evissy

Luis Enrique's done an amazing job at PSG. Hats off to him. The most impressive thing is none of their players are in love with the ball. Most times they pass first time without taking unnecessary extra touches and all of them are for the team. No ball hogging just progressive moves with the ball as a team. Pass and move - Simply amazing. Naturally requires great footballing talent but most of all desire to work for the same goal and it looks like ego has left the team. Our squad has similar building blocks so I really hope Enzo instills that thinking to the team.

No one has said things are perfect or done perfectly. Far from it. The owners have made a ton of mistakes. The stretch where they ran the club themselves without football knowledge was when we hired and fired coaches, bouth the likes of Sterling and Koulibaly and the likes. They learned from their mistakes which is the most important thing to happen and they setup and hired the team of directors to handle the sporting side. That has worked in my eyes pretty well even though it is not the general consensus here. I don't worry about that to be honest. I am pretty sure a massive overhaul of players won't go perfectly as no one at this level and scale has ever done it to my knowledge. Everyone always wanted that but it never happened (year after year this forum had "massive squad overhaul" threads). There has to be mis-investments and mistakes in the short time they did this in. The strategy in many ways is risky as I have said a billion times but I see the strategy there. And if that strategy works we could possibly see something that we are witnessing at PSG at this moment. At least we'll have a young core of players that hopefully are together for a long time and developing year by year to a better level. That is something that MU for example doesn't have if you want to compare a club to us. It also could go tits up. Absolutely a possibility. We could go bankrupt and yo-yo between coaches on a yearly basis and lose the top talent to Real Madrid and Barcelona. We used to have one man who always took the money from his personal pocket and made everything right. We don't have that generous man anymore, sadly. We are in the normal market and face realities that most others clubs face. On the directors and their work I still think they have done a good job. We have some good talent identified by them. Some duds as well like Felix. But I think the percentages are on their side here. The best 11 is always the one that makes the results happen on the pitch, not Omari Kellyman. And to back the investment even slightly - Omari is only 19.

If that means the stadium is up and running at 15 year mark I think they have done okay. That would mean they have about 12-17 years. Permits will always take years to go through. Planning and building as well. Btw just watched the brilliant Rock'n Rolla movie by Guy Ritchie once again. They have depicted a version of Roman in that movie and his struggles to get the building going. A great watch that movie! 💪

Bar from them absolutely spanking us - let's say 5-0, 6-0 or along the lines we can be pretty positive of our progress as a team and this tournament itself. A rough beating could set the team back a bit. I think it is more harmful to us than to Real and Alonso to get spanked. We need that good old positive reinforcement as a squad. I hope we at least give them a game. No over board lunges or tackles if we go 2-0 down. But a professional showing that we are maturing. Personally I think PSG suits as an opponent to us a bit better than Real would have. Real would approach the game to win, PSG to smash. A smasher we could surprise but a classic Real defensive show probably not.

Hopefully that is something he has grasped himself. That is the only thing that matters really. That outburst suggests maybe otherwise. I think he lacks that 'coldness' a bit now that he is not scoring all the time. But I agree with him having absolutely nothing to prove.

PSG has the same plan as us luring out Real players by passing at their own half and then finding a quick vertical pass piercing the lines. They just do it much much better than us. Their confidence level is so high they consider Real Madrid as a toy.

Not sure when this kind of dominance was seen by a team at this level.

My word...3-0 at 23 mins

Hard to say whether he looks to play more consistently or paycheck. Looks like paycheck. He would be behind Saka and Martinelli. But we have to be a bit aware of the lowish salaries on our players in general. Anyway if he wants to leave, no problem. Like Enzo said whoever doesn't want to be here you are free to go.

And when Jackson makes an assist some people will tell he is not a proper striker as proper strikers will want to score themselves.

I agree with Palmer that Jackson should have assisted (tried at least) him on that one chance but his reaction was over the top. I think both players suffered from not scoring. Jackson is under a massive pressure by the new guys but strangely Palmer seems to have an obsession over scoring. The game was pretty much done at that point. Palmer's frustration with Jacko in general was probably visible there as well.

I think we are way too inexeperienced and young squad. Our coach is the same. Would be close to a Leicester level achievement if we did. If you look beyond the price of the squad we are a developing side. It would mean we have a once in a lifetime season and other basically fail. Would love to see us compete but I don't see that happening. We have UCL as well. But I love the optimism on that. I think we might end up 4th and around 70+ points. UCL is a major factor to our season. It did exactly that to Newcastle and Aston Villa and probably to Arsenal too.

Sorry mate. Should have put a tenner on it 😅

I think in terms of squad unity and the belief in the squad and fellow players this does hell of a good. Young players are slowly growing into the big shoes they are viewed to be in. I think this has been very positive for the team. And although Premier League is the main competition we are not realistically challenging to win it for at least a couple of seasons so there will be much more pointless games inside the 38 game season than this tournament for the players themselves. We all know players will concentrate 100% on the UCL games and the Prem game before it and after that game will be heavily affected as we've seen in our past and with other UCL teams from the Prem. That is pretty natural. That is why winning a treble or a double of Prem+UCL is pretty much a unicorn level stuff. In terms of football to me at least this tournament has been very positive. All the teams have fielded more or less the best players and taken the matches seriously. Hats off to south american clubs and their fans as well.

Again he is on a 7 year contract. And I think we are on a better situation with him now than he is not the clear favourite to play. Coming on today he showed what he is good at. He is clearly feeling the pressure from Liam and Joao but that has to be only a good thing. I am sure he will be useful in the future as well. If someone buys him this summer, fine but I don't see that happening. Massive knee jerking over this situation.

The strikers situation and reaction to it is a bit funny. So Jackson takes 2 reds and immediately he is being rumoured to be sold. The dude is on a 7 year contract and was our best number 9 this season... now Pedro comes in and is impressive in two games and immediately he is the solution and the best striker on the planet 🤣. I really really hope inside the club and the squad they are much more calm.

I know. It is a bit subjective. Our 'boring' style of football is for certain not the reason for the emptyish stands. Let's build on this and not bicker on secondary things.

Hard to call it underwhelming when you win 13 of 15. We have some good building blocks here for the coming season.

Enzo Maresca tried to dance and camera instantly went back to the studio 🤣

Joao Pedro's both goals are brilliant. Great to see a player confidently taking shots. He is the best pla....SUPERIOR PLAYER OF THE MATCH for sure

Wasn't exactly fitness related injury then.

I don't see it as being dull. A bit of a chess match and in this climate as well. Much better to bide time at times. If this was Prem style football 3 players would be injured per game.

Caicedo? He was injured in a clash.

Final awaits!!!! Excellent job by everyone.

Caicedo looks injured....