CL Group Stage, Matchday 1

Brwned said:
:confused:

Subotic was right there in the box.
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He came running inside the box just before the flank was made. What I meant was, that he could have been send earlier on the pitch or when the game was interrupted right before the corner was taken. I did not make myself clear enough, though. Not my best posting on this bizarre and frustrating evening.

Only positive was the post match interview by Klopp.
 
KM said:
Not sure you can say that about Ramsey at the moment.

He has been praised a lot for his recent performances.
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Yeh, you're right to be fair. The recognition is starting to come.

That said, I think as a group we're still under the radar. 10 successive away wins is a great achievement. Obviously we still have to go to the big clubs so that record will be tested, but there's a lot of promise within the team.
 
NoLogo said:
I like the fact that Klopp is such an emotional manager but sometimes he backfires like today.

Maybe with growing experience and age he will get a bit calmer.
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Mazzarri, the previous Napoli manager, often used to get deliberately sent to the stands in an attempt to mentally boost his team.

Maybe Klopp thought that would also work for him in the hostile atmosphere of Stadio San Paolo. :D
 
FCBarca said:
Another reason to like Klopp, tbh

Not sure why some rubbished AC Milan, just saw the highlights and they looked like they had the best chances of the evening...far more than Celtic anyway
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My thoughts exactly.. But then again, I didn't watch the game..
 
Victor Valdés continuing his incredible form, kept out a penalty and made two excellent saves. Him and Diego López have been the stand-out keepers in La Liga so far (together with Kiko Casilla and Diego Alves).
 
Victor was MOTM for me, more than Messi even. Some fantastic saves and his 46th clean sheet in CL, 2nd only to VDS (53).
 
Skorenzy said:
Victor Valdés continuing his incredible form, kept out a penalty and made two excellent saves. Him and Diego López have been the stand-out keepers in La Liga so far (together with Kiko Casilla and Diego Alves).
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Has Courtois not had a good season so far?
 
Skorenzy said:
Victor Valdés continuing his incredible form, kept out a penalty and made two excellent saves. Him and Diego López have been the stand-out keepers in La Liga so far (together with Kiko Casilla and Diego Alves).
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Five saves actually. Two in the first half, two in the second, and the penalty save.. He really earned his clean sheet bonus tonight..
 
NM said:
Has Courtois not had a good season so far?
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He's been as solid as in the past two seasons, but Atlético's defense is so good that he hasn't had much to do yet, unlike the others I've mentioned.


Danny1982 said:
Five saves actually. Two in the first half, two in the second, and the penalty save.. He really earned his clean sheet bonus tonight..
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Well, only two of those saves stood out to me, the low header after that sumptuous through ball by Bojan and the piledriver at the end that he tipped over. He was outstanding against Málaga and Valencia as well.
 
Danny1982 said:
What's with the OTT reactions here? He likes Messi big deal.. It's not that you don't get sticky just by entering the Ronaldo thread..

And by the way, IMO he's right. Messi is by far the best player right now.. You can disagree, but you can't act like it's an OTT comment. When was the last time a player won 4 straight Ballon d'Ors?! The facts are on his side to be honest.
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Its not just a one off though, dude loves messi and hates ronaldo. I remember when madrid were beating us in the second leg, everyone was willing united to get a goal while PL was commentating about ronaldo. Its not an isolated post but the whole of his posting style, and no I dont disagree with messi being the best player in the world.
 
MJJ said:
Its not just a one off though, dude loves messi and hates ronaldo. I remember when madrid were beating us in the second leg, everyone was willing united to get a goal while PL was commentating about ronaldo. Its not an isolated post but the whole of his posting style, and no I dont disagree with messi being the best player in the world.
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I know he loves Messi, and hates Ronaldo.. But people were reacting to a specific comment in this thread, when I didn't think that there was much wrong with it.. Seems to me like people are also going a bit over the top with him whenever he has something to say..
 
Danny1982 said:
I know he loves Messi, and hates Ronaldo.. But people were reacting to a specific comment in this thread, when I didn't think that there was much wrong with it.. Seems to me like people are also going a bit over the top with him whenever he has something to say..
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It gets a bit annoying when you look at his posts in succession. Even in this thread he had four/five straight posts just praising messi hence the labeling of him as his lover. Calling him el pugre(?) and saying that he is the only footballer who looks to score with every shot makes it very hard for me to take him seriously.
 
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Hellboy said:
Being saying this all along, Chelsea are shit.
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Yep totally agree if referees had did there jobs Villa would have taken points of them and perhaps we had all 3. Not the same class of player Jose had before at Chelsea. Everybody going on about Hazard but for me Robben was far better at that age.
 
Handbrakied our way through the first and capitalised on Marseille dropping mentally and physically in the second half. Valuable win in a group that promises to be tougher than any we've been in recently.
 
Lawman said:
Yep totally agree if referees had did there jobs Villa would have taken points of them and perhaps we had all 3. Not the same class of player Jose had before at Chelsea. Everybody going on about Hazard but for me Robben was far better at that age.
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Yes but the thing thats slightly bemusing me is that from about March last seaosn we were the best team in the league, we had this incredibly congested fixture list which took us to Russia, Switzerland, away to Liverpool, United, Fulham, Villa etc, yet we won most of those, playing good football. Mata looked like a world beater, and the others looked good too.

I would have backed my house on Jose improving on that, but so far we appear to have regressed. I know Jose will need time to make the changes, but we don't really want to unsettle the class players we have like Hazard, Mata, and Azpil, who either haven't been playing or have been in poor form.

For 30 minutes in the first game of the season it looked like it was going to plan, then it has never really recovered from 30 mins onward.
 
Rob, you're stretching it to say the least by putting Azpilicueta in the same class as Hazard & Mata
 
Lawman said:
Yep totally agree if referees had did there jobs Villa would have taken points of them and perhaps we had all 3. Not the same class of player Jose had before at Chelsea. Everybody going on about Hazard but for me Robben was far better at that age.
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Referee didn't do anything particularly wrong in our game vs Chelsea.
 
coolredwine said:
And calling yourself the best team in the League for the last month or so of the previous season.
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Not too wrong with that. After we had wrapped up the title we had hardly any incentive for last 4 matches and City had no incentive remaining in league. No matter what you say about professionalism etc, once the title is sealed, european qualification is secured or relegation is avoided (different objectives for different clubs), with 3-4 matches to go, the level of application and effort wanes. Chelsea were yet to be sure of top 4 till almost last couple of games IIRC, and were in 2 cups, so they were going for it. Also, it must have been sounded to them that Jose will come only if you get to top 4. So they were up for it in last month or so of last season.
All things considered, it is not too far off the mark to say they were one of the better teams in league for that period.
 
FCBarca said:
Another reason to like Klopp, tbh

Not sure why some rubbished AC Milan, just saw the highlights and they looked like they had the best chances of the evening...far more than Celtic anyway
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They had as many chances as we did. Not often did they look like scoring. 2-0 is bollocks. A draw would've been fairest but that's football.

Looking forward to match day 2. Hopefully another magical night in store!
 
I watched the whole game, Milan were quite terrible and Celtic could have easily left with a draw or even a win. Shame for them that they lost their focus towards the end of game as Milan were troubled by them for large chunks of the second half. I was actually impressed with Celtic, at one point it actually looked like they had Messi and not Kris Commons playing out there.

Napoli beating Dortmund at home makes the whole group even more interesting. It's hard to figure out who's going to qualify, safe to say it won't be Marseille who look some way behind the rest but even they should be able to take some points off one or two teams in the group so Arsenal winning there gives them an edge over Napoli and Dortmund who still have to travel there already.

Basel are one of the most impressive teams in Europe IMO. Not that I consider them one of the best but with their limited resources and poor quality of the league they are playing in it's very impressive that they've managed to establish themselves in Europe to this extent - knocking United out in 2012, knocking Spurs out last year and getting to EL semis and now beating Chelsea at Stamford giving themselves a decent chance in this group. They've also lost some of their best players like Xhaka and Shaqiri in the meantime - management over there must be at a pretty high level for them to remain competitive for 3 straight seasons.
 
coolredwine said:
And calling yourself the best team in the League for the last month or so of the previous season.
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That was clearly us. The run we had to clinch 4th was quite excellent. League winning form is you only take the last 3 months :P
 
Aboutreika18 said:
Mazzarri, the previous Napoli manager, often used to get deliberately sent to the stands in an attempt to mentally boost his team.

Maybe Klopp thought that would also work for him in the hostile atmosphere of Stadio San Paolo. :D
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I had a gaffer who did the same - he preferred that he argued with the officials rather than the players doing so. Didn't see the Klopp incident but it is another way of contributing to the (usually helpful) siege mentality.
 
Gio said:
I had a gaffer who did the same - he preferred that he argued with the officials rather than the players doing so. Didn't see the Klopp incident but it is another way of contributing to the (usually helpful) siege mentality.
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Not sure if you could call what Klopp did yesterday argueing, to me it looks like he was trying to eat him alive, I doubt there were any words coming out of his mouth. And he clearly said he fecked up and hurt the team, so he clearly went over the top and obviously was embarressed when they showed him the footage during the interview after the game. Argueing with the referee is fine, no need to cut out all the emotions either, but Klopp has a history of overreacting, he knows it and he really needs to change it.
 
Sarni said:
Basel are one of the most impressive teams in Europe IMO. Not that I consider them one of the best but with their limited resources and poor quality of the league they are playing in it's very impressive that they've managed to establish themselves in Europe to this extent - knocking United out in 2012, knocking Spurs out last year and getting to EL semis and now beating Chelsea at Stamford giving themselves a decent chance in this group. They've also lost some of their best players like Xhaka and Shaqiri in the meantime - management over there must be at a pretty high level for them to remain competitive for 3 straight seasons.
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One, Basel does not have limited resources unless you consider Novartis, one of the most profitable companies on the planet, limited. They simply aren't trying to fund monolithic transfers and wages for a small but distinguished Suisse football club.

Two, their league is appropriate for their size as the country is only 8 million.

Three, Basel hasn't even won the Swiss League the most number of times - that distinction belongs to Grasshoppers. There are around 5 clubs that are usually among the strongest in the league with Geneva having disappeared due to gross fiscal negligence (Cautionary tale en Suisse really)

Four, they remain competitive because they have an academy and produce great talents along with excellent scouting and training. I'm hoping Yakin becomes the NT coach in the near future unless he decides to venture to an even bigger club

Champions League is gravy and sure they could easily afford buying big name players and compete in Europe with all the other usual suspects but that isn't the culture en Suisse. Clubs are local and players typically come from the region which is also reflected in their terrific fanbase. To go 'European' and become massive would result in them losing their base. The Suisse are quite proud today, for that very reason, they knocked off big spenders and played entertaining footy while doing it.

Plus, in many ways, Basel is the parent club of FC Barcelona :cool:
 
Sarni said:
Basel are one of the most impressive teams in Europe IMO. Not that I consider them one of the best but with their limited resources and poor quality of the league they are playing in it's very impressive that they've managed to establish themselves in Europe to this extent - knocking United out in 2012, knocking Spurs out last year and getting to EL semis and now beating Chelsea at Stamford giving themselves a decent chance in this group. They've also lost some of their best players like Xhaka and Shaqiri in the meantime - management over there must be at a pretty high level for them to remain competitive for 3 straight seasons.
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Agreed. They had a very promising team in 2011 when they knocked Utd out and then went on to beat Bayern 1-0 at home before being thrashed in the 2nd leg. Shaqiri and Xhaka moved to the Bundesliga and their legendary striker Alexander Frei has since retired, they also sold Cabral to Sunderland and Dragovic to Dynamo Kyiv for €9M... but the goalkeeper Yann Sommer is still there, so are Fabian Frei and Valentin Stocker in the midfield. They've added the impressive Mohamed Salah, 21 year-old wing forward with a great goalscoring record for his NT (17 goals in 24 caps) and some outstanding performances against Tottenham and Chelsea (2x), and Fabian Schär who's looking excellent for his age.

Also, Marco Streller still leading the line, while he formed an excellent combo with A. Frei, he's still thriving... has to be one of the best targetmen in the world IMO, his lay-offs and link-up play is seriously impressive everytime I've seen him. Again so last night in the build up for the equaliser.
 
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