Greenlizard0 Weekend Football Thread ** spoilers ** [7th - 10th August 2015]

Well, a scrapping 3 pts but 3pts none the less. With Chelsea dropping 2 pts and Arsenal and Spurs dropping 3, I'll definitely take that.

Gomez seemed fine, few iffy youthful decisions but looked promising. Clyne looked decent too, again a few iffy decisions but overall promising. 3 out of 4 defenders being booked is a bit much though, have to be careful of that in future games.

Can looked very good when he came on, really think he will go on to become a very very good player. Firmino looked good when he came on, would have liked to have seen him earlier. Benteke was ok but I really felt Ings should have come on for him for the last 3rd of the game.

Coutinho, well, what can you say. Again our star player and again , as always, amazes me that we got him for 8m
 
Didn't play particularly well by any stretch of the imagination and it looked like an opening day match. Neither side looked up to speed physically and it was an effort to watch at times. We defended well though and Lovren in particular looked more assured than he ever did last season. A win away at Stoke is never to be sniffed at.

The big question coming away from today is how much are Barca paying for Coutinho in the summer? You could tell he's barely had a pre-season but he still looked a cut above anybody else on the pitch and that goal topped it off.
manic111 said:
Haha. Slight inexperience from Gomez!
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He was being fouled by Walters. Walters is a tricky player to play against not least for a kid making his PL debut and all things considered he done really well.
nemtizz said:
https://vine.co/v/ew2jp2muFOu

Unreal scenes.
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Didn't that lunatic announce he was going to kill himself on twitter?
 
Robbo said:
Coutinho special.

Has he got the best shot from range in the world? Seems to score quite a few.
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Pigeon_Killer said:
It's only the second or third he's scored like that. People just remember them because they're special rather than the norm like with other players. Hope he keeps it up but there are loads of players that strike the ball more accurately and more often from distance.
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As you say, he's only scored probably I think 4 like that across 3 seasons. Coutinho actually has an incredibly bad shots/goals ratio but if a player is willing to smack the ball when he'll miss most of the time you'll score screamers. Any normal person can stand 30 yards out, take a hundred swings, they'll score 5 goals that look epic but are in reality, no different to the other 95 that went just about anywhere but the goal. If you can physically hit a ball and it can go anywhere... in the goal is somewhere and you can fluke a goal if you try often enough.

Kroos is another one, people see his hits from outside the box and assume he does them all the time but in reality he takes 40-50 shots a year and scores 1 or 2. Effectively any player can swing at the ball 50 times and score a couple of screamers but most players will get shown the door if they shoot that often when they aren't good at shooting.

Kroos had 2 in 34 last year, 2 in 52 the year before(in the league). Coutinho last year took 103 shots, let that sink in, 103 for 5 goals, year before 5 in 94 shots, year before that was his 'good' year with 3 in 36 shots. Sturridge in his good year took 99 shots and scored what 19 or 21 or something.

I think Gerrard falls into that category, he was better than both earlier in his career, early/mid 00's he had a decent shot and scored quite a few screamers however he's always taking a lot of shots to achieve it. He was a significantly better finisher inside the box than Coutinho or Kroos though, by a mile. Gerrard in his past 5 years is more like Coutinho now, shooting a lot from open play with very very little success. His open play goals/shots and just plain goal return was pretty woeful. He however maintained his accuracy from freekicks/penalties which accounted for like 90% of his goals in his last few seasons.

Robbo said:
Do they, from that far? It's a bit like people thinking Ronaldo is good at free kicks and he scores one a season, or something.
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Ronaldo actually did used to score a lot of goals from freekicks. Keep in mind that the best freekick takers in the world will take maybe 50-100 freekicks every year of which maybe half are shots(more for Ronaldo) but the best probably never scored more than 10 in a single season. It's a low scoring scenario where scoring 2 a year is okay and scoring 5 puts you way above average. Ronaldo was amongst the best at freekicks in the world till a few years ago when he seemed to lose the knack. He is however one of the best long range scorers in the world if not the best from open play.
 
Sure DM rang into yalksport ranting about how arsenal only perform well when there's no pressure. He spoke in circles and took about 10 minutes to make his points I pretty certain it was DM.
 
Tombstone said:
Coutinho, well, what can you say. Again our star player and again , as always, amazes me that we got him for 8m
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You can say that Real Madrid/Barca will be putting the usual player unsettling machinery in motion sometime before Christmas, and talk of wanting a move away if "he dosen't get champions league football next season" will probably follow shortly after, in familiar self fulfilling kind of way.

Call me a cynic :/
 
90 minutes of dross with a second of magic sums up the Stoke Liverpool game.
 
Stretch said:
You can say that Real Madrid/Barca will be putting the usual player unsettling machinery in motion sometime before Christmas, and talk of wanting a move away if "he dosen't get champions league football next season" will probably follow shortly after, in familiar self fulfilling kind of way.

Call me a cynic :/
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Maybe, but remember he was at a 'big' club Internazionale before his move to Liverpool (and a loan in Spain) and he hardly set the world a light.

Maybe he's just a player that flourishes at mid table clubs? :p :o.

Very much tongue in cheek, however, he has come on leaps and bounds at Liverpool (already a talented player, just was not the right fit at Internazionale). If Liverpool's European ambition is serious, they need to hold on to Coutinho :).

I'm not sure he is a 'big' enough name for Real Madrid to be honest, that's not meant in a disrespectful manner, but rather while he is an excellent player (in my opinion) and is a key player for Liverpool he has not got the same profile as a Hazard, or Bale.
 
Perhaps the best league in the world isn't the one where 2 teams at the top absolutely trounce 95% of their opposition without breaking a sweat.
 
Best league in the world will be the one with Phil the Thrill

Also didn't see it but sounds like we still suck and newbie thinks fraudgers is lying about Sakho being out
 
Purdy said:
Best league in the world will be the one with Phil the Thrill

Also didn't see it but sounds like we still suck and newbie thinks fraudgers is lying about Sakho being out
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Pretty much :) His nipper was born 5 days ago, he has been in training all week and Brenton has been playing Skrtel and Lovren as his CB's in 5 out of 6 pre season games, but yeah Sahko is his 1st choice LCB obviously.
 
How did Lovren play?

Also doubt he has to lie if he prefers Lovren over him, dumb as **** decision but there would be no need for him to lie...
 
I don't believe Sakho is first choice either but the reports said Sakho hadn't trained enough to feature today. At the very least I would've expected him to be on the bench ahead of Kolo Traore if he was fit.

Edit: One dodgy pass in the first half but Lovren looked pretty composed today. Skrtel was certainly the more rash of the two.
 
Average, some ropey decisions. Most of Stokes joy came down our left though.

The lying thing, I assume your talking about Pearce's bit in the echo a week or so ago? If he was 1st choice LCB, would he not have partnered Skrtel more in pre-season?
 
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