so hey i suppose with the euros winding down with the knockouts tomorrow and the copa america down to the final+3rd-place-game it's pretty much about that time to look forward to the next season of football. here's some of the obvious big stories that have already come to pass for 16-17 and beyond:

- mourinho to manchester united; sir bobby charlton likely stays up late at night crying that "it came to this"

- zlatan probably going to united because he loves mourinho (sky reporting medical scheduled for after euros so any day now)

- pep officially joins man city on july 1st

- ancelotti to buyern munich

- pogba likely going somewhere RM/barca/caliber for a metric assload of $$$

- vardy turns down arsenal to sign 4yr/~$100k-per-week extension at Leicester City (thank god)

- roberto martinez out @ everton, replaced by koeman (from southampton)

- brenton rodgers to celtic ("we're a REALLY BIG CLUB yes we are!!!")

- hummels picks buyern > manutd cuz of CL football (maybe a cover for not wanting to play for mourinho?)

- guys like aubameyang, higuain, mkhitaryan, cavani, lazcazette still out there

- and ofc arsenal signed granit xhaka ("young schweinsteiger" per gottmar) for 30mil+


this EPL season should be mental as you figure that city got pep, united got mourinho (so they're both "back") and then LCFC and tottnumb should be around the top-4, liverpool can always take the step forward, and oh yeah then there's arsenal. should be fun, and by fun i mean being an arsenal fan i get aged ~30yrs in the next season alone

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btw as the board's resident "tommy mctoughnuts: arsenal plastic du jour" i wanna put it on record that i was never really wanting jamie vardy to come to arsenal. personally i think the whole "situation" was brought out by his agent (who had been contacting all of the top4-6/ish EPL sides [and chelsea/liverpool =] to see if they were interested in acquiring vardy via his ~20mil release clause) so they could determine a "market value" for vardy to go back to Leicester City with.

Out of all the "top sides" the only team to "take the bait" was Arsenal, who I suspect had an ulterior motive of assuaging their fanbase/supporters by making headlines that proved "hey we tried to go and get a striker who's ostensibly better than olivier giroud!" But then it's most likely not gonna happen so it ends up being an exercise in mental masturbation to hopefully placate the #WOB (Wenger Out Brigade) and their fearless leader Piers Morgan (just ask him).

Personally I didn't want Arsenal to end up with Vardy because I'm not 100% convinced that he ends up being any better than Giroud for them. It's not because I rate Giroud (who is basically a bumslayer); it's because whether it's last season being a magical seasonlong purple-patch for Vardy or whether it's different football philosophies/styles employed by LCFC and Arsenal (and Vardy being a better all-around fit @ LCFC) I just can't sit here and say with 100% confidence that Vardy would be "the answer" to Arsenal's striker woes no matter how many passing similarities his acquisition might have to the Ian Wright acquisition back in the day.

and btw this Ramsey to ManUtd for ~50mil rumor is just some kind of hilarious on multiple levels. much like the "Wilshere to City for ~40mil" rumor popping up near the end of the 14-15 season it's like "can I help pack his bags? is there a gofundme where i can donate $5-10 to city to help make this happen?"

</TLDR> aka </Arsenal>

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Paying like 50 million pounds for Vardy would have been such a Liverpool thing. Instead they went out and flushed 30 million down the drain for Mane. I think Mane's best games last year were AGAINST Liverpool.

Since it is July 1, it is currently Liverpool's year. Subject to change, of course, but the lads have it in the bag right now.

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Back off, Warchild. Seriously.

...right on schedule!

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Palace currently making a Liverpool-esque move for Benteke. Might LFC actually turn a profit on that bit of business?

God, I hope United don't get Pogba.

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Back off, Warchild. Seriously.

speaking of pogba, does anyone here think he's REALLY worth all the ginormous $$$ totals being thrown around for his x-fer/wages/etc?

i mean yeah pogba is some kind of pure athletic specimen who theoretically has some kind of "unlimited upside" if he can develop his footballing brain alongside his physical gifts..... but man, i wouldn't say that pogba is some kind of defensive wunderkind.... nor is he some kind of lethal attacker..... so what does he really do for you if you plunk out the ~60-80mil+ GBP to land him and then start paying him ~200-400k/week or whatever he'll command?

is paul pogba truly worth all the $$$, or is he truly a "meme player" like the kids on 4chan often say

btw, for what it's worth morata is considered some kind of "meme player" like "i hope arsenal doesn't fall for the morata meme by paying 50mil+ for a guy who only had *8* goals last year!"

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Pogba isn't a wang-whipping big black stud. He is a big guy (for you) but not in the Vieira mold of prowling midfield. He's an attacker with more athleticism and play-making ability.

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Back off, Warchild. Seriously.

oh yeah i never meant to go with wang-whipper for him, it's just that his "thing" always seems to come with the caveat of some kind of unlimited potential to where it's luke skywalkeresque in that he's got multiple champions across the galaxy wanting to bring him in to "complete his training" --- that said i wonder if playing for mourinho might end up stunting his development, seeing as mourinho's a big believer in the whole "if we score we win" mantra of "parking the bus" or maybe even "anti-football" if you wanna swing that way.

i can't cop to watching that much juve over the years (who i've always called "football methadone" cuz it's like when there's no other "big" or "proper" euro games on and you see there's a juve game it's always "alright" but never quite giving you the full-on rush of "proper" games elsewhere in europe =) but obviously it's going to be a little trickier to fully ascertain pogba's ability/potential when he's playing alongside pirlo and vidal for the last few years and then last year was a transitional year for the old lady.

TLDR = i just get this vibe like the euro football media is keen to anoint pogba as some kind of transcendental super-player because of his hefty pricetag/s, but at least at this current juncture in time and space it's more based on potential than it is on actual performances. and i'd still prefer that he goes to spain instead of england, obviously =D

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Ha, Celtic lost to a bunch of part-timers from Gibraltar in the Champion's League Qualifiers.

Poor Brendton.

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Back off, Warchild. Seriously.

Went to the Palace/Philly friendly last night. It was a lot of fun, my daughter got a free shirt and poster which was nice and thought the singing and clapping was great. One of the highlights was when we were going back to our seats at halftime, and when we get to our section, a security guard opens the gate for the area going to the players' locker room and out walks Steve Parish the owner of CPFC...and he was following us up to the Palace section of seating. So I stopped and talked to him for a minute, my daughter explained how she has been a fan for a long time (since she was two) and he complimented her on her choosing to wear last year's away shirt. By this time, everyone in the section pretty much mobbed him for the rest of half time, he ended up standing in the back row talking to fans for most of the second half.

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idk if the vaunted MLS ALL STAR GAME is worth its own thread (anyone else watching in the wake of Sox v Cubs: Dawn of Cubpacalypse ??) but i see drogba is starting @ CF for the MLS all-stars so you can bet he'll have at least 1 goal in what i figure to be a solid 4-1 to the MLS all-stars.... especially when [drum roll]



THAT'S RIGHT, that ~16 year old polish DM kid >we signed is starting @ CB (what with koscielny on post-euro holiday, gabriel..... uhhh who knows, chambers = 2nd half i reckon and coq only taking reps @ CB in training as of a day or two ago)

ahh well, you don't get into/stick-with arsenal for the silverware i tell you what.... i say bring it on! bring on the flopping cnut and at least him starting @ CF = he wont be there to get a clutch flop circa 85'+ to win the game for the MLS

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hahahahahhaha that pudwhack taylor twellman just called out the NBA NHL MLB NFL (with all due respect, of course) saying that he doesn't wanna see any of their all-star games, but evidently he DOES wanna see this one (i'm guessing cuz it's the best of the whole damn league in one team with a chip on their shoulder trying to stick it to a superior european side)

good god taylor twellman puts the "pud" in "pudwhack" =D

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see? told you drogba has to score. and of course he scores late (45'+2) as he's prolly only playing the first half. this is arsenal. this is drogba. this is what happens.... THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS LARRY!

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Do not fear lads. I am back to talk soccer. I'm making the trip to Ann Arbor Saturday to see Chelsea take on Real Madrid. I'm so excited to see my first Euopean soccer match. I haven't jumped on the Antonio Conte bandwagon just yet. I still think this year's edition of the Blues will struggle to get back into the Champions League. I'm curious to see N'Golo Kante in Chelsea blue.

do you know anything about this new striker chelsea got? the b-guy.... i can't remember his name off the top of my head, instinctively i just wanna say matisyahu with a b for "batisyahu" =D

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No...I watched him against Liverpool and didn't do anything outstanding. If Costa goes to Athletico and he is the replacement. Chelseaxis screwed

welp here we are on the eve of the 16-17 premier league getting underway and suffice to say that even with new managers a-gogo around a good chunk of the top 4-6 teams i'm still thinking this is going to end up being one of the toughest and most competitive PLs of all time (or at least going back to when the PL formally started in 1992)

- fresh off of formally declaring #POGBACK (for ~90-110mil GBP or whatever) mourinho's already up to his usual BS claiming that other teams are afraid to say that they want to win the premier league. now that he's landed his "dream job" (and you figure sir bobby charlton often wakes up in a cold sweat with tears in his eyes like "why did it have to come to this?" cuz you know he once famously said of some mourinho touchline antics "a manchester united manager would never do that") AHEM. now that he's landed his dream job and they're willing to spend 500mil GBP to upgrade the squad you know he's going to take some glorious ginormous shots @ wenger this year. stay tuned.

- pep guardiola loves to preside over what i call "football death stars" and now he's putting the finishing touches on his first Manchester City squad by adding leroy sane for ~42mil and then i think they finally/formally also grabbed the young gabriel jesus for like ~28mil, right? that must be nice, you know, being able to drop ~45mil on raheem freaking sterling a year or two ago and being able to "shake it off" if/when it doesn't pan out.

- liverpool still doesn't have the #SWAG (read: european football) that's often needed to get top/better signings, so repeat after me: "jurgen klopp MAKES world class players, he doesn't SIGN world class players" --- personally i figure the scousers will get better under kult kloppo (even if he's technically #10 on that 2014 list of managers who spent the most $$$ on their squads from 2004-2014)

- tottnumb hotspur is a football team from london that plays pretty attractive football. idk if they signed anyone of real consequence (read: i don't remember a lot of sizzle with their summer transfer headlines, but poch knows what he's doing so if anyone's gonna procure some steak on the low it's probably poch)

- chelsea has conte and a rather modest summer spending spree (by chelsea standards anyways) --- will they follow manutd's lead in buying back a player they (foolishly?) let go a few years earlier by plunking out 60mil/+ for lukaku? time will tell. LITTLE KNOWN FACT = julie dicaro is a self-proclaimed chelsea fan, hence why she's the only person i've ever heard give EPL scores during scoreboard updates.

- arsenal? you know how arsenal does. they grabbed xhaka early, spent ~2mil on a young british CB named rob holding from bolton (who i think was relegated from the championship to league 1?) but now in their last pre-season friendly-tuneup presumed-first-XI/ish CB gabriel did up his ankle for 6-8 weeks so now arsenal is supposedly going out to drop ~30mil on some CB named mustafi from valencia, who i'm pretty sure is the same club they got gabriel from for ~11mil in jan 2015. don't forget that manutd also dropped 30mil on gabriel's CB replacement at valencia: eric bailly. these guys must have some kind of a centre back factory going on, eh? i know they spent ~4mil to get bailly to replace gabriel and then they flipped him for ~30mil this summer; good business if you can pull it off.

anyways before i go waaaayyyyy too TLDR (and start pretending like i know anything about, say, the dawn of the koeman era at everton*) i guess i'll just leave it here and say EN GARDE! i have no idea when la liga, 1. bundesliga, and all the other euro leagues start but you figure it'll be pretty soon, right? as always i'm looking forward to the new season, altho i fully expect by sept or oct i'll be back to my usual "meh" when it becomes pretty obvious that arsenal doesn't really have a legit chance to win the PL this year.

i reckon it's going to come down to a veritable "manchester derby" atop the table this year and i'll give it to pep/city mainly because the last ~10+ years of football history that say year 1 mourinho sides are usually pretty/good but not quite tabletoppers, and right now the core of citeh's attack has a little more experience/cohesion together; not to mention they don't have to placate a 300k/week albatross for club and country named wayne rooney. if "roo" ends up having another shit season like last year (or even worse he keeps on declining like how he did from 14-15 > 15-16) there are gonna be some fireworks in mouchester when "the special one" might go and try to run a statueworthy club legend (#1 all-time scorer for MU) out of town and quite possibly all the way to china (i.e. somebody who might actually be willing to pay him his 300k/week which i think goes til... june 2019? wowzers)

ofc somehow, some way arsenal manages to disappoint en masse but fight/claw/RISE-TO-THE-OCCASION in order to snag 3rd/4th and keep the CL gravy train going with the timeless motto "4th place is a trophy!"

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oh yeah btw * = everton is now officially TIM HOWARD FREE SINCE 2016! have fun in colorado timmaye! *cough cough hack wheeze *

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how bout those hull city tigers? not only did their manager steve bruce abruptly leave ~2-3 weeks b4 the season started, but they've also got fans up in arms waving negative signs about (new?) ownership and yet despite all that turmoil they STILL manage to go out and beat defending PL champs Leicester City 2-1 today! i heard that leicester city is the first defending PL champions to lose their first match of the next season (which covers 1993-present, as the PL started in 1992) which is pretty "wow" cuz you figure it would have happened at least a few times by now.

from there everton held on to a goal from circa ~5mins to draw with the mighty tottnumb hotspur. last year spurs (and city too) seemingly mastered the art of trailing for most of the game then coming back late to equalize/go-ahead, usually thanks to an 'ARRY KANE goal or 2. but hey even despite gerard deulofeu** bottling a 1 on 1 with THFC backup GK vorm i'll still gladly take a non-win for the mighty majestic tottnumb hotshit, who even NBC decided to have a little fun at the expense of during today's broadcast:



from there the aforementioned tendency of man city to come from behind to equalize/win games late = our usual dose of LOLCITYWINS = did anyone really expect a david >moyes led side to mess with 1/38th of pep's cornation as the king of football? per usual city technically has scary good depth on paper to the point where i reckon their second team could probably at least compete for european football in the PL (read: finishing in the top 4-6) --- i have a feeling that more often than not things will tend to come up milhouse for the affectionately-nicknamed "poop" as this season rolls on.

anyways day 1 of 16-17 is in the books and we've still got mouchester united and arsenal tomorrow, along with conte's chelsea debut on monday. otherwise i know at least the french league is going on, so yeap, in the immortal word/s of mario from mario64: MEX-UH-COOOOO!!!!! (let's-a go)



** = oh yeah i'd be remiss if i didn't point out that i'll always remember gerard FUCKING deulofeu from the 13-14 season arsenal vs everton @ emirates; arsenal was up by a goal in the 2nd half when gerard FUCKING deulofeu managed a nice equalizer that arsenal couldn't muster/manage a proper response to, even though olivier giroud was actually compelled to make a rare strike @ the goal in the waning seconds, only to have it hit post and make you wanna pull out your hair like "why does giroud only take actual shots when time is expiring versus everton?" - at that point of the season (early-mid january i wanna say?) arsenal was atop the table by something like ~7pts, and i believe that a win over everton would have had them like ~8-11pts clear of everyone atop the table at that instant. instead they managed the draw and then city/LFC/whoever undoubtedly won to whittle down the lead to something like ~5-6pts at the end of the round and the rest is history aka #FuckYouDeulofeu!

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Arsenal-Liverpool was a fun match. The Mane goal alone was almost worth the price to sign him. But, typical LFC, they bust out to Burnley the next match. See you in 17-18 lads!

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Back off, Warchild. Seriously.

Looks like the year Palace might get the drop, but then again they always suck and then fire the manager by Boxing day and go on a tear and stay up

yeah, you know while it's easy to slag off the scousers and bitch about arsenal, 3 of their 4th goals were legit (world?) class on display, and the other goal (their 3rd) was just some stone-cold clinical execution of an offensive set/play/whatever. that first goal, the FK by coutinho, was just brilliant. and then mane just made us look silly... kloppo's OH SHIT reaction where he had to smack himself in the face said it all:



from there arsenal had the 0-0 with LCFC, and then your typical 3-1 barnstorming tour vs watford so it wasn't a completely OMFG horrible start (hearkening 11-12) --- still tho, arsene actually got some kind of worried because he actually went and met valencia's 35mil GBP valuation of mustafi (a month or two ago you heard that valencia wanted 35mil for him, arsenal was at 25mil.... then when gabriel went down after mertesacker you heard that arsene was like "ok ok, you got us... 30mil -- go figure 35mil got it done, eh?) and then even managed to get lucas perez from deportivo while he was at it, which i hear has now given us "german cahill" and "spanish vardy" so that means WE LEGIT 4TH PLACE CONTENDERS NOW!!! =D

of course the en vogue thing for arsenal fans to do is bitch about how arsene didn't do these transfers a month ago, because that coulda been the difference between 1-5 additional points heading into the first int'l break, and you REALLY don't wanna get 7-10+ pts behind the two manchester sides because they WILL bury you this year; but hey #BetterLateThanNever! you figure arsene wanted to give holding a chance to be his ~30mil CB (as during one of his pressers he flat out said that "[the media/fans] don't like holding because he didn't cost 30mil, so maybe in the end you're just cheering for money?" and i think he wanted to be able to puff his chest out like he beat the system by getting that ~25-35mil defender for ~2mil in holding, and then in lieu of another attacking winger/striker he coulda used iwobi along with theo/ox around ozil on the wings with alexis at striker, so therefore between the emergence of iwobi and maybe even (MLS All-Star Game MVP) chuba akpom he coulda said "they are like a new [30mil] signing"

honestly, i think if you gave wenger a choice between spending 200mil to win the PL and spending <20mil to finish 2nd-4th and make it out of the CL group he's gonna chose the latter every time. i think there's a football hipster in him that wants to show off that he can buck the system and not SPEND SPEND SPEND and essentially "buy" a championship, in lieu of developing his own youth players and of course grabbing "cheap" aka "value-priced" ~16-19 year olds and bringing them over to arsenal to develop into proper first-team players. obviously that's still impressive, but at the same time it gets frustrating after awhile that it seems like arsene seems way too comfortable with always being the lamest guy at the cool kids party. yeah arsene we know it's awesome to always be invited to "the place to be" but seriously dude, after 10-15+ years there comes a point where even just once you wanna hook up with one of the finest chicks there, even if you had to drop a couple'a hundred on pricey booze and coke to pull it off (srsly if you need help in those depts ask wilshere, he's got some ppl =)

SPEAKING OF.... yeah jack wilshere is off to bournemouth to provide a wilshere>>afobe pipeline.... and hey i know at one point last year if you looked at the most goals in england over the last ~1.5 to 2 years afobe was technically #4 behind aguero and the usual suspects. all he's done since leaving arsenal (via loan or transfer) is score goals, so hopefully jack can find something there with him because i fondly remember that run of peak-form he had circa late-Nov/early-Dec 2013 where he consistently received the ball with a super-soft-and-spongey first touch and then brandished a lightning fast/quick first step forward with the ball that consistently put the opposing defense in potentially compromising positions. outside of THAT performance vs barcelona during his best season of 10-11, that's the best stretch of primo-wilshere i've ever seen; that was the only time i could see what all the hype (for club and country) was about. pity he's way too often injured (diaby 2: english bugaloo) to ever get any sort of consistency going to he can find that peak form again.... you also gotta wonder how much raw athleticism/ability he's left on the training table at this point.

so yeah, basically, "sucks to see jack go, even on loan" and idk if german cahill + spanish vardy are gonna be difference makers that elevate us to, realistically, a more solid grip on top-4, let alone anything higher..... but hey one thing i DO know is that they're NOT gabriel and giroud, so that's a nice start. yes i reckon outsiders who saw giroud in euro2016 might say "look at the quality he showed you! how can you be in such a hurry to replace him like you've got soldado or something? --- welp, the only time giroud has any sort of consistency is when there's a fire lit under his ass in the form of someone possibly taking his #1 striker gig. once he manages to get the #1 striker gig back he settles in as mostly some kind of bumslayer who's realistically too slow and plodding to play the kind of football you wanna play when you have mesut freaking ozil as your #10, and honestly right now the biggest fear in tommy mctoughnuts arsenal plasticland (fun for the whoel family! affordably priced! bring the kids!) is that ozil's going to be entering the final year of his contract after this season and if he doesn't wanna stick around cuz he wants to go elsewhere and win trophies playing with better players..... you really can't blame him, can you? would you rather be passing to, say, lewandowski, suarez, aguero, zlatan, or theo giroudbeck? plz don't go mesut. the gravy train over in the N5 is awesome and remember with actual stars come actual EXPECTATIONS, not just AMBITIONS =)

ANYWAYS, there's your arsenal TLDR for the last month and the next month going forward. it's out of my system. and now that i'm done blabbering i realize it's 12:37am and i need a fucking hobby, and possibly a new [???] for my flagship baseball team, which despite technically being comfortably #1 has me worried about an imminent collapse in a few weeks in the playoffs. c'est la vie no?

oh and out of all the other transfer news, i reckon mentioning chelsea getting david luiz back for 32.5mil a few years after selling him to P$G for 56mil = suitably hilarious. YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG CHELSEA! dontchaknow you're supposed to spend 100mil to get your player back? that'll show the fans your stone cold / diabolical AMBITION! you know, the kind of AMBITION that has sir bobby charlton often waking up in the middle of the night drenched in a cold sweat muttering "why? ....why did it have to come to this? yeah we're going to challenge for trophies.... but at what cost?" --- c'est la mou, no?

hasta

# tommy mctoughnuts: arsenal plastic du jour

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Watching Walcott putz about for England remains one of the few things funnier than watching him putz about for Arsenal. Can't wait to read the predictable takes about Big Sam having his guys FIGHTING TO THE END.

if you think walcott's shit for england how about those overrated spurs guys? holy shit i forget if it was dele alli or eric dier who ended up unleashing a bicycle pass (away from the goal) today... but hey BOG SIM got em fighting when it mattered most! even tho lallana's goal shoulda been saved, still, #WEGOAGAIN!!!!!

seriously tho, big sam looked like he was gonna bust out some fuckin dance moves after lallana bailed his ass out from some proper (and well deserved?) criticism from the UK football media.

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I watched the Manchester derby. United were totally out of their element in the first half. Kind of surprised Mourinho called out his players after the match. I thought he flubbed the tactics. I've noticed he's more and more like a whiny bitch and just no fun anymore. I still think his Inter side turning over that lethal Barcelona squad in the 2010 CL semifinals was incredible.

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Back off, Warchild. Seriously.

Mourinho out? With Chelsea, Leicester, and Liverpool as 3 of their next 4 things could get uglier in a hurry.

Well it looks like Palace put an offense together.

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i gotta admit that while i'm not an ABU by any means, it's still kinda =] to watch this $$$BIG MONEY$$$ side go out and shit the bed in the europa league and THEN vs watford?!?! man i remember when moyes was in charge of manutd you'd always hear these things at the end of the broadcasts about how this was [lower table team]'s first win over manutd since 1965 or something and it was like "holy shit how far have the mighty fallen here?"

now you're hearing about how this is watford's first win over manutd since the thatcher administration and it's like.... man... wtf are you doing mourinho? pogba isn't looking like a ~90-100mil player and idk if they even know where they wanna play him (you can't do #10 in a 4-2-3-1 cuz then where do you play rooney? sheeeeit i even heard some manutd fans say that their side MISSED ROONEY in that europa league failquest on thursday) so uhhhh.... man, it seems like pogba doesn't even know what he should do and ppl have been pointing out that he needs ppl next to him to sort things out and set him up and order him around and whatnot (like he had with pirlo and uhhh whatshisface @ juve) cuz right now it looks like an individual player trying to pull off some kind of dazzing 1-man-highlight-reel stuff which you can favorably compare to old CR7 @ ManUtd but realistically.... it just aint working out thus far.

lots and lots of people are saying that pogba doesn't work in a 2 man midfield, but can you see jose going with a 4-3-3? another thing i've seen a bunch of people point out is that they never can remember a game where pogba stepped up and "dictated the flow of the game" or "took the game by the scruff of the neck and imposed his will on it" -- ergo that's why having pirlo+friends around him to basically run the show and leave him free to do his thing = ideal pogba, cuz man even when yow saw him with france in euro2016 did he look like any sort of a transcendental player to you? idk man...

...but all of this might be academic outside of merely finishing top4/CL cuz it sure looks like manchester city is gonna run away and hide with the PL like chelsea did a couple'a seasons ago. it's pretty legit terrifying to realize that pep very well might have already set up another "football death star" @ man city and it hasn't even taken him more than 2-3 months to do it? yikes. i'm pretty sure city hasn't even trailed in the PL yet, and no aguero = no problem because then the next row of shark's teeth pops up in the form of iheanacho/nolito, all while KDB has been awesome for pep thus far.

i came into the season thinking the 2 manc sides would be atop the table with the "usual suspects" of arsenal and chelea a notch or two below them duking it out with spurs/liverpool/everton/LCFC aka "whoever fancies some CL football in 17-18" but now it's looking iike idk if anyone in the league really has anything for city yet..... i mean we've barely even seen leroy sane (42mil player) used and has the ~28mil gabriel jesus even made a squad yet? prolly will int he league cup, but still..... i'm thinking not just manchester but the whole damn PL is finna be blue this year.

as for arsenal.... hey now! you know we're not gonna toss our 35mil midfielder into the fire right away.... can't brake up that tandem of coquelin and cazorla, right? but hey xhaka uncorked a totally cheeky goal during ST of the last 4-1 victory @hull, and while that's the kind of shot wenger will hate you for attempting.... he made it! everyone wants to see xhaka and there's some ppl (idk if memeing) on /sp/ who claim that xhaka's str8up better than pogba? clearly not as a pure athletic specimen, but a a footballer? man it's not like anyone's ever mistaken #PogBad for some kind of a cerebral player b4.

anyways TLDR = LOLCITYWINS and that's your forecast for the rest of the 16-17 PL season. godspeed and good day everyone!

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