GWT: EPL - Matchweek 3

[Mount Suribachi]

He slightly misstated when one green line is shown. It’s not strictly when the player is onside due to tolerance, but any time the lines are within the tolerance. So on goals 2 seasons ago where the player was determined onside by a millimeter the system will also show only 1 line.

Granted in this case Rashford looks far closer to being clearly offside than clearly onside, so the point of “only onside due to the rule change” is likely correct, however one of the points of the implementation was that both slightly on and slightly off are considered the same so you don’t truly know “he was offside, but not by enough to call” as opposed to just a generic “it’s too close to definitely say given frame rates and pixelation, therefore attacker gets benefit of the doubt”

Good. I've been complaining about the "1 pixel offside" farce since VAR was introduced.

 

[spintheblackcircle]

Getting mighty cheeky REALLY early in the season, eh?

 

[luiginb]

Not a lot of time to comment but I watched a lot of football this weekend, caught the Leeds-Chelsea game where Chelsea, with some baffling choice by Tuchel in the starting 11, just couldn't seem to match Leeds' intensity. Aaronson is a good one, love how hard he works and has some skill with the ball at his feet. I don't know what Marsch did to Rodrigo but he was never this good before, if he keeps this up it's going to be hard for Bamford to come back into the starting 11. Chelsea has too many center-backs to keep playing Reece James there, he's really needed in the build-up. They also paid 2019 price for 2022 Koulibaly who reminds me of Maguire with his lack of footspeed. He's going to be great against the Chris Woods of the league, but not soagainst fast, shifty strikers.

Also watched the first half of City against Newcastle, who put on a great show for the neutral spectator. City is a great team but man they can look completely rattled at times, they need fewer great players and some character players (like Lisandro was the other night for United). Speaking of Lisandro, I don't get why United doesn't try to play him as a defensive midfielder, where his strengths (passing, tackling) can outweigh his weaknesses (size). Imagine a defensive midfield of Casemiro and Lisandro! Liverpool are in trouble, their gegenpressing is reliant in running midfielders, and they seem to have run out of gas... Also Matip and Mane are two huge losses so far.

 

[Gecklund]

I’m still trying to process the United win. That team that showed up was 100% different. Every single player looked miles better. It will be huge once they have Casemiro in IF they can continue this. Eriksen-McTominay were mostly invisible which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Rashford, Elanga, and Martial all looked up for the challenge and were making runs Ronaldo never would have. I’ve been advocating for Rashford at striker since last season. Martial was my big surprise. That CB pairing that I’ve been advocating looked stellar and Malacia was surprisingly really good. I thought Shaw was fine but that really shows the lack of quality we’ve had at fullback. One thing I will say about Malacia is he should never take a corner.

Now for the negatives. This team gave up way too much possession and were way too wasteful in their chances going forward. With that much speed up top, just boot it and see what happens. Too many times they got caught on the ball and against a team that has their starting midfield, it’ll get wrecked. Dalot got caught out of position a few times too. Just needs to be smarter. Eriksen and McTominay were invisible apart from a few moments. McTom I’m glad was mostly invisible because lately he’s been mostly visible in the worst ways. Eriksen though was surprising. He needs to partner with Bruno better. De Gea really needs to stick to what he’s good at. He’s one of the better shot stoppers in the world. He’s shit at distribution. Play the simple ball and stop trying to be fancy. If there’s no one open, boot it and call it a day. Now the biggest negative, Jadon Sancho. He needs to stop taking after CR7 and learn how to give a shit. He has been absolute garbage except for a few games at the end of last season. Yet another example of an overhyped English talent but he should be so much better than this.

 

[LOGiK]

Obviously the Americans help, but the fact that they play high energy exciting football certainly doesn’t hurt either.

They need a league in the USA with local talent in smaller cities to gain up some popularity. MLS compared to european leagues is a tough watch. The time difference also goes against 'the big mainstream sport consumer audience'. (People aren't going to get together and get beers and cookouts for a 10am football game).
I still think football (soccer) is going to gain popularity in the usa at some point.

 

[HoseEmDown]

Americans do love their whites.

 

[robertmac43]

They need a league in the USA with local talent in smaller cities to gain up some popularity. MLS compared to european leagues is a tough watch. The time difference also goes against 'the big mainstream sport consumer audience'. (People aren't going to get together and get beers and cookouts for a 10am football game).
I still think football (soccer) is going to gain popularity in the usa at some point.

So like USL or USL 1? There is plenty of footie to watch in North America nowadays.

I don't want to put this thread too far off topic by opening this can of warms, but the MLS is far from the league it was 10+ years ago. There are plenty of good players young and old. It's never going to be an EPL or La Liga, that's fine, it's developed into a solid league for North Americans to grow and move on to bigger leagues. It's getting better at that with each passing year.

 

[HoseEmDown]

So like USL or USL 1? There is plenty of footie to watch in North America nowadays.

I don't want to put this thread too far off topic by opening this can of warms, but the MLS is far from the league it was 10+ years ago. There are plenty of good players young and old. It's never going to be an EPL or La Liga, that's fine, it's developed into a solid league for North Americans to grow and move on to bigger leagues. It's getting better at that with each passing year.

The problem with MLS is that they don't spread their games out enough. There's no reason, especially with having time zones, you can't have games at 12, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 on a Saturday and Sunday do about 4 time slots. They have way too many 7pm start games, spread the games out you have a ton a games a match week as is. NCAA football is about to start and the NFL soon so weekends are done for the. But they could do it when those aren't playing. Summer weekends aren't great for TV watching numbers but their numbers stink anyway. Sure it's stupid hot in some cities in the summer but they already do water breaks each half and if you want to have your league run during the summer it's something you're gonna have to deal with.

 

[bluesfan94]

The problem with MLS is that they don't spread their games out enough. There's no reason, especially with having time zones, you can't have games at 12, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 on a Saturday and Sunday do about 4 time slots. They have way too many 7pm start games, spread the games out you have a ton a games a match week as is. NCAA football is about to start and the NFL soon so weekends are done for the. But they could do it when those aren't playing. Summer weekends aren't great for TV watching numbers but their numbers stink anyway. Sure it's stupid hot in some cities in the summer but they already do water breaks each half and if you want to have your league run during the summer it's something you're gonna have to deal with.

My guess is the concern about the heat in this context is less about the players and more about the fans. You're not getting a full crowd for a 4:00 start when it's 99 degrees and 50% humidity.

 

[HoseEmDown]

My guess is the concern about the heat in this context is less about the players and more about the fans. You're not getting a full crowd for a 4:00 start when it's 99 degrees and 50% humidity.

There's going to be 100k people across the south at games this weekend dealing with the humidity and maybe not 99 but 90+ heat in some places. If the fans are invested they'll show but most cities don't have that many die hards to do that.

 

[bluesfan94]

There's going to be 100k people across the south at games this weekend dealing with the humidity and maybe not 99 but 90+ heat in some places. If the fans are invested they'll show but most cities don't have that many die hards to do that.

Right, but it's not as bad when it's a 7:00 so it's just getting cooler and the sun is less intense and more of the stadium is in shade. Now, if you mean college football, that's fair, but that's the difference between football and soccer in America.

 

[HoseEmDown]

Right, but it's not as bad when it's a 7:00 so it's just getting cooler and the sun is less intense and more of the stadium is in shade. Now, if you mean college football, that's fair, but that's the difference between football and soccer in America.

Yes was talking about college football where people will brave 95 degree heat or 5 degree cold to watch thier teams. Soccer is also a much faster game. Technically it's longer to play but it's usually over in 2 hours while football is a 3+ hour event. Most college stadiums don't even have much in the way of shading either.

 

[bluesfan94]

Yes was talking about college football where people will brave 95 degree heat or 5 degree cold to watch thier teams. Soccer is also a much faster game. Technically it's longer to play but it's usually over in 2 hours while football is a 3+ hour event. Most college stadiums don't even have much in the way of shading either.

Right. There are also between 6-8 home games a year and the ones in the bad weather are either trading on early season excitement or late season excitement. Otherwise they are big blue blood teams which is a different beast. And again, the MLS isn’t as popular as college football, so there are different considerations.