![Erik ten Hag must fix Man United's confidence quickly, Barcelona's self-made crisis, Erling Haaland scores Erik ten Hag must fix Man United's confidence quickly, Barcelona's self-made crisis, Erling Haaland scores](https://cdn.ghanasoccernet.com/2022/08/62f139928d5d5.jpg)
We are back! The football season in Europe is back. Three of the big five leagues kicked off this past weekend, and while we wait for Italy’s Serie A and Spain’s LaLiga, we have a lot to review. Man United’s new manager lost. Elsewhere, Erling Haaland opened his Premier League account up front for Man City, and in the first big game of the post-Robert Lewandowski era, there was little trouble winning in the first game. Barcelona’s finances continue to hold them back.
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The biggest moments in the world of football are discussed by Gab.
The list includes: Ten Hag loses, Barcelona’s choices, Haaland dazzles, Messi impress, Spurs win big, and much more.
The Ten Hag era started with a defeat.
The task of rebuilding Manchester United was going to be monumental and that there were going to be bumps in the road. It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that the same team that beat United at home three months ago should beat them again.
It’s the manner of the defeat and the amplification of everything that occurs at Old Trafford that make this club so fragile. The confidence that was built in preseason is fading again and needs to be rebuilt quickly.
The new season has the same problems for Manchester United.
The fear factor of Manchester United has been lost after their defeat to the Seagulls.
The game was reflected in some ways. Perhaps United would have gone from strength to strength if Bruno Fernandes had buried his chance after seven minutes. But he didn’t and by half-time, United were two goals down, the visitors exploiting some awful defensive movements from the back four and the partnership of Harry and Lisandro. The fact that Maguire was very lucky not to concede a penalty in the second half speaks volumes.
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You can deal with individual errors on the pitch. They occur. Not all people are equally competent. It’s shocking how quickly that happened in United’s case, but you have to accept that negative momentum builds and has knock-on effects. Some of the choices Ten Hag made are left you scratching your head.
The editor’s picks.
- Welbeck penalty, McTominay’s non-red card explained in The VAR Review3hDale JohnsonMan United open Erik ten Hag era with home defeat to Brighton and familiar flaws on display1dRob DawsonLiverpool rescue a point at Fulham, but could be left playing catch-up2dJames Olley
There are 2 related things.
In Anthony Martial’s absence, take the decision to put Christian Eriksen at center-forward. It seems reckless to put him in that role when you haven’t tried the 4-2-2-2 system at all during preseason.
Or take the other option. He played as a left-sided central defender for the last two years, but prior to that, he was a centralMidfielder. I assumed that since United already have a left-sided central defender who also happens to be the club captain and is unlikely to be dropped, that he would be used in the middle.
Nope, the man moved to the right to accommodate the guy.
Raphael Varane, on paper at least, is supposed to be the best central defender for United and this is equally strange. He is the only one of the three who has played most of his career as a right-sided centre-back, so is he the one who will miss out on a partnership?
After a positive preseason, Man United looked lackluster and short of ideas in their opening day defeat.
Equally befuddling was the triple substitution Ten Hag made in the 89th minute. It’s not something you usually see in those situations. How fresh are your legs? But why not earlier? It only serves to eat up time on the clock when it’s at that point.
The Rayo Vallecano incident and the lack of time training are more understandable than Ten Hag’s decision to start the game with Real Madrid’s talismanic player on the bench. If he came on early in the second half, it wouldn’t have helped, but it’s classic damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t type stuff and not Ten Hag’s fault. It would have reinforced the idea that this team can’t do without him and that Ten Hag got it wrong when he left him out.
Is there any positives? Marcus Rashford did get on the end of a few chances, though he missed them badly, and he has plenty of incentive to improve upon last season. Eriksen is able to hit a pass. The club can’t pin their hopes on a player who might not be there in a few weeks or a player who has scored five league goals in two years. Although he won’t get people excited, at least he’s a short-term solution who is different from the other strikers. They’ll have the funds to wade back into the transfer market if they have to.
I apologize, but it’s hard to believe things can be that bad this early.
Laporta has been trying all summer to quicken the pace of Barcelona’s rebuild, but do they have the money in hand to do so?
You’ve heard all about Joan Laporta and the economic “levers” — the sale of chunks of future domestic TV revenue, the sale of a part of Barcelona Studios, and the possible sale of Barcelona Licensing and Merchandising.
My view hasn’t changed since I wrote about why I thought it was a gamble back in June. The myth that this summer’s heavy spending was somehow necessary to create a virtuous cycle and avoid the club going the way of Milan, who went from European superstars to periods of relative obscurity, is what I want to address here. It’s nonsense because it’s a line peddled by Laporta and by his people.
Even though Barcelona were knocked out of the group stage of the European Championship last season, there’s no reason to think that they won’t be in the top four again this season. It would take a long time for the revenue to fall because of the size of the club and the following: look at Manchester United, still going strong commercially despite a whole decade of underachievement.
The two key differences with Milan are different. One is that Serie A was in decline and the other is that they had horrendous ownership from the disinterested to the insolvent. That won’t happen at the club.
Can Barcelona start the season without their new signings?
Barcelona may be forced to start the new season without having registered their new players.
The reason they haven’t qualified for the Champions League since 2016 is because they are competing with five other clubs, four of which are better resourced, which is part of the reason. Barcelona did not face that kind of competition in LaLiga last season, as evidenced by the fact that they finished second in the league. It is about as certain as it can get for them.
Those arguments are not valid. It makes sense to invest heavily if you want to win the trophy. If you don’t make the final, there’s no difference in prize money between the quarterfinals and the semis.
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There are two separate issues here, so make no mistake about it. Whether it was a good idea to pull the economic levers in order to curtail future revenue and whether it was a good idea to invest more in the squad rather than paying down some of the debt.
Laporta made two huge choices. They were much more than that, choices.
While Haaland shines as Man City, how about the fullbacks?
Last week I wrote that there was no need to panic over Erling Haaland’s performance in the Community Shield, and I’m grateful that he proved me right on Sunday in Man City’s 2-0 win against West ham. He scored two goals and showed off his speed, but he could have had more.
Haaland opens his account in a big win.
He’ll get the headlines, but City as a group looked solid, and the option of pushing the fullbacks into the middle worked well. The way Kyle Walker stepped in was impressive, even though Joao Cancelo can create centrally as well as wide. It’s an option that can be used in certain situations, and it gives City an extra edge, almost as much as the fast man up front.
Erling Haaland’s debut in the Premier League was electric.
Erling Haaland scored a pair of goals on his debut for Man City vs. West Ham.
The rumors of Messi’s demise are exaggerated.
Two-thirds of the pricey trio that were supposed to deliver the Champions League for Paris Saint-Germain failed to do so last year. They combined for 19 goals and 20 assists, but by their standards this was an off- campaign.
Europe, be warned. Between last weekend’s trouncing of Nantes in the French Super Cup and the opening-day 5-0 away obliteration of Clermont, the pair have put on a veritable clinic: goals, assists and the sort of highlight reel stuff that gets TikTok excited. Messi had two goals, one of which is a pretty special overhead kick. Kylian Mbappe, the guy who terrifies opponents the most on paper, left room for the other two to operate.
Some will point out that there is such a thing as peaking too soon when it’s only one team that narrowly avoided being demoted last year. What you do in August isn’t as important as what you do in the knockout rounds of the World Cup. Let it be a reminder that when these guys are on, they are unstoppable.
Without Son and Kane, Spurs thumped Saints to start the season.
One of his former employers told me that he likes to get the club to spend money and make his players better. We focus on the former because it’s the reason he left, but that’s not as impressive a skill as the latter.
In Saturday’s 4-1 win over Saints, his starting XI didn’t contain a single new player. Last season, Heung-Min Son and Harry Kane failed to score, but they won 22 league games and only four without one or the other. Two of their best performers were the wing-backs: Ryan Sessegnon on the left, and Emerson Royal on the right.
If Spurs are to go to the next level next season, they will need to improve their players and get them to fit into his patterns. It will likely mean finishing third and going on a run in Europe.
It’s not a problem for high-flying BAYERN MUNICH so far…
It may take some time for the right formation to be found for the team, but the good news is that there is so much talent that he can change it at will. He sent out a 4-2-2-2 formation with Serge Gnabry and Sadio Mane leading the line and they scored five goals in the first half and went on to win 6-1 at Eintracht Frankfurt.
Robert Lewandowski will be missed, but I don’t think goals will be a problem this year. How well he sorts out the defensive end is likely to be the most important factor in determining the success of the team. We have to wait a bit longer to see what he will do, as neither Noussair Mazraoui nor Mathijs de Ligt were in his starting XI this weekend.
The Reds were caught off-guard by the Cottagers in their season opener, but it’s not a fatal blow to their title hopes with 37 games remaining.
I didn’t say anything after the 2-2 draw at Craven Cottage. He said he was referring to the way they played and that his reaction would have been the same if Jordan Henderson or Luis Diaz had hit the back of the net.
After the draw,Liverpool were already playing catch-up.
I believe he’s being somewhat harsh. Marco Silva set his team up perfectly and they played very well, even though it wasn’t great. The host’s first goal was scored by Aleksandar Mitrovic, who jumped on Trent Alexander-Arnold. Even at half-throttle,Liverpool had their chances, but Darwin Nunez was brilliant in his substitution appearance.
It’s been said many times, but this season more than most, the marathon, not a sprint, applies: The World Cup means the fixture list is as congested as ever, and you will run into opponents, even newly promoted ones.
The kind of character we haven’t seen in a long time is shown by Dortmund.
Maybe it’s the Edin Terzic Effect. With Erling Haaland gone and Sebastian Haller out with a testicular tumor, it was left to Marco Reus to open the scoring for the visitors. You were expecting to see the familiar collapse. It never arrived.
The defender looked more solid on his debut than many of the others before him, the goalie made some big saves, and the team was kept out of the game. You expect them to play better if they play well. Terzic can get to work, knowing that three points against a direct Top 4 rival add up by the end of the season, with center-forward Anthony Modeste on his way.
Tuchel is correct about the incompleteness of CHELSEA.
Nobody is going to freak out just yet, but make no mistake about it, Thomas Tuchel isn’t there yet. Against an under-strength side, the Blues created less than they would have liked.
It’s more than just signing. The arrival of Cucurella means they have a full complement at the back and up front, which is an upgrade. If he does stick around, it’s not a bad thing because they may consider moving a center-forward to back up Kai Havertz.
It will take time to solve the kind of issues you solve on the training ground. Normally it wouldn’t, but the situation with the forced sale and front office leaving has set them back.
And finally… #BasDostWatch.
In FC Utrecht’s match against Waalwijk, Bas Dost came on at half-time and scored a pair of goals. They were down by two when he came on. He has two goals in one appearance for Utrecht and is on his way to scoring more than 60 goals in the Eredivisie.
This is the end of #BasDostWatch.
It’s from the website of the UK’s Espn.co.uk