Missed that, sounds really bad.
Champions League — quarter-finals and semi-finals draw
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
The problem I see is that unless Vinicius becomes the son of Pele and Bellingham gets back to his unreal form of the first part of the season City will generate way more clear chances from possession-based attacks than we'll manage to get from quick transitions which normally have their origin far away from their goal.
And if they recover Walker they will minimize the effect of those transitions quite a lot.
Well, let's see, but it's kind of hard to remove the bitter taste I have now.
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That's mad alright.
Would definitely take Sane if he ever fancied seeing the other side of Manchester,however suspect he won't come back to Premier League
Nah that one v one summed him up, all pace, no real product when it matters. City moved on quickly to better players.
Current reports suggest that he is close to extend his contract.
Which makes it more likely that we will sell either Gnabry or Coman.
Yep, we won’t be seeing this ref in the CL again for a while.
Would take either of those,however think INEOS will want to go a different route to that
I like them both, but they are also frustrating.
Coman is fast as hell and great in 1 vs. 1 but lacks end product, Gnabry is basically all end product with good finishing and good runs but useless otherwise.
Both are also quite injury prone and around the same age of Sané, so i think we should sell one of them and get in some fresh blood.
He seems to be a person that is very easy to dislike.
Missed the game. What did he do this time?
Wasn't it after a substitution stoppage, so he did have to blow the whistle?
Maybe but it still could have confused Gabriel. I mean, the very fact he did what he did suggests he was confused by the whistle. It's likely not a coincidence that the only time we've seen a player have a brain fart like that happens when the referee whistles in a situation in which he usually doesn't whistle.
Ridiculous. That is a clear penalty.
It's not clear from the vid but, presumably, he stopped play for something so that he had to whistle to restart play?
He whistled because of the prior substitutions.
I mean with so many stars who can produce magic ..you cannot rule them out ..
Bayern robbed of a pen there. Never watched it but that’s scandalous it wasn’t given.
We know a great T-shirt guy if you need it? Can help with petitions as well.
Is the bold not what you expect in a wing forward?
To me Gnabry is our best winger, followed by Sane and then Coman. But Coman seem to come clutch in big games
Imagine Bayern lose by a goal or on penalties, that poor decision from the ref would cost them the tie. 1 goal in such an even fixture is massive.
The excuse is horrendous. 'Kids mistake', this isn't a fecking u9s champions League match
The excuse is horrendous. 'Kids mistake', this isn't a fecking u9s champions League match
Watched the games, some assorted thoughts:
City:
-Stones was excellent.
-Haaland needed to turn Rudiger just once and get him sent off or get a 1 on 1 and he couldn't do it. The way it was set up (Rudiger not playing Haaland offside, nobody near the pair on long ball for Haaland to knock it to) it was sort of a binary, and Rudiger just straight won.
-If you're Southgate watching that game, it kinda made a case for starting Grealish and using Foden as a super-sub, which the English media seems to think you can't do with top players but woulda maybe saved the Gerrard-Lampard clusterfeck from ruining a decade for them and Foden isn't a better player than say Cesc Fabregas
Madrid:
-Modric still so fun to watch.
-Liked the idea of countering by playing Vinicius and Rodrygo both towards the left and just hoping Valverde could cover the entire right side, even if it did (I didn't look for it on replays) cost them on the Gvardiol goal. Gave Akanji problems and left Gvardiol with nobody to mark and probably made Dias cover more ground than he wants to. But more teams should embrace asymmetry.
Arsenal:
-Jorginho's lack of athleticism killed them on both goals. They start Partey they probably win.
-Martinelli has been kinda bad every time I've seen him for a while now. Not sure what happened there, he was a terror for a little bit.
-Good halftime sub by Arteta to change his weak left side.
Bayern:
-Amazing pass by Sane on the opener. Goretzka is a few yards in front of Rice but Sane trusted him to make up a ton of ground by hitting it that early and the weight on it was perfect.
City:
-Stones was excellent.
-Haaland needed to turn Rudiger just once and get him sent off or get a 1 on 1 and he couldn't do it. The way it was set up (Rudiger not playing Haaland offside, nobody near the pair on long ball for Haaland to knock it to) it was sort of a binary, and Rudiger just straight won.
-If you're Southgate watching that game, it kinda made a case for starting Grealish and using Foden as a super-sub, which the English media seems to think you can't do with top players but woulda maybe saved the Gerrard-Lampard clusterfeck from ruining a decade for them and Foden isn't a better player than say Cesc Fabregas
Madrid:
-Modric still so fun to watch.
-Liked the idea of countering by playing Vinicius and Rodrygo both towards the left and just hoping Valverde could cover the entire right side, even if it did (I didn't look for it on replays) cost them on the Gvardiol goal. Gave Akanji problems and left Gvardiol with nobody to mark and probably made Dias cover more ground than he wants to. But more teams should embrace asymmetry.
Arsenal:
-Jorginho's lack of athleticism killed them on both goals. They start Partey they probably win.
-Martinelli has been kinda bad every time I've seen him for a while now. Not sure what happened there, he was a terror for a little bit.
-Good halftime sub by Arteta to change his weak left side.
Bayern:
-Amazing pass by Sane on the opener. Goretzka is a few yards in front of Rice but Sane trusted him to make up a ton of ground by hitting it that early and the weight on it was perfect.
It’s absurd that a player can just hold the ball in his hands after a goal kick, the ref sees it, understands the mistake and simply refuses to award a penalty. Never seen anything like that.
I watched the scene now, but i'm with the ref. Play is stopped and we are far from the box, not even making any movement forward. Getting a penalty for a technicality out of thin air like this would be a complete travesty. The rules do not adequately cover something like this because it's obviously wildly improbable.
If the rules don’t cover this, the ref should stick to the rules that do. And those quite clearly say it’s a penalty.
Not much chatter on Haaland and Bellingham having poor games? Mbappe seemingly gets much more criticism than these two.
I think the referee had to give a penalty, it is what it is you can’t sugar coat it. Play had a resumed and a player picked it up.
With that said, I admire him for not doing it. It’s fairly obvious something has been misunderstood for it to happen. There was no threat of a Bayern attack and the game was just being restarted - it affected the play in absolutely no way.
Still, it’s a penalty and the referee explaining it made it even worse. Also, by not awarding it and explaining it that way you set a really bad precedent.
With that said, I admire him for not doing it. It’s fairly obvious something has been misunderstood for it to happen. There was no threat of a Bayern attack and the game was just being restarted - it affected the play in absolutely no way.
Still, it’s a penalty and the referee explaining it made it even worse. Also, by not awarding it and explaining it that way you set a really bad precedent.
Both games delicately poised and can really not call it. Though, I think Bayern will probably just pip us unfortunately. Our lack of experience at this level continues to show, we struggled against Porto and Bayern are better than them. Poor from Raya to come out like that for their first goal, I was crying. At least it’s competitive though and we’re definitely in the tie, unlike in the past.
At this level you get 20 minutes of Modric close to still being his best self, or you play him longer and get either a much diluted version, or a player you need to sub out after 20 minutes
He's turning 39 this year unfortunately
City are crushing us at home. Ancelotti's tactical failings were there for all to see yesterday, and right now we can't overwhelm them with talent. We had everything going for us yesterday and sure, they scored 2 worldies and one was a feck up by Lunin, but the issue is how little we actually managed to go at them, and how we just allowed them to the edge of our box with little resistance. This was a game that called for us to run over them, and we didn't even try because Ancelotti can't coach a good high press scheme...
Kinda wish we'd just gone for Xabi this summer
It's definitely a penalty but you admire the ref for not giving it. Confusing.
I think it is clear what the ref wanted to achieve by not giving it. The Arsenal player was obviously confused by the whistle. However, according to the rules it is a clear penalty (admittedly a stupid one) and those apply.
Sometimes the rules are not catching the spirit of the game. I don't think it's confusing to admire a ref for bending the rules to stick with how it should be. Giving a pen for a misunderstanding in a situation where there is no danger for a goal chance can be such a case.
Exactly.
The rules do cover it. It's a pen
It wouldn't be very sportsmanlike to give that as a pen but as far as I'm aware sportsmanship should not influence the rules of the game... therefore should have been a pen.
I'm sure everyone here would be very cool with getting this pen against their team and shrug it off 'them's the rules'
No one would be cool. They'll blame the defender for an idiotic action. Brain fades happen in a game and sometimes you get punished. The refs shouldn't just hand out do overs because they felt sorry for a player making a dumb error.I'm sure everyone here would be very cool with getting this pen against their team and shrug it off 'them's the rules'
It‘s also not the entire picture. He was very eager to defend yesterday and help out Davies systematically and relentlessly. Same as Sané on the other side - both are complementing each other quite well. Sané progressing the ball forward and Gnabry with off the ball runs cutting in and good end product. Problem with both (and all the others): they seemingly can‘t donthat on a regular basis. No idea if it‘s just a motivational matter after winning x league titles with no real competition (until now) + Gnabry‘s quite often out injured nowadays.
Great matches yesterday, thought Arsenal missed a golden opportunity to put Bayern, but I can still see them beating Bayern in Munich. City have it all to do because Madrid are so dangerous on the counter with Vinicius & Rodrygo, but the home crowd could sway it their way in the return.