If you have anything to say on any subject, mail us at theeditor@football365.com
Best Champions League night in ages
Only seen the highlights from most of the games, but saw the whole Celtic v Borussia Monc#%*$”! game, and it looked like one of the best nights of Champions League football in ages.
That winner for PSG, De Bruyne’s free, Messi’s breakaway goal and Ozil’s absolute p***take of a goal were quite sexy indeed.
Patrick(.)(.), how’d you like them brackets? Ireland
Oh wow. Just wow.
City…bloody hell.
Sandip (United are miles away from this)
We need to talk about Kevin…
Just watching the magnificent Kevin De Bruyne put in another masterclass performance (and just played a perfectly weighted ball for City’s third goal), and thought it worth reminding all that Mourinho didn’t fancy him.
Russell, Aldershot Town, Guildford
Pep showed Premier League the way…to beat City
Kudos to City for their win yesterday. I think it was significant for two reasons.
First, despite all his previous claims, Guardiola showed that he is capable of being tacticallly flexible. City were happy to let Barcelona have possession for large parts of the game and Caballero was clearly given the licence to hoof the ball out if he felt it was necessary.
Second, and more importantly, Guardiola gave the Premier League a template __with which lesser (all other) teams can deal __with City: defend deep but have a couple of quick, skilful players near the halfway line ready to strike out with a counter-attack. There’s an even chance that the defending team will regain possession in their own half. When that happens, all they need to do is put a long pass through and start a counter-attack. If they do that often enough, it is quite possible for them to get a couple of goals against City in the course of a game.
While the City players were great, what really happened yesterday was that Barca’s tactical inflexibility lost to City’s flexibility.
KM (‘tactics’ are simply a matter of priorities), London
We should form a club
Mesut Ozil makes me want to touch myself in my naughty place.
Rich (Sutton Utd till I die), London
…That noise that Gary Neville made when Torres scored for Chelsea at the Nou Camp. Yeah, I made that noise last night as Ozil put about the Ludogrets defence on their backsides last night. Absolutely stunning.
Brad Smith
…Place a GIF of Ozil’s goal at the top of your homepage for a week, please.
It seems like something you’d do anyway.
Alex, Pompey Gooner (not from Portsmouth, no glory hunter thanks)
…Mesut f**king Özil!
Dan in MK
…Amid the excitement of the Manchester City win over Barcelona (beating Barcelona at their own game, only Guardiola would be dumb enough to attempt that), can I just marvel over the sublime, slow-motion footballer, Mesut Ozil is?
His winner is evidence of the lazy mastery of one who knows he can manipulate time. Oh Ozil, you warmer of cockles, you.
Ahad (“moments and its men”)
That was big from Arsenal
This is one of our most important performances of the season so far. Critics will say that the opponents negate the worth of the victory, and that winning away in Bulgaria is standard for teams of Arsenal’s stature, but given the context surrounding us in Europe, the victory holds significant weight.
2-0 down after 15 minutes would perhaps in previous campaigns given rise to a dismal display – a miserable night of possession football, limited actual chances and a blot on the record, and overall initiative for PSG to take control of the group and tighten their grasp on the first-place spot. The defending was poor, minds were astray, the team was lacking the drive and vision it had held in the games prior to tonight.
Yet rather than fold, they responded excellently – an Ozil assist and a Xhaka goal, the returnee Ramsey providing Giroud with a goal, and then after a second half that looked like a stereotypical Arsenal display, with chances wasted and the potential for a blunder – they sealed the game with a show of absolute footballing excellence, and then held their nerve to take the three points. And frankly, the resolve to recover the game, the brilliance in the execution of the goals and play preceeding them, and the coolness and composure to find their heads when many an Arsenal side would have lost it prior, make the victory tonight a statement of how impressive Arsenal are under Wenger at the moment.
In the past, Jenkinson would have spent an entire game in troubled form, yet he and the rest of the players around found their focus, defended decently for the rest of the game, and allowed Arsenal to build the momentum to eventually win the game. It represents the evolution of Arsenal as a team – they’ve added ability, world class players, experience to their game, and now they’re showing resolve, stamina and motivation like we’ve not seen before, and Arsene Wenger deserves a lot of credit for that.
And a word on Ozil’s goal – another show of his brilliance as an individual. He delivered in the big moment, the seconds that gave Arsenal the win – whilst showing he has what it takes to control the ball in the most pressured position of all. What a player we have in him – truly excellent.
Either way, first in the group is a very realistic target now, and Arsenal continue their excellent form.
Spetsnat (now hoping that we can handle the Pochettino press on Sunday!)
No time for panic about Spurs
I agree with much of what Matt Stead says, but generally speaking it’s a bit early to draw (boooom) too many conclusions into Spurs so early in the season.
We went to WBA and could have been out of sight, but somehow didn’t put a few chances away. They played better in the second half, the crowd got behind them, 1-1. It happens. Wenger would be rattling on about mental strength with Ali’s equaliser, United would be praised for their never say die attitude…
Bournemouth – Eddie comes up against his hero. They have a tiny pitch, they try to outpress Spurs, they run themselves into the ground – we’re a bit knackered still from a really tough match in Germany, draw. Fair result.
Leicester. Oh effing Leicester. Yet another team Spurs seem to have accumulated who will probably forever raise their game against us after last year. We get an underserved pen and you think oh at last – they might actually have to come out and create something!!! We’ll be able to pick them off!!! Then our spaghetti-loving legend has a moment and it’s Groundhog Day against the 427 players in front of goal again. We want to go for it, that’s what they want, they can play on the break…painful.
So all in all, this stuff happens – no need to panic. We could however give N’koudou a bit more of a run-out and see what he can do. And I do think Poch is right, a draw’s not ideal but we are doing well. If you took out the three best players from each of our rivals for long stretches of the season I doubt any of them would remain unbeaten like we’ve managed without Dembele, Kane and Toby.
Dave, Winchester Spurs
Jose Mourinho is accidentally Partridge
The thought has occurred to me that Jose Mourinho is no longer the hated pantomime villain of old, but he has turned himself into the new Alan Partridge. All the facts seems to support this as he lives in a hotel, he hates his ex employees in London, he has kids “who don’t want to see him”, every time he opens his mouth it’s a train wreck waiting to happen and he blames every one other than himself for the fact that he isn’t as popular as he used to be. I even bet he carries an extra large plate with him to dinner at Carrington. I think if this continues it probably means that in the next few years Norwich City fans can look forward to Jose and Ruis pitching up in a mobile home outside Carrow Road, while he waits for his new home to be built.
(Here’s hoping he actually shouts “Paul…Paul…Paul…Paul…Paul…Paul…PAUL…I don’t think he heard me…” at Pogba every match.
Iain Devenney
This guy has just given thousands of people his password
Had to change my Windows password this morning. As a Liverpool fan I’ve often used various combinations of player names, numbers, etc, e.g. Suarez7, Torres9 etc. After a while you realise that certain names or combinations of letters are easy to type and some are just bastards. Had never really thought about why until this morning. The first word to come to mind when I had to change password was ‘Klopp’. That’s too short on its own so I decided to add ‘mania’. Now, I urge you all to try typing Kloppmania on your keyboards. Isn’t it just a beautiful sensation? Seamless typing. If you look at the keyboard, you’ll see that O, P, K and L are all beside each other (two above the other two), enabling Klopp to be tyoed with just a few movements of the right hand. with ‘mania’, M, N and I are also close together. A is on the far left of the keyboard but there are two of them so you can just give the key two quick taps with your left hand.
Feeling quite chuffed with myself right now. I defy my fellow readers and indeed the MC to come up with a football password that is nicer to type.
All the best.
Mick, Basel
Birthday bingo
I share a birthday with Van Basten and Rashford. Also Jimmy Savile and Rob Schneider, You have to take the good with the very bad.
Hakim
And the birthday winner is…
Pfffftt…those shared footballers birthdays aren’t a patch on mine. I’m sure that Lothar Matthaus, Ronaldinho, Ronald Koeman, Jordi Alba and Antonie Greizmann all gloat about sharing a birthday with me.
Three European Championships, three Champions Leagues, three FIFA Player of the Year awards and two World Cups between them.
With Brian Clough as manager.
Oh I ‘forgot’ to mention Lee Cattermole and Michu too.
Brian, Wexford
Wait, it’s this fella…
I’ve never heard of any of the ‘footballers’ who share my birthday. But am dead chuffed about Dolly Parton.
Raz, Dublin