Topic: The Push Square Football (Soccer) Thread

José getting sacked is like the end of one of your favourite comedy shows.

@themcnoisy it still way too early to say that about winning the league. Even if Manc Citeh drop points tomorrow (which I highly doubt they will) 7 points is nothing at this stage of the season. More points have been pegged back in a shorter space of time.

@JohnnyShoulder your next 2 games are at home, which you will win. The weather is meant to go awful over the next 2 weeks so playing at home is huge. Then it's only 14 games left. Man City are in the league Cup and fa cup so you can rest. De Bruyne has come back too quickly from injury and won't be the same player until next season. Fernandino can't play defensive mid on his own for the next 22 minimum or 30plus maximum games man City have left in their season including cups as he's too old to play every time at 100mph and recover in time. That also applies to Kompany and Silva who are important players for City. I also think the Man City vs Tottenham / Chelsea final will be brutal, Pochetino and Sarri haven't won anything before and will go crazy in an attempt to win. So I think man City will drop anywhere between 10 and 15 points by the end of the season. Liverpool will drop points, but if you keep your back line fit you will be fine.

@themcnoisy I mean i support Liverpool but I think you are clutching at straws with some of those points. The weather, really?! Man City have the best, deepest squad in the Prem and they have coped without KDB really well so far. They may buy extra cover for Fernandino in Jan and he probs won't play all those games, but you could say that about VVD for Liverpool, If they lost him to injury it would be a disaster. It never sits easy with me when someone say a team will win the league when it is this close and we are only in January.

One thing I'm sure of is that Man City will run us really close and not totally out of they question that they will go top for a couple of weeks. They have done this before and have players that have experienced this which serve their players well mentally in the closing stages.

Liverpool doing their best to blow my prediction.

You best be praying the grand old team do you a favour on Wednesday. We won't because we are playing terrible but we can all pray for a miracle on Merseyside together. Michael Keane, Seamus Colema. and Kurt Zouma vs Aguero, Silva and De Bruyne.

Fml.

@themcnoisy Yeah the weather really impacting Man City lol.

I never hope or rely on other teams to do us a favour, we should be taking care of business ourselves. The last couple of results it does feel there has been a shift in impetuous.

Ronnie does it again! The guy thrives under pressure. Yesterday's match was his fourth hat-trick against Athletico Madrid.

@WanderingBullet Amazing. I think he has scored more goals in the Champers League than Athletico Madrid!

Good news thst Liverpool are through to the next round, that is four English teams.

Real Madrid, what has happened to them? Sounds like some of the players are managing the squad.

'Watch him defend and we watch him score.'

I love big Virgil.

@ApostateMage I think either him or Sterling will get player of the season.

@JohnnyShoulder That's the problem with Real Madrid. I think in the past there were rumours that Raul had a say in the team selection as well.

@JohnnyShoulder @WanderingBullet They have come to the end of an era. The young players they have brought in just haven't cut the mustard to push the experienced pros.

Real can just buy the best players though so they will be back next year. Hazard, Erikson and Mane are on Zidanes wish list apparently.

Bayern were awful tonight. An absolute shadow of the Bayern teams we are used to seeing.

What's good about that is I can imagine both Real and Bayern wanting the same players so the transfer market will explode.

@themcnoisy Pogba's apparently on Zidane's wish list too. You're right, I can see Real Madrid spending big this summer. I'm still a bit confused about the financial fair play. How much are they (Real Madrid) allowed to spend and doesn't PSG need to off load some of their big star players? I think Man City are currently being investigated as well for financial fair play infringements too.

@WanderingBullet @themcnoisy
I think Barcelona and Real Madrid get the lions share of the TV money in Spain. Both Barca and Athletico Madrid have been hit with transfer bans in the last couple of years. Weirdly it all seems to start from how they have signed younger players.

You can pick any player that has been performing well of the last two seasons and they will be linked to on of the big Euro clubs. Most of em don't have any truth behind them though.

Bayern have never been mahoosive spenders in the transfer market. Biggest spenders in Germany I would imagine, but compare to the orher major Euro sides and it is not that great.

@WanderingBullet FFP was brought In to stop unscrupulous owners plunging the club into debt and at the time hundreds of clubs in Europe were losing money. I'm not sure how much Real Madrid have in their war chest but its around £140 million. Plus they can sell players.

Real Madrid were also lacking Ramos in that match and, as much as I dislike him, he is a massive loss for Madrid. You have to question their 'old' manager too. The loss of Ronaldo can not be the only reason for the results and you don't have the team they have losing some of the matches they have. It would be like Man City losing Aguero and Kompany being out of the team and them just not getting the results.

Its no secret that footballers run the team. If they don't like a manager or believe in him, the Manager gets sacked. We often hear how a 'manager' has lost the dressing room. I know the manager picks the team and works on tactics etc, but if he cannot get the players to believe in him or his tactics, its not them that will get fired if things don't go well.

If you have read the news over the past 10yrs or so, Messi is 'allegedly' dictating things at Barcelona. You will read things like Messi want's 'X' at Barcelona - how much of that is true, I don't know but you can believe that Barcelona would do quite a lot to keep Messi happy, keep him motivated etc. Barca have a massive stadium to fill every match and players - especially if they bring the results in too - are going to be very powerful people to the Directors. If you have 'star' players, you want to keep them far more than you need the manager and, big clubs like Real, Barcelona etc won't be short of managers wanting that job. Its one of the biggest jobs in club football but also one of the toughest. If you get the players working with rather than against, you have a chance of staying in that job - but lose to your biggest rival, get knocked out of the CL for example, you are out of a job regardless.

We have seen it this season in the EPL too - Jose at Utd. Some players didn't like Mourinho and that ended up with him out of a Job. In comes Ole and the exact same team goes on an unbeaten run for weeks. Ole has the best record ever for a new manager at Utd and Pogba has been quite an important part of that run too.

The manager at big clubs has to get the players on side first and foremost to keep their Job. Its not 'just' winning trophies because if the Team are on side, the directors are more likely to keep with the manager. Sacking a Manager is very costly too so its better to put that money into trying to strengthen rather than paying off the rest of the Managers contract. Wenger stayed in the Arsenal job for years because he had the support of the team even if the Supporters were not always behind him. You try and find an ex-arsenal player that has anything negative to say about him. I know people don't generally speak badly about people publicly, but you can tell when people genuinely like some one and those that tend to avoid the subject...

Anyway, QF are going to be interesting - no immunity for clubs at this stage so the English clubs can be drawn against each other...

@Frigate English, like Spanish, German, Italian, French etc clubs will NEVER be drawn together before the Quarter Finals. They all go into different pots in the Groups and first round of the Knockouts (last 16). However, that immunity is now over - English (as well as any other nation - if they had multiple teams in) can be drawn together. The draw takes place on Friday.

If all 4 get drawn together, and then those 2 get drawn together, you would have 1 English Club in the Final. Its still possible that the Semi-Finals could be an all-English situation - but that would only happen if none are drawn together and they all win their Quarter Final.

Its NOT a conspiracy that no English club was drawn together before this round of the competition - they would NEVER be drawn together at that stage - just like none of the German teams (Schalke, Bayern, Dortmund), Spanish (Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atlectico Madrid), French (PSG, Lyon), Italian (Juventus, Roma) and the other two were Porto and Ajax so they were the only representatives of their nation but had there been another team from either nation, they would have been kept separate at this stage of the competition.

Now at the Quarter Final stage, there are 4 English teams and 1 each from Spain, Italy, Netherlands & Portugal. Now there is nothing in place to keep sides from the same nation facing each other - which only affects English clubs this year. Had Atlectico and Real got through, whilst they would never have faced each other in the CL this season, they could of been drawn together in the QF's - a Madrid derby. Its possible we could see a Manchester derby in this years QF's....

@JohnnyShoulder Aye, Raheem has had a fantastic season for City. I'd say Son from Spurs is a contender, too.

Favorites to win the UCL?

For me, it's one of these three clubs:

• Man City
• Barcelona
• Juventus

@ApostateMage I'm a fan of Son Heung-min. If Pochettino does go to United I hope he brings Son along too.

@ApostateMage Yeah Son has been good for Spuds and I think the votes are done in in something ridiculous like February.