Post Match Reaction - Round 4

[Nick@ManCity]

Missing Sheets


Errors

Frankfurt - A_Lopez not in roster
Napoli - R_Pereyra spelt wrong

Error Points
Nap = 2
Frn = 2

[Steve@Chelsea]

Real Madrid 1 - 1 Barcelona

"Points shared in the El Clásico, but we feel like we was robbed here by Livi once again. Getting sick and tired of last minute key Barca goals! I'm pleased with the performance though, a 27-11 shot count should equal a clear victory, it didn't today though and that's football (esms). At the least though it stops a little run of wins that Barca had over us, but we wanted and deserved much more than that here today, but onto the next one which will be Dortmund away, who are always a tricky customer."

[Drum@Villa]

Bayern Munich 0 - 2 Lazio

Travelling to Bayern, formerly BMG, is never ever easy.

This was never thought about being easy,

Away from home, we opted for C to soak up the pressure, but we came out swinging, De-Paul scored after just a minute. Game on.

only a slight tactical change came after the goal. Fabinho moving to his favoured Dm.

Banks will feel hard done by on 46, Werner buried a perfect overhead goal but the referee had a moment and disallowed it, unsure why from replays.

first action of the second half secured the points for Lazio.

Osimhen grabbed another goal. Further enhancing his reputation,

overall we shaded the stats in the key areas, had more ball, less shots but more on target. And the obvious we scored 2.

There was a mutual embrace at the final whistle. JB is always respectful,

cheers boss.

[Marshy@Atletico]

Atletico 6 Frankfurt 2

gg josh

End up a bit of a shootout this one with both sides opting to attack. The overall shot count of 24-17 left a flattering victory for the home side with the key being shots on target of 18-8.
Zielinski celebrated his 15-rating upgrade with a double. Vinicius Junior scored a late special.
The arrival of close season signing Fati was finally celebrated as he kick started his slow start with a hattrick.
A great victory overall which takes the team to 10 points. No disrespect to those played so far but the league fixtures were kind so far with Ac, Celtic, Valencia and Frankfurt played so far.

Manager Simon Marsh commented “we are very happy with the league start but we know we have tougher games to come. It is good to get off to a good start though and settle any early nerves. We have a good base from which to build from now”.

Transfer news : Atletico have being rumoured to sell either of Zielinksi or Pasalic in recent weeks and it does look like a deal has been completed for Pasalic to move to Premier league outfit Crystal Palace. Rumours suggest two veteran players will be arriving at Atletico to offer more general depth for the season. It was thought that zielinksi and Pasalic sharing minutes would do nothing for either players development and so one of them would move on.

[Derek]

Juve 0 4 Roma
(aka Banks Bros 0 The TK 8)

Juve fluked 2nd place last season but were given a real footballing lesson by Roma here. Game was over after 18 minutes as Roma raced into a 3 goal lead. Apparently the Roma fans were disappointed to see only one more goal added as Roma dominated the rest of the game.

There's something beautiful about beating both brothers 4-0 in quick succession, which will keep me smiling through the dark winter months.

And so Roma hit top spot after only 4 games - which is very confusing, given we usually like to leave it late.

gg AB

[JasonH@Wolfsburg]

Leverkusen 2-0 Valencia

It has been a rough start for Leverkusen, but following a failed attempt to leave for Inter, we knuckled down and decided to try and kick start or season. Got our tactics spot on and sailed into a 2 goal lead via key striker Jimenez and ever steady NKoulou. Following these two goals and a switch up in tactics by Valencia the game steadily died.

Hopton:
”it feels great to get our first points of the season following a tough start and a tricky run of fixtures. Hopefully this will be the start of a steady rise up the table to the mid table zone which we feel we should be finishing consistently year after year.

I need to look at my squad and bulk out the depth and bring down the age but this will take time. I’ve got a good team and I believe in them, this should be enough to secure European football for next season.”

Well played sanchez. Pretty even game after that first spell.

[Hamza@Roma]

Lyon 2 - 3 Inter Milan

"Not a game to watch at 4 am in the morning"

This was a cruel game for Lyon, they took an early lead of 2 goals and I lost all hope for a comeback as usually there is no comeback after it. This however is a whole different beast, a superb quick fire double from HM_Son was enough to draw level with Lyon and then they were on the ropes. R_Lukaku belted a goal in from distance which was fumbled by the Lyon keeper, possibly due to nerves. I don't blame Gollini though, no one can stop big Rom.

We turn our attention towards Bayern Munchen who are not in the greatest of form to put it nicely, but we shall see.

GG Jason

[Livi@Liverpool]

Real Madrid 1 Barcelona 1

In truth we were absolutely battered in this one and it was only a performance for the ages by our veteran goalkeeper that kept us in the game. Whilst the score is 1-0 you never give up hope though, we've got good options off of the bench and just when all looked lost up popped Super Mario (Gotze) in injury time to fire in an equaliser and you could have heard a pin drop in the Bernabeu.

I'd have taken a draw before hand and there's no question it's a point gained based on the way the game played out. We remain unbeaten in the league ahead of a clash with a more than capable AC Milan side.

Unlucky Steve - daylight robbery so apologies

[AB@Juventus]

Juventus 0 - 4 Roma

Well we knew Roma would play A, and even if we played C...we'd get beat so I decided to go for it with an A tactic of our own...hoping to get the first goal and then try to hold them off but it backfired very quickly.

3 minutes in, Roma took the lead and we both switched to P, 3 minutes after that and Roma were out of sight.

Roma came back at us looking for more and 18 minutes in, we were 3 down and it looked like it could be a cricket score.
Fortunately Roma only added 1 more just after half time but this result just proves that we're nowhere near being competitive in the top end of this division.

Statistically Roma were the better team, they created so much compared to us and that's why the scoreline ended how it did.

We have to go back to the drawing board for games like this, watch this space.

Good game Derek.

[Gary@Millwall]

Monaco 2 Sporting Lisbon 0

The day finally arrived in game 6 of the season. In an even game the Monaco keeper kept the free scoring Sporting Lisbon team in check as Sporting Lisbon failed to score for the first time this season in a crushing 2-0 defeat.

Monaco decided to play on the counter to great effect for the whole 90 minutes and despite Sporting Lisbon conceding home and tactical advantage they had the better of the first half but just could not get the all important opening goal.

Monaco were well drilled which is a testament to their great manager John Read and in the 2nd half Monaco took control of the game.

Monaco keeper Hradecky was in fine form throughout the game but the defining moment came in the 54th minute when he tipped a Eden Hazard curling effort onto the post.

Six minutes later a Windebank coaching error saw Monaco take the lead, just after Windebank told his charges to change from Attacking to Passing Immobile's shot beat the diving Lopes to clip the post and nestle in the net.

Sporting Lisbon were still creating chances but Hradecky was in Superman form saving everything that was thrown at him.

The game was put to bed in the 81st minute when Chris Smalling of all people in a man of the match performance scored with a bicycle kick to send the home fans wild.

Monaco had more possession with 55% and created more chances with 15 to 13, however the quality of Hradecky shone through has he saved 8 shots on target with Lopes saving only 5 of the 7 shots Monaco had on target. Sporting Lisbon forced 4 corners to Monaco's 1.

The Sporting Lisbon train come to a shuddering halt and they slide down the early table to 7th with Monaco climbing to 5th on goal difference.

Windebank Post Match Comments

That was a very disappointing result but these games happen, we just need to make sure they do not happen too often.

We have been very clinical and ruthless in the first five games but today we came up against a well drilled side that stuck to the plan their great manager John Read instructed them to do and I expect he is well chuffed with the outcome of this match.

I need to make some tweaks as I was expecting the counter attacking tactic but felt with the performances so far this season we had enough firepower and nous to get a win here today. I was wrong and would like to apologies to the Sporting Lisbon faithful and will make sure I am more flexible going forward.

I cant complain about the effort the lads put in today and I am proud of what they have achieved so far this season. There are no easy games in football and we need to make sure we bounce back with a win on Sunday night because like winning is a habit losing can become one as well.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate John Reed and wish him luck for the rest of the season except in the return fixture of course.

[Johnboy]

Monaco 2 - Sporting Lisbon 0

We lined up to face arguably one of the EFL's surprise packages in Sporting Lisbon on the back of a somewhat disappointing defeat in the DPT.

Having dropped loan signing Maya Yoshida for the DPT game he came back into the side at the expense of Caio_Henrique for what may prove to be one of his last games for Monaco before returning to Real Madrid.

The game remained level upto half time and Monaco was said to be happy with the performance at that stage although privately he was expecting the worst in the second half. 15 minutes into the second half Sporting made a tactical change and unfortunately for them this opened the door for Ciro Immobile to smash a shot past Lopes in the Sporting goal.

With 10 minutes to go defender Chris Smalling grabbed a second for Monaco and that was enough for us to see the game out and secure an unexpected against a team that has deservedly been setting the EFL alight this season.

Last season we started very strongly, indeed at the halfway point we were occupying a Champions League place until our form fell off a cliff but all we can do is try and win as many points as we can!

Good game Gary, good luck for the rest of the season

[Guest]

Rangers 1 - 1 Sevilla

Pleased to get our first point of the season - and create more chances and have more possession ...

Feared the worst when Azpi shot them into the lead on 36 but a Nunez nutmeg just before the break got us back into it

Shame that we couldn't take advantage of the extra man with Rangers down to 10 (is there a conditional for if the oppostion has a red??)

Some good abs earnt .. yet the significant improvement of my bench this season sees less abs earnt than when the 11s made cameos last season !

Well played Burrows!

[JB@Norwich]

Bayern 0-2 Lazio
"Poor. Very poor. We have had 3 great wins in all comps and 3 terrible performances. Hit or miss. It’s so frustrating at the moment. Extra training needed before a huge week next week.

inter seem to have picked up steam since the noisy Scot took a break and PSV Will fancy their chances in the cup. We need to do much much better

Well done to Mr Drummond and his team"

[Niall]

Napoli 2 - 1 Borussia Dortmund

We travelled to Napoli in game 4 of the new season, with both Napoli and ourselves on zero points and both looking to pick up three points. We did take a deserved lead five minutes into the second half however, Napoli equalised shortly after. Even though we continued to press in search of a second goal, but Napoli managed to get the all-important winning goal, against the run of play it could be argued.

I felt we deserved more out of this fixture and was disappointed to lose as I felt we were the better team bearing in mind that the opposition were without their first-choice goalkeeper, we had an opportunity to get more than just one goal but despite our efforts, we couldn’t convert.

So, with another loss and another red card in round 4 of the new season, I think our faith is sealed at this early stage, I’m not trying to be defeatist but realistically speaking, we are already having three players on 10+ disciplinary points, having received 3 red cards and two more players picked up three-game injuries. So, unless our luck changes soon we will find ourselves in trouble. Anyway, fair play to Chris, I hope you keep Napoli up this season.

[Guest]

Celtic (my side) 3-1 Marseille

”Comfortable win with Rashford bagging two. We needed this as we head into today’s game against PSG, in what will be our biggest test to date. Unfortunately Mar Antonio got sent off in the 90th minute against Marseille so we are without our best defensive midfielder. This will cause us to reshuffle. “

GG Euan all the best for the season mate