3 minutes ago, Ukraine Bolt said:

There's absolutely no way this account isn't satire

Some humility and grasp of realism is fine don't you think? Expectations on matches like Palmeiras would do a ton of good. It was only a couple days ago or have you completely forgotten it?

10 minutes ago, evissy said:

Some humility and grasp of realism is fine don't you think? Expectations on matches like Palmeiras would do a ton of good. It was only a couple days ago or have you completely forgotten it?

humility? we're playing a Tunisian team. We should be pumping them 6-0, this is like playing a national league opposition in a pre season friendly.

1 minute ago, Ukraine Bolt said:

humility? we're playing a Tunisian team. We should be pumping them 6-0, this is like playing a national league opposition in a pre season friendly.

On that ranking I posted (take it how you want) Tunis is around the level of LA FC. Not sure how close it is but personally I trust that ranking more than "never heard of them" as is spouted around in the media and here as well.

We are well over the level of them in many ways I agree but Tunis really really want to win and they won LA which we won but didn't really smash. So it is not a walk in the park especially at 40 degrees. Tunis is probably much more acclimatized to this weather.

We also have new players in the lineup. No matter how talented and or expensive. Enzo said he will rotate. That brings another uncertainty.

We should win this game but I am not so sure.

We are not that Chelsea from Roman era. That is the point.

6 minutes ago, Ukraine Bolt said:

humility? we're playing a Tunisian team. We should be pumping them 6-0, this is like playing a national league opposition in a pre season friendly.

Using Evissy's rankings, this is #17 against #175, which suggests this ought to be equivalent to a PL side playing against a non-league club that is well down the non-league rankings.

However they only lost 2-0 to Flamengo vs our 3-1 - same goal difference but less goals conceded LOL. So the match up will possibly be a bit closer than we might think ?

The bookies have us at 2/9 to win, with Tunis at 10/1 (was 12/1 so they're obviously taking a bit of money on Tunis LOL)

4 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

Using Evissy's rankings, this is #17 against #175, which suggests this ought to be equivalent to a PL side playing against a non-league club that is well down the non-league rankings.

However they only lost 2-0 to Flamengo vs our 3-1 - same goal difference but less goals conceded LOL. So the match up will possibly be a bit closer than we might think ?

The bookies have us at 2/9 to win, with Tunis at 10/1 (was 12/1 so they're obviously taking a bit of money on Tunis LOL)

'Should' is different than actual football being played on the pitch.

What were Botafogos chances of winning PSG?

6 minutes ago, evissy said:

On that ranking I posted (take it how you want) Tunis is around the level of LA FC. Not sure how close it is but personally I trust that ranking more than "never heard of them" as is spouted around in the media and here as well.

We are well over the level of them in many ways I agree but Tunis really really want to win and they won LA which we won but didn't really smash. So it is not a walk in the park especially at 40 degrees. Tunis is probably much more acclimatized to this weather.

We also have new players in the lineup. No matter how talented and or expensive. Enzo said he will rotate. That brings another uncertainty.

We should win this game but I am not so sure.

We are not that Chelsea from Roman era. That is the point.

This is your problem, you use made up stats and ranking over just common sense. Any logical person can look at a team with the likes of Giroud and Lloris and ex-Barcelona players and summarise that they'd be better than a Tunisian team.

Our U18's should be beating these, never mind the players we've spent billions on. Rotation is no excuse.

Just now, evissy said:

'Should' is different than actual football being played on the pitch.

What were Botafogos chances of winning PSG?

Comparing the Brazilian league to the Tunisian league is insane.

14 hours ago, General said:

We need a draw or win to progress, not against a team like Forest or even a R Betis but a 2 bob Tunisian pub team, yet still I'm not 100% convinced well make the KOs

On here in LA at a very sensible 6pm !

👆 General posted some statistics here.

7 minutes ago, Ukraine Bolt said:

This is your problem, you use made up stats and ranking over just common sense. Any logical person can look at a team with the likes of Giroud and Lloris and ex-Barcelona players and summarise that they'd be better than a Tunisian team.

Our U18's should be beating these, never mind the players we've spent billions on. Rotation is no excuse.

What do you mean by this?

More trivial stats:

LAFC lose to Esperance 1-0 in CWC

19 minutes ago, evissy said:

'Should' is different than actual football being played on the pitch.

What were Botafogos chances of winning PSG?

No idea

But Inter Milan vs River Plate is still to play, and Skybet have that one as 10/11 Inter Milan and 12/5 River Plate. I'd imagine PSG vs Botafogo was similar to that.

Either way, it wouldn't have been remotely close to 2/9 vs 10/1

1 hour ago, evissy said:

What do you mean by this?

More trivial stats:

LAFC lose to Esperance 1-0 in CWC

Ahh we lost to Servette, guess we must be worse than them now.

4 hours ago, dermott said:

Perfectly happy to exit the tournament ASAP. Not going to win it, conditions border on life-threatening. Get the lads home for a rest. I can't imagine Atletico are shedding too many tears.

I'm not one to say we should just give up on a competition. I'm usually somebody that demands players give their all to win any trophy, but this too much. The players are knackered, you can see it, and every time I see the Chelsea social media team share clips or images of the players, they look completely shattered because of the heat.

Athletes they may be, but they're still human. This is way too much football without any time to rest and recover.

19 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

I'm not one to say we should just give up on a competition. I'm usually somebody that demands players give their all to win any trophy, but this too much. The players are knackered, you can see it, and every time I see the Chelsea social media team share clips or images of the players, they look completely shattered because of the heat.

Athletes they may be, but they're still human. This is way too much football without any time to rest and recover.

The counter argument is that the "A" Team have really only had to play the 38 games in the PL, plus the latter stages of the Conference League, so should really be able to cope with 3-7 additional games in this tournament ?

The weather is clearly brutal, but then this is the same for all the other teams isn't it ? Other sides seem to be coping, qualifying for knock outs with ease etc etc

Perhaps Maresca works them too hard in training LOL

Just saw the kick off time. Yeah I don't think so.

Edited June 24, 20251 yr by DarkMata

4 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

The counter argument is that the "A" Team have really only had to play the 38 games in the PL, plus the latter stages of the Conference League, so should really be able to cope with 3-7 additional games in this tournament ?

The weather is clearly brutal, but then this is the same for all the other teams isn't it ? Other sides seem to be coping, qualifying for knock outs with ease etc etc

Perhaps Maresca works them too hard in training LOL

I think my main concern is that our best players are all playing too much football and I think it will completely derail next season. Caicedo, Cucurella, Palmer, they haven't had a break in a really long time now. Enzo is another, Madueke, Neto. I know we aren't the only team, I am sure other teams are feeling it too, but because they're not my team, I don't really care.

6 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

I think my main concern is that our best players are all playing too much football and I think it will completely derail next season. Caicedo, Cucurella, Palmer, they haven't had a break in a really long time now. Enzo is another, Madueke, Neto. I know we aren't the only team, I am sure other teams are feeling it too, but because they're not my team, I don't really care.

Pre the Club World Cup, this is the top 10 in the list of our players sorted by most minutes played last season.

I think Neto was quoted as saying he'd rather be playing in the CWC than be on holiday ... I imagine the others are the same.

Is a max of 42 games in a regular season too much ? Maybe it is ... probably not at the pace a Maresca team plays at though LOL

Edited June 24, 20251 yr by Sexyfootball

8 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

Pre the Club World Cup, this is the top 10 in the list of our players sorted by most minutes played last season.

I think Neto was quoted as saying he'd rather be playing in the CWC than be on holiday ... I imagine the others are the same.

Is a max of 42 games in a regular season too much ? Maybe it is ... probably not at the pace a Maresca team plays at though LOL

Those numbers are perfectly fine for one season, but when those players also played in a tournament before the season started, another full season before that, and then another tournament before that, it's a lot. Most players will say they would prefer to keep playing, they always do, but it's impossible to be at optimal match fitness if you're constantly playing with no rest. I would argue that Palmer is already completely burned out from what I have seen, he's been getting consistently worse for a long time now. I don't see how he gets back to himself if he doesn't go away for a bit.

Edited June 24, 20251 yr by Scott Harris

3 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

Those numbers are perfectly fine for one season, but when those players also played in a tournament before the season started, another full season before that, and then another tournament before that, it's a lot. Most players will say they would prefer to keep playing, they always do, but it's impossible to be at optimal match fitness if you're constantly playing with no rest. I would argue that Palmer is already completely burned out from what I have seen, he's been getting consistently worse for a long time now. I don't see how he gets back to himself if he doesn't go away for bit.

Fair point about previous seasons.

It's choices though isn't it ? Cucurella doesn't really have a back up thanks to whoever decided to ship Veiga out on loan. Similarly we could have held onto Chukwuemeka or Felix to cover Cole at #10, and we could have given KDH more minutes for Enzo without losing much (if anything) at all in the way of goals/assists .

We had any number of DMs out on loan that could have been squad players to give Caicedo more rest too. We had Amougou since January as well ... or even use Rak-Sakyi or Dyer.

Maresca doesn't trust his squad I guess ...

Just now, Sexyfootball said:

Fair point about previous seasons.

It's choices though isn't it ? Cucurella doesn't really have a back up thanks to whoever decided to ship Veiga out on loan. Similarly we could have held onto Chukwuemeka or Felix to cover Cole at #10, and we could have given KDH more minutes for Enzo without losing much (if anything) at all in the way of goals/assists .

We had any number of DMs out on loan that could have been squad players to give Caicedo more rest too. We had Amougou since January as well ... or even use Rak-Sakyi or Dyer.

Maresca doesn't trust his squad I guess ...

This is all true and the reason why I was so annoyed that we made our squad weaker in January. I thought at the start of the season we built a squad capable of getting us through the season and club world cup comfortably because we filled it with two players (at least) for every position. I don't know what the idiots in charge were thinking in January. We were already struggling on the pitch, the last thing we needed was to ship a bunch of squad players out on loan.

TalkSport broadcasting it live. Might have to do for me.

11 minutes ago, dermott said:

TalkSport broadcasting it live. Might have to do for me.

You can get the DAZN app there?

It's also on channel 5.

I'm recording it.

5 minutes ago, Andy North said:

It's also on channel 5.

I'm recording it.

VHS?

Benfica currently lead Bayern 1-0, and if stays that way, and we do our bit later on tonight, then they will be our R16 opponents instead of Bayern LOL.

Can we really get that lucky ? !!!

Goodness knows why at my age but I'm going to try and pull an 'all nighter' to watch this live. Taking one for the team 😂