[Mikus LFC]

Current rules are as follows I believe (via https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_eligibility_rules):

Any player … who assumes a new nationality and who has not played international football [in a match (either in full or in part) in an official competition of any category or any type of football] shall be eligible to play for the new representative team only if he fulfils one of the following conditions:

a) He was born on the territory of the relevant association;
b) His biological mother or biological father was born on the territory of the relevant association;
c) His grandmother or grandfather was born on the territory of the relevant association;
d) He has lived continuously for at least five years after reaching the age of 18 on the territory of the relevant association.

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[Mikus LFC]

Also just to add, Man City’s first two recent titles (Mancini & Pellegrini) were won on goal difference and by 2 points respectively. Now I’m not saying they weren’t deserved but in another season they could easily have finished 2nd. It was only last season, under a more ruthless winner like Guardiola that they won by some distance. The manager still makes a huge difference.

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[Mikus LFC]

Remarkable perhaps. But has he hit his ceiling? Also this idea that if you gave him big bucks he’d be hugely better – I think it’s more complicated than that. One of the reasons for Spurs “success” under Poch is that he has a smaller more closely knitted team which no doubt helps with the harmony of everything. Finding the right player in terms of both competence and mental strength can actually be very difficult (as well as ensuring they don’t disturb the harmony). Everyone talks about Man City and their money but boy they’ve wasted some over the years. And £60 millon on Mahrez this season?? He’s not really taken them up another notch has he?? Big money is not necessarily the silver bullet it’s made out to be.

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[Mikus LFC]

A manager’s shortcomings can be made up from the strength of characters in the dressing room. That certainly applied to Benitez’s CL win with regard to Gerrard and Carragher (no way he’d have won those trophies without them). And also Ranieri clearly had a dressing room full of characters the year Leicester won.

The problem nowadays is many of the top clubs lack these characters and thats reflected in the lack of Premier League European success in recent years. Therefore to have success now you need a ruthless manager to get the best out of a group of players because not only do they have to coach but they have to make up for the lack of characters they have. This is why Sarri (decision making and tactics aside) has been scratching his head over why his team weren’t motivated – it was a very Wenger-esque comment – as though he’d come from an older era parachuted into this new era where the game had changed but he hadn’t.

As for someone like Klopp, I’m not convinced he’s ruthless enough. He’s already on record at Dortmund saying he plays first and foremost to entertain, not win. And this season, in the big games where Liverpool could have ruthlessly put things to bed, they haven’t capitalised. The only reason we’re still in the race is that City too lack characters and after winning last year have struggled to maintain that standard of last year.

It’s therefore crazy to say it, but if Mourinho hadn’t been at Man Utd, he’d now be one of the favourites for the job because he is still a ruthless winner. But the board didn’t buy well enough and some personalties just proved too big even for him to handle (I’m also not convinced Pogba was a Mourinho signing). If conversely Man Utd did opt for Poch, you can imagine them playing some nice stuff as Ed suggested, but with few characters there, he’d struggle to get them over the line and I don’t think he’d make up for it himself with his own personality. Man Utd therefore need a ruthless winner. Solskjaer has got a long long way to go to prove he’s that.

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[Mikus LFC]

Ed, just out of curiosity, do you think Mourinho would have got a better result tonight?

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[Mikus LFC]

Quite so Nine. Be it Scolari to Hiddink, or Villas Boas to Di Matteo, or Di Matteo to Benitez. And all those changes led to trophies.

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[Mikus LFC]

As Carragher said last night on MNF, Chelsea (or rather Abramovich) have never historically liked going through change and so any pain to build something up. The bottom line question for Chelsea will be “Can someone else get more out of this group of Chelsea players?” I think we know they would.

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[Mikus LFC]

Brian, they’ve made a film about Bert Trautmann coming out in a few months if you’ve not heard. Broke his neck in the cup final and kept playing didn’t he?

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[Mikus LFC]

Nine, if Chelsea were to receive a transfer ban and they continue in mixed form, do you think Abramovich will want to continue with Sarri in such circumstances?

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[Mikus LFC]

Chelsea seem to have hit upon their own Wenger. Can’t see him lasting the season at this rate.

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[Mikus LFC]

This is akin to Liverpool polishing off Arsenal off under 20 mins some years ago.

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[Mikus LFC]

Chelsea still in their dressing room.

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[Mikus LFC]

Poor decision for Vardy to take the penalty after immediately coming on – you need to feel your way into a game. And now Spurs score. Huge swing.

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[Mikus LFC]

I said from the very early days of Klopp, the feeling I got was that if we were ever to win the league under him, it would most probably only be by a margin of a few points. Not because we weren’t a super rich club, but because I sensed a lack of ruthlessness in him. He was on record at Dortmund saying he played first and foremost to entertain rather than to win. Now it may be the case we haven’t quite been as electric this season, but I think that’s more down to circumstances in terms of missing the likes of Coutinho/Ox.

But we’re not out the race, because even earlier on in the season I thought that City were not unbeatable. I thought they lacked leaders, would have struggled to maintain hunger after last year and would get distracted by the CL. And so it seems to be the case.

I note some people like to be more in the moment than hellbent on winning. And I very much sympathise with that position, with one caveat. That so long as the team gives it’s all, I don’t care if it wins, draws or loses. That’s what the true spirit of football is about. How we miss the likes of Gerrard and Carragher. Because no matter how badly we may have been playing, you always believed the game was never over with them on the pitch. No matter what, Gerrard would come up with the goods. He won trophies single-handedley. (Would Benitez have won the CL or FA Cup without the passion of Gerrard? No way). That hunger, that desire, was like having a fan on the pitch (which is what he was). But that’s gone, as it has at most of all the other top clubs (which as I say is why no team has successfully defended their title for a decade). And how worse off we are for it. I sympathise with Klopp that he has never had such people to call upon and it has inevitably led to a managers job being much more difficult (this is the point I was trying to make on the “managers dwindling authority” thread). It means managers now have to be near perfect and invoke a lot of the passion themselves (why is why, generally speaking, Mourinho has typified the modern era – successful by invoking a strong passion – but only temporarily because things get too wound up).

So we are where we are with football. Is it any wonder all the top teams keep stuttering? But in many ways this is what the premier league was designed to do – create a series of teams with temporary interchangeable players and managers and little identity so that it would keep mixing things up year on year. (If anyone has the time – go and watch the film documentary “Once in a Lifetime – The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos” – this story pretty much provided the blue print for the modern day game). The likes of Ferguson delayed that experience for Man Utd, but now they’ve embraced the modern day game…reluctantly one has to think. Some may be happy with it, or see it as an inevitable progression. And it obviously has its good bits. But for me it’s gone too far.

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[Mikus LFC]

What odds on City winning neither the league nor the CL? Anyone brave enough to take that bet??

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[Mikus LFC]

Banjo, a glass is only half full if it is in the process of being filled because that’s the end destination. A glass is only half empty if it is in the process of being emptied because that’s the end destination.

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[Mikus LFC]

Threeps, I wouldn’t be so crude as to say flukes – those wins were based on excellent work by certain players, so they were deserved. But the team should not be so dependent on a few individuals. They need to be more robust than that. All teams experience injuries. West Ham had a string of injuries the other night. But their fight made up for it. I can quite easily take us dropping points *if* we put in a shift in every game. Have we been doing that? Wasn’t Klopp billed as the man who made players run through walls for him? Not seen much of that recently.

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[Mikus LFC]

Threeps, if we are now tactically better set up to defend, why have we conceded as many goals in our last 5 games as we did in our first 19 games? We can’t just blame it all on a few injuries. Or if we can, it shows it wasn’t the set up after all.

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[Mikus LFC]

Threeps, we were actually pretty average in a lot of those 20 games, it was that defensive pairing that bailed us out on multiple occasions. With that gone, I’m afraid we’re now seeing a truer reflection of where we are. So I’m to be convinced that this is just a blip.

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[Mikus LFC]

I assume it doesn’t incorporate the human factor? Is it all just based on previous stats?

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