Bundesliga 13/14

Is Gotze injured? Thought they would drop Kroos deeper instead of playing Lahm in the middle.
 
It's the first time in years that Schalke look like they didn't shit their pants before kick-off. I'm not sure if they had a single dangerous shot on goal in the last 4 league games against Bayern.
 
Alaba was poor there, last thing you'd expect from him is to be outpaced.

edit; It was Dante, not Alaba.
 
Kevin is the one with Prince on his back, btw.

Götze started training again this week after getting injured in the supercup game vs Chelsea.

The artist formerly known as Kevin. I suppose if he uses Prince he won't get confused with his half brother.
 
Switched to the Bayern game and heard Reif was commentating and instantly switched back to the Chelsea game. Then I remembered you can just listen to stadium sound on Sky and I'm back on just to watch Schweini score from a corner. Same old Schalke always bottling the set pieces.
 
Switched to the Bayern game and heard Reif was commentating and instantly switched back to the Chelsea game. Then I remembered you can just listen to stadium sound on Sky and I'm back on just to watch Schweini score from a corner. Same old Schalke always bottling the set pieces.
Same here, well without the switching.

2-0 yeah, 3 more and we're top of the league.
 
Our freekicks and corners have improved massively since Guardiola took over, and we score quite a lot of goals with headers. It's great that Guardiola still uses our wide players out wide and doesn't solely play with short passes through the middle.
 
Dortmund fecked themselves by fielding a fairly weak team today, can't see Bayern not winning the Bundesliga
Early days, Dortmund is still top of the table and are capable of winning when we play each other. It's just one bad game, happens all the time, just like Bayern only drew against Freiburg.
 
Dortmund fecked themselves by fielding a fairly weak team today, can't see Bayern not winning the Bundesliga


Like I said it's not really a choice for them they apart from the attacking midfield and a bit in the center they have a very weak squad depth, if they have to rest players and some injured they need to play reserve players. Espcially on the fullback positions have really no noteworthy cover.
 
I would say Bayern. Mainly because Barca is just one of the worst big teams when it comes to the defensive end of the game. Bayern might not be as stable this season as they were last year but still miles better then Barca.
 
Can anyone tell me what kind of formation we're playing? At times Schweinsteiger dropped back into a back 3 with both fullbacks playing crazy high. At times, it looked like a normal 4231 with Schweinsteiger and Lahm as central midfielders. At times, Alaba looked like an AM when moving forward with no one covering his flank at all.

I really have no idea, what we're doing out there, the good thing, Schalke have no clue either :lol:
 
Szalai really is a Mandzukic clone right? I think he's really important for the team and Huntelaar might struggle to get back into the starting 11, especially now with Boateng and Draxler both scoring a lot from midfield, Szalai might be the better fit for the team than a poacher upfront.
 
Early days, Dortmund is still top of the table and are capable of winning when we play each other. It's just one bad game, happens all the time, just like Bayern only drew against Freiburg.


Don't see how Bayern cannot win the German League. They can only get better after getting used to Guardiola's tactics and have good squad depth, Gotze and Thiago haven't even started playing. Dortmund's squad looks thin. They will probably run Bayern close but with champions league commitments and all, 2nd will be good for them. Lewandowski leaving next season will be a serious blow for them. But can he even get ahead of Mandzukic in the Bayern lineup?
 
Szalai really is a Mandzukic clone right? I think he's really important for the team and Huntelaar might struggle to get back into the starting 11, especially now with Boateng and Draxler both scoring a lot from midfield, Szalai might be the better fit for the team than a poacher upfront.


Indeed but I feel Mandzukic is the better player overall.

I also think he is the better striker for the 4-2-3-1 Schalke is playing a poacher usually is never the best solution for this formation which is also the reason why Mandzukic was ahead of Gomez pretty much the entire last season.
 
Indeed but I feel Mandzukic is the better player overall.

I also think he is the better striker for the 4-2-3-1 Schalke is playing a poacher usually is never the best solution for this formation which is also the reason why Mandzukic was ahead of Gomez pretty much the entire last season.
Always thought Mandzukic is shit until he joined us :lol: , so who knows.

Don't see how Bayern cannot win the German League. They can only get better after getting used to Guardiola's tactics and have good squad depth, Gotze and Thiago haven't even started playing. Dortmund's squad looks thin. They will probably run Bayern close but with champions league commitments and all, 2nd will be good for them. Lewandowski leaving next season will be a serious blow for them. But can he even get ahead of Mandzukic in the Bayern lineup?
Let's wait until Martinez, Thiago and Götze are back, still think we might see Götze or Müller up top ahead of Mandzukic. Lewandowski in his form of last season will start, imo. But who knows what Pep's ideas are, the way he talks about Lahm I wouldn't be surprised if we buy a right back and continue to play Lahm in midfield :(
 
So what's with Guardiola playing Lahm as a midfielder? Has he done well there and why does Guardiola love converting everyone into a midfielder?

Honigstein said in the Guardian podcast that Guardiola absolutely loves Lahm as a midfield player and it may continue for a while.
 
Well, we ran out of midfielders (Schweinsteiger, Thiago, Martinez, Götze, Kirchhoff and Hoijberg all injured at the same time) so it made sense to play Lahm there who already played that role quite a few times in his career. Guardiola said a few times that Lahm is the most intelligent player he ever worked with and that he instantly understands all his ideas and executes them on a very high level, so it's understandable that he wants him in the center of the game.

Not sure it will continue though, Rafinha is a decent right back, good enough as a back-up, but we have a lot amazing players in midfield, so most likely Lahm will move back to rightback. I doubt Rafinha will keep Martinez, Thiago or Schweinsteiger out of the first 11.