Week of 9/30 Game Thread

Cellar-Door

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West Ham up 2-0 on United.

Pellegrini's system seems to be bedding in, good win @Everton, strong draw home for Chelsea, now up on United at home and playing well in all 3.

Also the midfield of Pedro Obiang, Mark Noble, often a liability because he has no pace and teenage Declan Rice is thoroughly bossing Matic/Pogba/Fellani.
 

Cellar-Door

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3-1 and West Ham look on their way to taking 7 of 9 from @EVE, CHE, MUN after getting 0 of 12 from @LIV, BOU, @ARS, WOL.

On this match, Anderson, Arnautovic and Noble all were great. United was poor, and Pogba was maybe the worst of the bunch
 

PedroSpecialK

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West Ham looked really strong, but United's defensive setup was brutal. There were a handful of situations where Shaw/Young were nowhere to be found and Arnautović, Anderson, and Yarmolenko were driving in on United's back line. On Arnautović's goal, he was about 2 yards onside, and still there was nobody within 5 yards of him when Noble hit the through ball.

How much more can United take?
 

Cellar-Door

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West Ham looked really strong, but United's defensive setup was brutal. There were a handful of situations where Shaw/Young were nowhere to be found and Arnautović, Anderson, and Yarmolenko were driving in on United's back line. On Arnautović's goal, he was about 2 yards onside, and still there was nobody within 5 yards of him when Noble hit the through ball.

How much more can United take?
This looked like the proverbial "this team has quit on the manager" game. Not everyone, but Pogba, Shaw, Matic, all were incredibly low energy and effort. The communication at the back was very bad, and maybe some of that is system related, but the biggest thing I noticed in this match was that West Ham's players were working far far harder than anyone on ManU except for Martial and Fellaini.

On the Arnautovic goal.... he harassed the keeper, ManU turned it over, and he drifted back on, into the huge gap caused by the LCB sliding wide because Snodgrass was unmarked, and the RCB who drifted wide because Anderson was unmarked.

The biggest thing though was that Noble wasn't pressured at all, take a look at 0:10 in the video below. It's 4 West Ham players and 6 defenders. Nobody closes down Noble, nobody marks Snodgrass, nobody marks Anderson and nobody marks Arnautovic.

The CBs are hung up in nomans land between Arnie and the wingers, the RB is trotting back, the LB is making a half effort between closing down the passing lane to Snodgrass and closing down Noble, and two midfielders are just standing around between Noble and the backline doing nothing.

That's garbage effort. I mean, if Noble is closed down he probably can't make that pass and at least you force it out wide. The difference in energy and communication was massive all game.

Edit- forgot the video:
0:10 is when Noble hits the pass, somehow 6 United players are between him and the goal, and none of them is marking anyone.
 

OCST

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West Ham did not look like a relegation candidate. They’ve turned a corner.

United were dull, dull, dull.
 

koufax32

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Salah’s decision making in the final 3rd has been off this season thus far. Today, two good opportunities within 20 yards turns into a dribbler to the GK and a wild miss 15 yards off of goal.

And Allison saves their bacon.
 

PedroSpecialK

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Hazard's finish was unreal. Full speed, weak foot, across the keeper, with a ton of pace... and damn, Salah nearly tucks it in but Rüdiger with a great recovery
 

Pesky Pole

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What a game this is. Kepa with a spectacular save and then a remarkable recovery by Gomez to catch Willian on the break.
 

67YAZ

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STURRDIGE!

It pays to have an unrepentant sniper to come off the bench for moments just like this.
 

allstonite

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“What’s he doing? Another one of his wasteful shots when we have possOH MY GOD I LOVE YOU STURRIDGE”
 

koufax32

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If nominal fans watched that match they are now hooked on EPL football.

I will absolutely enjoy that one point.
 

67YAZ

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Common points:

- Awful teeth with Klopp having recently capped his
"Oh, these? The American owners insisted I get veneers. Ask Roman if he'll cover it for you."

What a great match up of styles and talent. Can't wait to see both the squads take on City, too.

Was in and out a bit during the match, chasing children. On the replay of Hazard's goal, I have to lay the blame on TAA. As a fullback myself, I know this problem well - you track a man in towards the middle, get sucked in trying to stop the ball, and like a flash your man is running free behind you. No doubt it was great interplay among Chelsea players in the midfield to set up that pass, but TAA will learn from a bad mistake.
 

SoxFanInCali

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On a different day with a little better finishing and without the 2 most expensive goalkeepers in the world, that game could have been 3-2 or 4-3.
 

teddykgb

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On a different day with a little better finishing and without the 2 most expensive goalkeepers in the world, that game could have been 3-2 or 4-3.
Neither keeper will be happy with the goals they conceded and the best thing kepa did was watch Salah shoot tamely at him or row z
 

teddykgb

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Anyone know how to get a Wolves jersey? The official store apparently does not ship to the U.S. and can't seem to find them anywhere else. Asking for a brother...
I don’t know if they have wolves but back when City kits were hard to come by I would have success at the soccer store on rt1 near fox pro. May be worth giving them a call if you’re local. Otherwise maybe check out jd sports or sports direct they may ship to us. And that world aoccershop store
 

SoxFanInCali

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Neither keeper will be happy with the goals they conceded and the best thing kepa did was watch Salah shoot tamely at him or row z
He made a really nice save on a low, quick shot from Mane. And both the goals that were scored were put into pretty much the perfect spot. Alisson got a finger on Hazard's shot but couldn't keep it out, and Kepa missed Sturridge's shot by a couple of inches.

I also mentioned the part about better finishing, hence Salah missing the target a couple times. Liverpool did have 2 shots cleared off the line by defenders, though.
 

teddykgb

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He made a really nice save on a low, quick shot from Mane. And both the goals that were scored were put into pretty much the perfect spot. Alisson got a finger on Hazard's shot but couldn't keep it out, and Kepa missed Sturridge's shot by a couple of inches.

I also mentioned the part about better finishing, hence Salah missing the target a couple times. Liverpool did have 2 shots cleared off the line by defenders, though.
Only responding to the idea that the two high priced keepers kept this from being a high scoring affair. I thought Alisson was quick off his line and played pretty well but neither keeper was special. They faced 4 and 6 shots on goal and each conceded. I wouldn’t blame either keeper for either goal but they’d both probably tell you they should save it. Regardless, if you watched the league this year and didn’t know who the record signing keeper is but were forced to guess you’d probably guess Patricio. This is all apropos of nothing, I’m not heading anywhere with this just found your comment curious because the keepers didn’t stand out to me.

For me, the story of this game was Liverpool misfiring in the first 20. Played their style and turned Chelsea over a bunch but just fluffed all the good chances. My team would never play this way but in general I think most teams have to focus on weathering the storm in Liverpool’s first half hour and then playing football after that. Once that press has punched itself out the gaps and chances appear.
 

Cellar-Door

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Anyone know how to get a Wolves jersey? The official store apparently does not ship to the U.S. and can't seem to find them anywhere else. Asking for a brother...
uksoccershop is out of stock, but they ship to the US. Wolves seem to not be on most of the other major resellers.
 

Nick Kaufman

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Only responding to the idea that the two high priced keepers kept this from being a high scoring affair. I thought Alisson was quick off his line and played pretty well but neither keeper was special. They faced 4 and 6 shots on goal and each conceded. I wouldn’t blame either keeper for either goal but they’d both probably tell you they should save it. Regardless, if you watched the league this year and didn’t know who the record signing keeper is but were forced to guess you’d probably guess Patricio. This is all apropos of nothing, I’m not heading anywhere with this just found your comment curious because the keepers didn’t stand out to me.

For me, the story of this game was Liverpool misfiring in the first 20. Played their style and turned Chelsea over a bunch but just fluffed all the good chances. My team would never play this way but in general I think most teams have to focus on weathering the storm in Liverpool’s first half hour and then playing football after that. Once that press has punched itself out the gaps and chances appear.
Come on. Both goalkeepers would probably tell you that they should save it? It's not that they are not unsaveable goals. It's that it's unreasonable to expect that a goalkeeper would expect to save it the majority of the times. One is a one vs one situation, the other is an exquisite shot on the top corner from an area of the pitch and a time of play in which you don't expect an attacker to shoot a credible shot often.

As for Alisson, here are some stats I dug up the other day when other people were mocking him for the goal he conceded against Leicester.

According to Opta, only David de Gea (80.28%) and Jan Oblak of Atletico Madrid (82.68%) had a better save percentage than Alisson (79.26%) in European football last season. In the Premier League, only De Gea saved a greater percentage of shots than him.

Karius, meanwhile, saved 31 shots last season, stopping 68.89% of the shots he faced.

In terms of Liverpool's rivals, Hugo Lloris of Tottenham saved 70.09% of the shots he faced, Chelsea's Thibaut Courtois saved 68.52% of the shots he faced and Petr Cech saved only 64.44% of the shots he faced for Arsenal.

Alisson is not only an upgrade on Liverpool's current goalkeepers, he is perhaps even better than his compatriot, who plays for yet another rival. Manchester City's Ederson had an excellent debut season in the division, helping Pep Guardiola's side to the league title. However, his save percentage (68.29%) was lower than Alisson's and he was kept out of the Brazil team by the Liverpool-bound goalkeeper.

Alisson's distribution will also be a great asset to Klopp's team. The Brazilian is the modern goalkeeper Liverpool desperately need, as comfortable with his feet starting attacks as he is saving shots. According to Squakwa, Allison completed 81% of passes last season, which is a greater percentage than any other Premier League goalkeeper last season other than Ederson. Karius had a pass success rate of 67.18%.
http://www.anonymz.com/?https://www.joe.co.uk/sport/liverpool-alisson-becker-190470

It's a small sample size, but so far Liverpool have conceded 3 goals in 7 games i.e. 0.42 goals per game. Last year they conceded 38 goals in 38 games. Maybe it's a statistical artifact, but so far Liverpool's defense look more surefooted. It's not all Allison, but he's probably part of that.