In practice, when Fabinho isn't in there they don't really have anybody that has zone dominance in protecting the space in front of the defence. And they don't really have anybody that offers penetration other than Jones as
This explains perhaps the links with Bissouma for the former and Aouar for the latter. The problem remains though that aside from Fabinho, Gini and Jones - we have a lot of midfielders who are often unavailable. The best in that sense
is leaving. Thiago is still a question mark - his record pre-Liverpool is a worry but I am willing to write off the injury this season as I am pretty sure Richarlison's tackle puts anybody out for months. It was fucking horrific. Other than that, the only other time he was out
was due to COVID I believe. But if I had to bet money on it, I wouldn't be putting my life savings on him playing 30+ EPL games next season based on his part record.
Ultimately it feels like we need to do some squad trimming and for sentimental reasons that becomes hard - because we love these guys. They won us #19 and #6.
And the 'easiest' ones to trim are probably the most complicated. How do you recoup any of Keita's value? Who is going
to take on the wages we have him on to be on their treatment table instead of ours. Like Alexis, do we end up paying someone's wages to be the star player for another team? At what point does the risk of letting him go for a tiny sum outweigh the risk of keeping him and having
another injury riddled season?
People always like to make these decisions seem really easy to make and put into practice, but often they are not. Especially now that clubs are going to be more prudent than ever with their money due to COVID.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
I read a lot of daft shit about Trent on here. Most of it is just entirely subjective nonsense about him not being better than a certain player because he isn't a good defender. It's a vague, nebulous statement which means it can't really be measured thus it is only
[Thread 1/x]
possible to counter it with the opposite opinion. Then you just have two intrenched people shouting their opinions at each other and it goes nowhere. A waste of time.
But sometimes I wake up to find someone in my mentions saying something so daft that you just have to push back
Today is such a day with me being told Trent lacks the basics of defending.
He was an ever-present in a side that conceded just 22 goals in a season despite not knowing the basics of defending. A side that also conceded the fewest goals last season.
I hate knee jerk reactions. And judging things based on 1 game. But I'm going to do a complete 180 now and say Phillips should be sold this summer. Let me explain...
I wanted him kept around on the basis that Klopp likes an aggressive CB who attacks the ball in the air and would
throw him in against the shit up and under merchants of the Premier League. He used to do this with Lovren against Huddersfield, Cardiff, sides who like long throws etc. A CB to deal with Pulis-ball.
And today would be such a game. And he was absolutely woeful and easily could
have cost us the game and Champions League football. That is the margins at the club now - 1 bad game can cost you £50m. The difference between winning a league or not. UCL football or not.
This was the exact sort of opponents we would hang onto him for and I have never seen
Lap it up thickos. You all watched as FIFA, UEFA, the FA and every other shitbird in a suit took a massive dump on this sport for up high every year for as long as you can remember
And as soon as someone came along to challenge their monopoly, Gareh 'man of the people' Outrage
squeaked something about how you needed to 'do something' and you all rushed to try and win the 'no, I am the MOST angry about this' competition.
And all you did was follow the pied piper in the media, do the bidding of the bastards at the top of the existing pyramid scheme and
ensure us poor sods at the bottom will get shafted worse than ever now that they have consolidated their power and their absolute stranglehold over all football.
All the while, the sport continues to get taken away from the fans one overpriced ticket at time and we do nothing.
Sometimes I think people weren't paying attention during or after - and learned absolutely fucking nothing at all - from the whole weapons of mass destruction in Iraq thing.
So here is how this works.
The starting point is 'what do we want'.
Then 'how could we justify it'
Then 'fabricate intel that suggests this'
Then 'get media and politicians to talk about this'
Then 'Wow, that intel was wrong? That's weird because EVERYONE was talking about it.'
Outcome - get what you want with absolutely no repercussions whatsoever for the atrocities you have committed to get there.
Billionaire owned and controlled media quickly move on to whatever distraction story they can find.
“City are a real asset for the game and I am delighted to be working with them for a better future for the European game."
- UEFA chief Aleksander Ceferin
"Football need to control owners who want to make money out of clubs. City owners wanted to improve the team."
FIFA's Chief of Global Football Development Arsene Wenger
So there you have it. We are trying to 'control' the wrong ones here. City are good for football in the
eyes of UEFA and FIFA.
All that matters when it comes to an owner is how much money they will put into the club for transfers. If they are committing genocide, human rights atrocities, executing people for being gay, killing thousands of slaves - that has nothing to do with