Uh? You got thoroughly beaten and the ref didn't have anything to do with it.
Great performance by Frankfurt after going down 2-0.
German Football 21/22 | Gladbach sign Farke
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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?
Great performance by Frankfurt after going down 2-0.
Was horrible in the first half, two yellow cards not given and giving a free kick on the edge of the box after a clear dive. Wirtz almost injured by Hinteregger, not even a foul....
But the decisive calls were the clear handball before the 3:2, I have no clue why that goal counts. 2 minutes later Sow plays volleyball in his own box for a second time, for some reason no penalty. Maybe there was a rule change that allows Frankfurt to use their hands and I´m wrong. Otherwise the decisions were appalling.
I know it's a bitter pill to swallow for Bayer, but according to CE the hand ball situations were judged correctly.
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Oh, then everything is forgotten of course. The mighty Collinas Erben, never wrong in anything.
Well the least you can say about them is that they know the rules. And the hand ball rule was changed before the season to not automatically void any attack where the ball touched an attacker's arm. The second incident was basically about 50/50, either call would have been reasonable in my opinion.
Krone.at report that according to rumors Adi Hütter immediately offered his resignation after the loss against Leipzig and none other than legendary former Schalke coach Christian Gross is to take over.
https://www.krone.at/2579076
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Adi Hütter is having a mare. He has never managed a club this badly.
Fair point, i'd forgotten about the players who'd left. I guess it's just revisionism on my part which is easy to do when someone underperforms to this extent after doing well previously.
Wow. That's bad. It's almost like they're on strike..
Makes it even more terrible. Taking that into consideration a slight drop in 19/20 is acceptable, but there should be an increase again now. Instead this...
Let's see what will happen... Usually I would say "sell those lazy f***s", but they can't, as they are out of contract anyways in the summer.
Keep in mind that running more doesn't necessarily equal better results. But in Gladbach's case it does get harder and harder to believe that the curve is dipping for legitimate reasons.
I see at least two Gladbach players not properly sprinting back in the clip you posted. I guess in this case we can be sure that they refuse to work hard enough.
What does that scale on the y axis signify? Kilometers?
Anyway it doesn't start at 0 (as any good scale always should), but runs from 115 to 119. So the actual change is really rather small - not even 2% (from a steady value averaging just under 117 to about 115.5) - even if the steep drop suggests it will bottom out a little further down. Even so, except if the y axis is logistic or signifies something I don't understand, the change isn't nearly as dramatic as the graph suggests.
The y axis shows the average distance covered (as in the distance moved by all players of the team) over the last 34 games. Cutting off part of the axis is a valid concern, however in football teams always cover roughly around 110km to 120km per game, so in this case it wasn't done in bad faith.
In general this distance covered stat isn't straight forward to read, because running more doesn't necessarily mean you play better. As an example it's typical that dominant possession teams run a lot less total distance, but are relatively far up in terms of # of sprints/intensive runs, because they mostly make the opposition chase the ball and only make small sprints to "gegenpress" after turnovers or to make themselves available as passing options.
But in this case it looks a bit like putting 2 and 2 together, since the personnel has not really changed in three years, the drop already started before Hütter took over and there is talk even from the club itself, that players aren't quite fully committed.
And there is also this chart (albeit with a small sample size), that shows y = distance covered difference (compared to the opposition in one particular game) and x = # of sprints difference (for that game):
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Again it's only 14 games, but you can see that Gladbach's PpG is 2.2 (not losing a single game) when they covered more distance than their opposition and 0.75 when they covered less.
This isn't exactly scientific analysis, but just taking a superficial look at this charts it seems that Gladbach are one of the teams where distance covered and success are actually correlated. Which brings us back to the dip.
I'm not doubting the overall narrative, I was just thinking the graph was deceptive. I didn't know the range of usual distances covered is so short. Do you have any references for that? I'd be curious to read more about it - cause if the difference isn't usually more than 10k, I wonder what that stat can ever really tell you. (Of course, you're right that it becomes more interesting in combination with your second stat.)
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The second graph shows y = "distance covered per match", x = "possession %" for the first 15 match days. As you can see the entirety of Bundesliga fits in the 111km to 120km range.
By itself the distance covered stat is indeed pretty pointless, for example both Bochum and Leverkusen have low values, yet enjoy relatively successful seasons, whereas for example Bielefeld cover by far the most distance on average, yet they are already looking a bit hopeless. It's not like you can clearly say cover more = more success. Each coach/team has their own sweet spot, that is also heavily influenced by factors such as possession.
I just posted the Gladbach graph, because it fits the public narrative quite nicely and because it's not that easy to come up with alternative explanations, e.g. on paper the team should have more energy than in previous years, since this is the first time since 18/19 that they don't have to play EL/CL football during the weeks. Hütter's appointment alone isn't a sufficient explanation either, since the curve shows a 34 game average, meaning the last data point still includes 19/34 games of Rose's last season.
That's fascinating stuff - thanks for sharing. I am surprised to see how close together those running stats are: 111-120km seems like a fairly narrow range to me. It's also interesting to see in those graphs you shared above that more possession is disconnected from running more - although that confirms rather than surprises. As you see, sprints would be another interesting thing. Plus this will likely also make more sense later in the seasons, since positions 3-16 are still quite close together in the Bundesliga.
I wonder if those running distances would be different in other and lower leagues btw. I should look into this. (Stats!
)0:5 Bayern now. The B in VFB stands for brazil.
Wtf are Stuttgart's strikers? Not one of them has managed a half decent shot after getting a fair few chances. Either the softest shots ever, or directing their shots at corner flags. Truly terrible.
That's one way to make a comeback, Gnabry with a hattrick and two assists 
Speaking of terrible: what has happened to that pitch?
What a brilliant counterattcking goal from Wolfsburg against FC Koln
Kohfeldt was right all along!
Wer feiert täglich Schützenfest?
Anthony Modeste!
Anthony Modeste!
Like usually. It had to live until the Bayern match and will be changed soon...
I'm surprised that Casteels didn't come out to claim that aerial ball for Köln's 2nd goal. He had more time to get to it than he thought, and it's not like he's slow.
I mean...what else is there to say about Wolfsburg-Köln? It's been a long while since I watched Wolfsburg under Kohfeldt, and that performance reminded me of Kohfeldt's Werder Bremen. Almost every player of theirs ball-watched and had little to no awareness of what was going on around them.
To give some context: This was a massive result for Köln - their first win away from home, and that after there form tanked a bit in the last games. They allowed too many counters, but apart from that dominant performance (Possession: 59% - 41%, xGoals 4,11 - 2,23).
Wolfsburg on the other hand... 6 losses in a row is horrible.
That makes this result even more emphatic, honestly. It's amazing for Köln, for sure, but I feel like Wolfsburg inflicted it upon themselves as much as Köln did well to break them down. That defensive solidity that they had under Glasner's pretty much gone, now.
True, Wolfsburg really became a shitshow this season. Obviously I love that
Another team we should praise today: Bielefeld. Their win against Bochum means that they are on a good run at the moment (last 6 games: 2W 2D 2L). If they keep that up it is far from given that they will be relegated like it looked early in the season.
I think - today aside - the bigger problem for Wolfsburg is actually that they really struggle to score. Under Glasner they would "always" find 1:0 somehow and then the opposition had to come at them and they could play their counter attacking/pressing football.
Today should have been perfect for Wolfsburg to just sit back and counter attack, Köln's style (third highest possession in the league as the stats you posted above show) should have suited them, and it did. But today also proved how vulnerable Wolfsburg are even while leading. So I don't know if I fully agree here, but obviously you have a problem when only four teams in the league scored less goals then you.
Outside of Nmecha and Weghorst, the rest of their players don't do enough to get into goalscoring positions. They had a similar problem under Glasner, but they'd get around it via their gegenpressing game as well as their counterattacking approach once they get a lead to protect. They look like they need another goalscoring option to take the burden off of their two main goalscorers and to capitalise on more of their chances.
I don't disagree there (though I wouldn't necessarily say they need another striker), but part of the reason why their pressing game was so effective last year was the absence of international football for them, while several other teams got absolutely hammered by the tightened schedule. This year they have to deal with CL football and of course they also tried to move away from Glasners football with Van Bommel's appointment, who they wasted their entire preparation on to end up with yet another coach, who had to take over in turbulent times. So it's not that surprising that their pressing game can't force nearly as many breaks as last year. Schlager's injury has probably been a big blow as well, him and Arnold were an amazing duo by their standards.
Yeah, they don't need another striker, but that team needs a midfielder/winger who can get into goalscoring positions and get ~5-10 goals for Wolfsburg. Regarding the CL affecting their pressing game, that definitely does play a part, and Wolfsburg would have been better off with more squad depth to make up for it. They're certainly missing Schlager, who's one of their best players if not the best one in their team. Bringing van Bommel in was also a surprise as their squad wasn't necessarily suited to his setup, but oh well, what's done is done now.
That's six losses in a row now. I knew he was going to surpass vB sooner or later, but I didn't believe it was possible *that* early. Guy's fecking boss, there's no denying that.
Next game for Wolfsburg is against Bayern, right? I mean that almost guarantees the seventh loss in a row.
Still can't believe they'd hire Van Bommel and sack him after 6 weeks. Might be the worst and most moronic instance of club management I can recall.
(It seems we both blocked out the Kovac hire)