'Even allowing for inflation, this thread is not worth 198 Terry Francises' - EPL 2017-18

xpost

henderson is worryingly shit so far.

football!

almost have to laugh

they look brittle and scared every time watford have the ball in and around the box tbh. fucking joke to still be so bad at the back.

Going to be 4-3 again.

Mignolet there going for the counter and obligingly rolling the ball straight to a Watford player.

Stop calling him Okaku ffs.

Liverpool look flat as fuck here

Firmino has been completely anonymous and none of this back four looks remotely like Champions League standard.

Salah's shooting has been pretty entertaining

henderson the worst culprit but can has no real creativity either. would take a draw here in an instant.

truth is liverpool will concede at least one more in this game, at the very least that is. they might score another.

how can a pro deny that is a penalty? like it couldn't be more obvious.

So Firmino is playing after all.

Good too be back, EPL.

my stream broke as firmino was about to hit the penalty - terrifying.

xpost also hooray for salah's first goal

Two games, 12 goals is pretty good going.

Even allowing for inflation, Firmino must be worth at least 6 Tony Galvins.

if we ever invent time travel and cloning i'd like to watch vast matches featuring legions of trevor francises pitted against the same number of dean saunderses

Nice to see someone make a save, I didn't realise the rules still allowed that.

that sub right back for watford is muck

Watford falling apart rn

trent aa is v young but he does look p solid to me

touch wood

Falling apart indeed, but even this breakaway from Watford leads to comedy capers in Pool's defense

i think the problems in the defence are so deep that one player won't fix them, even if they can sign vvd or whatever. there's a rot there for a long time now.

trent aa is v young but he does look p solid to me

he definitely has good delivery

yeah he played a beautiful cross earlier that was well cut out

I hate giving Murdoch clicks, but the BBC don't seem to be capable of providing a functional latest scores page, so fuck them.

can't believe it's going to be another season of butt-clenching scorelines like this in the last 15 mins. some lost, some held.

could be a blessing in disguise, as they might try and get vvd after all now

just need to southampton grant vvd his dream while preventing coutinho from making the worst decision of his life.

Oh dear.

amazing

mignolet own goal it seems.

ffs. surely offside tho

don't think og, he heads it in.

you're right.

Richarlison looks the part btw

Before the injury Watford were looking good for the winner.

think he was level with the ball? Inches in it anyway

Can I say my "sports entertainment" thread title suggestion was entirely otm? This league is pure WWE

It is quite reassuring that two of the big clubs can't defend for shit.

i thought he was way behind the ball, a few feet, he's nearly on the line and the other guy like... isn't. haven't seen it again tho, and in any case the defence shouldn't be allowing somebody to control a shit corner and shoot.

seen it a few times now. It's a square ball

fair enough, think i just saw one angle immediately after. i turned it off at the final whistle, understandably enough. don't need to see analysis of that. i'm not altogether raging - there were some positives - the defence was that bad last season and they still finished top four. and at least they battled back from being behind. but yeah - champions league and even any two-legged tie like hoffenheim is a major problem with such a shit defence.

also - prob could argue attack squandered too many chances to put it to bed

actually...I guess his foot is offside. Tough one to call though

https://i.imgur.com/gpCy71T.jpg

I thought he was offside but Watford deserved that draw overall. There could be some embarrassing European nights with that defence (if we get past Hoffenheim of course)

surely it's time to bury the hatchet with sahko. not saying he's the messiah but at least he's got a spine.

"Martin Keown

Former Arsenal defender on Football Focus
Posted at 15:46

I'm really concerned about Chelsea. Looking at this team, with Alvaro Morata unable to compete and Pedro not available, where are the goals going to come from?

I think they might not even make the top four."

We could've done with some pundit transfers too smdh

if they still have Nakhi Wells on the books I'd say they do need more depth! It looks like Dyche's hopes for this window was getting Jay Rodriguez and Craig Dawson from W Brom and they are holding out for big money. It'll probably happen on deadline day.

got burnley to go down this season

I think they will as well. I know Dyche is a bit of a cult figure on here, but I think he's a retrograde numpt!

cardiff and huddersfield are bookies favourites but half the league is vulnerable

If I had a mortgage I'd put it on the 4/6 you can get on Huddersfield staying up. There... I've completely fucked it now!

yearning for an opposite of leicester-winning-the-league and man city to inexplicably find themselves bottom in may

I reckon Huddersfield will consolidate quite nicely tbh. Watford really struggled in the second half of last season, have sold their best player and their main signing is the permanently-crocked Delofeu. I'd say they're pretty fucked.

I hope Huddersfield will play better football this season 'round. Can see Watford going down easily, like Burnley and Cardiff. And Soton. Love2c West Ham go down.

Tempted to put a tenner on Wolves winning the PL w/ 1/251 odds

Yeah I've got Southampton to go down with Watford and Cardiff.

We will probably still play awful football against the top sides, but I could see us dishing out some comprehensive arsekickings to some of the other dross sides that have stayed still or gone backwards!

I don't know if our idiot brigade are starting to get to me but I have questions about the depth and balance of our squad, it is pretty young on balance. Might take us a couple of years to challenge for the title.

Who are the new Huddersfield fantasy football picks this season? I did very well with Schindler and Kongolo as under-the-radar bargain buys last season.

We will probably still play awful football against the top sides, but I could see us dishing out some comprehensive arsekickings to some of the other dross sides that have stayed still or gone backwards!

― calzino, Wednesday, August 1, 2018 11:42 AM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh no doubt! #believe

Did think Wagner played very conservative and defensive last season. But then it was hard to fault him for it with such limited attacking options.

Schindler and Kongolo again so far! But we definitely haven't finished with this window. One of our lot posted these lol! stats that show that Depoitre and Mounie are up there with the best forwards in the prem! But I genuinely believe that they are very underrated and we certainly we couldn't do any better for the price. And they have both been looking sharp in pre-season.

Steve Mounié - 7 goals from 49 shots (14%)
Harry Kane - 108 goals from 596 shots (18%)
Alexis Sanchez - 62 goals from 445 shots (14%)
Sergio Aguero - 143 goals from 802 shots (18%)

Laurent Depoitre - 6 goals from 25 shots (24% of shots result in goals)

horrifying rumours about us signing Smalling this morning, local journo says no but this is the kind of thing that gives you sleepless nights pre-season

watford have a pretty good midfield but there is a fragile, mercenary feel about them. brighton & west ham have made signings & should be fine. obv I have no clue but I enjoy making lists so I'm saying:

City
Liverpool
Man U
Spurs
Arsenal
Chelsea
Portugal
Leicester
Wham
Palace
Everton
Brighton
Newcastle
Burnley
Fulham
Watford
Bournemouth
Huddersfield
Southampton
Cardiff

don't get me wrong, I am v fond of wagner's huddersfield and am hoping for full blown mou meltdown but this feels like an appropriate amount of pessimism

we are getting linked with some shite Newc Utd dud, whilst they are apparently about to sign one of our primary targets, the Belgium winger Limbombe. Fuck off Newsnow, gonna stop clicking on you!

spurs for 8th

Limbombe is such perfect normative deteminism for a winger.

Apparently United are fining Martial £180k in wages for going AWOL on the US tour. Guess that's probably it for him.

jesus christ

Wasn't he 'AWOL' because he became a dad? Harsh imo.

awpl

horrifying rumours about us signing Smalling this morning, local journo says no but this is the kind of thing that gives you sleepless nights pre-season

yeah lots of rumours about smalling to wolves, not really that bothered about seeing the back of him tbh. also rojo to everton, which i'd genuinely be sad about

everton look terrible. enjoyed watching jagielka bounce off blackburn's prize beefboy dack in their friendly but that defence looks disgraceful

Portugal in 7th?

yeah lots of rumours about smalling to wolves, not really that bothered about seeing the back of him tbh. also rojo to everton, which i'd genuinely be sad about

This is backwards. In terms of our current line-up of defenders, Smalling is the only one who's consistently fit and relatively reliable. He's horrific on the ball but he's actually a decent defender

Rojo's had less than half a dozen good performances for Utd

re: Martial

He's apparently being fined for not reporting back to training in Carrington rather than rejoining the tour

everton look terrible

We also got murdered by Rennes. We may yet finish pre-season with -ve goal diff.

we don't need a defender who's horrific on the ball as long as Danny Batth is still with us

sorry, os lobos in 7th

ok the decline starts here https://www.expressandstar.com/news/local-hubs/wolverhampton/2018/08/01/wolves-sued-by-man-who-says-he-designed-wolf-logo-in-the-60s/

btw it's August 1 somebody start a new thread ffs

Liverpool have 2nd sewn up 2018/19