for an injury at centre-back. Arsenal should substitute Alexis as soon as they get another goal or Alexis starts to look like he's hurting again. If things go very well, Wenger might also want to have Ramsey on for Özil, both to give Ramsey minutes and to protect Özil. That does require a second goal, though.

This game should end 2-0 or 3-0, at this rate. Sunderland will become tired, while Arsenal will keep pressing.

UPDATE: Cech concedes a penalty after a rare mistake from Mustafi. Defoe scores, 1-1.

A few minutes earlier, Sunderland had very cleverly gamed the referee. Alexis was in the box and a defender grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him down. Normally that would be a penalty, but a Sunderland player had seen what was happening so he ran in front of the referee just in time to block his view.

Arsenal will need to step up their game now, but to be honest Sunderland are only in this because the referee is extremely poor. If this ends 1-1 the headlines will all be about the referee. If Arsenal manage to win, the referee will get away with dozens of mistakes in the course on one game.

UPDATE: Sunderland 1 - 2 Arsenal now. Iwobi was substituted to bring in Giroud, and about two minutes later Giroud gets his first half-chance and converts. Now Arsenal will need to control this game and keep possession in Sunderland's area. Arsenal are more likely to score than they are, but Sunderland will have gained a lot of confidence from their successful gaming of the referee and they'll probably keep trying that.

1-3 now. Giroud header from Özil's corner. He's under pressure, desperate to win back his starting spot, and I think he's probably done enough now to start in the Champions League away game at Ludogorets ahead of Iwobi. (Alexis will be on the left.)

When the referee watches highlights of this game he'll see his mistake with the Alexis penalty situation and know how lucky he was that Arsenal saved him from being the main topic of conversation about this game.

And as I was writing this, Alexis scored his second of the game. 1-4 now.

FULL TIME: 1-4.

It was nice to see Giroud and Ramsey playing again. Gibbs was another positive from this game. Alexis needs to keep scoring, and he certainly did it today. Özil got at least one assist, as well. Three points in the bag, and the goal difference improved by +3. That will be important, with the top of the league so tight. If you need goal difference to be #1 instead of #2, it's very nice to have it. It might not matter a whole lot in the long term, but in the short term it must be encouraging to see your side top of the league when you go into a game. I hope nobody climbs above Arsenal this weekend - Manchester City and Liverpool have the opportunity, but it will take a very good performance from either of them.

EDIT: I just saw a comparison of Alexis Sanchez' stats with Barcelona and Arsenal. At Barcelona, he played 141 games, scoring 47 goals and making 27 assists. He's now played 106 games for Arsenal, scoring 50 and assisting 29. This shows quite remarkable improvement over his form at Barcelona, especially considering that the Premier League is tougher than La Liga.

edited 29th Oct '16 6:33:37 AM by BestOf