AFCON with some madness today, let's goooooo

on espn. Real looking to prove they're heads and shoulders above everyone. Barca desperate to show they're competitive again. Plus, debut for Ferran Torres. And Araujo back right after fracturing his arm? ridiculous.

ansu and pedri back on the bench. hoping they get some minutes to get back into form but not rush them.
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you think we playing chess, but i'm playing mad-making. Basaglia

5 minutes on the pitch and he already looks great. And you can't help but feel that Ansu would have buried a few of these chances that Dembele has missed.

busquets gave up the first goal, alves the second. wish Dest weren't buried on the bench because he at least has the speed to not be quite so afraid of Vinicius.

legit have one too many starting quality young MFs with Pedri, Gavi, FdJ, and Nico around. Honestly think a 3-4-3 is the way to go with they all back:

Araujo/Pique/Garcia
Gavi/FdJ/NicoPedri
Ferran/Ansu/Dembele

sucks to lose, but this is so much better than it was even a month or two ago.
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you think we playing chess, but i'm playing mad-making. Basaglia

Bring him on against tired legs.

It's Barca, so I still like a 4-3-3

Alves/Dest-Araujo-Pique-Alba
Pedri-FDJ-Gavi
Ferran-Ansu-Memphis

Alves/Dest can be rotated depending on the assignment, Same with Gavi/Nico.

and that's the most likely lineup and a good one, i just think Nico is a better option for a Gala XI and for the future.

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you think we playing chess, but i'm playing mad-making. Basaglia

https://streamja.com/1O7Gd

The pure example of being OWNED.

Chelsea beatdown the spuds...more hardware is coming for the mantle.

Magilla, get your weight up. It’s the second half of the season, and that is when
Chelsea is most lethal.

Lukaku and Tuchel have worked things out. German Blitzkrieg mode has been reactivated. Teams are about to get smacked the fock up.

Parade down Fulham road will be on and jumping for sure this spring.

Gonna miss El Ghazi; he had some huge, huge goals for us over the last 3 and a half years. But, he's not enough of a number 10 to fit Gerrard's system, and the squad's getting crowded for wingers/wide forwards.

Really needed Chelsea to do more than this.

that was his jam. inter fixed his diet. got him in shape. nobody over there is really that good anyway so it's not too difficult for him

Lukaku had 2 proflic seasons in the EPL.

I give it another couple months before you’re as tired of him as the rest of Chelsea fans already are. Y’all did not buy him for 100m to run up goals vs Burnley and whatnot

vs Azpilicueta and Alonso

they offered nothing yesterday, and the team as constructed wasnt gonna score on anyone.

i dont understand why they insist on mashing the players they have available into that stupid formation. if theres no width, and no creativity from the midfield pair, whats he supposed to do?

The service wasn’t there, and Tuchel got the lineup wrong.
Jorginho and Mount would have provided more spacing and passing,
but Tuchel insisted on trying to dribble MC to death.

Thought MU had some yellow or something.

and Tuchel got the lineup wrong.

Dropping Mount for Pulisic was a poor decision, and not playing Jorginho
was another poor decision. Pulisic is not a starter. He is an energizer better
coming off the bench.

And boy do we miss Ben Chillwel. We miss his speed and outright
offensive ability. I think Alonso might be washed.
He used to hit the flanks with speed, and he used to be able to get in
box with ease. Those days might be past him. We definitely need to
acquire another speedy wingback over the summer. Chilwel might not
even be back for next season.

It’s time to sell Kante. He will be 31 soon, and he isn’t old, old, but
he isn’t what he used to be.

We are still in second place, and in great position to repeat as champions in the
CL. PremierLeague is out of reach though.

We have to play Kepa for entire month....skylord, help us now.

Poor little rich boys hoarding resources and complaining when shit ain’t perfect.

Villa have spent approximately £330million on transfer fees since being promoted to the Premier League in 2019. Only Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal have invested more on players.

Sounds like OIL FC to me....Villa is even shit at having a sugar daddy.

You’re supposed to win trophies when you use oil money. Club nearly
spent half a billion just to move up to 13th place.

god damn. It’s worse than I thought.

A decade under Mansour at Citeh, the last 40 years of Manchester United's financial dominance of the league?

So yes, 100 mill per year has been necessary to get us from playoff promotion (needing a 10 game winning run to even qualify) to challenging for the Europa places.

Also, look at the wage bill, which is a better indicator of where clubs end up finishing than transfer spends. Villa are still only sitting 13th on that table.

3 seasons under Roman.

You’re on the other side now, mate. And you’re just as dirty as all the other
super teams.

Chelsea spent 300 million pounds the first two seasons Abramovich owned the team - 380 the first three years. You can look it up.

And that outlay included 34 mill for Drogba. That is not the same as 30 mill for Danny Ings in 2021.

You’re 100 percent wrong.

Chelsea spent 260 million in 3 years!....not even close to the 330 million- 400 million
that Villa spent in 3 damn years....You talking about 380 million pounds in
the first 3 seasons, and 300 in 2 seasons? Not even close. GTFOH

Chelsea’s first 3 years under Roman:

1st year: 121 million
2nd year: 92 million.
3rd year: 54 million

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1654557-charting-chelseas-year-by-year-transfer-spend-under-roman-abramovich

Not only has your club spent WAY more, it’s still a middle table club..if that.

Your club makes Roman look like a penny pincher.

So how does it feel to be a rent boy?

>1st year: 121 million

121 million in 2003 is 173 million in 2021.

>2nd year: 92 million.

92 in 2004 is 130 in 2021.

>3rd year: 54 million

54 in 2005 is 75 in 2021.

So in today's currency, that's 378 million.

the EPL's become a transfer juggernaut since 2003. in 2004, the total expenditure was 215 million (so chelsea was almost half of that!). By 2016, it's regularly over 1 billion.

https://www.statista.com/chart/18972/premier-league-summer-spending/
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you think we playing chess, but i'm playing mad-making. Basaglia

But certainly if you combine both measures, inflation and skyrocketing valuations, then Chelsea are definitely a horrible football club that anyone should feel ashamed of supporting.

Everyone's dirty in some way, so why worry about the degrees of it? It's a way for him to feel fine cheering for Russian Mafia FC and Franco's Favorites.

Mistake made in good faith. Still, you arguing in good faith that 213 mill in 2003-2005 is the same as 200 mill in 2019-2021 is hilarious. Take the (corrected to the BR number, which I confirmed in the Guardian) 24 mill paid for Drogba. What does a player like that go for in today's market? Oh, we could look at Kai Havertz a young International forward who's announced himself in Europe- 70 million.

On top of that, the clubs were in a very different place when our billionaires took over. Villa were about to get shut down because Tony Xia was a comical idiot who bought a football club without testing if he could actually bring his money over. Chelsea were what Spurs were under Poch- knocking on the door but not yet challenging. So yes, spending was in order for Villa to be able to maintain a Premier League place, work up the table and then get to a spot to knock on the

The 100 mill Villa dropped after the promotion was mostly spent on making important loans permanent (Mings for 20 mill, Hause for 5 mill and El Ghazi for 8 mill), and backfilling a squad that had been made up of loan players and late-career players. It wasn't consolidating a midtable side to push on for title challenges. Not yet anyway.

Also, you confuse me with someone who thinks there's a good billionaire. I know the game's dirty, but Chelsea are one of the only teams who stockpile players and loan them out as a matter of transfer policy.

Finally, that article talks up 2 BILLION spent in a decade. And that's BEFORE elite clubs were regularly paying 50 billion

and Azpilicueta is a right sided centerback at this point

theyre way too slow, and Alonso is a terrible liability with a good offensive player bearing down on him in the box

Hakimi just equalized with a beauty of a FK a couple mins after Gabon had gone ahead
Meanwhile Ghana in trouble though they've come back from 0-2 down

edit: oh shit Comoros back ahead

Just can't quite find the winner yet.

There is no one on the team who possesses the gifts they possess on
both ends of the pitch. It is glaring to say the least.

Odoi is not a wingback, he is simply a winger. He doesn’t possess the awareness
or physical ability to push forward and to track back, and he isn’t
effective with getting service into the box. He is a straight, fast
winger, that’s it.

Lukaku is a Central Forward who needs service. He isn’t a flighty striker who
can create on his own, so without any service he is useless on the pitch.

Mount has great chemistry with James and Chilwel, and that is the engine that
drives Chelsea’s offense. Mount looks lost without Chilwel and James on the
pitch. There is no buildup or connection with the other players. Everyone is just
running around doing Cardio

Kepa did make some good saves, but the team just doesn’t play or
look right when he is the keeper.


I say go 4-3-3, with Havertz and Mount on the same side, see if they can build
a link to get some service to Lukaku, and put Pulisic on the right.

Havertz - Lukaku - Pulisic

Mount - Jorginho - Kante

Alonso- Rudiger - Silva - AzP

Also, Chalobah is another key figure that we are missing

CIV-ALG is another wild one, the champions about to go out unless they get a miracle in the last 230mins

Then don't. Not sure why. I always watch the Euros, though. So it may be some kind of latent genetic northern European superiority complex that is subconsciously preventing me.

it seems to be mostly mentioned as a pesky event that takes away star players from club football. BeIn's weird channel assignment isn't helpful either; I watched a couple games that only had arabic commentary, even though the teams playing weren't even from arabic-speaking countries. Meanwhile their main channels were showing shoddy Ligue 1 fixtures

>it seems to be mostly mentioned as a pesky event that takes
>away star players from club football.

I think it was Jonathan Wilson who gave a good explanation and background of why AFCON is scheduled as it is, and why they're unlikely to change. Maybe it was someone else. I'm not annoyed by it—if anything, good chance to see some reserve guys on the club teams get some minutes. Certainly reveals depth, or the lack of it.

Really, it's probably more my unfamiliarity with the vast majority of the players. I just don't watch enough football from the non-EPL leagues to have much name recognition with most rosters, especially Ligue 1 and Bundesliga, where it seems a whole lot of African guys play. So basically, if I watched more AFCON, I'd probably then watch more AFCON. But it's the getting started with it that's the obstacle.

>BeIn's weird channel
>assignment isn't helpful either; I watched a couple games that
>only had arabic commentary, even though the teams playing
>weren't even from arabic-speaking countries.

Lol.

Footy Twitter keeps me abreast of things very well though. AFCON Twitter might be peak footy Twitter

>Footy Twitter keeps me abreast of things very well though.
>AFCON Twitter might be peak footy Twitter

lol, there's definitely some hyperspeed hipsterism going on there. "Oh, you ain't know about Comoros' backline? Pfff"

lot of talent on that team

countering....they were fucking terrible. That is why they are heading back to Abidjan.

watching it overseas and it is LIT

what a failure of >100 million euros given the injuries and now either getting benched till he's off on a free or sold for cheap just to clear his salary early.

uggh.

hope wherever he lands his hamstrings work better there.
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you think we playing chess, but i'm playing mad-making. Basaglia

Dembele is a tease and I don't think it's going to happen for him while staying at Barca (especially with it getting publicly ugly)

both sides need to move on

Brilliant move that came out of the blue. Emi Martinez has been fantastic since joining 18 months ago, he's getting his shot with the Argentinian national side and all of Villa's future growth is going to be with him at the heart. Love to see it.

The guy knows how to settle a squad and find the performers.

he works really hard and plays an unselfish team game

and their "want-to" radiates thru the screen

we're there for the taking every match and for the first time in a while DDG barely had to break a sweat. I'd be disappointed in what I saw today if I were a Hammer

felt like they were playing hard tho

What a game from Salisu in the back, he won’t be there for long

and FOCK anyone who supports them.

Oh shit, Villa is in 10th place. I guess that Oil money is trying to work.

i tuned in around 55 mins in and Arsenal couldve had 4 or 5 from 55-75.

*sighs*

I’m not a fan of this formation....we better get goals today.

He is experimenting at this point.

turned Lloris into a statue

https://mixture.gg/v/61ef0f3da3188

they had a (5'8"!) defender lined up as Goalie because CAF gonna CAF, 1 man down for most the match and they're still just a goal away with a couple mins to go

thats a good fucking player to sign for free

that midfield is getting crowded tho

busquets needs rotation bad and the solution to the underwhelming fullbacks on the roster might be a 3-4-3. though i prefer signing Grimaldo and finding some sort of RB solution (don't know what happened to Dest but i'm accepting that it doesn't look great at barca for him).

so then you have kessie busi fdj nico gavi pedri (and roberto?) and with rotation and injury, that's perfectly manageable for a 3-4-3 as the base tactic.

plus, barca might be thinking about cashing in on FDJ just because Nico and Gavi and Pedri are all years ahead of the plan and to help pursue Haaland.

Should round off our midfield quite nicely, and allow us to run two of McGinn, Ramsey, Luiz and Sanson as the 8s. I'll take that midfield against any in the prem, frankly.

cmon lol

As in it can go toe-to-toe with anyone. McGinn is excellent at harrying, pressing and scoring from range. Ramsey is becoming an exceptional ball-carrier and passer (seriously watch him next chance you get). Luiz does a great job picking off passing lanes. Sanson is a lively and willing runner with a decent eye for a pass. On paper are they as good as Rodri/KdB/Gundogan? No. Can they make life incredibly difficult for them on the pitch? Absolutely.

His delusion is rod sterling level. I love his motivation, though.

We all know how it is going to end every year.......

Middle Table Champions.....even with the oil money flowing
in.

Good dude, wack ass team, though.

wish you had a few more moves, but it'll be fun to see you in barca colors.

definitely think dembele's gone. what a shame. especially with ansu's injury :(
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you think we playing chess, but i'm playing mad-making. Basaglia

well okay then . . .

Apparently it's on a free for 3 and a half years. Gives us excellent depth at center half now with Mings, Konsa, Chambers and Hause. And gives us ample time to develop youth prospects like Bogarde, Swinkels and Kerr Smith.

Gambia was pretty organized and their goalie was amazing, and Cameroon created a ton of chance. They are fast, physical and they are super creative in their attack and once they found a weak spot they went right back to it and scored twice. Gambia is to be commended because it could have been 4-0 and they held them to two goals. The squad clearly takes being the Afcon hosts seriously.

Y'all can just look it up yourselves.

"must be one of those tailored trends. whatever. going to bed"

sucks to see the rumors/smoke on his name over the year and change actually have some validity to it.

have observed the photos that are circulating and are investigating the allegations.
Once all the facts have been attained, they will move forward with whatever actions
are necessary.

That is what was reported in The Telegraph.


On the other hand, those photos are horrific, and
he is facing some strong assault and abuse accusations.
Those bruises and lacerations don’t appear to be self-inflicted, so
someone attacked her.

However, I’m going to reserve my judgement until the investigation
has been completed.

>Y'all can just look it up yourselves.

Interesting stuff.

He's off the wage bill, so that's good I guess.

Thing is, not sure how they go big on a striker in the Summer when they miss out on Europe again because they won't be able to score enough to get either 4th or 5th.

Kinda funny that by the end of the day I guess Arsenal were like, screw it, just take him.

We signed 3 strikers this window. And couldn't get rid of Dembele. If Laporta is to be believed, he had two good offers, at least one of them from the EPL, but he turned them down.

So now we've got
Ferran Torres
Auba
Adama Traore
Memphis
Luuk de Jong
Braithwaite
Dembele
and Ansu Fati (who's injured again)

at the forward positions.
This has to mean the kids: Ez Abde, Jutgla, and Akhomach will be going back down to the B team. Fine with that. They were a stop gap. But with Auba and Adama joining, are we transitioning to a counter-attacking side? Is Xavi this low on Memphis who carried us through the first month or two of the season? Who will be our go-to starting XI?
These questions and more to be explored in the February footy thread!

I suspect Luuk and Braithwaite are heading straight to the bench. Adama's a winger, not a striker.

the top forwards are going to be Ferran/Auba/Adama and if they're lucky, they patch things over with Dembele to replace Adama.

Auba will be on his last year of his contract next year, possibly to be sold or to move to the bench when the top forwards will be Ferran/Ansu/TBD (Haaland is the obvious dream).

it's all a bunch of stopgaps other than Ferran who I guess Xavi sees as a winger.

>This has to mean the kids: Ez Abde, Jutgla, and Akhomach will
>be going back down to the B team. Fine with that. They were a

this is how it should be. B team needs help and they all need more game time than a team fighting for a CL spot can offer.

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you think we playing chess, but i'm playing mad-making. Basaglia

I mean... Ansu is done for the season, but Memphis seems like he should be back within the next few weeks. So, how does that complicate the starting forward line is my question. Auba has been pretty bad for the past 2 seasons. I get that we need a center forward and that's not where Memphis is best, but at this point, I think he's better overall than Auba.

And I don't know about having Dembele replace Adama... that doesn't make sense to me. As far as what they produce, it's pretty much a wash. Dembele's best goal return was 14 (all comps), or 8 in La Liga. For assists, it's been 9 (all comps), 8 in La Liga. For Adama it's 6 goal (all comps) 5 in EPL. 12 assists (all comps), 10 EPL. The differences are who Dembele was playing next to at the time, that Adama can play a full season and actually loves the club. And he's the most successful dribbler in Europe right now by a wide margin. I sure as hell don't want to "patch things over" with Dembouz and have him replace anyone. I want him gone.

https://twitter.com/TyBracey/status/1488778436839723009

Been at Villa three weeks and he's looking like he's enjoying his football again. LOVE to see it.

it was like they were waiting for him to check ball

a club defined by player power (Pogba, Martial, Lingard), folks that think they can step off the gas (Rashford), a whole host of mfs stealing a living because we just wont sell them (damn near everyone else), and managers that dont have the authority to do their job w/o the idiots upstairs meddling. and we wont even get to the criminal they harbored. you can read between the lines and see the club has always known his number.

i think at one point yesterday the 11 we had out were from 5 different managers. since we are too big to fail, this is rock bottom.

just an absolute mess.

And Moyes would have been good that second season. He was typically a slow starter at Everton too.

If you don't like watching this Miedema assist, you don't like futbol

https://twitter.com/i/status/1489984235750445059
https://twitter.com/i/status/1490001833619644421

Cameroon played the third place match against Burkina Faso yesterday...bananas....Burkina was up 3-0 at 71 minutes....Cameroon scores three in fifteen minutes to force penalties....wins on penalties.

Can't wait for the final. Two evenly matched squads...should be great. Kouyate could be a difference maker for Senegal....

Beat Egypt at their own game with PKs.

https://streamff.com/v/z0IdAb

That was nuts.

a lot more possession with intent, more diagonal long balls to open up the shorter plays and adama looked great.

tbd if this is a sign of how good it'll be, but it's nice to see so far. even with dani alves absolutely unacceptable red card, good to see barca with some personality/swagger

TWO! TWO BANGERS! AHH AHH AHHHH

(Also Coutinho fully back baby)

Just Leeds, but AV do look dangerous.

Hope Buendia and Coutinho are good for the next match. Thought Chambers looked lively coming on. But Leeds abused our midfield for most of the match. We really need Nakamba back.

This is what happens when you follow teams who don’t win
trophies.

Well, you can always fall back on that Arabian Kush that your
owners peddle.

We got the Bucks' owner and a construction billionaire. For whatever distinction that makes.

Watched Southhampton just outwork them. Not sure how Rangnick fixes that.

of good ball in us. some might put that up to adjusting to a more intense tactic. personally i think they just don't like it up em, and theyre lazy & spoiled. to really keep it simple and brexit. i could rant more but they dont deserve the energy

We have zero intensity, minimal fight.

As soon as they tied it up I said "we're not winning, and we're probably gonna lose."

We're lucky for the point. We just suck. Just feels like we expect teams to come lay down for us.

i get it, some United folks didn't rate him.

BUT when he played he played hard and i'd rather have a bunch of try hards than a bunch of prima donnas like we have now cuz, uh, if no one has noticed we're getting drawn by a bunch of try hards with some talent sprinkled in EVERY FUCKING WEEK.

and i think he quickly got a bad rap because he didn't score goals like he was in the Netherlands right away so people stopped believing in the kid but it's like, he BARELY played so how do you know what you really had? you didn't even kick the tires on him.

and i can tell you he brought the same fire vs Heerenveen in the muck of midseason that he did vs Real Madrid in the Champions League

and he never EVER engages in the mopey pouty bullshit that Bruno and other do

its funny you say that about scoring goals. according to whoscored, in his best season at Ajax he scored a goal every 260 minutes. hes only played more then 260 minutes in any competition twice for MU. Last years PL he had 1 goal in 515 minutes, so he was 5 minutes away from being overdue for another. last years CL he played 277 minutes, so he was a few minutes overdue for scoring his first.

Hes halfway between an 8 and a 10 imo, an aggressive 90 minute all around midfielder with good attacking qualities. NOT a 0.5g/90 guy, and he never has been.

but here's the thing: i NEVER cared if he didn't score for us, tbh.

cuz like, outside of Bruno when he's not whining and Pogba when he's playing at not getting dumb red cards, our MF is tragic.

and a player who actually cares and is trying is hardest is EXACTLY what we need especially in the midfield (really, we need a bunch of guys like that).

i have no answer for his time at MU. super confusing. and like, i hear this bullshit about he didn't practice well or whatever.

WE TAWMNBOUT PRACTICE?!?!?!? (C) A.I.

uggghhhhhhhhh.

by a soccer player.

AFCON Champion
Champions League Champion
Club FIFA Champion
FIFA Best Goalkeeper

Chelsea just won another trophy.

Gentlemen, I introduce to you the 2022 FIFA Club World Cup Champions, Chelsea!

Not only are they champions of the Europe, they are now champions of the world.

Chelsea has now won every trophy there is to win on the pro level......

Magilla, get your weight up!

In the second half yesterday, he had to have put in 4-5 crosses that could have been goals if Ferran were sharper. And then to put in the cross that got us the tying goal at the death to LDJ... and get no credit for it. Second game, second assist and still finding his legs in the squad. He was pretty clearly our best player in the second half.
Eric Garcia the worst.
Wow.
I had been holding out hope, trying to give him the benefit of the doubt but goddamn.
And back to Ferran. He really needs to sharpen up, work on the timing of his runs if he's gonna be playing as our center forward.
Don't have much to say about Auba at this point because he hasn't done much of anything. Doesn't look too promising at this point.