GWT: PL Match Week 4

[Live in the Now]

Third goal was brilliant from Firmino once again. Not just the shot but all of it.

 

[Cassano]

Firmino and KdB competing for POTY it seems.

 

[YNWA14]

Brilliant from Firmino and Salah too selfish again. Mane must be frustrated.

 

[Prntscrn]

Salah looking too much to score himself again.. Both Mane and Robbo were in great positions

 

[Duchene2MacKinnon]

If only you could credit Pep for all these transfer decisions...except you can't since City has a DoF and Chief Scout who are the main guys behind their transfers. I'm sure as the head coach Pep is involved in discussions and helps push for the type of players he wants, but he isn't doing this himself any more than the revolving door of manager's at ManU are buying their own players.

Pep is a great manager, but he's so far failed to translate domestic success to Europe with a super squad at his disposal. He has the most expensive squad in the world and has a higher net and gross transfer spend since arriving there than any other club in the world. Domestic success is the minimum expectation, and if that's all he achieves he'll eventually be run out of the club and his legacy there will be domestic success but overall failure.

Nonsense.

 

[YNWA14]

Mane is furious and rightfully so

 

[Live in the Now]

It’s 3-0 so the whole thing was pretty childish. Anyway, the consistency from this team is going to be legendary when it’s all over with. Three points after the next, after the next.

 

[Halladay]

This type of performance is becoming standard.

 

[Prntscrn]

It’s 3-0 so the whole thing was pretty childish. Anyway, the consistency from this team is going to be legendary when it’s all over with. Three points after the next, after the next.

Still when Salah chose to ignore his teammates at 2-0 it could have cost us. Definitely something I think Klopp and his crew need to take care of behind the scenes

 

[YNWA14]

It’s 3-0 so the whole thing was pretty childish. Anyway, the consistency from this team is going to be legendary when it’s all over with. Three points after the next, after the next.

It's obviously a build up. Salah is incredibly selfish and it's unnecessary. That Mane was taken off and not Salah after the game went as it did would be quite frustrating.

 

[Burner Account]

Wanted a clean sheet

 

[S E P H]

There’s just zero creativity offensively when a team remotely plays defensively.

It’s the same as under Mourinho. A bunch of players playing individually without much plan for how they link together.

I see United as a team which very much resembles Wenger's Arsenal during the second half of his career. Going forward I think United has been quite good, sure there are some issues, but the tactics are looking good (to me). Defensively though, they look not only super inconsistent, but Solskjaer seems to be throwing a lot of players up the pitch due to deficiencies at other areas of the team such as creativity that they get shredded on the counter.

I don't think it's fair to give Solskjaer a time-limit, don't get me wrong he might not be the suitable man for the job, but I also think he should be given some time. You can't go the Chelsea route and keep firing manager after manager and think the cancer will go away. Sure Mourinho is a terrible manager which directly had nothing to do with Woodward, but Woodward is the alpha cancer while Mourinho was the beta. Beta is gone, but alpha remains while Ole could be a gamma cancer. Getting rid of gamma still doesn't do anything when alpha is still there.

That was a game where putting on Alexis could've potentially made a difference. United similar to Arsenal between 2006 - 2017 have a terrible bench and nobody can come on to make a difference in opening a game up or creating something out of nothing. I don't blame Solskjaer here, but one of his subs was to put on Matic to give Pogba more of a free #10 role. Paul is a fantastic player, but if there is something the bloke lacks it is raw offencive creativity akin to de Bruyne. Hell, you can make the debate that Oezil has superior offensive instincts over Pogba even though Ozil doesn't touch Pogba's overall talent.

Abraham is a good one boys

I want to see more from him, especially on the consistent level. He reminds me too much of Lukaku 2.0 and even though that is a solid player, that isn't a EPL-title winner type of player.

Chelsea and United dropping points? Pleasing.

Meh, we can come in and make fun of them, but I think what we're seeing is that there isn't an easy game anymore in the EPL. Sure, United and Chelsea on paper should win, but paper is recyclable.

 

[Jersey Fresh]

A lot of fixtures coming up in a condensed period for Liverpool. Let's see if they maintain that consistency and their attacking players stay fit.

I find it pretty unbelievable how that front three has managed to stay almost universally healthy playing so many minutes.

 

[Luigi Habs]

Mane was very mad on the bench rightfully so. Also why did Klopp not take out Salah instead to give him an earful for the selfish plays?
Salah my 2nd favourite player after Messi but that was unnecessarily selfish and childish.

 

[S E P H]

This type of performance is becoming standard.

Liverpool has had a super easy schedule, sure they're contenders, but lets see them away at a good opponent before labelling something as "standard".

 

[Jersey Fresh]

Maybe Salah should have passed, but you're 3-0 up and you've already scored in the match. The whinging was childish and Mane is the only culprit.

 

[Live in the Now]

Liverpool has had a super easy schedule, sure they're contenders, but lets see them away at a good opponent before labelling something as "standard".

Arsenal are super easy now? Finally one of you agrees.

 

[S E P H]

Arsenal are super easy now? Finally one of you agrees.

At Anfield, absolutely...

 

[YNWA14]

Maybe Salah should have passed, but you're 3-0 up and you've already scored in the match. The whinging was childish and Mane is the only culprit.

If it were just one game, sure. It's not and it's an obvious build up as Mane is typically a very happy camper. Mane is a pretty unselfish player it's not really about him scoring it's about playing for the team. Mane had a few chances to be selfish in the game and passed off instead for a better chance. He was pretty mad about the even worse selfish play when Salah didn't pass to Firmino who had made a perfect run.

 

[Halladay]

Liverpool has had a super easy schedule, sure they're contenders, but lets see them away at a good opponent before labelling something as "standard".

Cause teams get 97 points every year and 13 straight wins happens all the time.

 

[Prntscrn]

Bobby

 

[hatterson]

So the official explanation for the Villa situation is that on the field the ref called a dive (thus the yellow to the villa player).

Var couldn’t get involved because of 2 reasons:

1.) no potential penalty since any contact happened outside the area
2.) the ref blew his whistle before the shot was taken and thus there was no goal on the play.

Because VAR is only used for penalties, red cards, and goals, and none of those potentially happened (because of the whistle) they couldn’t use it.

The proper procedure for a ref in that situation is to hold onto the whistle for a second longer. If he had simply refrained from blowing it for a second longer it would have been a potential goal and VAR could have been used to judge if it was really a dive or not.

 

[bluesfan94]

So the official explanation for the Villa situation is that on the field the ref called a dive (thus the yellow to the villa player).

Var couldn’t get involved because of 2 reasons:

1.) no potential penalty since any contact happened outside the area
2.) the ref blew his whistle before the shot was taken and thus there was no goal on the play.

Because VAR is only used for penalties, red cards, and goals, and none of those potentially happened (because of the whistle) they couldn’t use it.

The proper procedure for a ref in that situation is to hold onto the whistle for a second longer. If he had simply refrained from blowing it for a second longer it would have been a potential goal and VAR could have been used to judge if it was really a dive or not.

I guess that makes sense but frustrating

 

[YNWA14]

Also with that Firmino becomes the first Brazilian to score 50 in the PL.

Bravo

 

[hatterson]

I guess that makes sense but frustrating

Yea I agree.

In cases where there’s a goal scoring chance like that the ref is supposed to hold his whistle to let that chance complete unless he’s absolutely, absolutely sure of the call he’s making.

Friend made two mistakes on that play. One was calling it a dive (at best he went down a bit easy, but there was contact) and the second was blowing the whistle too fast. Unfortunately neither of those are situations VAR is allowed to fix.

The first will continue to happen (officials make mistakes), but the second should become more and more rare as officials get used to VAR.