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What on earth is @horsechoker doing in Germany on a saturday?
I think it's the "there is no glory in prevention" thing - this preemptive action would be perceived as a loss and the resulting negativity would be attributed to the preemptive action rather than to the bad deal beforehand. So they had to wait until it became obvious to everyone.
He is a mercenary and never pretended to be something else. He was loved neither in Dortmund nor in Munich, but he also didn't break hearts when he left.
I wonder how long it will be until he starts having issues there and wants to leave. Germany will be nice and easy for him to begin with at least.
Not that Kieron Dyer is in anyway a bastion of professionalism, but that quote about his mentality was telling.
Not that Kieron Dyer is in anyway a bastion of professionalism, but that quote about his mentality was telling.
The whole leagues argument feels like trolling, when three former BL players started for City in the CL final and three former United players played for Inter in the same final. I´d come to another logical conclusion to where the problem for lack of performance is to find than the league they are coming from or playing in.
If you're going back as far as Kagawa then you can put in De Bruyne and Gundogan who were successes outside the Bundesliga.
I've already mentioned Sancho and Mkhitaryan. Mkhitaryan had one good season at Dortmund, before that his mentality was heavily questioned over there. There's been murmurings about Sanchos attitude since his City days. It's on the club for not noticing/ caring about these things and signing these players anyway.
You're right about Bellingham. I don't understand your point about Lewandowski and the Bayern fans.
What's weird about that? When you belittle the competition my team is playing in, you belittle its (relative) successes. On the contrary, now that United is shit, you live out your need for
exceptionalism by emphasizing how elite the EPL is but the EPL is only elite because of your fiercest rivals Liverpool, City and Arsenal. You're no different to what you call the BDL, only that you guys always start this nonsensical debate because for some weird reason you need to blame the shortcomings of the team you support on foreign clubs.
I take it math was never your strong suit, was it?
I think its just a league that suits his play. It's a open league, with high pressing, quick counters, less emphasis on overly physical requirements and , fundamentally, less pressure.
If I was going to sum up the German league, it be like the PL during lockdown. Open games, alot of creative freedom.
Due to the situation, everyone wanted to put on a show. And that's the mentality. German teams want to be creatively expressive, whatever the level. They don't want to have their sides go out there and not try to put on a show for their fans. Sure they'll likely get walloped by the better teams but playing low-block football, even if their team gets a decent point, doesn't interest them, largely because that type of football is all abit dull and ,viewing wise, just really shit.
Front foot football is the requirement.
Also, football is just football there. A competitive, professional sport.
I find the UK's attitude towards this game abit mad really. It's like football island. More important than politics , and it really is for some. The pressure is stupid, as is the money involved.
Rah Honigstein better explained it than me in one if his podcasts.
If I was going to sum up the German league, it be like the PL during lockdown. Open games, alot of creative freedom.
Due to the situation, everyone wanted to put on a show. And that's the mentality. German teams want to be creatively expressive, whatever the level. They don't want to have their sides go out there and not try to put on a show for their fans. Sure they'll likely get walloped by the better teams but playing low-block football, even if their team gets a decent point, doesn't interest them, largely because that type of football is all abit dull and ,viewing wise, just really shit.
Front foot football is the requirement.
Also, football is just football there. A competitive, professional sport.
I find the UK's attitude towards this game abit mad really. It's like football island. More important than politics , and it really is for some. The pressure is stupid, as is the money involved.
Rah Honigstein better explained it than me in one if his podcasts.
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There were some Germans talking shit about your team earlier. I wouldn’t take that
Yep. There isn't much more to it. People will go on about "systems" which suit him/or don't suit him, but in the end it's all about that extra 5% that comes from your dedication (on top of the skills that he undoubtedly possesses).
It's as simple as that. In the EPL even the bottom teams will make you run for your life week in week out, and clearly that's the part of the game that Jadon does not enjoy. From what I've seen in his highlights, Bundesliga defenders seem happy just to stick the leg out while in the EPL there's a full body coming at you just behind the leg. No wonder his nutmegs have not been so effective in England.
He can still have a wonderful career in another country. BTW, does he seem particularly bothered by not playing for national team?
But then the one who doesn't even support Dortmund has spent a lot of time in a Sancho thread trying to banter United fans on a United forum.
Bit weird to do for a player that could end up scoring a decisive goal against their team now and won't be doing anything in England for the foreseeable.
It's like when anyone says anything slightly off about the Bundesliga everyone joins together to form one Power Rangers megazord. A really efficient one with impeccable timing who's mum makes a really good currywurst.
Isn't that obvious? Most managers don't, even ten hag has never done so apart from this occasion. To do it risks speculation about discontent, harming a player's ego, and for many more reasons managers dont do it to preserve the idea that what happens inside the club stays inside the club. Ten Hag, and most managers aren't stupid or rash and are often deliberately boring or calculated in interviews. They know what they're doing. For ten hag to say anything - and keep in mind it was an unbelievably tame comment- suggests plenty of other avenues had been tried to motivate the guy. Not to mention a 3 month holiday last season. Then sure enough, the tame criticism was met with an instant straight to Instagram whinge, like a teenage boy.
Criticising a player in public is rare, but not some great mortal sin that must never be broken, it is a tool used by almost all managers, even the very best ones, at least once. Guardiola literally called Phillips 'overweight' and said he wasn't in a condition to train or play. I could keep going, over and over and over with examples of when top managers have done this, even though it's rare, and also done it in a more harsh way than what Sancho got. The outlier here isn't ten hag, it's sancho, who had a little temper tantrum that essentially called the manager a liar on social media. It's mind boggling that anybody can side with sancho in this situation.
But it is a dreadful league, so I don't think I'm unfairly belittling it. I also don't see how I'm blaming how awful we are (and we are terrible) on foreign teams. Could you explain that one to me?
What have Arsenal done to make the EPL elite?
When we take the premise for granted that he has to smile to play well and consider how much abuse he got after that Euro penalty miss I don't think he is even interested in playing for it at the moment.
I'm sorry, I really usually don't like to chime in into these discussions but that just might be the most nonsensical thing I have read on this forum.
It looks more like we are the problem more than the players.
To be honest he doesn't seem interested in playing at the moment, full stop.
Zehner believes that it's more important to look good while playing than to win stuff. Which is why he loves underperformers who have great technical ability. Just ignore that.
Everything you said can also be used to defend Sancho's response, it's silly to think it only goes one way.
But he did yesterday for Dortmund.
I'm not going to get into this again. I've simple outlined the reasons why managers are wary of public criticism, I havent said they shouldnt do it, in fact I think every manager does at some point. If you watch the clip again, and think that 6 months later Sancho would be in another country after essentially refusing to play, it is absolutely bizarre. There is no justifying his reaction to what ten hag said. It's embarrassing and is all on a spectrum of why he's been such a miserable flop at a big club and why ex teammates and his current manager clearly dont respect him enough to think he is beyond public criticism. I hope he does okay at dortmund and we can recoup some of his fee.
But that's not what happened. Sancho did not refuse to play, he refused to apologize for a statement he believed to be true. This public incident shows that the trust between EtH and Sancho was broken before.
It is usually right for the club to back the manager and I am quite sure that EtH had good reason not to select Sancho anymore, but that was his decision, not Sanchos. He created a scenario in which Sancho didn't trust him anymore. For all we know because Sancho is an unreliable childish moron.
But it's still a fact that Sancho complained about not playing, which is the opposite of refusing to play.
Does have a point with the politics, I feel like the money in English football is so significant that teams sometimes newly promoted will just absorb pressure and almost do anything to remain in the following season. It's why only exceptional teams in the league really blow away most of the teams outside the top 6 but for the most part every game is challenging throughout 90 mins with the exception of a few who just don't have the quality.I'm sorry, I really usually don't like to chime in into these discussions but that just might be the most nonsensical thing I have read on this forum.
I have only three posts per day and why should I defend the factual truth. We scraped over the finish line last year to earn promotion. Our manager´s tactics have always failed in the Bundesliga (he´s literally PPG, the worst in BL history), our summer transfers were awful and our DOF just left during the winter break. If you work with our miniscule budget the on-pitch product will simply reflect the horrible last 12 months we had in management/transfers. I am at peace with where we are, cause our story is so unbelievable that Hollywood would turn it down as an underdog story, cause it´s too unrealistic.
We had been playing in the 4th division four years until 2010/2011 always teetering on bankruptcy. Bayner actually saved us with a charity game. In 2012/2013 we were once again supposed to be relegated back to the 4th division, but our biggest local rivals went bankrupt (the irony), so we stayed up in the 3rd division. Then we immediately finished 3rd next season, which earned us a play-off for promotion. We lost the first game at home 1-3 to a huge favourite. Then went to their place as even bigger underdogs, won regulation 3-1, conceded the 3-2 in OT and then earned promotion on away goals in the 122nd minute. Next year from the 2nd Bundesliga we earned straight promotion to the Bundesliga. During all that time we were always in the bottom third of budgets in the respective leagues. Over the last decade we managed to squeeze out three years of Bundesliga and seven years of top half of the table 2nd Bundesliga, all while building a whole new stadium and training ground without any sugardaddy or any significant debt despite Corona.
So whatever sh*t some others might throw at my club cannot faze me.
I know we're down to pedantics now, but I said essentially refusing to play. Two things are true, in my opinion
a) it is not unheard of for a manager to publicly criticise a player. All the top managers have done it, and Guardiola has done it much more severely in the last couple of years.
b) It is, and should be, impossible for a player who calls out a manager (and all but call him a liar, on social media), to play again without apology.
It has been very clear since the start that an apology would have been the end of it. That Sancho couldnt just do that, despite so clearly violating a norm in football, is tantamount to refusing to play.
It is obviously about context and knowing what kind of communication the player needs in which situation. Sancho's reaction shows that Ten Hag at the very least miscalculated what Sancho needed.
Besides, you're speculating unless you have reliable background information. Nobody knows why Sancho was sent to that training camp in the Netherlands, if it was indeed because he needed a three months break or if that, too, was a disciplinary measurement that Sancho back then just accepted. But if it was indeed because of mental issues he had, do you think it was the right decision to put public pressure on him after all the abuse he received after the EC?
One way or another, I don't see how Ten Hag gets out of this without criticism.
You feck up the integration of new signings and then blame it on some perceived lack of quality of the league you bought from. Which is funny when the success of all your rivals is more or less built on signings from said league.
And no, the league isn't dreadful. I doubt you'd be ranking much higher in the Bundesliga than you're in the EPL.
Going toe to toe with the UCL winner in the league.
No, I think there is one school of football that is vastly superior to all the others not because it is more beautiful but because it maximizes your chances of success
And Arsenal played such football last season, even though they were bested by a team that played even better than themsee my post above to @stefan92 . thats about my final summary on this. Good riddance to sancho.It is obviously about context and knowing what kind of communication the player needs in which situation. Sancho's reaction shows that Ten Hag at the very least miscalculated what Sancho needed.
Besides, you're speculating unless you have reliable background information. Nobody knows why Sancho was sent to that training camp in the Netherlands, if it was indeed because he needed a three months break or if that, too, was a disciplinary measurement that Sancho back then just accepted. But if it was indeed because of mental issues he had, do you think it was the right decision to put public pressure on him after all the abuse he received after the EC?
One way or another, I don't see how Ten Hag gets out of this without criticism.
You feck up the integration of new signings and then blame it on some perceived lack of quality of the league you bought from. Which is funny when the success of all your rivals is more or less built on signings from said league.
And no, the league isn't dreadful. I doubt you'd be ranking much higher in the Bundesliga than you're in the EPL.
Going toe to toe with the UCL winner in the league.
No, I think there is one school of football that is vastly superior to all the others not because it is more beautiful but because it maximizes your chances of success
Another thing about German football is, they don't really run.
They jog but with pace.
They jog but with pace.
Sancho didn't refuse to play though, ten hag refused to play him for standing up for himself.
He's not done well here, but that's equally a criticism of us as it is him.
If he goes well with Dortmund it doesn't reflect well on us, we have a history of not doing well with intricate link up type players like him.
I don't disagree on any of this. The only thing I see different is that by apologizing Sancho would have had to lie about trusting the manager which he clearly did not do.
EtH did not try to gain his trust again but apparently double down on Sancho to just accept what EtH was doing and thinking.
Again, this is fine, but it is EtH's decision to just leave Sancho behind.
We couldnt even confirm what side of the pitch we wanted/he wanted to play. Staggering incompetence
It's not 'Bundesliga is shit', clearly it's a top 5 league with a high level. It's specifics to the player and the league:
- Dortmund are a very attacking team - in 19/20 they scored around 75 goals in the league compared to 45 for Aston Villa - in 34 games vs 38. I did that comparison because we were debating signing Grealish Vs Sancho then and Grealish had about half of Sancho's stats.
- If you watch highlights of Sancho's goals and assists in the Bundesliga in 20/21, objectively the defending was ass. High lines, lack of midfield defensive coverage, lots of space. Antony at Ajax also inflated his stats by playing against weak defenders and in a dominant team in a non-parity league. Most of his goals and assists where just cutting and shooting / crossing.
- Sancho's strengths are he has a good pass, good close control and a good top speed. His weaknesses are that he has almost 0 ability to beat a man from a standing start due to a lack of acceleration, and lack of aggressiveness. In the Bundesliga his strengths show because of the space he receives, whereas in the PL teams often defend with a low block with more high priced, athletic defenders, meaning if Sancho wants to make things happen he often needs to size up his defender and make things happen. It's why players like Mane, Salah, Saka, Son, Sane, Doku etc are successful - they all have strong acceleration which lets them get a yard on the defender to make something happen. It's why players like Antony, Sancho, Minamino etc struggle. Even Darwin, who has terrible end product, looks good because he's able to run past his defenders consistently. Rashford isn't a technical dribbler at all but his acceleration lets him get away from players.
In summary - the defensive conditions in Bundesliga and playing for a dominant attacking team highlight Sancho's strengths, whilst playing in the PL highlights his weaknesses. He would likewise do worse in Serie A and La liga. He would likely do better in those than in the PL as there's a little bit more space and a more technical style but even there the defending is more compact and aggressive than Bundesliga. He wouldn't do as well as someone like Lookman for example - who is technical but crucially a very physical player.
The same logic applies to pretty much every player - Mikhitaryan, Kagawa, Halaand, Bellingham etc - it's not about the league purely but about the style and characteristics of the player, the defensive conditions of the teams that play in the league, and the style and attacking ability of the team they play in. Halaand will obviously do well when he has De Bruyne and about 50 other attackers supplying him in a possession heavy team. Bellingham would do well at Liverpool and Madrid because there's a lot of technical suppliers that caters to his late runs into the box style but would struggle more at Chelsea as the wide players and fullbacks create less space. Ferran Torres and Sterling you could see not replicating their City form because their new teams don't create as much as City do (stat inflation), and they're not fast dribbling wide players. Whereas Sane for instance would do well in pretty much any team due to his insane dribbling acceleration.
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Classic German efficiency is still alive
Sancho really isn't worth all the coverage he has been getting. He has flopped under three different United managers and never once looked like he could be one of the elite Premier League players. He was even given time off to rediscover his form away from the media spotlight and he did feck all with that too.
He's a very talented player playing in a league where his talents aren't going to excel. He's best when he can form passing combinations with a full back and striker. He's a very intelligent player and gets into great attacking positions by passing and moving into dangerous areas. That's just harder to do in the PL and especially at United where we don't use our wingers in such a way.
A lot of Sancho's issues in the PL stem from a lack of athleticism. In a Guardiola coached side you could maybe get the best from him, but other than that he'll struggle wherever he goes in England.
He's a very talented player playing in a league where his talents aren't going to excel. He's best when he can form passing combinations with a full back and striker. He's a very intelligent player and gets into great attacking positions by passing and moving into dangerous areas. That's just harder to do in the PL and especially at United where we don't use our wingers in such a way.
A lot of Sancho's issues in the PL stem from a lack of athleticism. In a Guardiola coached side you could maybe get the best from him, but other than that he'll struggle wherever he goes in England.
For those that think Sancho still has something to offer Unites, go back and watch the FA Cup Final. Watch how little shit was given by Sancho and tell me that he has a future for this club. I was done with him after that match.
We need a thumbs up here! Very well put.
He mentally checked out. Its that simple