Italian Serie A - 2020-2021

Bepi

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If Inter hold on that's 90% of the title
Yes, it’s their to lose at this stage, which would be very unConte-ish to be fair. More interesting... what is he going to do next year, will he stay for CL glory or will he go (as usual...) to resurrect another dwindling club abroad? If the Saudis really buy Inter, though, he might even get his much longed ticket to the 100 euros restaurant at last!
 

VorZakone

What would Kenny G do?
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Juve's midfield recruitment has been bad, hasn't it? The likes of Ramsey, Rabiot and Arthur were all 'decent' signings but not exactly elite.

Not the kind of midfield you expect to win a CL. Not me, anyway.
 

giorno

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Fabinho, Henderson, Wjnaldum won a CL

It's all relative

More to the point covid has taken a sledgehammer to their plans. Now they have to focus on youth and reducing costs, which is why they gambled on Pirlo as well.

They're probably hoping Cristiano decides to leave and finds a club
 

VorZakone

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Fabinho, Henderson, Wjnaldum won a CL

It's all relative

More to the point covid has taken a sledgehammer to their plans. Now they have to focus on youth and reducing costs, which is why they gambled on Pirlo as well.

They're probably hoping Cristiano decides to leave and finds a club
I'd argue Fabinho-Henderson-Wijnaldum is a pretty good midfield though.
 

giorno

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I'd argue Fabinho-Henderson-Wijnaldum is a pretty good midfield though.
Would you have 3 years ago? Coaching made it so

Rabiot, Arthur, McKennie, Ramsey and Bentancour are good players. It's up to the coach to turn them into a great unit

Juventus made the final with Pjanic-Khedira CM. Neither particularly better than what they have now. It's a team sport
 

Bepi

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Juve's midfield recruitment has been bad, hasn't it? The likes of Ramsey, Rabiot and Arthur were all 'decent' signings but not exactly elite.

Not the kind of midfield you expect to win a CL. Not me, anyway.
Nah, it’s not black or white (no pun intended...) like that. Fine margins, as usual, with Porto able to squeeze 120% out of their limited means and the heavy circumstances.

The problems, yesterday again, are the wastefulness, the inability to close games, the ill discipline as a unit, the catastrophic individual mistakes. Then bad luck, as usual for us in this competition (Cuadrado’s bar at the death).

More at large, however, if Juve goes out early, three years in a row to Ajax, Lyon and Porto, the project is flawed. and it’s a failure from Agnelli in the first instance. His Ronaldo gamble backfired.

That said, Agnelli’s boss, his cousin John Elkann, just stated Juve will go on with youngsters for the rebuilding, so expect a number of expensive players going.
 

FootballHQ

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Huge win for Inter that, proper sort of title winning game considering it was 1-1 until 85th minute. Pressure on Juve and AC Milan to keep up now.

Roma bottling top 4 challenge as usual.
 

bakalhau

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Gotta admit that Ronaldo incident was probably a red. I have seen reds for much less given.

2 goals now.
 

mazhar13

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Gotta admit that Ronaldo incident was probably a red. I have seen reds for much less given.
That play was already dangerous as is, but on top of that, Ronaldo then hit Cragno both on the arm and the chin with his studs. That's a clear and obvious red, and I'm surprised that VAR didn't even give that much of a thought. Maybe if that wasn't Ronaldo committing the challenge, the result could have been different.
 

Hansi Fick

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Absolutely flabbergasted as to how Ronaldo was not sent off for that? :confused:

Karate kick to the head, straight red if I ever saw one?
 

Siezard

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So many ex Man Utd players playing for Inter Milan...Young, Darmian, Alexis, Lukaku
 

abundance

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Inter Sassuolo won't be played this saturday, after 4 positivities in 3 days local health autorithy went overly concerned and has ordered quarantine for all Inter players, banning all team activities for 4 days, and also restricting players from traveling to their national teams afterwards.

We've been very very very lucky, what could have been a very difficult match followed by lots of players flying all over the world, is being turned in two full weeks of resting that will be super helpful in our title race.
 

wrepdrep

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Inter Sassuolo won't be played this saturday, after 4 positivities in 3 days local health autorithy went overly concerned and has ordered quarantine for all Inter players, banning all team activities for 4 days, and also restricting players from traveling to their national teams afterwards.

We've been very very very lucky, what could have been a very difficult match followed by lots of players flying all over the world, is being turned in two full weeks of resting that will be super helpful in our title race.
Very very very lucky.
Or Inter borrowed from De Laurentiis' books.
 

abundance

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Very very very lucky.
Or Inter borrowed from De Laurentiis' books.
ehe, well... Look, I've got fellow Inter fans that think this is all a ploy from Agnelli to prevent us to play Sassuolo when they are tired from playing Torino midweek, and to compress our calendar in the final rush of the season =D

What I mean is, if you go the route of thinking that health autorithies can be manipulated by clubs, or act like "tifosi", well everything that happens can be seen as damaging to your interests... and what would you think of refereeing then, and what's the point of following calcio at all?
 

Peyroteo

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Why do Napoli and Inter get to have their games postponed due to Covid cases? Juve have lost a bunch of points in games they had players missing because of the virus.
 

giorno

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Why do Napoli and Inter get to have their games postponed due to Covid cases? Juve have lost a bunch of points in games they had players missing because of the virus.
Because they never had a potential epidemic outbreak to deal with. The issue is the fact that this multiple cases are being traced inside their training ground
 

abundance

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Why do Napoli and Inter get to have their games postponed due to Covid cases? Juve have lost a bunch of points in games they had players missing because of the virus.
uh, what's this fuss about Juve?
Every team has had players out for COVID, in the whole season Juve has got 9, just as Milan's got 11, Atalanta 10, Roma 15, Inter 10 not counting the latest 4 of these days. So?

You could argue that Inter dropped 5 points versus Milan and Parma with the defensive mistakes of a shaky backline missing Skriniar and Bastoni last October.
It's just how it has to be this year, for every team, you may miss key players and you gotta suck it up, or the season would end in 2022.

Lega Calcio doesn't postpone anything for COVID, unless it's forced to by: both teams failing to have the minimum 13-man squad to play (never happened); one team requesting a reschedule because it's got 10 or more positives in the 7 days preceding the game, request that can be fielded just once in the whole season by each team (just Genoa did that so far); and finally, health and public order authorities imposing restrictions on the teams like travel bans and forced quarantines - decisions that the Lega and the teams have no control over.
The latter has been the case for Juve - Napoli, Torino - Sassuolo, Lazio -Torino and now Inter - Sassuolo.
 

FootballHQ

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Complete disaster of a goal Juve just given away.

Looking at stats they seem to have played o.k (against completely out of form bottom 6 team missing their best defender) but seems a random team selection of Pirlo playing all his attackers (Bernadeschi as wing back?!).

Big issues for finishing top 4 if they don't turn this round in last 20 minutes.
 

Raredaredevil

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Will be disastrous and funny if Juve end up missing out on top 4. I don't think even the most optimistic Juve fan would have expected their season to turns out like this even under a rookie manager in his first season.
 

Peyroteo

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Say what you want about how bad Juve are (it's all true) but there are different refereeing rules for Juventus and for any other team in Italy this season
 

FootballHQ

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Say what you want about how bad Juve are (it's all true) but there are different refereeing rules for Juventus and for any other team in Italy this season
VAR not solving this or same issues as prem e.g. they just bottle it and stick with ref's onfield call most of the time.
 

GifLord

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Say what you want about how bad Juve are (it's all true) but there are different refereeing rules for Juventus and for any other team in Italy this season
Are you joking? Look how many points they've dropped this season against bottom 5 why do you need Var to beat fecking Beneventon at home?
 

Peyroteo

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Are you joking? Look how many points they've dropped this season against bottom 5 why do you need Var to beat fecking Beneventon at home?
They shouldn't. But they would have won this with normal refereeing despite how bad they were. And it's not the first, second or third time it happens this season in Serie A
 

FootballHQ

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Agnelli going to push for the CL wildcard option for next season way this is going. :lol:

If Napoli win Juve only two points off 5th and they have a pretty tricky run in.
 

Hansi Fick

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It's almost like appointing a guy who has never coached a single game in his life for a top 10 club manager job is a bad idea
 

Raredaredevil

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Ronaldo to Juve is such failure, just admit it Juve. He should just go back to Real Madrid, both parties suit each other best.
 

Hansi Fick

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Say what you want about how bad Juve are (it's all true) but there are different refereeing rules for Juventus and for any other team in Italy this season
Pretty ironic comment considering what Ronaldo got away with last week
 

RORY65

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It's almost like appointing a guy who has never coached a single game in his life for a top 10 club manager job is a bad idea
What they did was absolutely taking the piss. There has been justifiable questioning of so many big clubs appointing ex players with such little experience but at least all of them had managed or at least coached at a serious level, he had been with the U23s for 9 days when he got the senior job and so it's hardly a surprise with an already flawed squad that things wouldn't go brilliantly.
 

Bole Top

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Arthur literally gifted them a goal while Morata and Cristiano missed good chances. it's probably safe to say Inter won the title this afternoon. Pirlo should be sacked, not because they lost the title, but because it's already pretty obvious it simply isn't going to work. I don't believe Juve will sack him though, they'll probably give him another chance unless he finish the season outside of top 4.
 

Lay

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Poor Juventus. Victims of referees and having a terrible terrible squad. I’m amazed they haven’t been relegated already..