[Mikus LFC]

Don’t know Pagan. The two Chelsea lads Mount & Abraham have been at Chelsea since the age of 7 spending the next 12 years in the youth set up. Ok, they’ve had a few loans more recently, but I’d wager they’d still very much feel a strong affinity to Chelsea. I think a few loans are fine and can obviously help bring players on, but at the same time I do think that such players can just be shipped out on loan because the club just aren’t that interested in them and don’t quite know what else to do with them. And then the loans get more frequent and longer and before you know it, the player unsurprisingly starts to fall out of love with their club. Indeed it’s only because Chelsea have their ban they’ve *had* to take interest in their academy players. So really the clubs are the problem here as we know because they are usually transfixed on the short term, not the long term.

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[Mikus LFC]

If that is the brief for Pep of just winning trophies then this academy stuff is effectively just all talk from the chairman and I don’t really see the point of such things if they’re just going to ignore these talents or are unwilling to start bedding them into the team.

Things may well be rosy now for City but there will be a post Guardiola time at the club, and they may well then rue all these young academy talents they’ve tossed aside. Because as we know, you can’t always guarantee top players coming out of your academy. You have to make the most of them when you get them because they will fight for your club like no other player will. And yes other clubs have been guilty of such things, but that doesn’t make it right just because others are doing similar.

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[Mikus LFC]

And yet Sancho was on City’s books just 2 years ago. And Foden again seems to be struggling to get a game. It may seem ok for City in the short term to be able to cast aside these young players for more established players, but these youngsters were/are the future of the club. What is the point of investing so much in the City academy? And does all this reflect well on Pep? Or will City be happy to buy these players back later at exorbitant rates? Have they learned nothing from FFP?

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[Mikus LFC]

Agree we still did well tonight Nil and should have scored. But I have just dig deeper into the stats of our midfield tonight. Last season, Milner, Henderson & Fabinho scored a total of 9 goals in all competitions – 5 of which were Milner penalties, 1 of which was a Fabinho header from a corner. So that midfield last season scored a total of 3 goals from open play. Regardless of whether our front 3 normally make up for it, regardless of whether we had to rotate tonight, those stats just ain’t good enough.

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[Mikus LFC]

Nil, we undoubtedly need more from the midfield in such games. We just ended up with Salah and Mané running into trouble and losing the ball. Did worry a bit when I saw that midfield, but obviously we had to rotate a bit after the weekend.

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[Mikus LFC]

Bizarre, we’ve been a lot better than last season. But you don’t create many chances or fluff them, you’re taking a risk. Bit of a graveyard this place for us.

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[Mikus LFC]

Been better at the back than up top so far. This is where we just miss goals from midfield when the top 3 aren’t quite at it.

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[Mikus LFC]

What are your thoughts on Emery Steveo? Whilst I think he can be a clever manager tactically here and there, he just doesn’t strike me as someone who can really build a project up with a strong identity. The following article asks some important questions:

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2019/aug/31/unai-emery-arsenal-searching-for-soul-tinkering-tottenham

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[Mikus LFC]

One of the masters of squad rotation, if not the best, was Ferguson. And what was integral to his rotation was having that ability to replace senior players with younger academy players, and the positive results would continue seamlessly. They obviously had the added bonus of having that extra fight and determination.

So I was somewhat left scratching my head as to why Foden never made an appearance for City yesterday. I know he’d also been away with the England U21s, but here is a guy who has been with the club since he was a young kid and you would think would have been itching to get on the pitch yesterday. I know it was at the back City had their problems, but even so, it would have given City that extra bit of badly needed freshness and spark. And it’s somewhat bizarre that Guardiola has recently labelled him as shy and not yet confident enough. Is this poor man management by Pep? Or is there fault with Foden? Thoughts City fans?

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[Mikus LFC]

What seems to curretly determine whether Man Utd get a good result, is what mood the players are in that particular day. At the moment James is the only breath of fresh air for them, and it obviously isn’t quite enough, and add to that Solksjaer just seems to lack any kind of authority over them. This is very akin to Rodgers last season at Liverpool, where it just looked a matter of when not if the axe fell. Is Allegri prepared to cut short his sabbatical?

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[Mikus LFC]

Watford also lost their last 3 games of last season, so that probably added to the board’s worries and I suspect they fell into the conventional thinking that “they had to do something!” Whenever people fall into such thinking, bad consequences tend to result because they’re reacting emotionally not rationally (unless Garcia had actually lost the dressing room).

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[Mikus LFC]

Watched the longer version where Gary Neville says that Keane and Fergie were basically the mirror of each other – principled, ruthless, stubborn, etc, which is why when they clashed, it got pretty heated.

I think that whilst Keane just says a lot of things in terms of how they are and doesn’t give a rats (which can be refreshing when others try and tiptoe around things), it’s his uncompromising nature that is both his strength and weakness.

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[Mikus LFC]

As Guardiola has put it himself, football is a game won by the team who make the fewest mistakes (both in a defensive and offensive sense). That’s why the best teams tend to also be the most drilled, organised and clinical. Obviously you can never remove mistakes completely, but you can promote a culture that tends to minimise them to as low a number as possible. This is where marginal gains come in, something British cycling adopted that helped edged them further to success. And hence you see Klopp bring in a surfer over summer to try to minimise panic under stressful situations.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/unusual-step-jurgen-klopp-taken-18833212

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[Mikus LFC]

Indeed, I think why Palace have been brought up is because they’re a tougher nut to crack for the bigger boys.

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[Mikus LFC]

Just a thought – there is a bigger trend now for all teams to play more open, expansive football. Does that not make it easier for the bigger boys to demolish them?

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[Mikus LFC]

Whilst Owen certainly isn’t immune from criticism in all this, one does wonder again how much a lot of his big decisions were down to his agent? They really are Lady Macbeth type characters who claim to hold their clients “best interests” at heart when we know they’re ultimately looking for a big pay day by manipulating their players into a move. And then, after their careers, they look back, as Owen is now, with bitterness the way it all went.

We still see this today. Look at Neymar – again not saying he isn’t personally immune to criticism, but the amount of people around him that must have been looking to make a buck out of him must be quite a few. Similar perhaps with Pogba too, maybe even Mbappe – all these players currently look unhappy at their clubs because it wouldn’t surprise me if they’ve ultimately been manipulated into moving so others can make big bucks out of them. We’ve got to look at some serious agent regulation at some point.

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[Mikus LFC]

One of Klopp’s greatest ability’s seems to be how the actual profession doesn’t seem to affect him. Carragher has for example said that it effectively put him off management when he saw how the game affected both Houllier and Benitez at the end of their respective times with the club. Whilst it will still somewhat wear him out eventually (hence his recent contract extension admission), Klopp never seems to take it too seriously or get bogged down and he therefore keeps things as fresh as ever…

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[Mikus LFC]

Arsenal, Man Utd & Chelsea are still some time off from competing for a title.

Spurs are the closest – they’re a very good, well drilled, cohesive, effective side. They were deemed to have had a good summer window. But for me they just strengthened in areas they were already strong in. It’s in attack I still think they lack that wow factor, which would allow them to take the next step up to Liverpool & Man City.

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[Mikus LFC]

Fair result in the end. Spurs look better than they have recently (though they’re still short in attack for me). Arsenal still dodgy at the back but just tried too hard to force it up top lacking flow and composure.

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[Mikus LFC]

Insane tackle by Xhaka.

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