UCL Draw Thread

[Jase 43,479]

2 hours ago, cfcs most wanted said:

It's certainly not a very good draw, but I'll still favour Spurs over Juventus, not on current form of course. But Spurs will hit back, they have a young and talented squad, and of course maybe their performances shouldn't mean anything given the form of Real and Dortmund but even Juventus were nothing great in the Champions League, Barca managed to contain them in both the legs

I don't think finishing second in the group should be used as an indication for anything, especially when there's a 2-month gap between the group stage and knockout stage. It's always about qualifying for the last 16 when you're in the group. Juventus in 2014/15, for example, came second in their group behind Atletico Madrid and still managed to reach the final, beating Dortmund, Monaco and Real Madrid along the way. Juve also did something similar last season. So they do have a track record of turning it on in the knockout stage.

[cfcs most wanted 657]

Seeing all these high pressing exciting games in the champions league, and then watching our match against Man City, why to be always this protective, just have a go sometime

[manpe 10,861]

How do these teams keep possession so well even in most difficult situations? I don't get it, if it was us Courtois would have lumped 10 long balls by now because we can't stand any kind of pressure.

[Styles 9,790]

Yeah, it's depressing watching other teams play well when we have to suffer through shit on a stick football.

[cfcs most wanted 657]

12 minutes ago, manpe said:

How do these teams keep possession so well even in most difficult situations? I don't get it, if it was us Courtois would have lumped 10 long balls by now because we can't stand any kind of pressure.

Cause these guys know how to pass, for starters

[LAM09 7,043]

Basel might be playing a weaken City side but look at them taking the game to them and having joy. Makes our performance even more pathetic

[Alabama 1,992]

2 minutes ago, LAM09 said:

Basel might be playing a weaken City side but look at them taking the game to them and having joy. Makes our performance even more pathetic

makes me wanna punch Conte for that post match comments...

[MrExcalibur100 7,124]

11 minutes ago, manpe said:

How do these teams keep possession so well even in most difficult situations? I don't get it, if it was us Courtois would have lumped 10 long balls by now because we can't stand any kind of pressure.

Same thing with Mourinho's Chelsea. In truth we've always been awful at building from the back. These teams have managers that can coach how to beat a high press by passing out from the back. Right now we have Rudiger, Christensen and Azpilicueta.  No excuse in Conte's inability to be able to coach this team to adequately pass out from the back.

We also need another deep lying playmaker to help Fabregas make it easier to beat the press when he drops deep with the centre backs to try and make forward passes. Fabregas is our only playmaking midfielder capable of seeing the pitch and making quick incisive passes. But he's slow and susceptible to the high press of coaches like Guardiola, Pochettino and Klopp. But the coaching aspect comes before the personnel aspect in my opinion. 

[manpe 10,861]

Same thing with Mourinho's Chelsea. In truth we've always been awful at building from the back. These teams have managers that can coach how to beat a high press by passing out from the back. Right now we have Rudiger, Christensen and Azpilicueta.  No excuse in Conte's inability to be able to coach this team to adequately pass out from the back.
We also need another deep lying playmaker to help Fabregas make it easier to beat the press when he drops deep with the centre backs to try and make forward passes. Fabregas is our only playmaking midfielder capable of seeing the pitch and making quick incisive passes. But he's slow and susceptible to the high press of coaches like Guardiola, Pochettino and Klopp. But the coaching aspect comes before the personnel aspect in my opinion. 

We are actually quite good coming out from the back, definitely better than anything we saw under Mourinho. This difference was the first thing I noticed with Conte's arrival. The problem arises once we get to midfield, due to lack of quality or coaching or whatever reasons, we hit a wall or make a simple mistake and have to face pressure again. We simply don't have the midfield to connect our back to front fluidly. Fabregas is not mobile enough, he's one of the bottlenecks in our midfield. Kante absolutely needs a completely different partner than anything we can currently offer.

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[Jase 43,479]

26 minutes ago, manpe said:

How do these teams keep possession so well even in most difficult situations? I don't get it, if it was us Courtois would have lumped 10 long balls by now because we can't stand any kind of pressure.

It's not even just about keeping possession when under pressure, which we are rubbish at as pointed above, but also the pressing. I mean look at Spurs v Juventus. The latter have been piss poor but Spurs haven't allowed them to settle into any rhythm with proper, cohesive pressing. If it was us, we would have sat off them and give them all the time in the world to pass the ball around. We are always more reactive than proactive in such matches and it's quite annoying and infuriating that others often take the latter approach and do it well while we don't.

[MrExcalibur100 7,124]

7 minutes ago, manpe said:

We are actually quite good coming out from the back, definitely better than anything we saw under Mourinho. This difference was the first thing I noticed with Conte's arrival. The problem arises once we get to midfield, due to lack of quality or coaching or whatever reasons, we hit a wall or make a simple mistake and have to face pressure again. We simply don't have the midfield to connect our back to front fluidly. Fabregas is not mobile enough, he's one of the bottlenecks in our midfield. Kante absolutely needs a completely different partner than anything we can currently offer.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk
 

I disagree, we're horrendous. Notice this is concerning the big games only. So against teams like Spurs, Liverpool and City we can't pass out from the back. In some of these games in the past we basically by-passed midfield by thumping it up to our striker. We did that against Liverpool earlier this season. We did the same against Spurs. We could barely string passes together  from the back against City in both games. Last season was the same as well. We made a comedy of errors trying to pass from the back in our 3-1 win at the Etihad. 

We are a bit better under Conte than Mourinho because he at least considers that aspect of the game. It's just that like Mourinho he does a terrible job at it against equally skilled teams when it actually matters the most. 

[zekinjo 449]

When you are building your team, for a couple of years, around one coach in a stable environment you can play your best football against any opponent.

I’m actually envy Tottenham. How in the world they managed to be such a stable and actually successful, a CL club currently playing in front of 90 000 home fans at Wembley, teaching football Juventus who was 2 times a CL finalists in last 3 years. 

Every player is signed for the right position and tactically perfect for the coach and football they are playing for years.

Even if they lose they will be a success. I don’t know if people realize how big they become and they are constantly growing unlike Chelsea FC who looks like a club from pre Abramovich era.

Tottenham is and soon enough will be such a good football story.

 

[Alabama 1,992]

4 minutes ago, zekinjo said:

When you are building your team, for a couple of years, around one coach in a stable environment you can play your best football against any opponent.

I’m actually envy Tottenham. How in the world they managed to be such a stable and actually successful, a CL club currently playing in front of 90 000 home fans at Wembley, teaching football Juventus who was 2 times a CL finalists in last 3 years. 

Every player is signed for the right position and tactically perfect for the coach and football they are playing for years.

Even if they lose they will be a success. I don’t know if people realize how big they become and they are constantly growing unlike Chelsea FC who looks like a club from pre Abramovich era.

Tottenham is and soon enough will be such a good football story.

 

even without trophy?....u can envy their style of football but without silverware...they are nothing...soon they will loose some of their quality players... 

[Iggy Doonican 4,186]

33 minutes ago, zekinjo said:

When you are building your team, for a couple of years, around one coach in a stable environment you can play your best football against any opponent.

I’m actually envy Tottenham. How in the world they managed to be such a stable and actually successful, a CL club currently playing in front of 90 000 home fans at Wembley, teaching football Juventus who was 2 times a CL finalists in last 3 years. 

Every player is signed for the right position and tactically perfect for the coach and football they are playing for years.

Even if they lose they will be a success. I don’t know if people realize how big they become and they are constantly growing unlike Chelsea FC who looks like a club from pre Abramovich era.

Tottenham is and soon enough will be such a good football story.

 

Are you hungry mate because I think you should eat your words. Tottenham are fuck all and their fans are dyed in the wool fucking mugs. I posted in another topic how one of their fans rang up a phone in saying they were going to win the Champions League laugh I nearly bought my own beer.

[cfcs most wanted 657]

This is the problem with having no experience in the team, they will hopefully fall away in the premier league as well, because this loss would stick on their minds