Football (Soccer) Thread

[Sheilbh]

I have a soft spot for Forest - but also I really like and rate Nuno so I'm glad to see him do well.

It's a bit like Emery where I think he got a job at a difficult point at a club that he perhaps wasn't suited to (to Spurs fans credit I think there was less borderline racist abused than Emery got) - and then basically got written off by the press. So I'm really glad to see him - like Emery - go somewhere else that's perhaps a bit less pressure, a bit more open to him and his style and doing really well.

It's that really bad habit the English press have in relation to managers and players who go to the bigger Premier League clubs of seeing them not succeeding/getting fired there as a damning indictment of them generally. Although I think the perma-crisis at United is possibly starting to change that view

[Josquius]

I have a soft spot for Forest - but also I really like and rate Nuno so I'm glad to see him do well.

It's a bit like Emery where I think he got a job at a difficult point at a club that he perhaps wasn't suited to (to Spurs fans credit I think there was less borderline racist abused than Emery got) - and then basically got written off by the press. So I'm really glad to see him - like Emery - go somewhere else that's perhaps a bit less pressure, a bit more open to him and his style and doing really well.

It's that really bad habit the English press have in relation to managers and players who go to the bigger Premier League clubs of seeing them not succeeding/getting fired there as a damning indictment of them generally. Although I think the perma-crisis at United is possibly starting to change that view

Wish they'd do that for managers who fail at other clubs
Moyes should never have worked again.

[Sheilbh]

You leave Moyes alone!

[Josquius]

Moyes is... Insert bad words here.


So.... AFC Richmond beat Man City in the FA Cup final.
This is a good thing.
As much as Crystal Palace aren't a real "core" premier league team of course. But that makes it better in a way.

[Zoupa]

I cried today. I've been waiting so long for this. 

[Zoupa]

[Jacob]

  

[Norgy]

Saves the season for Spurs.

Big, big game for Nottingham Forest Saturday. And we usually don't do well in those, as proven by the performance against Man City in the FA cup semi.

Chelsea at home should on paper be a clear away win, if you look at the teams. But the Forest team this season, it has over-performed even when it's been poor.

The game probably will decide the future of a few players as well. I am not sure Elanga and Gibbs-White are going to stay if there won't be Champions League football at the City Ground.

Although Arne Slot is a shoo-in for Manager of the year, I think Nuno has done something almost Clough-like with Forest this season.
And after so many years in the Championship, and even League One, Nottingham Forest are at least back.

Josq, I am not too enamoured by Marinakis. And his, well, rather sketchy record. That being said, the money he has put into the club is no chicken feed, it has been massive. Sustainability has been a Forest issue since the failure to regain promotion after the relegation from the Premier League. David Platt wasted most of it on some very uninspiring signings, and after that, when Scholar and the other owners were finished dismantling the club.

Forest then set up a Transfer Acquisition Panel when Nigel Doughty saved the club from bankruptcy. So no manager could really buy players. And we had so many bad managers. Kinnear. Megson. Freedman. Billy Davies.

[Sheilbh]

Also very pleased for Palace.

Genuine question - I was speaking with a friend about this. We both came up during the Fergie years, and despite many, many years of (at best) mediocrity still find it quite funny and good to see United lose. Do you think that ever goes or is your sense of basically who the biggest/always winning teams are basically just set when you're a kid?

[Jacob]

I think it takes at least a decade and a half of sustained mediocrity for it to even start fading.

I mean, it is funny to see Man Utd lose, but not as funny as would've been. Nowadays I think it'd be funnier to see Man City lose.

[Josquius]

The question there is a bit fuzzy because Man Utd have always been a good team.
I think they fucked up one year in the 70s and got relegated for a season and have had a few mediocre finishes over the decades but broadly pick a year since the war and they're almost certainly top 10. Probably even top 4.

Though there's something to that yes.
Liverpool were crushing it in the 80s about as much as man Utd in the 90s, but this dropped off shortly before the Premier league came into existence and throughout the 90s they were... Good. Always top 4. But never really seriously winning anything of note. So I don't really think of them as a top top team like man Utd.

Where I find this weirder isn't so much with the best teams but rather lower down the Premier league. Kids these days growing up thinking Brentford are a proper premier league team....
I have a list in my head from the 90s/00s of who are the natural premier league teams and deviations from that go against nature.

And yes. Seeing the oil sheikh teams crash would be better.

[Norgy]

I enjoy seeing Man City lose. 
While Haaland is a good striker, he is a cunt.
In the 80s, seeing Liverpool being beaten was a rare but enjoyable treat. Forest lost two FA Cup semis against Liverpool, and they were pretty much a bogey team in every match. A nil-five drubbing at Anfield in a season Forest finished third with Clough's second "good side" with Pearce, Walker, Webb, Hodge and Clough among the stand-out players still hurts. A bit, at least.

I never managed to muster much hatred against Man Utd, even when they beat Forest 8-0 at the City Ground with a clueless Big Ron Atkinson at the helm at Forest. But I loathed George Graham's Arsenal teams. They were, perhaps, not as boring as the moniker they were given, but still.

[bogh]

Tomorrow is the final game day of the Danish Super League.

We (FC Copenhagen) are ahead of FC Midtjylland by a single point. We should clinch it, but the ball is round etc and it would be very in character for FCM to steal it away (again) at the last minute through some fluke event.

[Josquius]

Today is the play off final. Sunderland vs Sheffield United for a place in the Premier league and quarter of a billion pounds.

We beat them once before and then after a dodgy red card lost to them.

They do have a stronger team but I really think this is where Sunderland can thrive, absorbing pressure and hitting them on the break.

If we actually show up today we can win.

Extra important as fail and the team will be dismantled needing a full rebuild.

Nail biting stuff.

[Gups]

My team Charlton also in a play off final  but tomorrow. Sold out our 39k allocation and could have sold 50k. Looking forward to a trip to Wembley and getting out of bloody league one