Our Players Aren't Streetsmart

Slevs

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Case 1. Martial and Lamela: One gets elbowed and retaliates, the other elbows and falls down from a touch. Result is Martial sent off.

Case 2. Opposition defender clears the ball with our striker next to him. Defender yells of pain even though no one touched him. Result is a free kick given to the defender's team, pressure relieved.

Case 3. Against Brighton, after one of our players got an early yellow, Brighton porceeded to just rugby tackle Pogba each time when we were on the break (especially Lallana). Our players don't complain to the ref, result is Brighton just slowing the game down when we're attacking.

I'm not saying our players should dive or anything, but why aren't they smart enough to use these little scenarios to their advantage?
 

redshaw

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True. Martial should be going down after the elbow, Spurs player gets sent off probably.
 

KirkDuyt

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Meh, streetsmarts in this context sounds a lot like a euphemism for play acting cnuts.

I suppose it is part of football. All those great Barca teams excelled at it too.
 

WR10

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Mourinho has a whole training regiment for this exact thing. Winning pivotal moments of the game. Winning the referee. It was in their documentary - I would argue that’s what makes Mourinhos teams.
 

Handré1990

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Case 1. Martial and Lamela: One gets elbowed and retaliates, the other elbows and falls down from a touch. Result is Martial sent off.

Case 2. Opposition defender clears the ball with our striker next to him. Defender yells of pain even though no one touched him. Result is a free kick given to the defender's team, pressure relieved.

Case 3. Against Brighton, after one of our players got an early yellow, Brighton porceeded to just rugby tackle Pogba each time when we were on the break (especially Lallana). Our players don't complain to the ref, result is Brighton just slowing the game down when we're attacking.

I'm not saying our players should dive or anything, but why aren't they smart enough to use these little scenarios to their advantage?
Very true. Was just talking to a mate of mine after the second goal, we got screamed at and called idiots because of a similar goal we conceded in a regional semi final. We were 12...
You can remove "Street" from the subject line
And this!
 

smi11ie

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We could sign the best 11 players in the world and we would all be complaining about how rubbish they were after 6 months. Players need to be coached, inspired, motivated and feel happy.
 

Ricardo de la Vega

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Case 1. Martial and Lamela: One gets elbowed and retaliates, the other elbows and falls down from a touch. Result is Martial sent off.

Case 2. Opposition defender clears the ball with our striker next to him. Defender yells of pain even though no one touched him. Result is a free kick given to the defender's team, pressure relieved.

Case 3. Against Brighton, after one of our players got an early yellow, Brighton porceeded to just rugby tackle Pogba each time when we were on the break (especially Lallana). Our players don't complain to the ref, result is Brighton just slowing the game down when we're attacking.

I'm not saying our players should dive or anything, but why aren't they smart enough to use these little scenarios to their advantage?
Fergie would have hated this sort of thing.
 

Dominos

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Spurs were making endless tactical fouls today like Mourinho asked them to do in the documentary.

We need to start fouling more because we're conceding too many chances in transition.
 

MikeKing

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Even if we do this, or rather when we do it, we get made example of by the referees and penalised for cheating. We're too big of a club. Think De Gea not getting a freekick last year after being attacked. All of a sudden goalkeepers weren't protected and they would follow that example. Never to be seen again. Another example is when we did it against Chelsea and received a red card for "persistent team fouling", also never to be seen again. Then you have a situation like this today with Martial getting a red while Lamela got a yellow card. You'd hardly see anything like that again. If Martial went to ground from the initial elbow to the face, he probably would have get booked for simulation and slated in the media being portrayed as a diver. When Fellaini played for us he got plenty red cards for elbows given just like that from Lamela. All of a sudden every pundit excuse this as this was normal:lol:

It doesn't matter what our players do, the world will bend to disagree after the fact.
 

Stretender

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We could sign the best 11 players in the world and we would all be complaining about how rubbish they were after 6 months. Players need to be coached, inspired, motivated and feel happy.
Bang on mate
 

el3mel

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Martial was really stupid in this one. He let Lamela provoke him and instead of complaining to ref he hit him back, gave Spurs' player all chance in the world to make a deal out of it and get him sent off. Really, really stupid.

Spurs' player is a cheater but a clever one.
 

Slevs

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Fred winning the stupid award tonight with his "headbutt". Any other referee and that's a red card.
 

Born2Lose

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It was a problem even when Fergie was here, remember Nani's sending off against Real.
 

Bastian

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This is one of the things that comes with leadership. We're too naive, too nice, too meek.
 

GledTheRed

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All comes from the manager with his morals which is correct but when everyone else is cheating to get results we should do the same.

It's part of the game now unfortunately.
 

Phil

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I do agree that if we're playing teams like PSG, we do have to play the game too unfortunately.
 

Shane88

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87 minutes when their defender went down with "cramp". What did we do? Give the ball back.

Do these players not realise you have to be fecking cnuts sometimes? Idiots.
 

AshRK

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I was fuming at fred. Parades knew what he was doing and actually out the head first towards fred. Fred could have been smart by either not falling into the trap or just play acted by falling down. We were enjoying ourselves today but lacked the maturity.
 

Irwin99

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Not saying he was wrong to do it, and Neymar is annoying as hell, but McT was clearly winding him up and trying to get him to react. That's not exactly taking the moral high ground.
 

croadyman

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87 minutes when their defender went down with "cramp". What did we do? Give the ball back.

Do these players not realise you have to be fecking cnuts sometimes? Idiots.
Yeah it's what Jose is trying to get into the mindset of those Spurs players. A prime example being Lamela sucking in Tony to get himself sent off
 

Laphroaig

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We don't need to be PSG or Pep's Barca, but we should probably fint the golden mean.

But at the same time I love this: "I don't want to comment on the opposition's players, that's Thomas' job. My players know my values and what I want from them. I want honest players. Scott could have gone down when Neymar grabs his gentler parts."

I'd find something else to do if I "had to" support twats like Neymar and the rest of them.
 
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Web of Bissaka

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1. I think there are clear differences between two extreme ends and the middle ground.
a. twats - cheating, playacting pansies players eg. Neymar, Lamela, etc. Also including cynics and scums = players that try to dangerously and actively injure other players.
b. honest to a fault, 2 types
1. idealistic - noble-ish, never cheat, never play acting, etc.
2. emotional - temperamental, angered, often fight back.
The middle ground in the spectrum,
c. streetsmarts - the one that balance both ends well, they used good dark arts of football to gain advantage without using it too much, basically not over. Just a bit of playacting or taking advantage of the rules especially when there is contact, handballs, etc. Also have good temperament in not getting influence by people attempting to goad them up. This players are often praised by football professionals, and not ridiculed like the h.t.o.f. nor criticized/mocked/made-fun-of like the twats.

2. Point?
We have too many players that are honest to a fault.
I would say McT is left that are best at being streetsmart. The 2nd best is Rojo but we know we're getting rid off him. Bruno and Mata too are quite good at it. Pogba often try it, maybe he learned it from Juve, but he's so bad at it, and I feel bad for him each time he try. Lingard is also admittedly street-smart at times. The rest are not really. The new players that just came this year, I have no idea.

3. Conclusion?
We need more streetsmart players to play this game.
 

Samid

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This is annoying. Good and honest guys win nothing. We need to step up our shithousery and fight fire with fire.
 

A-man

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This is annoying. Good and honest guys win nothing. We need to step up our shithousery and fight fire with fire.
It is super annoying. If we play against one of the dirties and filthiest teams there is out there, we must play the same game. If McT would have gone down with some ball pain, they would have VAR:ed it and after seeing the replay there is a big chance Neymar had faced the red card. I mean Fred's stupid head butt didn't even touch Paredes, but he was knocked out like he was hit by prime Tyson.