u/1stand11

Khusanov at City has seriously caught my eye over the past few months. And you know he’s caught the eye of commentators and pundits as well. Because they finally stopped downplaying him by constantly referring to his blunder in his first match against Chelsea from last season. And are finally just complimenting him for being very good. In all seriousness, the level he’s already at when only 22 is incredible. If he were from England, France, Spain, etc I think he would be talked about much more by a much bigger audience. But I’m seriously impressed by his speed, physicality, anticipation, bravery, and ability on the ball. City have an absolute gem in him.

First off, congratulations to Arsenal on a hard fought and well deserved league title. But what I ultimately think played a major role in Arsenal winning the title this season was Pep failing to adapt to the changing nature of his squad. City’s side is now full of players who thrive playing aggressively and quickly in transition. And where Pep really went wrong not only this season, but last season as well, is he continued to persist with his extreme possession and high line system to a fault. With all due respect to Pep, this has been his biggest undoing over the past two seasons. And City, very ironically, should be looking at how Carrick has United playing. Where they drop off into a compact mid block and bait opponents further up the pitch. Before exploding forward aggressively playing 1, 2, and 3 touch football. Which doesn’t allow opponents to get back, put bodies behind the ball, and regain their shape. I have all the respect in the world for Pep. But Maresca should seriously be reviewing where City have gone wrong the past two seasons. And adapt his play style to the actual strengths of his squad. Rather than imposing a much more rigid system on them.

In all seriousness, when you zoom out and look at the bigger picture, Arsenal actually handed City a very real lifeline today. Arsenal only winning 1-0 today against Burnley was actually a very "bad" win for them. The reason being is that Arsenal and City are now level on goal difference with City having a game in hand. And City have the 2nd tiebreaker advantage with 6 more goals scored than Arsenal. What that means is the goal difference and goals scored tiebreakers are now 100% secured for City. Meaning by Arsenal only winning 1-0 today against Burnley, they eliminated the possibility of only needing a draw on the final day against Palace to secure the league title. Meaning that if City win their final two matches against Bournemouth and Villa, and Arsenal draw or lose to Palace, City win the title. Just putting that out there because Arsenal only winning 1-0 today, and not running up the goal difference, could actually seriously come back to haunt them on the final day.

A lot of fans and pundits keep bemoaning that Mbappe is not an out and out number 9 in the mold of Haaland, Lewandowski, Kane, Gyokeres, etc. And he very clearly is not. But I think something that a lot of people are missing about Mbappe’s play style is he wants to constantly combine and interchange with Vini on the left wing, an actual right winger, and a highly technical 10. A lot of people keep saying Vini and Mbappe don’t combine well together. Personally, I think that’s a very narrow way of looking at it. I think Mbappe and Vini would work much better together with someone like Cherki at the 10 and someone like Dembele as the right winger. When I watch Mbappe with France he looks so much more fluid and fluent with his teammates. And he not only has 56 goals in 96 appearances for France but he also has the most assists in French national team history with 40. Mbappe looks a lot more natural and dynamic with France because he’s constantly rotating fluidly across the entire forward line and 10 position with three other players. Who are all very comfortable constantly interchanging positions. By comparison, when I watch him with Madrid he just does not appear to be as fluid. And I think the primary reason why is we do not have a right winger or 10 that is currently capable of playing in the manner that fits Mbappe’s play style. So what ends up happening is Mbappe constantly looks like he’s popping up in random positions looking to combine from deeper and wider positions. But he’s missing two player profiles at the 10 and RW positions to actually pull it off.

Haaland has a ridiculous 111 goals and 25 assists in only 131 career Premier League matches. And he’s already the 25th highest goal scorer in Premier League history after only four seasons. Zooming out, do people think he will end up breaking Shearer’s 260 Premier League goal record? And zooming out even further, could he even break Greaves’ 357 English 1st Division top flight goal record? Haaland’s extension last season has him at City through 2034. Do people think he will actually stay long enough to break these records? As for the 115 charges, I personally think some type of agreement is being reached behind the scenes which will allow City to stay in the Premier League. And if both sides aren’t backing down, it would not surprise me if the appeals process drags on for years. Which would further allow City and Haaland to continue playing in the Premier League. Likewise, see Haaland’s career stats below as guidance.

City: 197 matches, 161 goals, 30 assists

Dortmund: 89 matches, 86 goals, 23 assists

Salzburg: 27 matches, 29 goals, 7 assists

Norway: 49 matches, 55 goals, 6 assists

Premier League: 131 matches, 111 goals, 25 assists

Champions League: 58 matches, 57 goals, 5 assists

Total: 362 matches, 331 goals, 66 assists

Full disclosure, I am not a Chelsea supporter. This is just an observation from watching them quite a bit over the past few seasons. Joao Pedro has individually racked up pretty impressive stats in his first season at the club. And I know Liam Delap is proving to be a complete dud in Year 1 after doing pretty well at Ipswich last season. But I genuinely think Chelsea are seriously missing Nicolas Jackson this season. And I think Chelsea’s higher ups made a massive mistake not playing Pedro off of Jackson. They would have been a very good pair combining. With Pedro coming short and Jackson spinning in behind. The fundamental problem I have with Pedro (aside from his blatant diving) is he does not stretch the pitch like Jackson does. And the Chelsea player, in particular, who is really suffering from Jackson not being at the club is Palmer. That vertical explosion that Jackson provided in transition, and the slide rule passes that Palmer often played to him, is just gone this season from Chelsea. And Jackson, very low key, has had a very efficient season for both Bayern and Senegal in limited minutes. See below.

Bayern

1,320 minutes

11 goals

4 assists

G/A every 88 minutes played

Senegal

773 minutes

7 goals

3 assists

G/A every 77.3 minutes played

2,093 minutes

18 goals

7 assists

G/A every 83.72 minutes played

A title race is never decided by one moment. But there are certainly pivotal moments along the way that you can retrospectively point to as major flash points. And a major flash point this season was the moment where Haaland squared up to Gabriel in the recent Arsenal-City match at the Etihad. And Gabriel ended up making a headbutt motion toward Haaland. With both players eventually receiving yellow cards. The reason why I wanted to discuss this moment is it really got me thinking a lot about ethics in football and what is truly the right approach to the sport.

At this point, it’s pretty safe to say that Gabriel and Haaland don’t particularly like each other on the pitch. They’ve been going at it now for 4 seasons. And their physical battles during match-ups are reminiscent of a different era in the Premier League. Where clash of the titan type physical battles between defenders and strikers were much more common. When it comes to the actual recent incident itself, the post-action Premier League referee committee determined by a 3-2 vote that Gabriel should have received a red card. But the same committee voted 4-1 that the threshold wasnt crossed for VAR to intervene and recommend an on-field review by the match official.

My question to everyone out there is this. Did Haaland make the right decision not to embellish Gabriel’s head butt motion? Was that the fair, decent, and sporting thing to do? Or was he naive and, quite frankly, borderline stupid not to take advantage of that moment? Because not only would Gabriel have been red carded. But he would have subsequently received a 3 match ban for violent conduct. Which would have been a massive loss for Arsenal during the title run-in. Curious to know what others think out there.

I’ve been a football player, coach, and referee at relatively high levels over many decades. And I’ve watched the Premier League evolve over the decades. And to be blunt, you cannot convince me at all that VAR has actually improved the Premier League as a spectacle in the slightest. I genuinely think it is ruining the league. And I genuinely feel sorry for the younger generations who do not know the Premier League prior to VAR.

One of the reasons I fell in love with football is because of the spontaneous and free flowing nature of the sport. And something that I fundamentally accept is that players, coaches, and referees will make mistakes. What VAR has done is create this illusion of perfection and objectivity that simply doesn’t exist in football. The reality is football is a highly subjective sport. And the problem with VAR is it’s added another layer of subjectivity to the initial layer of subjectivity. At this point, you cannot convince me that VAR in its current format is actually worth it. Because the amount of contradictions we see each week between Premier League officiating crews has made it incredibly obvious that no ideologically consistent interpretation of the laws of the game actually exists. It’s a subjective crapshoot week to week.

Going forward, I’d much rather see VAR used strictly for goal line technology and offsides. I’d be open to keeping VAR for decisions inside the box. But otherwise, leave it to the onfield referee to make subjective calls. Particularly between the 18 yard boxes. In the end, I accept and am fine with referees not getting every single call correct. And I think VAR has created this pursuit of perfection with officiating that not only does not exist. But detracts from the spirit of the game itself.

As we gradually get closer and closer to next season, I’m becoming more and more optimistic about the roster Howie has assembled. The one area of the team that I’m primarily concerned about is the health and depth of our O-line. My hope is that Mannion’s blocking scheme will take much less of a toll on the guys up front. And Lane, in particular, can grind it out. Having said all that, I think Howie has assembled a ton of talent on both sides of the ball.

Which got me thinking. Which players do you expect to see have a breakout season in 2026? On offense, I’m really hoping Mannion can get Bigsby much more involved than Patullo did last season. And Saquon and Tank can be used as a two headed monster like Gibbs and Montgomery were for years in Detroit. The other player on offense who I think will benefit a lot from Mannion is Goedert. I understand the hype and buzz around Stowers. And I like the draft pick a lot both in the short and long term. But the reason why I think Goedert will benefit a lot from Mannion’s offense is because Hurts trusts him (significant with AJ leaving). And because all the movement and shifts in Mannion’s offense will allow an aging Goedert to find pockets of space to operate in with all the chaos around him.

On defense, the player I expect to really break out is Carter. Particularly if Howie doesn’t extend him before the season starts. We all saw what an extra motivated Davis looked like last season. And Carter, hoping and assuming his shoulders will be healed, will have all the incentive in the world to ball out. Judging by all his off-season posts he keeps putting up, it looks like he’s extra motivated. And the other player I will add is Woolen at corner. Like Carter, it’s a prove it year for him and I think he’s going to be a really good fit in Philly. Even if it only ends up being for one season.

So what say you all out there? Who are you keeping an eye on to be 2026 breakout players?

I spent all day offline so I wasn’t around to exchange opinions in the immediate aftermath of the Arsenal-West Ham match. So I hope we can all be a bit more rational with the emotions leveled off a bit. In my opinion, Raya was fouled. And in isolation I do not have a problem with the foul itself. But the problem is on the very same play Havertz fouled Soucek on the front post by tackling him to the ground. Which prevented the Czech from leaping to contest the header. And Rice fouled Mavropanos by putting him in some type of wrestling style hold. Which prevented the Greek from even jumping to contest the ball. Yet both the referee and VAR ignored those two fouls and chose to only focus on Raya being obstructed. The reality is all three are fouls, full stop. The response to that is the focus is on Raya because that’s where the ball end up being contested. Which ignores Mavropanos and Soucek could not contest the ball in the first place because they were both being fouled.

The bigger picture problem I have is the Premier League has allowed this type of rugby/wrestling style nonsense to become normalized in the game. Why this has been allowed to happen I have absolutely no idea. But it’s created a situation where a half dozen fouls routinely occur on each set piece. So how in the world is a referee supposed to decide which foul is more important than all the other fouls on the same play? It’s asinine and it’s making an absolute mockery of referees not being one bit consistent. And adding VAR as a review on top of it is just undermining the sport even further because there is no rhyme or reason to when, why, and how referees interpret these types of situations. They are just making it up as they go along. That’s really it. And to top it all off, it’s incredibly hard to take Premier League officials seriously when they are too lazy to enforce basic laws of the game like foul throws, the correct spot for throw ins and free kicks, walls consistently encroaching from 10 yards on free kicks, goalies routinely holding the ball for more than 8 seconds, etc.

Is anyone else out there zooming out? And seeing a truly comical nightmare narrative setting up for Arsenal? Arsenal genuinely better win the Premier League. Because if PSG beat them in the final and they don’t win a trophy this season…Emery winning the Europa League on top of it…With Spurs also possibly staying up…the ultimate vortex of generational banter would be thrown at Arsenal.

*To all the Arsenal supporters lashing out in the comments…all you are doing is reinforcing what I’m saying. You lot better hope this doesn’t happen.

Is anyone out there super excited for Jalen Hurts to prove a bunch of people wrong this coming season? As we gradually get closer and closer to next season, my optimism keeps growing for the entire team. But also particularly for Hurts. Primarily because I think our offense will be a lot more dynamic under Mannion. And with AJ (presumably) leaving, I genuinely think Hurts is going to be a lot more relaxed. Because he won’t have to constantly appease AJ and force him the ball. Hurts, Saquon, Bigsby, DeVonta, Lemon, Wicks, Hollywood, Goedert, Stowers, Mundt (beast blocking TE)…anyone else out there actually think our offense will actually be better without AJ? Because I’m actually very confident that it will be. And I think Hurts will end up being in a much better space to operate spreading the ball around to many different players. And he will look better than ever as a result. Thoughts from others?

Hey Mods-Just an idea to throw out there. Instead of constantly having AJ posts on the main page nearly every day, how about creating a separate AJ discussion thread at the top of the main page? That way this page isn’t constantly inundated with AJ, AJ, AJ day after day. Just an idea.

Gabriel is a very good CB. And arguably one of the best CB’s in the world right now. But something that has become incredibly obvious is he has zero sense of fair play or sportsmanship. One moment he’s grabbing, pulling, pinching, tackling, and generally manhandling opposing strikers. But the moment he gets touched he constantly dives, fakes injuries, and has zero shame doing so. My question to everybody is this…how do Premier League referees seriously allow him to constantly get away with these types of shenanigans? And virtually never punish him for it? They have to study film, be familiar with player’s tendencies, and not be that naive. But they constantly allow him to manhandle opponents and virtually always whistle in his favor when he dives. Why are Premier League referees so weak when it comes to allowing stuff like this and enabling it?

A lot of fans still might not realize this but Quez Watkins has been back with the Eagles since last September. Howie signed him to the practice squad after Week 3 and he spent all season there. And Howie signed him to a futures contract shortly after the offseason began. With AJ (still on the roster), DeVonta, Lemon, Wicks, Hollywood, Moore, Cooper, Wilson, Covey, and Gray all in the WR room, why do you think Howie still has Quez on the off-season roster? The reason I ask is because Quez wasn’t even called up off the practice squad for the final Week 18 game against the Commanders to get playing time. I’m sure Quez can see the writing on the wall at this point. Is Howie stashing him on the practice squad again? Is he just a body for drills this off-season? Because I’d think Quez would want to be on a team like the Jets or Panthers where he could really try and compete for a final roster spot to salvage his NFL career. Thoughts from others?

Sixers coming back from 3-1 down in the series to beat the Celtics and advance. And in the process breaking Boston hearts. Howie, half joking/half serious…do it again next month and don’t trade AJ to the Patriots. The Boston fans would go absolutely apoplectic…again.

You would think Jalen Hurts is the 2nd coming of Bobby Hoying based on all the persistent negative chatter around him this off-season. I understand that QB play is more than just passing TD’s and INT’s. But last season, Hurts had 25 passing TD’s and 6 INT’s. On top of that he also had 8 rushing TD’s. By comparison…

Josh Allen: 25 passing TD’s and 10 INT’s

Baker Mayfield: 26 passing TD’s and 11 INT’s

Sam Darnold: 25 passing TD’s and 14 INT’s

Bo Nix: 25 passing TD’s and 11 INT’s

Justin Herbert: 26 passing TD’s and 13 INT’s

Trevor Lawrence: 29 passing TD’s and 12 INT’s

Caleb Williams: 27 passing TD’s and 7 INT’s

Patrick Mahomes: 22 passing TD’s and 11 INT’s

Tua Tagovailoa: 20 passing TD’s and 15 INT’s

Brock Purdy: 20 passing TD’s and 10 INT’s

Personally, I think a lot of fans and pundits need to zoom out. I get it, there are aspects of Hurts’ game I’d like to see improve. But there is a borderline fixation on critiquing him that far too often doesn’t look at all the other QB’s in the league. Hurts is right in line with a lot of other QB’s in the league from 5th-15th. Depending on the game each week, all of these QB’s can look like Pro Bowlers and then drop down a level of two the next game. And that includes Hurts.