2 hours ago, Boyne said:

Not sure if already mentioned but UEFA is proposing changing the kick-off times for CL matches. This is to allow for more of them to be watched. At the moment some kick-off at 5.30pm (U.K. time) but they tend to be for matches involving teams in Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe. 

http://www.espnfc.co.uk/uefa-champions-league/story/3015577/champions-league-to-change-kickoffs-in-group-stage-to-two-timeslots

I would rather they moved Europa League games to Tuesday's and Wednesday's and have those games kick off at 5:30pm. Get rid of Thursday evening football, it's such a stupid time of the week to play football.

Klopp has gone on serious defensive mode with all the Karius criticism, slating the Neville brothers and bringing up what happened to Gary at Valencia, which is pretty rich considering his last season at Dortmund. The spotlight will be on Karius big time now and Klopp will be too stubborn to drop him which will be great from our perspective.

Jurgen is a manager i can't really work out, sometimes he looks like he will take Liverpool really far and other times he looks like he is just continuing Brendans brainless attack with no single f**k about defense philosophy.

I tend to get the feeling listening to Klopp and watching Liverpool, that his best asset is his communication. He comes across very well and sounds like he knows what he's talking about. He doesn't sound like the majority of managers who just repeat the same cliches over and over again. And perhaps his ability to sell himself and what he is doing, has somewhat oversold his ability as a manager.

48 minutes ago, Ivanov87 said:

He used to be good manager but he's now a washed up bitter old c**t.  

That remains to be seen. Honestly stop letting your personal feelings cloud appropriate judgement. If he wins nothing and struggles for the next couple of years then we can say he's washed up.

I hope FC Woolwich Rainbow Bottlers get to the last four...then lose.

 

On 07/12/2016 at 23:10, undertow said:

They can't get Bayern.

 

 

...that's Arsenal draw ;)

No surprise then :-)

Does anyone else think just maybe some CL fixtures are fixed? I remember distinctly the media buzzing about the prospect of us playing Barcelona in 2005 and 2006 and guess who we hot? Then there was when we got Liverpool in our group and there as ore speculation about that. Etc etc. I could go on but I do wonder if the pay fix some fixtures.

12 minutes ago, Bobbywoodhogan said:

Does anyone else think just maybe some CL fixtures are fixed? I remember distinctly the media buzzing about the prospect of us playing Barcelona in 2005 and 2006 and guess who we hot? Then there was when we got Liverpool in our group and there as ore speculation about that. Etc etc. I could go on but I do wonder if the pay fix some fixtures.

i have always reckoned the CL is well fixed, the fixtures and the bias reffing that we know all about

Well in a sense it is, because of the ridiculous rules about who each team and can't face. If you get through, nationality of clubs and dates and so-on mean you only have a few you can draw. They should just stick everyone in a hat and forget about all this crap.

I'm honestly losing interest in the champions league. Boring group games followed by pretty much the same teams always getting to the last 4.  Meh

3 minutes ago, Zeta Orionis said:

Well in a sense it is, because of the ridiculous rules about who each team and can't face. If you get through, nationality of clubs and dates and so-on mean you only have a few you can draw. They should just stick everyone in a hat and forget about all this crap.

Thing is you need some sort of reward system for the team topping the group opposed to the team in second. So I sort of get the seeding aspects. Although giving them the second game at home is reward I guess. If you believe it makes a difference that is.

Just now, Ivanov87 said:

I'm honestly losing interest in the champions league. Boring group games followed by pretty much the same teams always getting to the last 4.  Meh

It's true, it's gotten stale in many ways. I don't think it moving to BT has helped at all and the group stage even prior to that had gotten boring. From a Chelsea fan perspective aswell I have to admit since we captured our 'holy grail' I haven't been as interested. Don't get me wrong I'd love to see us win it again someday but I'd take the league title over it any day of the week. The league title has always been the bread and butter IMO the CL comes second to that.

They could still do 1st vs 2nd, but do away with the restrictions on teams from the same country playing each other. And maybe just put teams in a hat for the group stage, so the groups are completely random and you don't end up with 1 very good team, 1 good team, 1 average team and 1 sh*t team, like the majority of groups, as it just leads to the same teams going through every year and the same fixtures repeating .

On 11/26/2016 at 17:05, Kinkladze1871 said:

51 minutes ago, Bobbywoodhogan said:

Does anyone else think just maybe some CL fixtures are fixed? I remember distinctly the media buzzing about the prospect of us playing Barcelona in 2005 and 2006 and guess who we hot? Then there was when we got Liverpool in our group and there as ore speculation about that. Etc etc. I could go on but I do wonder if the pay fix some fixtures.

There has to be an element of some sort of fixing going on. The odds of Arsenal facing Bayern 4 times in the past 5 years is quite low. 

Edit: Although having said that and thinking about it a bit more, I would imagine that the fact that teams from the same country can't face each other massively limits the amount of variation we see so you get predicatable draws like Arsenal v Bayern. 

Edited December 12, 20169 yr by Remodez

The Klopp criticism of Neville is odd.

Can you not have an opinion unless you've successfully done something yourself?

Using Klopp's logic we shouldn't have critics for film, art, literature unless the critic is a success of the art. 

 

Yeah I hate that, people are huge in the music industry like Simon Cowell can't sing yet they know how to make money from music and who can/cannot sing. 

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-4024340/amp/El-Clasico-assistant-referee-friendly-Barcelona-players.html?client=safari

 

People laugh when you tell them Barca have referee's in their pockets, but this guy has just been banned, not surprising, a lot of their success in Europe has seen them benefit from weird decisions.

1 hour ago, Remodez said:

There has to be an element of some sort of fixing going on. The odds of Arsenal facing Bayern 4 times in the past 5 years is quite low. 

Edit: Although having said that and thinking about it a bit more, I would imagine that the fact that teams from the same country can't face each other massively limits the amount of variation we see so you get predicatable draws like Arsenal v Bayern. 

If there were any fixing then I believe UEFA would keep commercially big teams apart for as long as possible to maximise viewer numbers and revenue.

1 hour ago, ForeverCarefree said:

The Klopp criticism of Neville is odd.

Can you not have an opinion unless you've successfully done something yourself?

Using Klopp's logic we shouldn't have critics for film, art, literature unless the critic is a success of the art. 

 

Liverpool manager having a go at an ex Manu star turned pundit, not odd at all, he's simply catering to the fans.

57 minutes ago, Floyd25 said:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-4024340/amp/El-Clasico-assistant-referee-friendly-Barcelona-players.html?client=safari

 

People laugh when you tell them Barca have referee's in their pockets, but this guy has just been banned, not surprising, a lot of their success in Europe has seen them benefit from weird decisions.

Doesn't go far enough. Suspicious is more like it. 

 

Nobody will ever be able to convince me UEFA didn't do what they could to influence that semi final Barca 'won' against us. Disgraceful

Edited December 12, 20169 yr by TheChelseaBlues

I definitely think the CL is fixed/staged/organized, It can't be a coincidence that the big market teams always find a way to get to the Semi/Final, I mean how do you generate tv ratings for a Leverkusen v Porto final? 'Forget Messi, Ronaldo, Muller, It's Kiessling v Brahimi in a battle of mediocre hitmen', It just doesn't work, I understand why they have to but it still doesn't  feel right.

1 hour ago, ForeverCarefree said:

The Klopp criticism of Neville is odd.

Can you not have an opinion unless you've successfully done something yourself?

Using Klopp's logic we shouldn't have critics for film, art, literature unless the critic is a success of the art. 

 

which is stupid as what has klopp done compared to neville as a player? neville won everything you can win at club level.

27 minutes ago, undertow said:

Liverpool manager having a go at an ex Manu star turned pundit, not odd at all, he's simply catering to the fans.

I think that is part of it but I also think Klopp is a little rattled by recent events. They've conceded 6 in two games and not been able to outscore the opposition, that's not what he would expect. He's also defending his choice of Karius over Mignolet who despite his faults was/is a good shot stopper. Liverpool continue to  be an enigma, they look very good in flashes but always seem vulnerable. They're going to miss Mane too in January.

3 hours ago, Argo said:

Klopp has gone on serious defensive mode with all the Karius criticism, slating the Neville brothers and bringing up what happened to Gary at Valencia, which is pretty rich considering his last season at Dortmund. The spotlight will be on Karius big time now and Klopp will be too stubborn to drop him which will be great from our perspective.

Jurgen is a manager i can't really work out, sometimes he looks like he will take Liverpool really far and other times he looks like he is just continuing Brendans brainless attack with no single f**k about defense philosophy.

 

If he drops him, it's like he will only eat his words. That the critics are  right about Karius.