Official Football Thread

Last week every midfielder and striker in my FPL team scored or assisted at least once. This week just Harry Kane :(
 
There's blowing a chance and then there's embarrasment. Gunners are 3-0 down at Southampton. Would've gone to the top of the league if they had won. Instead they're on their way to the most embarrasing league defeat of the season.
 
Certainly didn't expect them to get dominated like they have. Oh well. Leicester and City are playing each other next matchday, while Gunners are at home against Bournemouth. They'll probably have another shot at it.
 
Even if they lost today, Leiceister still look like the most consistent team in the league. All other usual title candidates have major issues:
Arsenal has too many injuries and can't rotate enough during this busy schedule. They also don't appear for some games like WBA or today, but beat Man City and Man Utd easily.
Man City's defence is atrocious without Kompany (who was substituted in and out within 10 minutes today, got injured again).
Man Utd can't score (and lately can't defend either).
Chelsea just sucks.
Liverpool are easy to neutralize and also don't show up for some games... kinda like Arsenal but much worse. Beat Leiceister and Man City but lost to Newcastle and Watford.
 
I still think City are the favorites to win the title. Agüero and Kompany won't be injured the entire season. With them on the lineup they're easily the best team in the league at the moment.

A fully healthy Arsenal team is a myth. Asking for a fully healthy team is no different than asking for a unicorn. As soon as Wilshere comes back, Ramsey will get injured. When Alexis comes back Walcott is probably gone.
 
Do or die for Van Gaal today? And none other than Hiddink -who is also in relative trouble with Chelsea- is his opponent! Both are among the best Dutch coaches of the last thirty years, but have only met 6 times before:

Date / Match / Competition / Winner
19 september 1998 / Real Madrid-FC Barcelona: 2-2 / La Liga / none
14 februari 1999 / FC Barcelona-Real Madrid: 3-0 / La Liga / Van Gaal
13 februari 2000 / Real Betis-FC Barcelona: 2-1 / La Liga / Hiddink
15 oktober 2005 / PSV-AZ: 3-0 / Eredivisie (Dutch top division) / Hiddink
26 februari 2006 / AZ-PSV: 1-2 / Eredivisie / Hiddink
22 maart 2006 / PSV-AZ: 2-0 (after extra time) / KNVB-beker (Dutch national cup) / Hiddink

Van Gaal and Hiddink during Van der Sar's goodbye match, back in 2011:
xxl.jpg
 
Here's a crazy piece of news from Turkey. It's so unbelievable that you'd think it was planned as a joke or something.

There's a team called Gençlerbirliği here, Ankara team, has been in the top tier for a long time. Their chairman has remained unchanged since 1978. The chairman, İlhan Cavcav, is notorious for having no patience for managers. He's by far the chairman with the most coaching changes in Turkey, totaling up 38 different managers. Gençlerbirliği is struggling this season and he already had fired two managers this season alone.

Six days ago, he hired Yılmaz Vural. Yılmaz Vural is notorious for changing teams all the time. He's by far the manager with the most teams managed in a career, totaling up to 31 teams. He even managed Gençlerbirliği before, back in the 1997-1998 season.

The partnership of Cavcav and Vural was an amusing sight for everyone who followed the league, knowing their particular notoriety. In Vural's first game at helm, Gençlerbirliği lost to the last placed team in the league yesterday.

Yılmaz Vural was fired today.
 
Ugly win. But a win nonetheless. Leicester drew against Bournemouth, extending the lead by two points.

Aaron Ramsey botched an Özil assist in the last minute, not good news for my FPL team.
 
Cataclysmic week in FPL for me. Not one player in my team got more than 2 points, just waiting for Barkley, Lukaku and Kane to save me now :(
 
I'll be very surprised if he's still the coach this time next year.

Always hated Zidane. Great player, sure, but he played for Juve and Real Madrid whom I both hate, and France who won WC 1998 and EURO 2000 on the expense of my two favorite teams in those tournaments (Brazil and Italy). At least his final game brought me joy :P
 
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